Your worst managerial error of all time.

[SCIAG]

At no point did you think, "they keep scoring, perhaps my keeper is too far out?"

Was just going to say the same thing. After 1, 2 maybe even 3 lobs i'd start thinking something was wrong!

I mixed up a defender and goalkeeper who both had the same surname. Before i realised i was 3-0 down in 10 minutes

I did, but I tried to make the change at 3-1 down, they scored again before it went through, morale was low, and I stupidly used the "angry" team talk. IIRC I also switched goalkeepers. Anyway, I had a centre back sent off early on, morale was very low, and the goals kept coming

[Hanson]

Just done it this second. Not the worst error but an annoying one.

Just extended Jordan Stewert's contract instead of Jordan Spence's. I've been trying to get rid of Stewert but no team will have him, even for 0, now i've got him for an extra year both are currently on loan at Doncaster

Spence meanwhile is a promising youngster.

[Gauvner]

On FM10 at Excelsior in the Jupiler League selling my only goal scorer in January for the money to balance the books. He was brilliant scoring 20 in 21 overall games. Needless to say i got lucky and my midfield chipped in with some goals. My other strikers were absolutely toffee.

[Oypus]

I somehow set a striker to swap roles with my left back, and failed to notice. I was puzzled as my world class "left back" was beat three times in a row by an average winger for goals. Then I clicked on him....

[mseel82]

On FM10 i was Liverpool and played 3 seasons finishing 6th - 3rd and 2nd winning FA Cup, League cup and Europa league all once. Was really starting to get a decent team together. Redknapps Spurs won the league all 3 seasons and then he retired. They offered me the job and i took it only to finish 5th that season and Liverpool won the league and the Champs league. Devestated!

[mackemforever]

Loving some of these.

I have another one.

Me, my brother, my dad and my nephew have usually always played games together over the years.

Once my nephew was managing Parma and he was terrible at the game.

I was showing him how to search for players and found an 18 year old player who looked decent but nothing special and he wanted the player but couldnt afford it.

So I signed the player, and then sold him to nephew for a bargain price.

I also helped my nephew make a 4-1-3-1-1 formation which I thought would do well.

After 2 or 3 seasons, this 18 year old was one of the best midfielders in the world. Fernarud I think was his name and my nephews side, was one of the best in Europe.

My nephews team was now first in the league and I was 2nd, with Fernarud leading the way on the scorers charts.

I got so upset, I downloaded a save game editor, lowered Fernaruds current ability and lowered every stay by 1-2, just enough so my nephew wouldnt notice.

I then put all my players stats up 1-2 and put their potential abilties up to 200.

Come 3 games to go in the season, I am at home, my nephew needs a win to secure the championship.

My nephew thrashed my team 5-0 with Fernarud getting all 5 goals.

As soon as he won the league, he "Retired" never to play CM/FM again.

I think your brother signed the legendary Alexander Farnerud.

I used to sign him on every game in CM4 and 03/04 because he always turned out to be amazing.

I still remember the day that I sold him from my Sunderland side for £40 million by the time he was 25.

[shootie]

I remember playing Total club manager 2005 on PS3 a good few years ago now and I remember on my Athletic Bilbao game I bought so many top class players I ended up playing a 2-2-3-3 and I was winning by stupid scores such as 7-3 9-6 etc.

By the time I graced FM I was already a vetran from TCM and LMA managers on the playstation so I knew what not to do etc. So FM has been OK.

My biggest mistake on FM so far was on 09. Playing as Barca in the ECC quater final against Man U I won 4-1 at the Nou Camp. Then Thinking I had the tie in the bag in the 2nd leg I deployed 2 DMs to counter Scholes and Carrick. Bojan then goes and gets sent off when we are winning 1-0 the goal scored by Bojan. Then I brought on Kerrison for Christian Rodriguez and played him up top on his own. Lost 5-1 in the game thier last goal coming in the final minute a 35 yarder by Nani -_-.

Moral of the story: Never think you have enough to goals to beat Man U lol.

[megadel]

I love this.... my biggest one was signing Andy Van Der Meyde, on any verion of the game, the guy is pants...

Great - I've just signed him in FM10 for Colchester. And he did well for me in his trial.

[im feeling supersonic]

on fm09 i was blackpool, just about to start my 4th season, and had built a great team and got a bit of money, i had nearly got into the play-offs the previous year and were one of the favourites this year!!

i had dougrie imrie and john sutton up-front both got on a free transfer a couple of seasons ago,

sutton was my top goalscorer both seasons he played, and leeds offered 1.4 million for him, so i accepted

then plymouth offered 1 million for imrie and i accepted because he hadnt really done anything special last year!!

so i only had one decent striker and a poor one!!

i thought i could get really top class strikers, but i kept on getting rejected

i ended up getting gary taylor-flecther back on a free transfer, and robbie simpson on a free transfer!!

i didnt get nymore before the window shut, but i got a young regen on loan who i thought would be great but hes sh1te

[DE4life]

I've had quite a few players leave when I've forgotten to secure their contracts. most gutting was probably losing Porarinsson in 03/04, my top striker with over 25 goals every season to my nearest title rivals (at the time) newcastle on a free especially as he was worth around 25M ... as it turns out, i got sacked from my team at the time (Rotherham) and ended up at newcastle, who sacked their manager in January as they were somehow bottom of the league :confused:. I went there, bought a few players off Rotherham and by the next season Newcastle were champions of England with Porary as top scorer.

Most recent big mistake... started a season with Blackburn, had some great results. Was 5th in December. Then suddenly went on a horrendous run. I tried changing everything, but nothing seemed to be working. Then, purely by chance, I noticed both my centre midfielders were set to "box to box midfielders" ... this was the correct setting for Steven Reid, but not for the underperforming Vince Grella i'd had him as a deep-lying playmaker, no idea how it had changed. suffice to say as soon as I changed it back to deep-lying playmaker, performances improved drastically, but it probably cost me around 15 points... finished 13th

[La Furia Roja]

Great - I've just signed him in FM10 for Colchester. And he did well for me in his trial.

ahahaahahahahahahahahaha, boom!

i know the feeling, i went to all sorts of trouble on 09 to sign freddy sears for a LL side as his stats looked good and he should have improved, then i see a post "How poor is Freddy Sears"

about 50 posts saying how rubbish he was, was a tad deflated..

[Dysphoria]

maybe not my worst mistake but certainly one i'll never forget as its very recent, 1st season with arsenal, i managed to win the treble against all odds beating barca with william gallas preforming excellently throughout the season for me, come 2nd season, i figured i'd sell him seeing that he isn't getting any younger, i sold him to lyon for 4.8mil and for a replacement, it was between per mertesacker or sakho, the former would cost me 16mil and the latter 20. i went with sakho, so far he's been nothing special while mertsersacker's average rating for bremen has been 8.3

come european group stage, i am drawn with lyon, juve and M.haifa. First game, sakho gets injured through a bad tackle from sissoko, (torn knee ligaments 3 months out), i struggle and manage 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss. Juve and Lyon are 1st and 2nd respectively with the only thing seperating all 3 teams is goal difference.

Juve 11 pts +8

Lyon 10 pts + 6

Arsenal 10 pts + 5

Last game of the group state, i play away, get an early lead through rvp and miss dozens of chances including a penalty. Suddenly, in the 93 minute when it seems like i'm heading for a narrow win which will qualify me, the 3d screen pops up to play a highlight and i get very nervous. Pjanic goes to take the corner, crosses it to the far post and guess who pops up to score an equalizer? William Gallas.

[delboy69]

Mine was when I was top of the BSP with Cambridge on FM09 clear by 5 points with around 10 games to go, just thrashed someone 4-0 and said for the only time ever on FM 'why cant you play like this every match'. Didnt win for the rest of the season and missed out on the play offs, convinced it was down to the post match team talk.

Another error with a post match team talk was when managing West Ham, beat championship side Coventry 1-0 in a League Cup tie and on the advice of my assistant told them I was 'disappointed' went over 20 games without a win in the league, again sure the two must be linked! Mind you when I did finally win it was at Anfield but I was already practically relegated by then!

[deltablue]

Had a couple of ones from 09, 1st when I knew one of my best players wouldn't extend his contract in the summer (when he'd have a year to go) so my policy is to sell in that situation and I decided to get it sorted just after the January window, which I occasionally do. trouble is I wasn't paying attention to the day, it was one of those years where it was extended a day or 2 and I'd accidentally sold him half a season early. Admitedly it was 38M for a player about to turn 30, and who had given years of great service after being bought for just a few mil at 17, but I still felt a right idiot. The following few results weren't good even though the other DM did really well in his place and it alone probably didn't cost me any chance I had the league. If I remember correctly Juve (who he was sold to) beat me in the CL final, though he wouldn't have been able to play for them, it might have helped if he'd been able to play for me. Also on 09 bought an excellent young belgian defender who despite being great on paper didn't play well and I sold him a couple of years on to Dortmund. Then he had a couple of great seasons there so I decided to give him another go, for something like 25M. He didn't do any better the 2nd time and when I did sell him again it was much less then I'd bought (and sold) him for the 1st time (let alone the 2nd time).

However none of this can compare to one thing on 05 (when I was still new to the ways of FM). At the time I had the ass man renewing contracts and holidayed through to pre-season, both of which were crucial to what happened. Unfortunately I didn't check staff contracts (something I have to remind myself to do occasionally even now) and the ass man's contract ran out. the result was that when I returned from holiday half my squad (including some of my best players) had gone on a free. I hastily assembled a squad for the new season but after a few years of success (consistent european qualification and once just missing out on the league compared to relegation battle and mid table expectations), board expectations had caught up with my 'overachieving', which made it a very bad time for it to happen as there was no way I could keep up what I'd been doing at very point I had to. I knew we'd do badly and I'd be sacked, and so I was, shame as that was one of my most memorable stints. Tought me a few good lessons about contracts and holidaying (which I don't do now, even in between matches which I continued for a few years).

[DiamondFlair]

FM08. Buying Nicklas Bendtner. Need I say more?

Lol. Conversely, my biggest mistake was probably.

FM09. Selling Nicklas Bendtner.

[Teesh]

Mine was in FM08. I had got Peterbourogh promoted to the Premier League from League 2 in five seaons. I had managed to build a strong side and and after a couple of years finshing in mid-table I then qualfied for the (Uefa Cup) for three years running. The only thing holding me back from really challenging the top sides was the boards insistance on giving a shabby transfer budget at the start of each season even tho I had given then so many glory days. I felt with a better budget I could push on to even better things. At the start of my 11th season I asked them nicely to increase my transfer budget. They declined. I thought that due to my 10 years loyal service I would be in a strong position to issue an ultimatum. There response.......... Clear your desk son and close the door behind you!!!!

Gutted!!!

[CMOZZA]

come european group stage, i am drawn with lyon, juve and M.haifa. First game, sakho gets injured through a bad tackle from sissoko, (torn knee ligaments 3 months out), i struggle and manage 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss. Juve and Lyon are 1st and 2nd respectively with the only thing seperating all 3 teams is goal difference.

Juve 11 pts +8

Lyon 10 pts + 6

Arsenal 10 pts + 5

I don't mean to nitpick or anything but this just bugged me as it seems impossible to me that after 5 games in a 4 team group 3 teams can be on that many points? Surely if they're only separated by goal difference then they should all be on 8 points ie- 2W/2D/1L

[lionwing73]

While playing FM08 there was a young Irish midfielder who I was desperate to sign. Awesome stats and a bargain at £75,000. My transfer budget was £10,000 short and I tried desperately to raise the extra £10,000 but to no avail. He moved to Palace and onward to Burnley for around £5,000,000. I eventually got him three seasons later. I bought him for £12,000,000 as Burnley were relegated from the Premiership. By that time I was in the Premiership with a transfer budget to match.

If only I had have had that extra £10,000...which I'd spent on some dodgy winger earlier in the season...can't name names of course...

I've checked FM10 for this guy but he is nowhere to be found....a possible regen or jsut not in the database!

[Mitsunari]

moving from Bangor City for Peterhead god, that job went badly wrong for me. Couldnt wait to click the resign button when i knew i was about to be fired. Never again will i take a job as manger of peterhead, in any version of this game.

[IMT]

My worst ever decision on FM was leaving my successful Celtic team on FM09 to go and manage Arsenal in the EPL, got sacked within months and never got a top team again the rest of the save, just a string of lower league clubs that I'd massively underachieve with and get sacked from.

Are you Gordon Strachan? ;~)

[Forbsie]

signing beckham for fulham

[Marek_Hamsik]

My brother and I left 3rd placed Stuttgart, who we had gotten into the Champions league, to go to AC Milan who had a 250 million Euro transfer budget.

After spending 150 million on 5 of our Stuttgart players, we noticed that the Serie A was of higher standards than the Bundesliga and we ended up getting sacked in January.

[slipknot67]

Are you Gordon Strachan? ;~)

LOl...ok I should have said successful and full of talented players!!that I'd signed, unlike the dross that eejit has left us saddled with:(

[llama3]

made a few errors. first was CM2 and buying kasey keller for Arsenal, and dropping david seaman for him when we were on poor form. bad idea!

also on fm06 i sold senderos to liverpool, and his headed goal knocked me out the fa cup semi final that season 1-0.

not really had any major errors at all, just a few along the way. sold diaby on an fm09 game and my arsenal side looked unbalanced since. in fact i dont sell or buy many players cos i feel my team plays worse for it

[Heisenberg]

A few years ago I came home one night after several hours in the pub and decided to fire up FM, knowing I had a fairly easy game against Charlton in the FA cup (I was Everton). I noticed that their left back was having a good game and after clicking on him and seeing he was Scottish I decided I had to sign him. I woke the next morning, vaguely aware of what I'd done, and was shocked (and horrified) to discover I'd paid £44M for him, not £4M as I remembered. My entire transfer budget for the season was gone (I'd asked for an extension for it before signing him) and I was lumbered with a left back I didn't need on high wages to boot. He was a good player but my squad was a bit thin in other areas and I'd been preparing to make a few signings to add some depth. Still finished fifth :-)

[Tez01979]

I've just signed Louis Saha on a free transfer after he was let go from Everton. The fans expressed concern about injuries as did the press which I said there was nothing to be concerne about and what happens, first Freindly game in and first min guess what he gets injured. He broke his arm and out for 4 weeks. I'm begining to regret signing him now LOL

[supersaint]

2009: Leaving Solihull Moors after 45 years in charge, thinking Id restore the glory of Man United (bottom Champions League)... 6 months lather, I quit the save game...

[Nesij]

Having a 3-0 lead vs Brazil with Canada until 60th minutes...

losing 3-4 (last goal 90 minutes) :.(

After 3-1 I refuse go defensive and tried to play possession football and control the game (not to mention I was still caught up in the moment and was having dreams of beating Brazil 4-1 or 5-1. All 4 goals were scored by Robinho (I don't remember if that version had player instructions).

This was the final of Confederation Cup. (I think we won the North American Gold cup but Canada was still pure crap compared to Brazil). I didn't know how I made it to the final in the first place let alone lead brazil 3-0 I just got carried away lost touch with reality (virtual reality)

[maverick1200]

In CM2 (i think) when i signed all my players i put in their contracts a minimum release clause of £0, i thought that it meant that nobody could buy my players. In 1 summer my whole team was striped from me and there was nothing i could do. I then spoke to a friend and said this game is really bugged all the teams keep buying my players for £0 and i cant reject them, he laughed and said he did the same thing and told me what is was doing wrong.

[AndreTheShadow]

Was just going to say the same thing. After 1, 2 maybe even 3 lobs i'd start thinking something was wrong!

I mixed up a defender and goalkeeper who both had the same surname. Before i realised i was 3-0 down in 10 minutes

I did a very similar thing back in FM06 Managing Rosenborg (though it didn't end too badly).

I was up 3-0. I had both Espen Johnsen (GK) and Frode Johnsen (ST) on the bench, and when my GK went off injured, I went to sub on 'Johnsen, E'. I didn't notice until the opposition came back to 3-2 that I had put 'Johnsen, F' in goal. Still, it ended up 3-2 in my favor.

[Some Guy!]

I sold one of my younger players for about £2 mil. That young left winger would a season later go to my closest rivals for the title, Reading of all teams, for around £20 mil and he would torment me in our matches for some 10 years. I didn't even have a player for that position that was close to his ability after that year.

Not smart.

[Stretch]

FM05 iirc, rejecting a £50+m bid for my star striker with Billericay. Threw a strop, was poor the rest of that season, upset half the side and sent us from top half to a relegation dogfight - ended up flogged for about £7 or 8m to cash in before his contract ran down

That and spending entire transfer budgets on assorted wastes of space over the years.

[AndreTheShadow]

Various signings over the years...

In FM07, I had two brilliant strikers go in the same year (I got a combined 70 million for the two, so I don't feel too bad). But with the two of them gone, I had to make up for 80 goals or so per season, so I spent 50 million on two replacements.

Sold them both for about 10 million each two seasons later after 20 goals per season between them...

On the plus side, I had a bit of a youth-striker revelation and a backup who came good, so...

[Marek_Hamsik]

AH

I remembered another one.

Up 4-0 vs Bologna with 5 minutes to go.

I was Inter and thought the game was won.

Put in 3 youngsters, including 1 goalie and 1 defender.

I am sure you can guess the rest.

[Some Guy!]

I once thought that I might as well sub off my keeper for the penalty shootout, with the logic being that I could put on player from the bench who was the club's specialist penalty taker.

Let's just say I forgot that a having a good keeper was something important for a penalty shootout.

The best part was the guy who filled in as keeper saved 2 penalties and went on to score the winning penalty!

[Lordarod]

I was very furious after we won 3-0 against Fulham. Why? It was a league cup game and I was supposed to play with my B team god! In 2 days we have a game with chelsea my biggest rival in the league and we are both going almost perfect. Try to guess the end of the season... I know...

[Gauvner]

Leaving SBV Excelsior, which i got promoted to the Eredivisie First time asking, to go to Watford in League 1.

[vusalgustav]

To be honest I have had quite few mistakes. The most recent one affected whole season and nearly cost me Coca Cola League 1 championship. In my Southampton game in the beginning of the season without proper investigation I decided that I will be playing wide tactics using 4 4 2 and therefore adopted pitch size accordingly. However, soon I realized that my squad is not good enough for a wide play and I started to play through middle. I got most of the defeats of the season at home. It was painful. I was more happy to play away games than home games.

[eaglealan64]

Great thread!

A common theme is non-keepers in goal - don't you think there should be a message that comes up "Are you sure you want to play XYZ in Goal? Yes/No."

[JoeCheese]

Rejected the chance to manage a premier league club (think it was blackburn) in FM 06 when i was wales manager and we were on good form.

Then we went downhill and I couldn't even get a job in league 1 after i was sacked

Also when I managed a non-league team I bought some 34 year old brazillian ex-international on a years contract. Under my training workload (wasn't that high) he broke his leg after a week and was out for near enough the whole season!

[gunner86]

I think your brother signed the legendary Alexander Farnerud.

I used to sign him on every game in CM4 and 03/04 because he always turned out to be amazing.

I still remember the day that I sold him from my Sunderland side for £40 million by the time he was 25.

IIRC he had a brother or cousin or some relation I'm sure, Pontus Farnerud who also turned out to be amazing. The pair led me and my Sweden team to World Cup glory in 03/04!!!

[Marek_Hamsik]

To be honest I have had quite few mistakes. The most recent one affected whole season and nearly cost me Coca Cola League 1 championship. In my Southampton game in the beginning of the season without proper investigation I decided that I will be playing wide tactics using 4 4 2 and therefore adopted pitch size accordingly. However, soon I realized that my squad is not good enough for a wide play and I started to play through middle. I got most of the defeats of the season at home. It was painful. I was more happy to play away games than home games.

I did that with Newcastle.

I had Lovekrands, and Jonas on the wings, with Carrol as Target man, and so I decided to play witha really wide/long pitch.

After a number of games, I noticed they were crap players so I end up signing Denilson and Kikin Fonseca.

Great players but very slow, yet I couldn't change the pitch dimension.

I lost most of my games at home too.

[Geordieboy52]

I love this.... my biggest one was signing Andy Van Der Meyde, on any verion of the game, the guy is pants...

He was a legend for me in The Championship as Newcastle 1st season FM10, then his agility and acceleration dropped to 3!

[Fulax]

Mine was a few years ago. I was Newcastle and I was able to sign Zidane, when he was at the peak of his game. He came on a free, with a massive wage and I spent millions on his signing on fee. It was great, thought the Newcastle would love me with one of the worlds finest at the club for at least a year.

However where I thought I had offered him a year contract (after many offers), my joy went to despair when I found out once he joined that I had not. it was a month contract and the very next day, Zidane left me and I was several millions down.

That sounds like something Newcastle would actually do.

[rinso]

Just made a rather costly mistake managing England in the World Cup of 2014. Into the semi's Vs Ukraine, and Rooney was a yellow away from suspension, so I figured I'd leave him on the bench and bring him on if needed, protect him from possible suspension from the final (Italy or France awaited). 90 minutes passed, and it was 0-0. Oh dear. Brings Rooney on for extra time, and he promptly puts us 2-0 up. Ok job done, and with around 7 minutes left of extra time, i sub him off again, dont want him missing the final, and jobs done. Or is it? No sooner is he off than Ukraine get one back. I'm getting a tad worried now. "Retain possession" apparently has no effect, and the players look as nervous as i feel. 2 minutes left and we give away a cheap free-kick about 35 yards out. Chygrinski (sp) propmtly steps up and lashes it into the back of the net. and we go on to lose on penalties, then get thumped 3-0 by France in the play-off...

[pelicanstuff]

Risking a bench with no keepers in CM 01/02 for the champions league semifinal once. Big mistake.

[StevenChap]

I bought Arshavin and he didnt settle :/

[Sherdil]

I remember I was in the qualifying play-offs for the UEFA Championsleague and was against Fiorentina.

First Leg we beat em! Arsenal 4 - 0 Fiorentina

Second Leg wasn't much different as we bagged 2 goals in the first half... at that point being up with agg. of 6, I decided to sub my keeper for Manone! VERY BIG MISTAKE!

Fiorentina hit 7 the next half and Arsenal didn't make it to the Champions league! What a stupid move from me!

[Almondo]

signing Nani for Bolton on 08 for around £6 mil. I'd just taken over as they had been relegated and i'd left Arsenal who'd just gone into administration. Needless to say Bolton were propmoted but Nani hardly ever played. The funny thing is I also signed anderson who ended up as top scorer

[Chinese_Taboo]

Letting Anderson (Man Utd) go for £14m is my worse so far according to the transfer confidence. But my team simply doesnt need him. Considering I now have Gourcuff, De Rossi, Carrick, Hargreves and Scholes fighting over the central midfield positions.