FM15: Southampton F.C. - #WeMarchOn

[Nico877]

Hm, is Rodriguez really suitable at right wing? I know it'd make sense but I can't remember seeing him play there. I'm thinking Koeman will use Jay on the left and Tadic on the right with Davis/Ward-Prowse between central midfield and Pellè, or Tadic in that role with Jay and Mané on the wings.

[Matthew Le God]

Hm, is Rodriguez really suitable at right wing? I know it'd make sense but I can't remember seeing him play there. I'm thinking Koeman will use Jay on the left and Tadic on the right with Davis/Ward-Prowse between central midfield and Pellè, or Tadic in that role with Jay and Mané on the wings.

Rodriguez and Lallana swapped sides during games throughout last season. Rodriguez is capable of playing on the left or right wing or as a striker on FM, there really isn't much between his ratings for all three so you'd be fine playing him in any of them.

[arsenal1975]

How would you line-up Soton before Rodriguez come-back (which is far away, ofc)?

I'm looking forward to builde 4231 wide formation, but main questions remain:

- would attacking combos Bertrand/Tadic and Clyne/Long as wing-backs/inside forwards work?;

- and against stronger opponents both sets full-back/winger on support and Scheiderlin/Wanyama as DMC's?

- which roles would you give to Scheiderlin/Wanyama duo in MC and in DMC?

- any other ideas to use Tadic, Long, Mane?

- Pelle: target man or... ? (if using inside forwards, it isn't best naturally).

Any other tactical remarks more than welcome.

[Gandy]

Great thread. It has more pictures than Google Images though

[rpvw]

- Pelle: target man or... ? (if using inside forwards, it isn't best naturally).

You could give him a try as a false-nine in pre-season friendlies. Pellé isn't the best dribbler, but apart from that he averages about 14 for F9 stats. If you could get him to hold his position a bit more through personal instructions I can see him work as a false-enganche up top creating chances for a AML/C/R trio. Targetman-support could also do the trick.

[Nico877]

I'd say Pellè would work very well as a complete forward.

[Consortium11]

Early thoughts:

1) Some of the positional familiarities are a little odd; Wanyama and Davis both being natural defensive midfielders, Davis as a natural attacking midfielder, Shane Long being a natural right winger, Mane being a natural left winger and only competent as either an AMC or on the right etc. It's not that bad (as they're nearly all accomplished in what I'd consider their normal positions) but it may be something you want to put a little training in.

2) With the natural positions the Southampton team is seemingly asking to be a 4-1-2-1 with a defensive mid behind two midfielders and two wingers supporting a striker. The obvious set-up would be to have Wanyama (back up Cork) as the DM, JWP and Schneiderlin (backups JWP, Davis and Cork) as the two CM's, Tadic on the left (backups Mane and Isgrove), Long on the right (backups Mane and Isgrove) and Pelle (backups Gallagher and Long) up front.

3) That said, I'm horrible at formations with wingers in FM so I instead play somewhat narrow with a 4-3-1-2. Pelle is damn good as a complete forward, Long has been exceptional as a false nine (although tell him to shoot less often as otherwise he has a tendency to fire off long shots which rarely come good), Tadic has been solid as a attacking midfielder while a midfield three of primarily Schneiderlin, JWP (both as box to box) and Wanyama (as a ball winner) has provided both solid defence and some attacking threat. Mane is somewhat of an uncomfortable fit as his passing and creative stats aren't really up to scratch for the AM role but he's direct play means he can poach a few goals.

4) You have around 14 million to spend and a bit of a wage budget to play with. Obvious additions are Gaston Gil Romero (already a solid midfielder with the ability to get even better) for around £7 million although there's already a lot of depth there, Gino Peruzzi to rotate with Clyne at right back who's available for around £3.5 million and, if you play with wingers Pavel Savitskiy, an already good 20 year old winger who may well get better and is available for a bargain price (something like £150k). If you want another striking option you could well take a look at Jonas; a 30 year old Brazilian striker avaliable for free and with pretty damn good stats. I lost out on him so I don't know the work permit situation but he looks an incredible bargain for someone looking for a striker to last a season or two.

5) It's not much use in the first season but remember that both Osvaldo and Ramirez come back. In real life you may not want them but in FM terms they're both excellent and stand a decent chance of walking into the first team (or at least being rotation options).

6) There's a hangover from the exodus during the summer; you may well run to risk of some locker room dissent when other teams come in with offers for your players. I've had to deal with both Clyne and Schneiderlin demanding moves and while I've kept most of the rest of the squad happy they've both been pretty upset.

Southampton look to be a good side to play even for someone who isn't a fan in real life. You've got a solid squad with a fair amount of depth and a good mix of youth and experience. You've got enough of a budget to make some changes if you want but not enough of one that you can just buy a new team. The board are reasonable, the stadium's good, you'll likely see a number of your players develop and you can sit back and laugh when Shaw, Lovren and Lallana's agents start hawking them to you...

[kccircle]

Missing the page on Ramirez moving out on loan to Hull

Might give this team a season - nice thread

[RTHerringbone]

Cracking thread

After skipping a Saints save on FM14, I think I owe it to myself to have another go on FM15

My FM13 save with them remains my favourite save ever on FM!

[Consortium11]

Just answering a few questions;

What's Schneiderlin's mentality like at the start? I heard it's much harder to placate players if they want to leave in this version.

Absolutely fine as long as no-one bids for him. The issue is if an offer does come in for a player from a team that can offer continental football. For me that was Spurs for Clyne which, when I said no, led to Clyne getting angry and number of other players being upset. I managed to placate the other players but even now Clyne's still pretty unhappy despite my Saints team being unbeaten, fourth in the League with a game in hand (that would make us joint top) and having just beaten Chelsea away in the League Cup.

Is Will Hughes willing to move to Southampton? I love that guy.

He is, although it will eat up most of your transfer money and right now I'm not really sure you need him or that there's a place for him; he's a well rounded midfielder but would arguably be the worst of your main midfielders (Wanyama, Davis, Cork, Schneiderlin and JWP). While he can obviously improve, so can JWP. If you're willing to sell one of the others to fund the transfer it might make more sense but he likely wouldn't get into my Saints team right now and that would hurt his development.

I heard Matthieu Flamini can be bought for £2-3m at game start. Is he any good? Up for a Saints move?

You can get him for around £2 million and fairly reasonable wages. He's a very solid midfielder with pretty decent stats everywhere... the issue is he's 30 and, as above, you've got enough midfield depth that there's not really much need for him.

Hm, is Rodriguez really suitable at right wing? I know it'd make sense but I can't remember seeing him play there. I'm thinking Koeman will use Jay on the left and Tadic on the right with Davis/Ward-Prowse between central midfield and Pellè, or Tadic in that role with Jay and Mané on the wings.

In game Rodriguez is classed as a natural right winger so he's certainly suitable, even if in real life he tends to play on the left more (where he's only accomplished). Stats-wise you'll want to use him as an inside forward or the new poacher-winger role rather than more traditionally; his creative, passing and crossing stats are all pretty poor but his goal scoring stats are damn solid.

How would you line-up Soton before Rodriguez come-back (which is far away, ofc)?

I'm looking forward to builde 4231 wide formation, but main questions remain:

- would attacking combos Bertrand/Tadic and Clyne/Long as wing-backs/inside forwards work?;

- and against stronger opponents both sets full-back/winger on support and Scheiderlin/Wanyama as DMC's?

- which roles would you give to Scheiderlin/Wanyama duo in MC and in DMC?

- any other ideas to use Tadic, Long, Mane?

- Pelle: target man or... ? (if using inside forwards, it isn't best naturally).

Any other tactical remarks more than welcome.

I'm probably not the best person to ask as I'm truly horrible at building tactics including wingers, even though they're slightly overpowered in the Beta; as mentioned in a previous reply I've been having a pretty damn good level of success playing with a narrow formation consisting of three centre-mids behind an attacking midfielder and two strikers. That said:

Clyne/Long seems a natural fit; Clyne has the speed, fitness and stamina to run up and down the field both defensively and offensively combined with decent crossing while Long's workrate, fairly decent crossing himself, finishing and pace means he should be dangerous coming inside. Bertrand/Tadic's a little less natural; Bertrand's pretty similar to Clyne but Tadic's finishing and shooting probably isn't quite up to what you'd want an inside forward to be; it's probably best to keep him as either a traditional winger or a wide playmaker.

Using two DM's seems to leave too big a gap between your midfield and attack for my liking; even with instructions from what I've seen an opposition player fills that gap, your DM's start to close him down and the space behind opens up for the opposition. I use a three man centre-mid formation with one (normally Wanyama) as a ball winning midfielder and two (normally Schneiderlin and JWP) as box to box players which so far seems to give a good balance of defensive solidarity, link-up play and a threat from deep. So that's one ball-winner (defence) and two box-to-box (support).

In my current set-up I used Tadic as an AMC (attack) and Long as a false-nine (playing with Pelle as a complete forward) and it's been pretty solid. I haven't got the best out of Tadic yet (at least in terms of ratings) but he does a good job creating space for others and playing in through balls for them while Long's been great. Unfortunately Mane's somewhat out in the cold for me in this formation; he's pretty much the definition of a limited inside forward/wide poacher (outside of his heading) with great speed and finishing skills but little else. When I have used him it's been as an attacking midfielder but I may try reworking him to be a striker.

As above Pelle's a complete forward for me. He probably lacks a little of the speed you want for the position but he's scoring a good number of goals and creating chances for others.

[robbie_start]

Just about to start up with Southampton, was looking for a team to carry on through with on Release, this seems like an overall quality save, hope to get them at least Europa League first season.. Has anyone any tips etc? Cheers

[skinster6]

I've just started a Saints save, my first one ever. I have noticed that you can cash in The Ox's sell on clause for £4.25m which goes straight in to your transfer funds.

[Welshace]

I've just started a Saints save, my first one ever. I have noticed that you can cash in The Ox's sell on clause for £4.25m which goes straight in to your transfer funds.

Useful! will certainly be doing that when I start my save.

[Sapačko]

Last year i didnt really get into Saints save, but this year i must. Amazing team!

[Matthew Le God]

I'd recommend offering key players Morgan Schneiderlin and Nathaniel Clyne new contracts on Day 1 of taking over as manager. They are likely to be of interest to other clubs as the summer develops and an early contract helps end any unhappiness before it has a chance to rear its ugly head.

[jlawlor91]

Useful! will certainly be doing that when I start my save.

Can you only do this at the very start of the save, or a few weeks later? If so, how do I do this? I've gone onto clauses but can't see anything.

Thanks

[skinster6]

Can you only do this at the very start of the save, or a few weeks later? If so, how do I do this? I've gone onto clauses but can't see anything.

Thanks

I did this a few weeks in. I'm at work at the moment but can post a screen shot tonight.

Pretty sure it was in: Southampton Transfer history > Clauses

[artvanderlay]

The clauses are just certain times during the season & pops up thru out the season in the monthly reports as I got money from chambers & lambert also.

[Stevenleharve]

Excellent thread. This was always going to be my first game on FM15 but I'm just that bit more excited now. Had a great two seasons in FM14, finishing a point off first in the second. Was gutted when my computer packed in, and I had no way of getting the save back

Been wanting to do another one since (after I got a new PC) but chose to wait for the new game with the new transfers etc. Really looking forward to it.

PS. Is Berahino good/reasonably priced? Want to alternate between 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 and I think Pelle and Berahino would make a quality duo up top.

[skinster6]

Hi Steve,

I bought Berahino for 10m (5m upfront, 5m over 48months) in the first transfer window and play him just off Pelle in a 4-1-3-2 and he is doing really well.

[Sapačko]

This could be added into facilities info

[enders357]

Hi Steve,

I bought Berahino for 10m (5m upfront, 5m over 48months) in the first transfer window and play him just off Pelle in a 4-1-3-2 and he is doing really well.

Bargain!

[RvN#17]

Too bad Demo starts on small DB, would like to continue this save when the games comes out, but I will have to start all over again. Shane Long is my best scorer 8 goals, all while subbing, and ofc he was dealt with. 3 month injury, Tadic, Bertrand, Cork, Forster are injured also, must be my fault.

[J.Pinkman]

Yeah Berahino was decent for me. Around 15 goals in total. Got rotated with Pelle though who scored around 20. Tadic was my main man, bossed it at AML and AMC. Got around 20 goals and 15 assists.

Clyne/Forster were probably my worst players.

JWP coming on like a charm now in the second season. And Gardos playing exceptional.

[jimmy87]

Nice intro!

I am 2 and a half years into my Southampton stint. Came 9th then 4th then now challenging for the title and in the last 16 of champs league. Not got near the cups until this season but have a semi final in carling (whoever it is) cup.

Starting First Team

Forster was very good for me but then the board gave me a few million bonus midway through year one and Valdes decided to join me, so poor old Fraser was back up. Now sold (as has Valdes) because Cech and Begovic arrived on a free.

Clyne - Absolute class. Gino peruzzi tried and failed to challenge there, Carl Jenkinsons turn now.

Alderwiereld - was going well but then caught a virus that kept him out for a year! (Ebola maybe?)

Fonte - Did alright for me without excelling

other CB's more or less sold straight away.

Bertrand - Did enough to get a £3.1m transfer and still my main guy despite Olsson putting up a decent challenge

Wanyama - Was very good for me but then kept kicking off about the champions league so I let him go to PSG for about £20m

Schniederlin - same as Wanyama but i managed to talk him round and give him a new deal. He's happy enough competing for a place in my packed CM now

JWP - has dveloped very nicely but now out with ACL for the rest of the season. Hope he comes back strong

Tadic - beast of a player. Mainly used LW and is now captain.

Mane - Has been unlucky not to play more, more often than not he performs and grabs goals. Still a very good option for me but he gets a bit unhappy at gametime occasionally

Long - was decent for me before he started recently declining. I've got rid now and he's still a free agent. Redmond coming in didn't help his cause.

Rodriguez - strangely enough with long doing a job at RW I completely forgot about J Rod (recovering from his injury) until about March! He came in and did alright but he wasn't first choice and started kicking off about wanting a bigger club so off he went to Hull for £8.5m!

Pelle - Slow starter but saved my first season and hasn't really stopped performing since then. Gallagher is about to surpass him as 1st choice target man but i've had success playing both since Barbosa and Hernandez got injured.

Strong Youth

Gallagher - Easily my main success from Southampton YTS. Saw nothing the first two seasons and he did average on loan in the champs but by chance i gave him a few starts early 3rd season and he has bossed it! Goals vs the likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea and plenty of headers won.

Sims - Hoping he's the next one to shine. He's had a handful of games and his stats are improving but he's not performed for me really yet. Big things expected next season.

Targett - hasn't hit the heights and probably will be backup at best for me.

Had a couple of decent regens through but none have had a big impact in first team yet.

Signings

As i've mentioned some above, i've had reasonable success here. A few duds like Uche, Fellaini and Ings but not done bad on the whole.

Notable ones are Redmond who I bought with Olsson when Norwich missed promotion. He's coming into his own now and has the advantage of being a natural RM and RW so he can play several formations

Gabriel Barbosa: My big money buy at £12m+£12m to 3rd party. Well worth the money as his goals fired me to 4th in season 2. He's struggled for form and injuries this year but still young and has great all round stats.

Javier Hernandez: Free this season from Man U straight away paid back his signing on fee with the goals to take me past Inter and into the groups. Competing with Gallacher, Pelle and Redmond for the top scorer gong at the moment.

Valdes: won the golden glove last year and had been excellent but then he started moaning and Cech and Begovic came in on a free so I got rid.

Them two: been rotating them. Cech more consistent but Begovic in fine form now. He'll have a shocker and conceede 5 then go 6 games without conceeding. Strange one.

Tielemans: Bought in the second summer, played a few games did alright then went to atlanta on loan for the rest of the year as i felt he'd get more games. Now in the third season he's starting more often and progressing nicely into a real world class playmaker

Wilshere: Suprised Arsenal let me have him for £12m and he's been solid for me

Will Hughes: Spent £7m on him and he is now progressing nicely. I think he'll hit a ceiling before JWP and Tielemans though so may cash in this summer.

Aymen Abennour: Solid at the back for me and the world class defender I was missing since Alderwiereld got Ebola

Bassong: Got in first window and has been a competent choice ever since. In and out of the side but not moaned once and very useful to me.

I think that's everyone of note. People like Davis and Cork have been sold

[jimmy87]

What's Schneiderlin's mentality like at the start? I heard it's much harder to placate players if they want to leave in this version.

Is Will Hughes willing to move to Southampton? I love that guy.

To answer them if above hasn't. Schneiderlin got upset and unsettled but i talked him round and tied him down to a new deal. All fine now with me in the CL.

Hughes has been a useful buy, not massively nessecary as I have JWP who is more complete and Tielemans who is more talented as my young partner to Schniderlin but needless to say he's been useful.

[RTHerringbone]

Nice article about Saints here: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/nov/05/southampton-reaping-rewards-philosophy-new-training-ground

[Str0aK]

Looking forward to starting my save tonight. What formation(s) is everyone going for first season?

[WhiteRose74]

Looking forward to starting my save tonight. What formation(s) is everyone going for first season?

I started a discussion thread here which I hope will continue to be active as my save progresses - have a look, there are some interesting ideas already.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/405065-South-Coast-Revival-–-Getting-the-Saints-Marching-on-in-FM15

[WhiteRose74]

Nice article about Saints here: http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/nov/05/southampton-reaping-rewards-philosophy-new-training-ground

I think its fantastic that this sort of article is being written about the club, it and others I've read do make me think that the Physio's in the game have been undersold quite a bit. I've never quite understood why they get included in the number of coaches a club is allowed when they are quite obviously doing a very specialised job in reali life? One for the future maybe?

[Saint_Lane]

Great OP Matthew Le God!

Looking forward to my annual Saints save! Hopefully a few hours in over the weekend - Trip to St Mary's to look forward to Vs. Leicester tomorrow though.

P.S Are you the same poster as Matt Le God on Saint Web Forums?

[RTHerringbone]

Have finally started my save! Horrific fixture list at the start with trips to Chelsea, City and White Hart Lane. We struggled at Chelsea but held our own in other games. Major signing was Ryan Shawcross, and this is the story of my season so far:

Fixtures:

Table:

Tactics:

(These change in terms of Mentality and "Exploit The...." TIs from match to match, but not much else really).

EDIT - And posting that has shown that my MCL should be a BBM, but is a RP for some reason! Arse!

[RTHerringbone]

Still right on the money with this save! Loving it. Now joint third on points after a six game winning streak, which should continue when Leicester travel down for my next match. Tactically all still very simple and pretty much the same basis as the previous post.

[Welshace]

The likes of Niall Mason and Ryan Seager.. they come to anything?

[RTHerringbone]

Halfway mark reached:

[WhiteRose74]

What skin is that RTH?

[RTHerringbone]

What skin is that RTH?

I play in Classic Mode; it's the default FMC skin.

Have realised that I'll be onto the second round of nasty fixtures soon, so City, Chelsea and Arsenal games are on the horizon

I expect to slip a few places but have every intention of fighting for a Europa League slot now. Going to aim to snap up a few players in Summer at relegated clubs and decent youngsters from the Championship - thinking of Jack Butland, Joel WardNathan Redmond etc.

[Sir Bertil]

RTH!

What team instructions do you have?

[RTHerringbone]

RTH!

What team instructions do you have?

From memory, Higher Tempo, Push Higher Up, Work Ball Into Box and then I'll tweak the "Exploit The....." TIs depedning on the shape used by the opposition.

Possibly also using Pass Shorter, but I think I ended up removing that.

[Sir Bertil]

From memory, Higher Tempo, Push Higher Up, Work Ball Into Box and then I'll tweak the "Exploit The....." TIs depedning on the shape used by the opposition.

Possibly also using Pass Shorter, but I think I ended up removing that.

Thanks

[RTHerringbone]

I'll keep this thread ticking over, and hope to pique a few interests here and there!

So, we've had an update and as usual, it can be a worrying time as ME to ME things can change a lot. This ME in my opinion is WAY better than before, still a few quirks which will get sorted in time, but I'm happy with how it is. I was aware that the prior ME was overpowered out wide so my tactics deliberately did not aim to exploit that, and I've reaped rewards as we're still ticking along with no changes to the basic approach needed.

Best achievement so far is reaching the Capital One Cup Final. We left it rather late

Latest win was a dominant performance at Villa Park:

Our nasty run of fixtures unravelled like this. Q.P.R. was especially annoying as we held a 2-0 lead and they fought back really well to nick a point:

League table now like this. A few surprises in there - look at City - and Spurs?! Top? Make us being second look almost normal

[LHurlz]

So I've decided to have my first FM15 save with Southampton, bucking my trend of picking Celtic but there's plenty of time for them! Anyway, I'm really caught in two minds here. I want to mount a champions league push 1st season, and I don't think Jose Fonte is good enough. However he is the captain and I'm not sure how much that would actually impact the team if I was to replace the captain. I am considering signing Ryan Shawcross, which would be a large chunk of my budget but with So'ton having plenty of good youth players already I can wait a season or 2 until I start bringing a few of my own in.

So I would like to know what you guys think, replace Fonte for a better quality player or stick with him and hope that his captaincy and leadership makes him and the rest of the team perform?

Edit - I'm yet to figure out how to get loan recommendations on FM15, if someone could tell me how I'd appreciate that!

Thanks!

[king_karl]

Thus far i'm finding my save damn near impossible, Tadic, JWP & Rodrigues (after returning from injury) are my only shining lights. Lots of injuries, lots of goals conceded from almost every single cross. Danny Ings has come in for 900k and scored on his debut. Tactics tactics tactics. God damn.

[RTHerringbone]

LHurlz I picked up Shawcross and he's performing well enough for me. We're defending well and Matthew Targett is getting a lot of game time and it benefiting from it - a good idea to do this in case you don't sign Bertrand for the (pretty big) £10m fee at the end of his loan.

[RTHerringbone]

Thus far i'm finding my save damn near impossible, Tadic, JWP & Rodrigues (after returning from injury) are my only shining lights. Lots of injuries, lots of goals conceded from almost every single cross. Danny Ings has come in for 900k and scored on his debut. Tactics tactics tactics. God damn.

I'm finding Pelle, Mane and Long (in particular) to be astonishingly good. Long has scored 20 goals from 17 starts and 10 sub appearances, Pelle 12 in 20 (6 sub) whilst Mane scores and assists as an Attacking Wide Playmaker.

[lewis999]

I'm finding Pelle, Mane and Long (in particular) to be astonishingly good. Long has scored 20 goals from 17 starts and 10 sub appearances, Pelle 12 in 20 (6 sub) whilst Mane scores and assists as an Attacking Wide Playmaker.

Is Long playing as an MR or ML or an alternate ST to Pelle? Reason I ask is because I didn't think he even had a circle on his positions screen for those two roles.

[RTHerringbone]

Is Long playing as an MR or ML or an alternate ST to Pelle? Reason I ask is because I didn't think he even had a circle on his positions screen for those two roles.

He alternates with Pelle up front, but I've had some injuries on the wings and he's performed OK out there when he has needed to.

[RTHerringbone]

Bumping this with a wee update. After aspiring to reach the Europa League, I can aim higher as we automatically qualified with the Capital One Cup win.

When you consider our upcoming fixtures, a title tilt looks on:

A couple of slip-ups at tricky venues, but we kept the score lines more than respectable.

Whilst we've slipped down the table, those fixtures don't half look winnable until the Chelsea (FA Cup) and Man Utd games.

In my head, I've set a 14 point target - let's see how we do.

[king_karl]

I'm finding Pelle, Mane and Long (in particular) to be astonishingly good. Long has scored 20 goals from 17 starts and 10 sub appearances, Pelle 12 in 20 (6 sub) whilst Mane scores and assists as an Attacking Wide Playmaker.

God damn, what formation are you playing sir?

[RTHerringbone]

God damn, what formation are you playing sir?

Same as post #82 - but Ward-Prowse is a BBM, not a Roaming Playmaker.

Just sneaked past Swansea thanks to the keeper saving us 2 points at the death. Burnley next.