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FM 2012: Manchester United team guide - CHAMP19NS and the most decorated club in England!


Fabio MVP

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Welcome to the Manchester United team guide thread for Football Manager 2012

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Club background:

Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.

In 1968, under the management of Matt Busby, Manchester United was the first English football club to win the European Cup, ten years after the Munich air disaster that claimed the lives of eight players. The current manager, Sir Alex Ferguson has won 37 major honours since he took over in November 1986.

Manchester United has won the most titles in English football, with 53 domestic trophies, comprising a record 19 league titles, a record 11 FA Cups, four League Cups and 19 FA Charity/Community Shields. The club has also been successful globally, winning seven international titles: three European Cups, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one Intercontinental Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup. In 1998–99, the club won a "Treble" of the Premier League, the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League, an unprecedented feat for an English club.

Manchester United is one of the wealthiest and most widely supported football teams in the world. As of July 2011, the club is number one in Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's 50 most valuable sports teams, valued at $1.86 billion. After being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, the club was purchased by Malcolm Glazer in May 2005 in a deal valuing the club at almost £800 million.

Old Trafford is an all-seater football stadium in the Trafford borough of Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Premier League club Manchester United. With space for 75,957 spectators, Old Trafford has the second-largest capacity of any English football stadium after Wembley Stadium, the third-largest of any stadium in the United Kingdom, and the eleventh-largest in Europe. The stadium is approximately 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from Old Trafford Cricket Ground and the adjacent Manchester Metrolink tram station.

The ground, given the nickname the Theatre of Dreams by Bobby Charlton, has been United's permanent residence since 1910, with the exception of an eight-year absence from 1941 to 1949, following the bombing of the stadium in the Second World War. During this period, the club shared Maine Road with local rivals, Manchester City. The ground underwent several expansions in the 1990s and 2000s, most notably the addition of extra tiers to the North, West and East stands which served to return the ground almost to its original capacity of 80,000. Future expansion is likely to involve the addition of a second tier to the South Stand, which would raise the capacity to over 90,000. The stadium's current record attendance was recorded in 1939, when 76,962 spectators watched the FA Cup semi-final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Grimsby Town.

The ground has frequently hosted FA Cup semi-final matches as a neutral venue and several England international fixtures while the new Wembley Stadium was under construction. It also hosted matches at the 1966 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 1996, as well as the 2003 UEFA Champions League Final. Aside from football-related uses, Old Trafford has hosted rugby league's Super League Grand Final since the league's adoption of playoffs in 1998 and the final of the 2000 Rugby League World Cup.

Manchester United is reputed to be the most popular football club in the world, with the highest average home attendance in Europe. The club's worldwide fan base includes more than 200 officially recognised branches of the Manchester United Supporters Club (MUSC), in at least 24 countries. The club takes advantage of this support through its worldwide summer tours. Accountancy firm and sports industry consultants Deloitte estimate that Manchester United has 75 million fans worldwide, while other estimates put this figure closer to 333 million.

Supporters are represented by two independent bodies; the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMUSA), which maintains close links to the club through the MUFC Fans Forum, and the Manchester United Supporters' Trust (MUST). After the Glazer family's takeover in 2005, a group of fans formed a splinter club, F.C. United of Manchester. The West Stand of Old Trafford – the "Stretford End" – is the home end and the traditional source of the club's most vocal support.

Manchester United has rivalries with four clubs: Arsenal, Leeds United, Liverpool, and Manchester City, against whom they contest the Manchester derby.

The rivalry with Liverpool is rooted in competition between the cities during the Industrial Revolution when Manchester was famous for its textile industry while Liverpool was a major port.

The "Roses Rivalry" with Leeds stems from the Wars of the Roses, fought between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, with Manchester United representing Lancashire and Leeds representing Yorkshire.

A rivalry between Manchester United and Arsenal also exists with various flare-ups over the years.

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The Theatre of Dreams

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General information

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Transfer budgets

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Squad analyses

1. Goalkeepers

Finally there should be no more worries when it comes to this position in the next 10 season or so. David De Gea is already a very good young goalkeeper with potential to be worldclass goalkeeper. You might expect of him to make couple of mistakes here and there in the first couple of season because he lacks a bit of experience, but it is natural given how young he is for a goalkeeper. I definitely think you should stick with him as your first choice goalkeeper in the long term sense.

Andres Lindegaard and Tomasz Kuszczak are decent back-ups. I think you should give them both couple of matches in the first season just so you can see are they able to be good enough back-ups in the future.

Youth goalkeepers: Ben Amos and Sam Johnstone look like they could be similar player to the already mentioned two first team back-ups. So, nothing more than decent back-ups I'm afraid. As for our U-18 goalkeepers all I can say is that only Pierluigi Gollini looks like he could become decent enough player.

2. Full backs

Right back is the position where we are short of players. We have Rafael who is despite his young age already a good full back with potential to be worldclass, so he should be your first choice for years to come. Other senior player who are natural right backs are Reece Brown, Alberto Massacci and Marnick Vermijl. I believe that they are not good enough to be even back-ups for Rafael in the first season, so I suggest you investing money in this position.

Youth right full backs: David Love actually looks like he might be a good player, so you night want to keen an eye on him. Liam Grimshaw looks no where near to being good enough for our first team though.

Suggestions: Anthony Reveillere is a good full back who will offer experience unlike Rafael. I think he would be really useful signing as his experience might be crucial in some matches. Another one is Gregory van der Wiel who is much younger and has greater potential, but he'll want to play week-in week-out and for that you have Rafael, so it might be better to buy an experienced player who won't moan about being called upon only when needed. Darijo Srna ia nother one who is good, but would prefer to be first choice. Because he would last only for a couple of seasons I don't think it's worth sacrifising Rafael's progress as you'll need him for years to come. Gokhan gonul might be the best one given that he isn't too demanding and yet he is very good.

Left back is the position where we are safe ATM and for years to come. Our first choice is Patrice Evra who is the best left full back in the world and you can use him easily in the next couple of seasons. We have Fabio as a rotation who should have his fair share of games as like his twin brother Rafael he also has the potential to be a worldclass player in years to come.

Youth left full backs: They all look pretty poor and no one really stands out.

3. Center backs

IMO this is the position where we are the strongest at. Nemanja Vidić and Rio Ferdinand are still the best center back pair in the world with Vida being the best individual center back. Vida's successor Phil Jones is an excellent young center back who can easily replace Vida as worlds best after couple of seasons. Chris Smalling is there to do the same with Rio though he might not reach Jones' standards and we still have Johnny Evans who I think is a good center back with the potential to be very good.

Youth center backs: Scott Wootton and Tom Thorpe look like they could be very decent players and back-ups for Jones and Smalling, so you might want to give them a chance before reaching for your money and trying to buy someone else. From others Sean McGinty stands out a bit, but he doesn't looks anything special.

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Vida is our captain

4. Central midfielders

Mixed feelings here. When it comes to defensive minded midfielders we have Darren Fletcher who should be your first choice in the next couple of seasons. Michael Carrick is his back-up for who I think is not good enough, but can do the job in the first season. And depending on how he does in the first season you might want to decide whether to keep him or sell him.

Youth defensive minded midfielders: We have great prospect in Paul Pogba and a good prospect in Ryan Tunnicliffe. I'd highly suggest giving them a chance to shine as they are most certainly capable of that in the near future.

We don't have any problems when it comes to the attack minded midfielders as there we have our legend Ryan Giggs who can do the job in the first season and after that I think first choice should be Anderson or Tom Cleverley. So, Anderson and Cleverley should be your rotation and back-up players in the first season. We also have Darron Gibson as an average back-up and you want to consider selling him after the first season based on how he performs in the first one.

Youth attack minded midfielders: Some really exciting youth prospect in here. Most notably Ravel Morriosn who could be an excellent player if you develop him properly. Davide Petrucci looks quite decent and maybe you should give him couple of chances to prove his worth. Kenji Gorre and Mats Daelhi are our really young lads who could might be even better prospects then Morrison and Petrucci are!

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Giggsy is our vice-captain

5. Wingers

We were always famous for our wingers and as always we have couple of really good wingers. On the right winger position we have Nani as our first choice who is developing into a really classy player who's decisions making is improved and so is his final product. Antonio Valencia is our rotation for Nani who is strong and direct winger and will offer plenty in attack, but also in defence by tracking back. Our tactical tool Park Ji-Sung is our back-up, but could be called upon in very important games where he always delivers and always do the job.

Youth right wingers: Bebe could be an average back-up player if developed properly. Adnan Januzaj looks like a really awesome prospect with his starting attributes. You should really give the guy a chance in the coming season as he looks like our long term winger replacement for our current first team players.

Left wing is the position where we are short of players. We have Ashley Young there who is our first team choice, but no one to be his back-up, so I suggest you to invest in that position too.

Suggestions: Juan Manuel Vargas is a left footed version of Antonio Valencia. Powerful and direct, but also useful in defense as he tracks back. Michel Bastos is another similar player to Vargas.

Youth left wingers: Robbie Brady leading the line here with the addition of Jack Barmby. They both look like they could be good players. Gyliano van Velzen is also worth mentioning.

6.Strikers

Plenty of players in this position! When it comes to strikers who should be leading the line we have Javier Hernandez as our first choice with the addition of Danny Welbeck, Federico Macheda, Mame Biram Diouf and Michael Owen. Chicharito should be your first choice in that advanced position for years to come. Danny and Kiko are two hot prospects who should be challenging Chicha for that first team spot. Diouf doesn't looks like he can make it, but should be given a chance. Owen could be used as an impact substitution as he still has that feeling to nick in a goal when most needed.

Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov are our two strikers who should be dropping deeper and feed those advanced ones with through balls. Rooney is a must first choice striker with Berbatov hopefully being able to do at least decent job in that role when Wazza is rested.

Youth strikers: Will Keane and Josha King should be given a chance as others don't impress me at all, but given that these two have Chicha, Danny, Kiko who are still young and should be there for years then they have a really tough job becoming worthy first team players.

Squad analyses conclusion

When we put everything together we can definitely achieve what the board wants from us no matter what we select (Title Challenge or Winner).

IMO you should give every senior player a chance in the first season, so you could at least see what are they capable of and are they worthy of keeping in the second season. I also wouldn't sell or loan out anyone in the first season because the team is gelled and since you're the new man in charge it won't be easy, so you need for team to be gelled, so you can achieve what is requested from you.

With removing of some dead wood and strengthening some areas after the first season I think we can go for all trophies in every next season.

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Staff

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I think our staff is the best in the world, but at the end of the first season I'd suggest you to improve it even more. In the first season though they can absolutely do the job and will be very useful for you given that you just joined the club. Staff is very important part of your management.

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Formation and the tactics

I will present you here the formation with which I always play and I intent to do so in FM 2012. As you can see it's a 4-4-2 formation. Also this will be my first team line-up in the first season.

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It's a balanced system where full backs will be defending, supporting and attacking all depending on your strategy.

One center back is a cover for the other one and he will aim to collect any ball that eventually goes past our center back who is stopper and who will try to break up opponents' attacks higher up.

Defensive minded central midfielder is there to win the ball and lay it off to his central midfielder partner who is the creative one or to quickly launch the counter attack from deep. He can also go for the safe option and that is the send the ball on the flanks where wingers can keep it and from where they can create something towards opponents' goal.

Supportive central midfielder is there to create things, send the ball to flanks, to supportive striker or to send through balls to advanced striker for him to run onto them.

Wingers are there to hug the line and put crosses in.

Supportive striker's duty is the come deep to get the ball or receive it from supportive central midfielder and send through balls to his striker partner. He can also get on the end of the crosses which are delivered by my wingers.

Advanced striker's duty is to run onto those through balls from his striker partner, from supportive central midfielder or to get on the end of crosses that my wingers put in.

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Conclusion

First of all I hope you like the guide and that you find it useful. I tried to present you the game from my point of view and the way how I play it. I also intend to present my tactic and training schedules which I will be using, so I will let you know when I do that, so you could use them if you want. Here are my training schedules which I made for 11.3 and given that training system in FM 2012 is the same as in 11.3 then you can still use them. I'll make sure I present them on these forums by December. I'd appreciate if you would post feedback on them in this thread.

I don't intend to play the Demo, but I will be active in this thread and help the others. I'm buying FM on the release day and I will wait for the release day patch to start playing, so expect me to be even more active then.

I will update everything with eventual changes. I also might edit everything from time to time, but I will let you know if that happens.

Anyway I hope you'll all enjoy your Manchester United save game as I feel this is the best football management simulation so far ever. :thup:

If you feel anything should be added feel free to suggest it and I'll consider it.

Credit to CPS who helped me with his advices on how to create a good team guide thread. Thank you CPS. :)

Thank you all for the support and enjoy the game! :)

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Records

Here are the records. You can apply for them by saying for what record/records are you applying and by providing the full SS. I will update this post regularly with eventual new records. You can also suggest new record/records and I will consider them.

Team

Biggest Premier League win - 12-1 home vs. Fulham - pele10

Biggest win in a domestic Cup game - 16-0 home vs. Aveley - Herbie2100

Biggest win in European Competition - 12-0 home vs. Zurich - Sanityfm

Biggest Derby Win (against Manchester City or Liverpool) - 9-0 home vs. Liverpool - Hood Legend

Highest scoring game - 12-0 home vs. Zurich - Sanityfm

Highest % possession in one game - 91% at home vs. Sparta Prague - tuffers007

Most goals scored in one league season - 163 - I\'m me

Least goals conceded in one league season -6 - AlexLightsaber

Largest goal difference at end of season - +150 - I\'m me

Most points in one season - 114 - AlexLightsaber

Most games won in a row - 27 - pacificblue

Most games without defeat - 90 - gareth250480

Most games without conceding a goal - 17 - I\'m me

Fastest goal scored - Wayne Rooney after 12 seconds - manreaction

Most 1st team goal scorers in one season - 24 - damo666

Most Premier League Titles in a row - 6 - Sidnv

Most Champions League Titles in a row - 3 - Fabio MVP

Players

Most goals scored in one game - Javier Hernandez - 11 - the Real behanger

Most goals scored in one season - Javier Hernandez - 114 - tuffers007

Most assists in one season - Eden Hazard - 46 - Sidnv

Most MotM awards in one season - Wayne Rooney - 37 - Drazkul

Fastest hat-trick - Edinson Cavani in 5 minutes - Hood Legend

Youngest goalscorer - Owen Egan - 15 years and 282 days - xx11

Highest average rating over 1 season (30 games+ needed) - Riccardo Bambi - 8.80 after 57 (1) appereances - AlexLightsaber

Most goals scored in a season by Ryan Giggs - 12 - damo666

Most assists made in season by Ryan Giggs - 27 - Drazkul

Highest Average Rating by Ryan Giggs - 7.79 - Drazkul

Transfers

Most spent on one player - 90 million pounds for Mike Williams - cragswfc

Most received for one player - 42,5 million pounds for David De Gea - tuffers007

Good luck!

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Nice O/P, just as great as I expected it to be, the main thread I will be using for FM12, should be a very entertaining thread, Congrats Fabio :thup:

Thank you mate. It should be even better when I finish everything. I opened it now as I know lots of you will be playing with Manchester United and can't wait to post in here!

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Thank you mate. It should be even better when I finish everything. I opened it now as I know lots of you will be playing with Manchester United and can't wait to post in here!

I hope its as packed as last year, was some great people in this thread last year which made it a delight to post :cool:

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Here we go :D knew that was coming. GL fab, may the best thread win (ours) ;)

Thank you mate. We'll see about that! :D

Very good, well done.

Thanks.

Thank you.

I hope its as packed as last year, was some great people in this thread last year which made it a delight to post :cool:

I'm hoping for that as well. We had lots of 'staff' changes in this thread over the years. I hope we finally have a standard team in here.

Nice bright logo, me like.

Thank you.

Cheers all.

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Looking good so far Fabio, well done.

I've just completed my pre-season on the demo. Not a lot of transfer business just purchased Felipe Anderson from Santos for £5.5m (looks like an amazing prospect) and Emre Can from Bayern for 750k. I'm finding it hard to sell players, no one was interested in Darron Gibson even when offered out for free haha.

In our youth team Adnan Januzaj does look like a great prospect, as well as Pogba and Morrison so I'm looking forward to see how they turn out.

David De Gea just got injured and will miss the Community Shield. :(

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Looking good so far Fabio, I've just completed my pre-season on the demo. Not a lot of transfer business just purchased Felipe Anderson from Santos for £5.5m (looks like an amazing prospect) and Emre Can from Bayern for 750k. I'm finding it hard to sell players, no one was interested in Darron Gibson even when offered out for free haha.

In our youth team Adnan Januzaj does look like a great prospect, as well as Pogba and Morrison so I'm looking forward to see how they turn out.

David De Gea just got injured and will miss the Community Shield. :(

Januzaj indeed looks great! Pogba as well.

Great opening post, started as United already and loving the game. Only played 2 friendlies so far just getting used to the new UI.

Thank you. Stay active in here.

Pogba is gonna be class, amazing talent.

Quoted for truth.

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Just showed Juventus how to play in a friendly, won 7 - 1 somehow :D

Nice. :)

relly cant wait to star playing , hope jones + welbeck + cleverly are upgraded as they deserve to be

Danny is the same as on 11.3, but Jones and Cleverley are upgraded.

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Not a bad start. :cool:

Awesome start!

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Can anyone upload some screenshots of a few of the youngsters? Would like to see who's been upgraded, but my DL is going stupidly slow

Thanks

I can unless someone else wants to, Fabio may put them in the O/P though.

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I can unless someone else wants to, Fabio may put them in the O/P though.

Could you please do that Chriisy as I'm really busy now with finishing the OP and it would be nicer for all the SS' to be below the OP and the main thing?

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If you upload them anyway it'll just save him effort and he can steal them for his OP :D

Efficient

Good idea, who do you want SS's of ? :)

Could you please do that Chriisy as I'm really busy now with finishing the OP and it would be nicer for all the SS' to be below the OP and the main thing?

I can do, no worry's :D

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Preferably Cleverley, Welbeck, Smalling and Jones, but some players in the youth team too if you don't mind.

Just do as many as you can be arsed doing, especially if Fabio's gonna use them anyway he'll probably need a few of the main players too

Thanks :D

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Januzaj looks good, would have thought Cleverley would be a little bit better, but hopefully should have a fair bit of room to improve. Thanks!

Any more to come? :D

Yeah sorry, I just thought the images were small but I have no idea how to make them bigger :lol:, can you see them okay

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Yeah sorry, I just thought the images were small but I have no idea how to make them bigger :lol:, can you see them okay

Yeah i'm on a Mac, so i just hold CTRL and scroll up and it zooms :D Other than that i have to basically lick the screen haha

Welbeck looks pretty poor, has some odd stats :(

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It is weird how the screen shots are so small. I have used the same method as with the other games and they came out much larger and clearer.

Its very weird, I uploaded using 17 Inch one's then I moved to 21 Inch and there still very small :(

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Its very weird, I uploaded using 17 Inch one's then I moved to 21 Inch and there still very small :(

Probably just the image host, dunno though

Could you upload Jones too please? Also, are there many Turkish players available to see in the demo? If there are, can you check Besiktas for Demirci please?

Thanks anyway :D

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Played my first two premier league games. First was a 4-1 victory over QPR at home with Javier Hernandez scoring two of them. The second game was 1-1 away to Sunderland despite completely dominating, 2 disallowed goals and Rooney missed a penalty.

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