[FM18] The Dynamics of telling you to shove your transfer request up y- a journeyman career

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, Fer Fuchs Ake said:

Good start. Some annoying dropped points but you're well in the mix domestically. Champions League is going grand for you as well.

It's not super great but I was already expecting a bit of a step back from last year, due to the busier calendar (in the CL this time, we were out of European competitions last year), and higher expectations. So given that I think the season has gone alright so far.

[noikeee]

November 2034

It's Valencia up to first place in the league as we smash Oviedo!! .... only to tank to 4th after a terrible 0-3 defeat at Málaga, a weird one as we had way more shots on target than the opposition. Even after beating Espanyol well, we still remain 4th - it's a tight pack between us, Real, Atlético, Barça, Sevilla at the top though, all 5 clubs within 2 points.

In the Copa del Rey we had a crap 0-0 away draw to lower league Mirandés (hopefully the 2nd leg will save our honour), whereas in the CL things are looking a little more promising - it was an hectic match in Monaco but we got the draw there, then the expected big win in Wien. As it stands, we just need a draw at home against Inter in the final match to qualify. It's not a given though, as our opposition are strong and if we lose we might well drop to the Europa League.

December will decide that, as well as probably clearing up the situation in the league a little better, we play Barça away next.

 

[noikeee]

Well thank you very much, that might come in handy in the winter break.

[noikeee]

[noikeee]

December 2034

Barça-Valencia: a great fixture to clear up wtf is going on in the league. Barça took the lead. So did we later on. But by half-time it was 2-2. In a freakish show of end-to-end chances, nothing would go in in the 2nd half. Until... minute... 94. When they scored. Balls. We recovered with two nice 2-0 wins but then... shock horror, a 2-0 loss at home to freaking Levante. This is not good. We drop to 6th, even if we have a game in hand - but that game is against leaders Sevilla.

The rest is going better. We hardly dazzled against Mirandés but went through in the cup to face Celta next. But what really matters is the CL, and in there Inter proved surprisingly easy as we beat them 2-0 to win the group. Next, Chelsea. There's few easy sides to pick from these days on the CL knockout stages, but I'd have preferred Roma or Leipzig from the possible opponents. This one's gonna be very tough, even if they're having a bad Premier League season, down to 6th just like us.

 

[noikeee]

Ballon d'Or 2034

 

Nobody from world champions Germany makes the top 3, but there's a couple of new faces in here - it's Valiente's first award after excelling for recurring German champions Schalke, and Albuquerque is really starting to make a name for himself too. Darío Herrera is a long-known star entering his last few big years, but still won the CL for Juventus this season (and if I remember right, scored the winning goal in the final).

[noikeee]

Gotta show class when playing out there on the field.

[SmileFaceGamer]

21 hours ago, noikeee said:

How good are stoke on this save? Or is this early April 1st and they’re just taking the p***

[SmileFaceGamer]

2 hours ago, noikeee said:

Gotta show class when playing out there on the field.

Looks like the big man rose to the occasion then

[noikeee]

January 2035

 

(Transfers)

One defensive-minded midfielder leaves, another comes in. We sold backup MC/DM Jakub Coufal for 4M€ whilst splashing 9M€ in the new guy. Meanwhile, forward Pedro who had been complaining about a lack of playing time, was loaned out to Torino.
 

The new CM/D, I reckon he's still a little notch below real top class, but I think this was quite a good purchase for 9M€, given how young he is. I could afford to do this because a couple of my non-EU players picked up Spanish nationality recently, so I still have space for one more non-EU player even after Ramírez.

 

This is a strange month, because we did great in the big matches, beating league leaders Sevilla and also smashing Real Madrid 5-1, yet due to losing points twice (albeit one of those occasions was against an Atlético side that has been surprisingly strong this season), we seem to have dropped out of the title fight - we're now 7 points behind Sevilla and Barça, and in a close fight with Atlético and Real Madrid for the final 2 CL spots. 

It's a bit of a shame but as I said at the beginning of the season, I was expecting a little step back this season - and probably using IR now isn't helping as sometimes I did little tactical tweaks here and there to react to matches. I guess I'm focusing more on Europe now where I continue to play the matches "properly".

This month's embarrassment wasn't in the league though but in the cup - a 2-0 loss at home to Celta kicks us out very early, after a 0-0 in Vigo. I rotated players and the 2nd 11 was not good enough.

 

 

[noikeee]

And there goes our best player so far this season, for 2 critical months that could decide whether we go far in Europe or not....

7.97 average rating, the sexy beast.

[noikeee]

February 2035

I'm afraid this is not our finest point. Whilst we dealt with Osasuna and Leganés predictably well, defeats away to Villarreal and Celta compromised our position. We are overtaken by both teams by Madrid and drop to 5th, outside of the CL slots.

And speaking of the CL, that went pretty badly too - a poor performance in London saw us leave back home with a heavy 4-1 defeat - it's unlikely we'll progress further.

 

[noikeee]

 Youth intake 2035

Hey how cool, it's a completely rubbish intake.

[noikeee]

March 2035

 

Problems still. Defeats away to a resurgent Sociedad, and worse, a relegation threatened Oviedo, have maintained us outside of the CL slots, even if we won our 3 home league matches this month. CL qualification would save this season in my opinion, but as it stands we're 2 points off, in an underwhelming 6th place.

We tried our best to overcome the 4-1 defeat in the 1st leg against Chelsea, but it was impossible, they are far too strong for our still relatively poor defence. A 3-3 draw was honourable, but we're out of Europe for this year.

 

[noikeee]

April 2035

 

It's a bittersweet month. 3 wonderful results, including an incredible 6-1 win over league leaders and almost certain champions Barcelona. BUT, the surprise lost points to Rayo mean we drop out of the CL spots AGAIN, as we had just recovered to 4th before that match.

4 matches remain and I'm not feeling confident - we still have to go away to Sevilla and to Real Madrid. Still, only one point separate us from 4th, and we've been better recently against big teams than against minnows. The season can still be saved...

 

 

[noikeee]

May 2035

An unlucky defeat away to Sevilla, in which we missed a lot of chances, felt like the final nail in the coffin for the CL hopes. Still, we did what we could and would surprise with a 5-1 over Granada and a magnificent 4-1 win in the Bernabéu, with Real Madrid being direct opponents.

So we headed into the final match in 5th, 1 point behind Real Madrid and 2 points behind Real Sociedad. Both us and the 2 Reals played away from home in the last round - we needed one of them to slip up. Instead... it was us who slipped. Levante's weird square pitch proved a poor fit for my tactics and not even an inspired Daniel Fernández could save us. It's 5th place for us and no Champions League.

This is all very familiar - reminds me of my season after winning the first title with Derby, in which I also finished 5th. As such I was already sort of expecting this from the beginning of the season - we were unlikely to repeat the title now with the opponents paying us more respect, with extra matches to play, and also with my decision to use IR often. However finishing outside of the CL is a serious blow, as we will not have much extra money to play with next season. I feel like I'm still pretty early in the process of building this squad, so this seriously hurts the hopes of progress in the short term.

 

[noikeee]

Valencia - 2034/2035 - Season review

After the heights of 33/34 winning the title and reaching the cup final, this time it's a disappointing season as we don't make it to Champions League qualification and finish only 5th. The cup was also pretty disappointing with an early exit, and the season's only saving grace was our Champions League performance in which we made it out of the groups, the first time this has happened for Valencia at least since I started my career 18 years ago.

Statistics and best 11

 

Top 5 players of the season

5. Javi Baena (MR, ML) - Not a super brilliant season but it still proved a good decision to pick up this winger on a free from Barcelona - he's now worth 50M€ (I wish I could sell him for that). 11 goals.

4. Marcelo Hernández (ST) - Dropped to a backup role as the starting duo of strikers became Raúl-Dani Fernandez, the Chilean was still highly dependable when called upon. 11 goals, 12 assists, 7.40 ratings. Might've been the last season for the club as he wants out and I agreed to sell him.

3. Raúl González (ST) - The player involved in the highest total number of goals, with an excellent 26 goals and 21 assists. He's dependable, but I feel perhaps still just a little notch below the level of player I want to properly challenge at the top of Spain and Europe.

2. Daniel Fernández (ST) - A very strong first season for the club for the Uruguayan, becoming top scorer with 29 goals, also got 13 assists, and a brilliant 7.72 ratings. I want to make him a star for the club for the entire next decade. Currently rated the best player at the club.

1. Rodrigo Durán (ML) - Despite how good Dani was upfront, it would be unfair to not highlight as player of the season, the extraordinary season that this experienced winger had. 9 goals, a brilliant 19 assists, and an even more amazing 7.88 ratings. I'm convinced the 2 months he missed due to injury cost us the Champions League spot.
 

Major youth prospects

Walter Rodríguez (19, SPA) (DR, DC, WBR) - An utterly brilliant signing from my HOYD last Summer, that I have already promoted to the first team, thanks to a bit of a crisis on the DR position. I'm not entirely sure he's a future world class player but he might not be too far from that.

Juanma (18, SPA) (ST) - Developing but perhaps a little slowly? He did get a satisfying 18 goals and 10 assists for Valencia Mestalla on the 2nd tier, but I was expecting a little more in his attributes by now. Still has top potential according to my staff.

Néstor YP34A (17, SPA) (ST) - Juanma's problem is that Néstor, last year's youth intake star, is just as good or maybe even slightly better. I've only just promoted him to Valencia Mestalla but I think his future is nicer.
 

Career progress table

 

[noikeee]

European football - 2034/2035

UEFA Champions League

It's a repeat of the 2030/2031 final, Schalke beating PSG again, and grabbing their 3rd European title - they're becoming more and more Europe's biggest club. The Bundesliga in general seems to be having a great time, with 2 all-Bundesliga quarter-finals.

England

 

Zinedine Zidane almost gets Derby back to the top, but he loses to Villa in the last round, and that hands the title to Igor Tudor's Man City - by a single point.

Germany

 

6th title in a row for Schalke, adding an European title on top... another vintage season for them. However, Bayern seem to be resurfacing, finishing just 3 points behind this time, and coming up strong in Europe as well.

France

 

Yet another PSG title, the 4th on a row. Marseille come relatively close but ultimately the familiar status quo prevails.

Spain

 

My Valencia drops to 5th as Barça shoots back to the top of the table, winning their first title in 6 years. Sevilla are a surprise package emerging as Barça's closest challengers, and Sociedad also finishes ahead of Real Madrid.
 

Italy

 

Juve retake the title away from Milan, as Serie A seems to be declining in reputation. Roma tank to a disappointing 10th place.
 

Portugal

 

Surprise - Sporting wrestle the title away from Benfica. Braga beats Porto to 3rd place again, it's been a very long time now since Porto won a title, 10 years. I'm almost tempted to go there and fix that but for now I think I'm remaining in Spain.

[deltablue]

Good to see Schalke successful again. I've always wanted to try them sometime.

[noikeee]

4 hours ago, deltablue said:

Good to see Schalke successful again. I've always wanted to try them sometime.

It's sort of strange, I've never seen them this good in any career ever. I don't like them (I fancy Dortmund) so have certainly thought of moving to Germany to stop this heresy from happening.

[turnip]

I had a save in FM17 where Schalke were the third best team in Germany - behind myself (Rostock) and Bayern.

[gosam]

Any chance you could post your manager attributes? I'm quite curious to see how much they improved given your successes.

[noikeee]

4 minutes ago, gosam said:

Any chance you could post your manager attributes? I'm quite curious to see how much they improved given your successes.

They're surprisingly a little rubbish.

2 hours ago, turnip said:

I had a save in FM17 where Schalke were the third best team in Germany - behind myself (Rostock) and Bayern.

I'd take that over the current situation. Managing Rostock sounds fun. 

[noikeee]

Pre-season 2035/2036

 

 

Now that's what you call transfers. I wasn't really expecting to sell players yet we made a pile of money. Montpellier alone (they're tycoon-owned) poached 2 of our most valuable guys: promising forward Moussa Koné went for 45,5M€ (a deal that can still reach 62M€ AND has a 40% profit of next sale clause on top of that) and midfielder Mattia Magli went for his release clause of 33,5M€. They were both class, but if you consider that Koné had a couple of undesirable traits (inconsistent, doesn't enjoy big matches), and Magli was already 28 years old, AND both of them were hired on frees last year, it's spectacular profit.

We also sold a couple of other important players - Chilean forward Marcelo Hernández got us a lot of goals 2 years ago but he wanted a new challenge and he was a team leader, so I could not stand in front of his desire to leave - off to AEK for 11M€. And centre-back José Ramón Martínez, notable for being very good except lacking bravery badly, is gone for 18M€. Another CB, Nick Egermann who had a great season for us 2 years ago, is also gone. In total we made a brilliant 122M€ in sales.

And we took 55M€ of that money to go get some players as well:
 

I needed a backup keeper and Barça was selling one, but I think he might just become the starter? I've been trying to develop young Czech Filip Capek in goal for the last 2 seasons, but he doesn't convince me. I think this guy's skills look superior. 
 

The first of 3 (!) CBs that I hired to improve one of the weakest areas in my squad. He looks class apart from average jumping. Thanks Real Madrid (they let him go for 9.75M€). Has quite a bit of potential to still develop.
 

The second of the CBs. Spanish too. Almost the same fee - 9,5M€.
 

The 2 Spanish CBs are excellent but I could still grab this Serbian for 6,5M€ from Monaco. Also space to still develop in potential. Also brilliant, if the tackling is a little low. I'm finding it very hard to pick which 2 of these 3 guys should play.
 

Picked up for just 925K€, it's a truly wonderful deal as he's a wonderkid and my staff tells me he has 4* of PA + 1* black star. Unfortunately he can't play for us just yet - I'd maxed out my non-EU slots. I sent him off on loan to Villarreal for now, which means he remains in Spain and should help him get Spanish nationality in 2 years time.
 

The most expensive signing of the window, 13,25M€ from PSG. I really had to pick up a left-back because Saúl Lara's contract had expired. Ryan is not amazing but pretty good and can also cover the RB position in which we're also struggling a little (it's unfortunate that I could not find a place in the squad for Luis Rodriguez above).
 

One of those magic free tranfers - worth 57M€ immediately. I'm not quite sure about that valuation as I don't think he's THAT good, but I do expect him to slot in as the most attacking of my midfield duo. An aggression of 3 is the one thing that makes me look at him with suspicion. We play somewhat aggressive football with a bit of pressing so this is a misfit.
 

This is a player I don't expect much from, but came in on a free, so there's little downside. Adds depth for the wings.
 

The new forward to replace the departing Marcelo Hernández and Moussa Koné, is the guy that fills in the 3rd non-EU slot (the other 2 being filled by last year's signings Daniel Fernández, also a striker, and Hernan Ramirez, a MC). I highly doubt I'll regret activating the 10M€ release clause of this solid Brazilian striker. For now the main striker duo should continue Dani Fernández-Raul, but I'm wondering whether I should go with Dani-Vladimir instead.
 

I continue picking up some cheap kids for the future, and will screenshot just 2 of them, this Portuguese striker being the first. 150K€. Easily worth it, no downside. The potential is 4* + 1* black star...
 

Another mildly promising kid I poached.

Squad

 

I'm not sure there's much of an upgrade to last year's squad here, but it's much, much more to my liking. It's completely rejuvenated as some aging players were let go - I didn't mention it above but I let the contracts of Saúl Lara and Ruben Sales run out. They were mere backups by now, on the wrong side of 30... and wildly overpaid, the 2 highest paid players on the squad! We're saving money on wages now, have more depth, have a much younger squad. It sets things up for the future much better and I finally feel like I'm going in the right direction here.
 

Fixtures

.... just the routine 16-0.

The goal this season, obviously, is to return to the Champions League. The massive sales of Magli and Koné masked what could've been a big financial problem by not being in the CL this year, we really do need to be there to get the club going forward. I'm not so sure about the title but I certainly want to be closer there. Also the Europa League could be a nice distraction this season, it could be a decent opportunity to get something there, let's see.

[noikeee]

Promising midfielder. Had just recalled him after a year out on loan to Betis, planning him to use him in the cup, in the Europa League, and as 1st backup. Massive blow to the bloke's career...

I might have to still hire another midfielder then. This is 2 days before the transfer window deadline so there's still time. Just.

[noikeee]

August 2035

 

(Transfers)

In this last week of the transfer window, I loaned out a LOT of kids, got 1M€ for a Valencia Mestalla player, and then... hired this guy.

No homophobic jokes, okay? It's only a shame during his career he never got to play with Junior Cocks. Funny name aside, his skills are no joke - slots in immediately as one of the most talented players in the entire squad, and that is why he becomes the most expensive signing of the season at 23,5M€, necessary after the injury to Edu Santolaya. My only doubt on this French kid is my scouts warned me he's inconsistent.

 

A good start with 2 wins! Vladmir scored on his debut, and Dani Fernández has started the season on great form as well.

The Europa group is out:

I could've done without facing RB Leipzig (there were certainly better top seeds to play against!) but it's definitely a group we should qualify out of.

 

 

[gosam]

10 hours ago, noikeee said:

They're surprisingly a little rubbish.

Looks like SI still haven't fixed the issue with Adaptability and Discipline never increasing. I mean, Henrique has been to Greece, Denmark, Russia, England and Spain, with multiple tactical changes on the way. That definitely warrants a much higher adaptability score.

[noikeee]

2 hours ago, gosam said:

Looks like SI still haven't fixed the issue with Adaptability and Discipline never increasing. I mean, Henrique has been to Greece, Denmark, Russia, England and Spain, with multiple tactical changes on the way. That definitely warrants a much higher adaptability score.

Yeah that does look a little wrong.

[noikeee]

I ****ing hate international breaks - and the idiots who make the footballing calendar at the Spanish federation. 15 boring days without a match. Then this:

[noikeee]

September 2035

 

In a surprise opposite situation of last year, we did fine against the smaller teams here... and not so much against the big teams, to put it mildly. A 3-3 home draw with Sociedad was a little disappointing but at least a fair result for what happened on the pitch... because on the Bernabéu it was a bizarre show as the stats indicate a very even match with an equal amount of chances and shots on target, yet we ended slaughtered 5-0.

Yet we were fine against Gijón and Celta and also started the Europa League with a predictably easy 5-0 win in Serbia. We top the Europa group and are only 3 points from the top on the league so all feels okay for now. On the cup we will start against lower league Izarra.

 

 

[noikeee]

We're making players, or at least their reputations - just put 2 guys in 2 highly rated national teams for the first time, midfielder Hernán Ramirez and forward Vladimir. Centre-back Iker Palacios also got called up for Spain but just missed out on his first cap so far.

 

edit: scratch that, Iker Palacios actually got his first cap for Spain too! The match was later so confused me. Congrats to all 3 players! And Raúl Gonzalez (Argentina) and Vladimir both got their first goals too!

[noikeee]

October 2035

 

A good month except for one horrible match. In a freak reoccurrence of the Santiago Bernabéu match in September, we were again slaughtered, this time by RB Leipzig, in another match in which the stats looked much different, this time we even had many more chances than our opponents, including 6 CCCs! All for nothing to lose 0-4.

I took some lessons from it and tweaked things during the match against Sevilla, trying to come up with a better "big game" tactic. It seemed to work. We breezed through the rest of the month, moving up to 3rd in the league, 2 points behind leaders Real Madrid, and also in a good position in the Europa group after a 5-1 win in Denmark - a match that youth academy graduate Néstor YP34A will not forget, as he scored twice on his senior squad debut! It was only a 2-0 win in the cup against minnows Izarra, but that tie looks comfortably settled as well.
 

 

[noikeee]

I've got good memories from my FM15 days with Lyon, but now is not the time to move back there.

This start of the season has re-ignited my interest in Valencia a bit which had wandered somewhat last year. I can see myself staying until we win the Champions League now, which was always the original goal - provided it doesn't take me a lifetime.

[noikeee]

The kids seem to like to entertain!

Valencia Mestalla are doing great - after winning promotion to the Liga 1 2 3 (2nd tier) 2 years ago, and finishing 11th in it last year, they're now 4th. Néstor YP34A and this Summer's signing Paulo Gomes are particularly doing fine:

[noikeee]

November 2035

A perfect month! Admitedly this was 5 pretty easy matches but still nice to see. The 8-1 (!) slaughtering of Midtjylland qualified us out of the Europa groups, and we backed that up with another huge win over Napredak. And those 2 were not the only huge wins of the month as we also smashed Málaga away. Up to 2nd in the league, and we're starting to emerge as Real Madrid's only challengers for the title. A more difficult month of December in which we'll have to play Atlético and Barcelona will be the real test for that.

 

[noikeee]

Come on, just one more win against Atlético next....

[noikeee]

Seriously? Of all the teams we could face, Man Utd?

[noikeee]

December 2035

The winning run is over but we did break that record - it was a total of 14 matches won in a row by the end. We've been generally less spectacular this month but still doing the business, even when it takes a 91th minute winner like against Eibar - my gamble to play the backups 11 there paid off. Home draws with Villarreal (we had a man sent off) and Barcelona (ridiculously unlucky, one of those matches we had craploads of chances) have meant lost points, however. 

As it stands at the end of the calendar year, it's a wonderful 13W-3D-1L record in the league, far superior than the season in which we were crowned champions, but Real Madrid are doing even better, on bonkers form, 1 point ahead of us with a game in hand. Sociedad are also not too far from us, but the rest see us at a large distance. I feel confident now, and believe we can fight both Reals to the title until the very end.

Meanwhile, we progress in both Europa League and Copa del Rey. The earlier 0-4 home defeat to Leipzig ultimately meant we finished the group in 2nd even if we won all other matches including the one in Germany, and that resulted in an extremely difficult draw for the next round in Man Utd. In the cup, we play Celta now, after kids Paulo Gomes and Juanma scored their first Valencia goals in the tie vs Izarra.

And now January promises to be a struggle to hold on to all my talents, as all the big clubs are hovering around our stars. Just look at the list of promises I've had to make...

 

[noikeee]

Ballon d'Or 2035

 

It's an all-Bundesliga top 3, representing a league that seems to be on the rise. Valiente grabs the 2nd consecutive award after winning the Champions League for Schalke, and his team-mate Juan García comes 2nd. I'm a bit surprised that Juan Garcia has never been mentioned here before, he's a totally insane winger - I nearly had to face him in the league a couple of years ago but Schalke snapped him from Real Madrid by 109M€ - worth it!! Former winner of the award and double World Cup winner Nico Dieck comes 3rd, a player that has had a wonderful career almost entirely for Bayern, except he coincided with a period in which Bayern are winning nothing!

[noikeee]

[noikeee]

January 2036

 

(Transfers)

Not much going on here, we again loaned out forward Pedro (losing space as a backup with the emergence of all the young strikers shining for Valencia Mestalla), we sold a kid and loaned out a few other kids.

Smashing it! Another perfect month! We dance past two cup rounds with 4 wins over fellow La Liga sides, to make it to a semi-final against Real Madrid. And we turn up the pressure on Real Madrid on the league too with another 4 wins - we turn down the gap to just 2 points, although Sociedad are following us and remain just 2 points from ourselves as well. The club record of consecutive unbeaten matches is now up to 25!!

February promises to be absolutely explosive: we face Sociedad and Real Madrid for the league back-to-back in 2 absolute key matches, with both legs of the Real Madrid cup semi-final right in between as well. AND there's the Europa League tie against Man Utd too. I only hope this isn't the point of the season in which we lose momentum, that happened quite often at Derby at around February/March/April. Even if that happens again this season now in Spain, for now we're enjoying our moment of success.

 

[noikeee]

Tactics update

Things have changed tactically again the last few months, and it's time to have a look at it.

Plan A
 

 

The main difference here, from the Valencia tactic I previously shown the last time, is the introduction of a second IW/A on the right instead of the previously used Support duty. It was a nice idea in theory to have the right winger more cautious than the left one, to provide some variation of play and not make our playing style so rushed. But in reality, over the years I never really got as much performance from the RW as the LW, not even when I had a sensational player like Victor Hugo for Derby. This switch of duty immediately improved the RW performances.

Meanwhile I noticed our super high press wasn't really working at Valencia, at least not as consistently as I wanted. We got our defenders too easily pulled out of position. As such, I got rid of "close down more" TI. But I only want the defenders to be a little more cautious than the rest, so I added "close down more" to the wingers and "mark tighter" to the strikers.

Plan B
 

Plan A is working great specially against the smaller teams, it seems to break down defences spectacularly well. However I found it could be VERY hit and miss against the big sides, as proven by the incredible defeats to Real Madrid (0-5 away) and RB Leipzig (0-4 at home) earlier this season. I needed a new plan B for the big matches then.
 

 

First thing that had to be done was drop mentality one notch from Attacking to Control. In those big defeats we were missing an absolute criminal amount of clear cut chances and half-chances. I find this is somewhat linked to mentality which makes players far too rushed so dropping it was a necessity. To compensate, the CF/S becomes a CF/A to ensure we have someone running past the defence (happens naturally to a CF/S on as high a mentality as Attacking).

There was another problem, however. On plan A we're now on a somewhat intermediate defending stance, where we do not press particularly super high, but we do not keep shape particularly well neither, with no help in front of defence (no DM) and the still somewhat natural high press of Attacking mentality (plus the tighter marking TI!). So we kind of rely on our defenders winning individual duels. This works alright against smaller teams who do not commit much to attack and are lesser talented, but against the big sides it was suicidal - the 4-2-3-1 in particular seemed to break our defence far too easily. So I decided, for plan B, to commit much more to a solid low block. So in comes DMs instead of MCs, and in comes the "close down less" TI (although the 2 wingers and 2 forwards retain the closing down PIs).  I also dropped "use tighter marking".

However, I found this could also make us a bit too deep and cornered in our own area so there was one other subtle tweak - I added "push higher up". So the end result is the defensive line is high-ish but we do not like rushing out of positions, as the back 4 and 2 DMs like to stay put instead. So far seems to work fine at nullifying these 4-2-3-1s by big, talented teams. 

[noikeee]

The astonishingly difficult calendar we're about to face now in February...

[noikeee]

By the way, an important note on the tactics that I don't think I've emphasised enough... I'm using very much classic wingers on either wing even if it's the "inverted winger" role... run-and-cross guys on their preferred foot wing, that definitely seems to work best. They play like narrower wingers who contribute a little to central play and show up in finishing positions often (by contrast to normal winger role which just puts them way too far wide), it's ****ing great.

[noikeee]

OH **** OH **** OH ****. FFS.

[noikeee]

One of my greatest wins in FM ever. This Real side has been amazing - had not lost a league match since the 1st round against Barcelona. They had smashed us earlier on 5-0 at the Bernabéu. With this we overtake them for first place..... and get the better head-to-head result.... for which we needed to win exactly by 6 goals, to compensate for that 5-0 defeat.

[noikeee]

Oh **** off, I won the league for the first time in 30 years. How can our reputation be lower now than before then? What rubbish.

[noikeee]

That was a ****ing sweet deal, got him on a free, was rubbish for us, sold him for good money, still getting money years later...

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Brilliant result against Real Madrid! Hopefully ye can hold on to top spot.

[kidthekid]

3 hours ago, noikeee said:

Oh **** off, I won the league for the first time in 30 years. How can our reputation be lower now than before then? What rubbish.