BarracudaNL Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Dear all, First time poster who is planning to post here a lot in the future! Personal background: young university teacher with a love for football and anything related to the role of data and strategy in the beautiful game. I have been hooked on Football Manager for a while, although I have never quite immersed myself into the FM-scene here. I intend to change that now! I am here to share my FM career differently than commonly done. This will be an interactive, long term, lower league journeyman career story, meaning that I will narrate the story of a journeyman career as time goes on, involve the forum in day-to-day decisions, and advance time in the save by at most two or three days per real-time day, so that everyone gets to provide input on this career. I hope to get everyone hooked on the story this way, but most importantly to build a fun environment that creates a strong mutual learning environment here! I hope to build on all your knowledge as much as I hope to spread mine, and that you get as much out of this as I do! Please let me know you are reading, so I know if there is interest. If there is, I will start our narrative tomorrow, starting as an unemployed journeyman with all leagues on the British Isles activated. May this be a great story! -Bart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muttley84 Posted February 23, 2017 Share Posted February 23, 2017 Participatory management? Sounds interesting enough. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ManUtd1 Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Definitely sounds interesting, even if I barely have time to play my own save right now! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceching You Out Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Sounds interesting! The FM equivalent of this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/sports/football/indoor-football-league-screaming-eagles.html?_r=0 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarracudaNL Posted February 24, 2017 Author Share Posted February 24, 2017 Thank you guys for the feedback and thank you for following! I hope you will enjoy this as much as I will. Without further ado: Today's “chapter” will feature a quick introduction to the general situation of our starting club: St. Albans in the Vanarama Conference South. We have some early decisions to make: the backroom staff needs some shaking up. We also face some dilemmas in the goalkeeper and defender segments of our squad. What choices will we make regarding our typical first eleven? How will we deal with relatively high appearance fees for our current best defenders? And what strategic adjustments will we make to deal with distribution issues from the back? -- Our career starts on September 23, 2015, after we are hired by a struggling St. Albans, who lie 20th in the Vanarama Conference South with only 5 points after 10 games. (Please note that this is an FM15 save.) Unsurprisingly after such an atrocious start of the season, morale is poor: Financial projections are equally problematic: Our staff are inadequate, overpaid, and need to be immediately replaced: Reader question #1. We need backroom replacement, and replacing the head physio and chief scout immediately appears critical. Should we also replace our assistant manager (who works for us at no cost), and if so, is now the right time? Should we hire a director of football, additional coach, or a head of youth development (keeping in mind our poor facilities and mostly part-time contracts)? Let me start introducing our team. Meet our goalkeepers. It is clear who will be our best goalkeeper this year, and we have little reason to play anyone but Welch (other than for perhaps development reasons). We will lack proper distribution, however, as Welch's throwing, kicking, and vision attributes are all poor. (I neglect to show in the following image that our keepers are age 17, 25, and 21 respectively, where the two younger ones can still improve a lot. I will not show current and potential ability in the following images, as the reports of our assistant manager are unreliable due to his low judging attributes. Please do give me feedback of what to show and what not to show in these images.) Our central defenders have similar issues. Their strengths lie in their defending abilities, but they have fairly limited visionary, technical, and attacking skills. (They are ages 22, 28, 19, and 17, where all but Locke can improve tremendously.) Reader question #2. We will have essentially three central defenders that can play in the first team. If we opt to field two central defenders, who should be our key defenders, keeping in mind that Beckles, while being our best player, demands a rather large appearance fee on our 176K wage budget? Finally, meet our fullbacks. Chappell is our only left back, whereas the other three play in the right back position. (Here, I realized to include ages in the image. I have also highlighted Chappell's additional set piece and captain perks.) Reader question #3. We face a similar issue in the right back as in the center back position: we have three defenders that we can field (although Starkey and Kyriacou seem to be slightly better than Hall), but appearance fees play a role here too. Who should be our go-to player for the right back spot? Tomorrow, I will introduce the remainder of the squad, but let me offer some more food for thought. (This last decision will obviously require knowledge of the midfielders and strikers in the squad, but it is worth already thinking about.) Reader question #4. We will be out of options on the transfer market for the coming period, as we lack a reasonable scouting team. For the next few weeks, how will we minimize the damage of (and build a tactic around) weakly distributing goalkeepers and defenders? Fire away suggestions in the comments and stay tuned for tomorrow, when I will introduce the midfielders and strikers in the team. We will consider some more selection dilemmas and then open a discussion on one of the most important facets of our club: our primary formation and tactic! Feedback on the format is always appreciated. I hope you will enjoy! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarracudaNL Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 Dear all, I will switch up the format a bit, and rather than release a daily 'chapter' will release multiple shorter posts from now on, involving you in the single decisions that football managers face on a daily basis. I will continue this on a trial basis to see if I can spur up interest in the concept using this different format. The purpose remains the same: to interactively bring our St. Albans to glory! Today, I will introduce our midfielders. Our key decision to make: how to fit them in an overall system, keeping in mind the qualities of our goalkeeper and defenders? First, James Comley: Comley seems our best midfielder. He has some of the stats you would want in a ball-winning midfielder (high aggression, bravery, determination, work rate, strength), but is also our most creative player with high passing, technique, composure, and vision attributes. He does lack the pace and agility that one would like to see in a central midfielder, he is not so great in the air, and he could be a more consistent player. Next, Sam Corcoran: Corcoran is probably our second-best player, relying on movement to make up for his lesser attributes elsewhere. This combined with his high crossing attribute make me think he might be better on the wing. Still, he has good passing, aggression and bravery, and it is not immediately obvious what role he should be playing in the team. His problematic hidden attributes do not help much either. Finally, Danny Green: Green is better at the defending and physical skills and has similar movement qualities as Corcoran, but is worse in the more technical abilities. He seems a ball-winning midfielder if it were not for his very weak bravery. Let me throw this back to the forum. Folks, how would you fit these midfielders in an overall (short-term) strategy? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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