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FM16 - French Football - Joie de vivre


Jogo Bonito

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Started as Toulouse and just finished the first season

Transfers In

Preciado £700k

Sobhy £475k

Andrija Zivkovic £1.5m

Linus Wahlqvist £1.3m

Engvall £1.4m (Loaned Out In Jan)

Krejci £3.8m

Hou Sauter £375k

Zekhini £650k

Ibrahima Sissoko £1.3m

Zmrhal £2.2m (Jan)

Out

Ninkov £1m

Pesic £500k

Trejo £5.75m

Braithwaite £5.25m

Goicoechea £250k (Jan)

Somalia (Jan)

Competitions

Ligue 1 - 3rd - Started really well but PSG finished 2nd and Lyon won the league both way too strong for my young side

Coupe De La Ligue - Winners. We beat bordeaux 2-1

Coupe De France - Runners Up. Lost on penalties to Monaco, Undeserved just couldn't finish

Season 2 so far

In

Lucas Romero £8m (Massive signing beat chelsea to his signature)

Kolodziejczak £2.5m

Onguene £900k

Lundqvist £950k

Sisto £4.8m (Another huge signing beating psg to him)

Ales Mateju £1.8m

Outs

Akpa-Akpro £25m Couldn't refuse the offer from chelsea

William Matheus £6.25m

Ben Yedder £16m Another massive offer and he wasn't great in the 1st season

Grigore £1.8m

Kana-Biyik £4m

Moubandje £1.2m

Regattin £500k

a couple of fringe players left as well

Focusing on building around Lafont,Diop And Blin

Just qualified for the group stages of the champions league as well

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At the start of season 6 with Marseille, bookies have made us favourites to win the league so here's hoping. Won Euro 2020 with France surprisingly easily bringing in a few of my players for their debuts.

The worrying thing for me is the finances. On the rich list for france, marseille are the 2nd richest team, but PSG have more than double what we have. It's going to be tough to assert dominance against that money..

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Got a new laptop last night and started a save with Toulouse to hopefully tide me over until FM17 - not planning on rushing through it. Expectations seem to be fairly modest and the team has a few talented players, so I'm hoping to gradually build some success at the club.

My initial assessment is that the first eleven actually looks pretty good, aside from the lack of a quality player on the left wing. Tommy Oar joins on a free transfer to plug that gap for the time being, but I will be on the look-out for a better option going forward. Ben Yedder, Braithwaite and Trejo will all remain at the club barring any ridiculous offers.

Haven't yet figured out how I want my midfield to be set up however - currently playing a 4-2-3-1 with two CMs and wingers. Doumbia is a BWM/S and Didot a DLP/D, a combination that I've had a bit of luck with in the past but may change the latter to a CM/D. Akpa-Akpro will likely feature at right-back rather than in the middle, as Doumbia has looked good in preseason.

Also undecided on my goalkeeping situation, with the talented but inexperienced Alban Lafont looking like a future number 1. Think I will look to loan him out to a lower Ligue 1 side for the time being, and give him some more game time in the coming seasons.

I notice a few others have played with Toulouse in this thread, so any tips or advice would be very welcome!

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10 hours ago, GylfiAsCharged said:

Got a new laptop last night and started a save with Toulouse to hopefully tide me over until FM17 - not planning on rushing through it. Expectations seem to be fairly modest and the team has a few talented players, so I'm hoping to gradually build some success at the club.

My initial assessment is that the first eleven actually looks pretty good, aside from the lack of a quality player on the left wing. Tommy Oar joins on a free transfer to plug that gap for the time being, but I will be on the look-out for a better option going forward. Ben Yedder, Braithwaite and Trejo will all remain at the club barring any ridiculous offers.

Haven't yet figured out how I want my midfield to be set up however - currently playing a 4-2-3-1 with two CMs and wingers. Doumbia is a BWM/S and Didot a DLP/D, a combination that I've had a bit of luck with in the past but may change the latter to a CM/D. Akpa-Akpro will likely feature at right-back rather than in the middle, as Doumbia has looked good in preseason.

Also undecided on my goalkeeping situation, with the talented but inexperienced Alban Lafont looking like a future number 1. Think I will look to loan him out to a lower Ligue 1 side for the time being, and give him some more game time in the coming seasons.

I notice a few others have played with Toulouse in this thread, so any tips or advice would be very welcome!

Hi Gylfi

I currently have à Toulouse save running, i m in summer 2020

No hesitation for your GK, Lafont MUST start right away, definitely a world class GK 

Moubandje will do Ok for the league in the 1st season but its not a great player

Try to bring zivkovic on the attacking left side, 

I play a flat 4-4-2, 

In 2020, Lafont, Diop, Blin, BenYedder (now à club légend)and Akpa Apro are still in the starting 11

You have a really good core of hot prospect, USE them !

I started my save offloading Braithwaite, loaning out Trejo (not needed in my tactic) and some others moves of unwanted players

Finished 2nd and then always win the league afterwards

No champions league yet ?

I m not playing my Marseille save that much because of Toulouse ?

Really enjoyable team, hope you Will like  it !

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25 minutes ago, nico_france said:

Hi Gylfi

I currently have à Toulouse save running, i m in summer 2020

No hesitation for your GK, Lafont MUST start right away, definitely a world class GK 

Moubandje will do Ok for the league in the 1st season but its not a great player

Try to bring zivkovic on the attacking left side, 

I play a flat 4-4-2, 

In 2020, Lafont, Diop, Blin, BenYedder (now à club légend)and Akpa Apro are still in the starting 11

You have a really good core of hot prospect, USE them !

I started my save offloading Braithwaite, loaning out Trejo (not needed in my tactic) and some others moves of unwanted players

Finished 2nd and then always win the league afterwards

No champions league yet ?

I m not playing my Marseille save that much because of Toulouse ?

Really enjoyable team, hope you Will like  it !

Toulouse does sound like it might be a good last game on this version. Do you mind sharing your 4-4-2? I've been getting trophies with alot of different kinds of tactics but i just can't seem to get a 4-4-2 to work on this version. So it would be much appreciated.

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25 minutes ago, Jalex said:

Toulouse does sound like it might be a good last game on this version. Do you mind sharing your 4-4-2? I've been getting trophies with alot of different kinds of tactics but i just can't seem to get a 4-4-2 to work on this version. So it would be much appreciated.

I'll try to give you that before the week end as soon as i'm in game

You can definitely get great results , i remember a 8-1 win in PSG ground, and one my biggest win ever in the league , 11 or 12-0 against Lens away during the 2019-2020 season,but i can still struggle against top european teams from times to Times

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11 hours ago, nico_france said:

Hi Gylfi

I currently have à Toulouse save running, i m in summer 2020

No hesitation for your GK, Lafont MUST start right away, definitely a world class GK 

Moubandje will do Ok for the league in the 1st season but its not a great player

Try to bring zivkovic on the attacking left side, 

I play a flat 4-4-2, 

In 2020, Lafont, Diop, Blin, BenYedder (now à club légend)and Akpa Apro are still in the starting 11

You have a really good core of hot prospect, USE them !

I started my save offloading Braithwaite, loaning out Trejo (not needed in my tactic) and some others moves of unwanted players

Finished 2nd and then always win the league afterwards

No champions league yet ?

I m not playing my Marseille save that much because of Toulouse ?

Really enjoyable team, hope you Will like  it !

Hi Nico, thanks for the advice. Going to start with Lafont in goal as you suggest, but opting for William Mattheus at left-back ahead of Moubandje.

Zivkovic was already a target of mine but he picked Benfica over us unfortunately, so I'll have to look elsewhere.

Trejo hasn't been particularly effective in attacking midfield during preseason, so I plan on selling him and switching to my usual 4-1-2-2-1 with the DM, 2 CMs and 2 wingers. 

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Here is the set up used in my TFC save from day one,

ab67955aadbe5537785a1444e862df30.png

 

I first used a roaming Playmaker instead of the DLP and i still switch from times to times

 

Team Instructions and players Role

2a901181421806875b3150ab9827b024.png7eaffd32827dee287ca680bea814f40f.png

Hope it will help you out Jalex

A few big numbers below, but on the other hand no CL title so far

bf6f43c6674432aa40405c58fab3634d.png

d0054c018354b473c94b7997b3ee8984.png

a97f0b108a0494abbab29a48fa699b99.png

8800f4c63a0facc4e8c0767a5530992b.png

5f16b94248ec50f1a83815f931570328.png

 

 

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9 hours ago, nico_france said:

Here is the set up used in my TFC save from day one,

ab67955aadbe5537785a1444e862df30.png

 

I first used a roaming Playmaker instead of the DLP and i still switch from times to times

 

Team Instructions and players Role

2a901181421806875b3150ab9827b024.png7eaffd32827dee287ca680bea814f40f.png

Hope it will help you out Jalex

A few big numbers below, but on the other hand no CL title so far

bf6f43c6674432aa40405c58fab3634d.png

d0054c018354b473c94b7997b3ee8984.png

a97f0b108a0494abbab29a48fa699b99.png

8800f4c63a0facc4e8c0767a5530992b.png

5f16b94248ec50f1a83815f931570328.png

 

 

Thanks! Hopefully it will bring me som good results aswell :)

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Still playing as Montpellier, still a mid table team which is the best I can hope for but a takeover may take place soon so hoping for some big money to buy some good players. I will post at the end of my current season

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Things are going pretty well for my Toulouse side so far. Halfway through the season we are sat in 4th, with 9 wins, 5 draws and 5 defeats. We're still in the Coupe de la Ligue too, facing Troyes in the quarter final. A top two finish looks unlikely as Lyon and PSG are miles ahead - Lyon won their first 12 games of the season to put them firmly in the driving seat. Monaco on the other hand are sat rock bottom!

Unfortunately Ben Yedder hasn't really got going, only scoring 6 or 7 times so far this term. My free transfer left winger Tommy Oar is our top scorer, while Braithwaite and Trejo have been troubled by injuries. Adrien Regattin has performed surprisingly well, and goals are coming from all areas of the team which is good. Lafont and Blin have been getting plenty of game time and the latter in particular has made encouraging progress.

European football looks a real possibility but the table behind us is very tight. Fingers crossed we can get over the line in 3rd or 4th place.

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Well, the January transfer window was more interesting than I had anticipated. A couple of backup players left the club, before I saw Michy Batshuayi transfer listed for just £3m. Unfortunately I couldn't quite afford him, so I shipped off the misfiring Wissam Ben Yedder to Porto for £6.75m before signing him. That gave me enough money left over to make another signing, as Sofiane Boufal arrived for £6m having also been transfer listed.

Batshuayi is taking a little time to find his feet, but Boufal already looks a superb acquisition and has the potential to get even better. Very pleased with my transfer dealings!

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Good to see that you perform well Gylfi,

And Boufal and Michy are really good signings for that money!

A bit shocked by the price of Ben Yedder! i had to refuse for him offers above 30M€, he was firing like a beast with me in a 2 strikers set up, may be his profile he's not very useful in a one striker tactic, where Michy should be really efficient in that case!

Keep it up!

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wvd6y9.png

2015/16 Season Review

Transfers | Competitions | League Table | Player Stats

A very encouraging first season in France, in my opinion. Tommy Oar was my only preseason signing on a free transfer, while Batshuayi and Boufal both became available in January, joining the club just as Ben Yedder departed. Our European place looked in doubt a few times, but a good run towards the end of the season saw us home and dry in 4th place. We were unlucky to lose to Lyon on penalties in the Coupe de la Ligue semi final, and also went out in the cruellest fashion against Auxerre in the Coupe de France.

Next season I am hoping for another strong league finish and a good showing in at least one of the cups. Star defender Marcel Tisserand is due to go back to Monaco after his loan spell, so replacing him will be important. A few clubs have started sniffing around our player of the season Akpa-Akpro, valued at £18m, and a bid higher than his valuation would be difficult to refuse. Hopefully we can get through the window without losing any key players, and with the reinforcements we need to compete on all fronts in 2016/17.

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wvd6y9.png

2016/17 Season Review

Transfers | Competitions | League Table | Player Stats

Inter made an offer we couldn't refuse for Akpa-Akpro, and Lafont forced a move away from the club when he heard Man City and Real Madrid were keen on him. However, we also made some significant player purchases, with Hamady Traore, Loris Karius, Adama Traore, Corentin Tolisso and Nicolas Nkoulou all having a great impact during the season. Despite this, our best signing was one that had been sealed the season before, as Lincoln arrived at the tender age of 18 and put in some inspired performances to help us to a highly impressive 2nd placed finish. Three hat-tricks in three games cemented him as a fan favourite at the club.

Going into our third season, our finances aren't as healthy as they were last year, so some sales may be inevitable. However I'm not looking to make wholesale changes. Champions League football is the aim again in 17/18, and we are yet to reach a cup final, so that would be nice too.

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Hi all - short time lurker, first time poster (so apologies for any rookie mistakes!)

 

Great thread, really good idea from Jogo Bonito and I think it allows for better variety and discussion than just individual club pages. Thought I'd add my current progress in France since it's the first time I've managed across the Channel.

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

So I started the save with Leeds, but it swiftly went downhill and I was quite relieved when the usually trigger-happy Cellino finally fired me.

 

After that I immediately got on the lookout for a new opportunity, and in early February 2016 up popped the Nice job. Claude Puel had been binned after a campaign flirting with relegation, and although they were 17th, skint and just a point above the drop when I took over, the chance to harness Nampalys Mendy, and Hatem Ben Arfa was too tempting to turn down.

 

The remainder of the season passed in encouraging if inconsistent fashion - Nice have an excellent selection of midfielders but options up top and at the back are less inspiring.

In the end I managed to steer them clear of relegation and to a respectable 14th position, although a late slump made it less comfortable than I'd have liked!

 

Highlights included 1-0 away wins over Lyon and PSG, so that's encouraging if we can deliver that again.

M9lHu1v.png

Tactics-wise I stuck mostly to an asymmetric 4-2-3-1, with Mendy/Seri at the base, and the two exciting prospects of Remi Walter and Vincent Koziello (screenshots below)  rotating in front. Then I made the decision to move Ben Arfa from his natural AMR (if) role into the AMC slot as a Trequarista - mainly to get him involved much more in our attacking play through the middle. It seemed to work as his ratings shot up, and found him getting plenty more key passes and assists.

Had no real options at AML so retrained the average but versatile Jeremy Pied to play there - and used Plea, and loanee Pereria (Porto) on the right.

 

J0Jmbue.png

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I had very minimal budgets to play with, but did manage to line-up a couple of free transfers:

 

Bernardo (Espinosa) from Sporting Gijon - big strong CB who in all honesty I signed because he's just joined my IRL team Middlesbrough in real life! DOing ok so far though

o7LXel7.png

Damien Perez - attacking LB from Velez, no world beater but was a weak spot in the team and has been very good so far

tD4stxT.png

 

 

Going into the summer I was granted a further warchest of... 1.2m (and about 10k spare wages)

 

So not a great deal to play with (and with Nice's financial outlook not great) I wasn't keen on pushing it any further. So it was a summer of loans and bargain hunting tbh, but in the end managed to get a decent bit of satisfactory business done:

 

UTvC8CO.png

 

Richarlison came in to be my no1 forward, but has been pretty underwhelming so far (although chances limited as I'll explain)

Rashford and Lingard in a nice job lot from Utd have proven very useful (especially as Rashford is decent in multiple positions)

And Elustondo was a late bargain unearthed by a scout looking for a RB - already 3.5 ability and again can cover two positions.

dZHJnbE.png

 

Outgoings aren't really worth going into, I kept Mendy despite interest from the PL, and all other outgoings were fringe players - I generated a transfer profit of 1.7m so I'll take that.

 

So going into the season I was confident of a solid midtable finish perhaps pushing for top half, with last season's underachievement and a more balanced squad. I was still worried about a lack of a top quality goalscorer, but it turns out we had one all along!

TowmnpR.png

 

Bosetti was shipped out on loan last year to Norway (scoring a respectable 15 in 28), but with a 2.5 ability and a unmemorable preseason I wasn't banking on him playing much of a role. However after a nightmare debut for Richarlison and a niggle for Rashford he was given a chance - and hasn't looked back since, with 18 goals in 20 Ligue 1 games so far - and some improved stats across the board.

 

His goals, and the newly improved defence have seen us performing above expectations all season - and just after the halfway mark we find ourselves...

je7CaV6.png

 

6th is excellent for a team on such a shoestring, and actually we were hovering third until a poor xmas, but I'll take that all day long if we can keep it up.

Highlights include a spectaclular 5-0 win over Lyon - with Bosetti bagging four goals in the process and running them ragged all game

DUAH2eu.png

 

Looking towards the end of the season I'd like to finish in the top 8, hopefully pushing for Europe, but with no money to spend in Jan our small squad could struggle. Again I've tied up a couple of free transfers for the end of the season - with Gaston Gil Romero coming in (a real coup), which may allow me to cash in on Mendy or get them both playing together.

 

I've also agreed a deal for Saint-Ettiene's Jonathan Bamba - anybody had any exp of him? In my previous save he develop into an absolute beast, eventually joining R Madrid for 35m and generally looking incredible. Doesn't seem quite so powered in this save but I'm taking a chance and will make a profit regardless.

Nlw01P5.png

 

Anyway that's my progress so far - again I'm a first time poster so hopefully I've not messed up too badly (not sure if the images will work!) - any Nice-related questions fire away, and I may update at another random point down the line!

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Welcome, and that's an excellent post. I think having the chance to manage Nice was a real stroke of luck for you, it's a squad I really like. I agree about the weaknesses, but you've done well with your returning loan player. The central midfield quartet is amongst the best in Ligue 1, and I think every French club would crave for Ben Arfa. In real life, Nice played very well last season and the back four always looked good to me too (perhaps rated cautiously in FM16?). I can't really say too much about Bamba, but suffice to say that he hasn't made any impact with ASSE in reality, and isn't usually in or around the match day squad. That doesn't mean he can't be a hidden gem in FM though! Best of luck.   

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  • 2 weeks later...

After a long break from FM, I spent some time deciding whether to continue my old saves and decided to try something fresh. Having decided which teams I wanted to be in FM17, I decided to pick a team that I felt looked better in FM16 than they might in the new version, giving myself the last opportunity to do something with the squad before major changes were made.

Finding an English team was harder than it was in France, so my new team in France for FM16 is OGC Nice (hope that won't put you off your effort hollij93). I'd managed them a bit in FM15 but this squad is better, and they were a good team to follow in Ligue 1 during the last campaign.

I'm only in September, and have made a couple of transfers (nothing major) as I try to settle the team in to my tactical preference. My approach when arriving at the club was to make myself a shortlist of about 50 promising young domestic players and then work through that, making offers and loan offers to see who I could attract on our limited budget.

There are three things that I discovered whilst doing this. Firstly, the club had four decent loan players, and it soon became clear that there was a maximum of five loan players allowed in the season. With the central midfield pool being the least concerning area in the squad, I tried to navigate this problem by terminating the loan of Wallyson, but that didn't free up an extra space, and I am now just one player light in the squad, with no option to replace him. Not my best move!

Secondly, I later noticed that you can only loan out seven players to other French clubs in the season, and with that amount quickly reached, the ability to free up some wage allowance was gone.

Finally, I was surprised to see that after being refused the chance to make loan offers on some of the youngsters I wanted because their parent club wouldn't loan to other clubs in the same division, these very same players joined other Ligue 1 clubs on loan within a matter of days - very disappointing. Some of the others I wanted turned me down on the basis of having just joined their clubs, and that I thought was understandable and realistic.

So, my moves in the market were modest and where I felt we needed some extra quality and depth the most. The first recruit joined as my third-choice central defender, and will be understudy to Baysse and Le Marchand. I followed this up with the loan of a highly-rated teenage striker who is also seen as a bench option, and another left-back, who is also occupying the bench whilst I try to get the most out of  my surprising first pick in that position. My final signing was a young winger who has potential but who hadn't made the breakthrough at a larger club, and he will be given a chance to progress in my Reserve side after a small outlay secured his services.

With an eye on the future, and aware of where we might be after the loan players depart next season, I've also signed a striker and full-back for larger outlays. Both will join in July 2016 after their seasonal loans have been completed, and by then I hope we will be in a better position to add a couple more to the mix.

I'll add some images when I have progressed a little bit more.

 

 

 

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I have had a good couple of months break from FM and I am getting the itch to play again. I played with Lille four or five years ago when Cabaye and Debuchy were still there and even though I enjoyed that save, I haven't managed in France since so I am going to start my last save on FM16 until FM17 comes out with Marseille. The aim will obviously be to try and get into the Champions League for next season.

I've had a quick look at the squad and the amount of players on loan at the club is five, which means I can't loan any more in, which is a shame because we haven't really got any cash to spend on buying anyone. If I send some of the loan players back to there clubs will I be able to sign some players on loan ? or is it limited to five per season no matter what.

I have to get Steve Mandanda to sign a new contract without his minimum fee release clause and also get Nicolas Nkoulou to sign a new one, as well as some of the youngsters.

If we can't get anymore cash from the chairwoman then I'll have to use some of the kids in the reserves and U19's, the likes of Maxime Lopez, Jérémie Porsan- Clemente and Brice Nlaté which probably won't be a bad thing to do as it will help aid there development a bit quicker.

I am just going to load the french leagues and load all players from the World instead of loading every league in every country like I normally do and it should be a lot quicker than my saves usually are.

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Welcome along. I think you will find that even if you terminate a loan, you can't then do another loan (this just happened with me at OGC Nice). I know when I took over at OM, I didn't bring any loans in season 1, but did create a small sum of money by lowering the bonus payments. I think the board also agreed my request to increase the transfer budget though. I did the same as you with Nkoulou and Mandanda, new contracts were a priority. The best of the young players was Nkoudou, but they have one or two that might progress. Have a look back at my OM posts earlier to see if that gives you any help, and good luck!

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Thanks, I'll have a look for your posts about Marseille and see if it gives me any ideas for the future.

It's typical, the transfer window has now closed and the board have now decided to give me an extra £14m but refused when I asked for more in July/August :idiot:. At least it means I'll be able to make Rémy Cabella's loan a permanent deal and look to bring in some talented youngsters.

The only transfers we made were John Hou Sæter £29k compensation, Lamarana Diallo Free and Gustav Engvall £1m, we also have Jhon Arango £5k compensation coming in February. The only player to leave the club was Lamarana Diallo on loan to Marseille Consolat for the season.

 

 

 

 

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Good luck in your Nice save Jogo - and thanks for your reply to my post! In a short and sweet wrap up of my French experiences - it went bottoms up  quite quickly!

Rallied really well at the end of season 2 to finish 4th, qualifying for Euro Cup and playing some really nice stuff, but this was followed up by a very frustrating summer.

Firstly the club's less than ideal financial state meant I was limited to a summer transfer budget of about £800k, and limited leeway in wages.

Did manage to get in Gaston Gil Romero and Luis Henrique on frees - but while the former is a top player, it meant accommodating him along with Mendy (I had planned to take advantage of interest in Mendy, but with just 10% of transfer revenue it wasn't worth it).

Worked the budgets around (and sold Elustondo for a £5m profit) to bring in another couple of additions (and another loan for Rashford), but ended up having to field Mendy at RB to fit him in.

Additionally Ben Arfa pulled a strop when I wouldn't sell him to Porto (for less than his value!), and looked completely disinterested when the season began.

Long story short we played well in Europe but couldn't string together any results in the league, ending up in 17th in December and prompting a dressing room revolt (started by Ben Arfa the problem child) - after which I resigned as it just wasn't fun anymore!

So I hope your experience with Nice ends less messily than mine, but I'm very keen on returning to France either in FM16 or when 17 comes out - the relatively level playing field (under PSG) makes it a really exciting league to be in, as a few sound additions can have you pushing for Europe quite quickly. Low budgets also mean you've got to juggle resources to succeed, and I always enjoy a free transfer gem!

 

Cheers and good luck!

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Ah, sorry to hear that it all got a bit messy - I can understand why you quit. Hopefully you will fancy another dabble in France before FM17 though. I agree it's a challenging league with plenty of capable teams - below PSG of course!

I've already identified my French team for FM17, and looking forward to tackling that in the future. In the meantime, will plug away with OGC Nice.

 

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http://images.racingpost.com/football/teambadges/1748.png

 

Marseille 2015/16 Review

 

Season%20review%20end%20of%20season%201.

 

Transfers%20end%20of%20season%201_2.jpg

Ligue 1

We finished second in my first season in charge at Marseille, I am happy with that but to be honest I would of prefered to be a lot closer to PSG points wise. Twelve points is a huge difference to make up and no doubt PSG will be even better next season depending on who they bring in.

Ligue 1 results part one l part two

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Ligue%201%20team%20stats%20end%20of%20se

 

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The cups

In both domestic cups we went out early and embarrassingly, on both occasions it was my own fault, I fielded weakened teams in which only goalkeeper Steve Mandanda played in the first eleven. I needed to do that though because I obviously wanted to prioritise Ligue 1 so I would finish in the Champions League places and also the Europa League knockout stages as I wanted to see how far we could go.

Domestic cups results

We won the Europa League beating Turkish side Fenerbahce in the final. We knocked out three English sides on the way to the final but if you look at our fixtures in this competition we could of definitely had harder games other than Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool.

Europa League results

 

The Squad

 

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@col_nufc1 Nice update there. Not bad to finish 2nd - even if the gap to PSG was a big one - and congrats on the Europa League win! I see that Michy and Thauvin contributed a lot of the goals, but not too much from Nkoudou, who was a star for me.

 

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It's my first update on here since the new layout, and it takes a bit of getting used to! Anyway, Le Grand Fromage is back in management on the Cote D'Azur and enjoying life at the Allianz Riviera. So far, things have gone quite well, although PSG are on another planet. I managed to hold them to a draw when we met, but my keeper had to save two penalties inside the first quarter of the game to give me that opportunity!

My plans to bring in some of my favourite young players from within France didn't happen as easily as I thought. They were mostly cheap enough to be within budget, but either the clubs blocked their loan moves, demanded multi-million sums for players valued at less than 10 times that, or refused to trade with a rival in the same division (unless it was another Ligue 1 club).

I've spent a bit of cash on a couple of players due to join next season, and will try and get a couple of players out of the club to allow me to continue my young player recruitment drive. I'm currently playing a 442 diamond with Ben Arfa  as trequartista supporting my strikers (Plea and Germain). The form of Plea has been a pleasant surprise, and he is way ahead of anybody else at the club for goals. Important other news surrounds the new contract for Ben Arfa, which was very pleasing. Anyway, here is my progress so far...

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  • 4 weeks later...

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At last, I completed the first season with OGC Nice. Despite a poor run of results at the end, I just managed to hold on to claim a Champions League qualifying position. I managed to get a few players in, but made a healthy profit on transfers and overall. I'm happy to have a fairly young squad, and have managed to renew the most important contracts too.

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The OGC Nice squad has been strengthened ahead of the 2016/2017 season. In addition to the following transfers, we have Ricardo Perreira available for the second year of his original loan, which is great news. I have also extended the loan of Odsonne Edouard from PSG.

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Maxwel Cornet is a player I have liked since his days at Metz, and having managed him at GC Zurich a few years ago, I took the chance to sign him from Lyon despite his stats being below real-life ability. He is a left-footed attacker who can play centrally or on either side if I play wide forwards.

Paul Baysse was on loan from ASSE last year when I took charge, and I made him my captain. He's a reliable central defender and I always wanted to activate the future fee clause of £1.2m to sign him permanently (as the club did in real life).

Francis Kyeremeh was a punt and a bit of a luxury signing, but I wanted to try and improve his market value before selling him on. He was loaned back to his Polish club Jagodina as part of the deal.

Franck Zambo Anguissa is a central midfielder who has been featuring for OM in real life this season, and I thought he was worth picking up on a free transfer here. I sent him out on loan and will probably use him in the same way as Kyeremeh, to sell on at a profit.

Pape Sane had a good scoring record in Ligue 2 and earned a move to SM Caen. I wanted a fresh young striker with Germain leaving after his loan, and he will be a member of the first team squad.

Youssouf Sabaly had an impressive loan spell with Nantes, and so I always planned to sign him if PSG agreed a sensible fee. Primarily a right-back, he can also fill in at left-back if necessary. He deserves a starting place, but will have difficulty displacing Ricardo Perreira or my promising teenage left-back Malang Sarr.

Franck Kessie was only available on loan from Atalanta in Italy, but he is getting positive reviews over there after transforming himself from a central defender to a central midfield player. I can use him in either of these positions, but he will have to bide his time on the bench for a while as my central areas are very strong. Hopefully at some point the Ivory Coast man will join permanently, but not at anything like the £7m quoted - this is totally against my transfer policy.

Anthony Payet was released by En Avant de Guingamp in my game, and I thought he may be a decent development project for my reserve side. The striker is the brother of Dimitri so maybe some of the family magic will rub off.

Casimir Ninga is a much-admired young striker at Montpellier, who can play centrally or coming in from the left if I play wide forwards. His ability hasn't yet been reflected in FM stats, but I couldn't turn down a player of his ability for such a modest fee. I may be frustrated when he doesn't perform like I know he should, but maybe I can improve him in the same way that Cornet needs to be developed.

Yann Karamoh is another really promising young forward that has caught the attention in France. With plenty of pace, I know he can play the wide right attacker role as effectively as his stated position as central striker. A fairly big fee was needed for this deal, but it could turn out to be a good investment. I'm not expecting him to get much of a chance this season, but he might get the odd appearance as a sub.

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Hi, or should that be "Bonjour"?

 

I have recently started a save in which I intend to move around Europe & after an unsuccessful stint in Denmark I found myself in the manager's office at St. Etienne, with 8 games to go in 2015/16. The team were sitting in 14th some way short of the target of European qualification but were also in the semi final of the French Cup to play Iris Club Croix from the CFA.

It started brilliantly as we went on an 8 game winning run without conceding a single goal, including defeating a plucky Iris Club 2-0 AET. The final 4 games in the league saw us win 2 and lose 2 to finish 8th, finally conceding in a 2-0 defeat at home to Lorient immediately after our Semi Final victory. The cup final saw us take on PSG & I wasn't expecting anything as they had comfortably won the league by 9 points ahead of OM. To my surprise, a brace from Kevin Malcuit, who had not long asked to leave due to a lack of playing time saw us to victory and claim the French Cup with a 2-0 victory!

 

It was a busy summer as I looked to make the squad my own & saw the following activity:

OUT

Clerc, Perrin, Soderlund, Pogba, Moulin & Pajot. All of whom had failed to impress during the last 10 games of the season.

 

IN

Timothy Kolodziejczak, Ramiro Funes Mori, Kieran Gibbs, Michel Vorm, Adam Maher & Sebastian Maier.

Also in on loan were Jesse Lingard, Richairo Zivkovic and Farrend Rawson

 

A decent pre season saw defeats to Arsenal & Gladbach, but victory over Real Madrid and a draw against Liverpool where they scored with just minutes to go gave me confidence of a decent season ahead. Defeat to PSG in the Champions Trophy tempered my confidence somewhat as did an opening day defeat at Lorient, going down 2-3.

We recovered though and subsequent wins at home to PSG (2-0) and away to LOSC (1-0) have restored my belief!

 

We are also in the Europa League courtesy of our cup win last season and we got a reasonable group consisting of Besiktas, Dnipro & Hoffenheim. I believe we can get out of that group and into the knockout rounds.

 

I don't get to play too often but will add further updates as I do play.

 

Au Revoir!

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Great stuff and welcome to France! I'm still managing OGC Nice but am a bit of a St Etienne follower too, so that's interesting for me. I've been too frustrated by the club in the last few seasons so had to skip managing them, but had planned to try ASSE again in FM17 now that the squad has a bit more of an interesting feel to it. It's not the best group, but their history and fanatical support always makes me want to improve them. Bon chance!

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