FM19: Olympique Lyonnais

[rhblackpool]

Anyone else got a save going with Lyon?  Never usually stray from the English leagues in FM but this year I wanted to do something different.

 

Currently half way through the first season and it's going a lot better than expected; 1st in the league having only conceded 9 goals & topping the CL group stage unbeaten with Man City in the group.

Aim was to break PSG's dominance in the league and win the CL within 3 seasons but with the league form and results against Man City in the CL I think both of these can be done in the first season! 

[Jean-Luc]

Haven't started a save with them, but there's some cracking talent in the Lyon squad. Enjoy!

[garufa]

I recently finished my first season at the OL and it could not have been easier.  First place in league with 15 points of advantage over PSG and champions league winner. I had luck in UCL draw after the group stage, beating shakhtar donetsk, Valencia, Bayern and Roma.

[Dirty_ACE]

4 hours ago, garufa said:

I recently finished my first season at the OL and it could not have been easier.  First place in league with 15 points of advantage over PSG and champions league winner. I had luck in UCL draw after the group stage, beating shakhtar donetsk, Valencia, Bayern and Roma.

Did you end up winnning CL?

Can you post some pics of your tactical setup and players?

[garufa]

hace 19 horas, Dirty_ACE dijo:

Did you end up winnning CL?

Can you post some pics of your tactical setup and players?

 

I bought Musacchio and Diakhaby, bouth in transfer list, to strengthen the defense.

Nasri for free is a good backup

 

 

I used to play with this 4-2-3-1

[nico_france]

Lyon squad is really solid from the start, especially upfront, really good players

Worth mentionning your monster midfielder Ndombele, what a cracking player !

Really looking forward for your saves guys

 

[garufa]

Ndombele, Aourar, Tousart... All cracking players.

Defense is the only weak part in the initial squad

[Rollin93]

Decided after enjoying my fm18 save so much I will start a fm19 save wish me luck!

[Ronaldo Beckham]

Yeah I am going to start a new Lyon save soon enough, they were my favorite team to manage last year.

[Vega09]

The squad looks really good, loads of good young players, I'm quite tempted to give them a go soon!

Any recommendations for CB's as that appears the weak link in the squad? And do you think it would be possible to get someone like Pavard to move to the club?

[Ronaldo Beckham]

Wesley Hoedt, Wallace from Lazio, Mangala on loan from Man City are options

On my current Lyon save I signed Kenny Lala, Prince-Desir Gouano, Aubrey Modiba to help with the depth issue in my defense, I also have used Aour as a Libero in a 3 man central defense with Denayor and Mangala.

[Carlf788]

Auoar is a rolls Royce signed him for 45m as Marseille 

[Vega09]

Ive started a new game with Lyon and going well so far. 

I'm playing a 4-2-3-1 as in the screenshot. I may play around with 4-3-3 and see how Fekir gets on in the AP-A role

In terms of backups there doesn't seem to be a natural backup for Tousart within the squad, apart from Ferri who I will look to sell. Caqueret looks more suited to be a DLP with his physical stats. Or have you been able to retrain him as a BWM?

Scouting around most of the DM's I have seen are also best suited as a DLP, do you have any recommendations?

 

[Ronaldo Beckham]

Anyone managing Lyon had any success with some of the young players there, Alexis Martial, Mathis Louiserre, Maxence Caqueret, Thomas Oulembo, Oumar Solet, Lilian Perrier, Pierre Kalulu, Kevin Rodet, Modest Duku, Maxwell Cornet, Martin Terrier, Yann Gboho, Sofian Augarreau, Titoun Thomas, Djabrail Dib, El Hadji Coly and Amine Gouri are all good to great players for the future.

I have made a few signings like Fafont, Tonalli etc but I want to try play as many youth players as possible, I have just finished season 1 and ended 3rd in the league.

I have sold Fekir to Arsenal for 48m, I also sold Bertrand Traore for 49m to Real Madrid.

I love a save with Lyon, I think I will do several saves with them on FM2019 as I always want to go back to them or Ajax.

[Rollin93]

Sorry for poor photo but currently on a very good run and joint top with PSG 

[RCCook]

On 16/12/2018 at 12:59, Vega09 said:

Ive started a new game with Lyon and going well so far. 

I'm playing a 4-2-3-1 as in the screenshot. I may play around with 4-3-3 and see how Fekir gets on in the AP-A role

In terms of backups there doesn't seem to be a natural backup for Tousart within the squad, apart from Ferri who I will look to sell. Caqueret looks more suited to be a DLP with his physical stats. Or have you been able to retrain him as a BWM?

Scouting around most of the DM's I have seen are also best suited as a DLP, do you have any recommendations?

 

I had to muddle through the first season using Ferri or Cheikh as backups, but in season 2, I promoted Owusu from the reserves. He's been fairly solid thus far.

[Ronaldo Beckham]

Anyone managing Lyon I would look at signing Lucas Martinez Quarta from River Plate, he is a centre back who's value has doubled from the 10m I signed him for in the space of a few months.

Roger Assale is also a bargain from Young Boys, signed him for 11m and has banged the goals in after a slow start with 15 goals in 16 appearances in his 2nd season with me, playing in an advanced forward with a target man alongside him.

My biggest signing was Benjamin Pavard who I paid 40m but I don't regret it as he is an excellent Libero and has been playing really well, I have him with Mangala and Martinez Quarta. 

I sold Lucas Tousart mostly to incorporate other players like Tonalli, Cheikh, Ferri, Casqueret etc, I also sold him as Schalke offered me 28m and I thought that was a good deal, I also get 3m after 30 league games, 20% of any future transfer fee and 1.7m every season for the next 3 seasons, so happy with that deal.

I decided to switch Aouar from a Libero to a more familiar role as an advanced playmaker just behind the 2 strikers, He is my current best player with 6 goals and 7 assists, 3 man of the matches and an average rating of 7.46.

 

[Vega09]

8 hours ago, RCCook said:

I had to muddle through the first season using Ferri or Cheikh as backups, but in season 2, I promoted Owusu from the reserves. He's been fairly solid thus far.

Thanks, I will check him out! 

 

8 hours ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Anyone managing Lyon I would look at signing Lucas Martinez Quarta from River Plate, he is a centre back who's value has doubled from the 10m I signed him for in the space of a few months.

Roger Assale is also a bargain from Young Boys, signed him for 11m and has banged the goals in after a slow start with 15 goals in 16 appearances in his 2nd season with me, playing in an advanced forward with a target man alongside him.

My biggest signing was Benjamin Pavard who I paid 40m but I don't regret it as he is an excellent Libero and has been playing really well, I have him with Mangala and Martinez Quarta. 

I sold Lucas Tousart mostly to incorporate other players like Tonalli, Cheikh, Ferri, Casqueret etc, I also sold him as Schalke offered me 28m and I thought that was a good deal, I also get 3m after 30 league games, 20% of any future transfer fee and 1.7m every season for the next 3 seasons, so happy with that deal.

I decided to switch Aouar from a Libero to a more familiar role as an advanced playmaker just behind the 2 strikers, He is my current best player with 6 goals and 7 assists, 3 man of the matches and an average rating of 7.46.

 

Sounds good! What formation are you playing? 3-4-1-2?

[Ronaldo Beckham]

I am playing a 3-2-2-1-2 formation, so basically a 5-2-1-2 if that is easier, 3 centre man defense, 2 wing backs, 2 centre midfielders, one advanced playmaker just behind 2 strikers.

[CapaJr]

I’m tempted to start with them at one point but i feel its going to be really easy to dominate with them.

I mean their squad is crazy good, even their youngsters on the bench are mostly wonderkids!

[Rollin93]

12 hours ago, CapaJr said:

I’m tempted to start with them at one point but i feel its going to be really easy to dominate with them.

I mean their squad is crazy good, even their youngsters on the bench are mostly wonderkids!

I ended up stopping and done a Norwich save I won the league easily 

[Jogo Bonito]

Whilst killing time and planning my new EFL challenges once the update is out, I've finally started with OL. I've managed a lot of French clubs, but after years of intent, I'm finally going with OL for the first time. It's different for me to have such a transfer kitty, and seven new players have been recruited for £61 million with five leaving for £49 million. I've just played my Ligue 1 opener, so there may still be one or two more squad changes. Is anyone else active with them? 

[Speedylad123]

I’ve nearly finished my 2nd season with Lyon after winning the league 2 years on the bounce, surprisingly PSG finished 4th in the first season and were no threat at all to me, I pipped Monaco to the title by 1 point. I only bought one player in the first season in De Ligt and sold Rafael in January for 30m (thought it was a lot for a 29 year old I think he is) then went on to sell Depay for 70m after he won player of the year for me in my first season and brought back the French sensation Anthony Martial for 14m as he hadn’t played much in 2 years because of Alexis Sanchez I presume.

 

anyone with a Lyon save managed to get the best out of Amine Gouri? He starts the save with 8-9 month ACL injury and he hasn’t improved much since. I am playing him every other game and bringing him on as a sub as he is down on a lot of people’s lists for wonderkids.

[Jogo Bonito]

That's impressive to win the league twice. I'm really enjoying my time with OL so far (only October season 1),

Amine Gouri wasn't injured in my version and is in the U23 squad with 10 goals in 7 games and average rating 8.04 so far. He deserves a senior squad place, but I signed one of my must-buy players for this project (Mbaye Diagne) and a few others, so he hasn't had a chance yet.

[Toonarmyfc]

What has everyone done with backroom staff at Lyon? Overhaul or relatively the same? I’m always keen on Assistant Manager recommendations- I tend to use (need!) mine to have skills in Training and Tactics.

[Geordieboy52]

2nd season in my NUFC save Lyon beat PSG to the title.

[Jogo Bonito]

12 hours ago, Toonarmyfc said:

What has everyone done with backroom staff at Lyon? Overhaul or relatively the same? I’m always keen on Assistant Manager recommendations- I tend to use (need!) mine to have skills in Training and Tactics.

I haven't really done much with the staff, concentrating more on the players in season 1. So far, it's going well although turning a victory in to defeat against PSG probably means I'll be fighting to finish between 2nd and 4th. There's a long way to go though, so will update on results as I progress.

Below is the first transfer window activity. The main focus area was defence, as it was quite poor and I am happy with the four new arrivals (Todibo, Cisse, Konate, Rosier) and reasonable fees paid to strengthen this part of the side. Sissoko was a bargain buy and ideal for my 433 formation, whilst I was able to land two of the best wide attackers in France (Sarr and Pepe) for sensible money. I'm trying to turn the squad in to French and French-speaking African players only, hence the sale of Depay was an account balancing pleasure. Diagne met the transfer criteria., and he's a striker I admire a lot and really wanted to manage. I expected Dembele to make the central striker position his own, but he has been poor so Diagne has jumped ahead of him so far (Pepe, Cornet, Sarr and even Fekir can also pay the role if needed).

Season 1 summer transfer window

Big spenders!

And, erm, this one was then confirmed by Gerard Houllier...

But alas, it was only a new physio Clement Hazard

 

 

[Ronaldo Beckham]

I have always wanted Jogo to do a Lyon save, I can't wait to see who you bring in and how you get on with Lyon.

Try Traore as an advanced forward up front, you will thank you by the end of the season lol.

Also Aour is a pretty good Libero in the middle of defense as I tried him in that position for Lyon and done well.

[zlatanera]

I've decided to boot up a Lyon save after imitating Marco Giampaolo wasn't enough to interest me for a full season. Main inspiration is Ö-zil's Benfica thread, I'm going to turn us into a real youth powerhouse. I started on the Swiss league start date (4/6) which meant when I loaded it up that Gouiri is fit, which is handy. Playing a 433, a backup for Tousart and 3 new CBs are my priorities for the first window - potentially 4 CBs if I decide to retrain one to be my backup DM. 

I've nearly got to the end of the transfer window but I'll probably only do season summaries. We got given PSV's real life CL group:

[Geordieboy52]

I'm finding it harder than expected, not because of my team or necessarily PSG but the other teams in the league get better far quicker than any other league I've played because so many of them have top youth facilities and seem to recruit really shrewdly.  I am really enjoying it because of this.

[zlatanera]

On 02/04/2019 at 11:15, Geordieboy52 said:

I'm finding it harder than expected, not because of my team or necessarily PSG but the other teams in the league get better far quicker than any other league I've played because so many of them have top youth facilities and seem to recruit really shrewdly.  I am really enjoying it because of this.

How far are you in? That's good to hear, I know back on 16 I established a duopoly with PSG from 4th season onwards and the Italian league seems to lean towards that happening even now. 

[zlatanera]

So I started out trying to turn us into a possession club given we're not the tallest team even after I bought 3 giant CBs. In 14 games we'd kept 11 clean sheets but it was just a bit tiring, having to tweak all the time. I've since gone back to my Monaco tactic but adapted into a 433 as that's what I'd set up the squad for. In the 9 games since only 2 clean sheets but 21 goals. 

After 5 games our CL group was: Lyon (8), Barcelona (8), Spurs (7), Inter (3). We went into our home game against Barcelona missing Fekir, Memphis, Aouar and our first choice CB pairing yet still did this:

Our central defensive pairing of Zagadou (9 Acc, 15 Pace) and Marcelo (9 Acc, 10 Pace) should have been exposed yet Suarez ended up on a 6.3...I think they were so slow he couldn't time his runs right and just kept straying offside!

Did not see Barcelona being one of the DNQs!

[zlatanera]

Forgot about the joker transfer window...

at this stage he's pretty much guaranteed to score a hat-trick against us

[Geordieboy52]

13 hours ago, zlatanera said:

How far are you in? That's good to hear, I know back on 16 I established a duopoly with PSG from 4th season onwards and the Italian league seems to lean towards that happening even now. 

I'm in 2023 - finished 7th last year! OM, Monaco, PSG, ourselves, Rennes and LOSC were fighting it out for most honours.  There's been a front end tycoon at Chatereaux in Ligue 2 so they may be a force soon too.

[zlatanera]

5 hours ago, Geordieboy52 said:

I'm in 2023 - finished 7th last year! OM, Monaco, PSG, ourselves, Rennes and LOSC were fighting it out for most honours.  There's been a front end tycoon at Chatereaux in Ligue 2 so they may be a force soon too.

Oh that's cool, I guess Rennes' good finances are reflected better in this year's game than last year. LOSC are one of the two teams to beat me in the league so far. I've never had anyone get a tycoon takeover in any of my saves, I like that its a small club though rather than just strengthening Marseille or Monaco further. 

[Geordieboy52]

7 hours ago, zlatanera said:

Oh that's cool, I guess Rennes' good finances are reflected better in this year's game than last year. LOSC are one of the two teams to beat me in the league so far. I've never had anyone get a tycoon takeover in any of my saves, I like that its a small club though rather than just strengthening Marseille or Monaco further. 

there have been several: Antwerp and Beveren in Belgium and Portimoriense (sp) in Portugal are some of the smaller teams to have tycoons in my save.

[zlatanera]

Well, my first season isn't lacking competitiveness! 

I can't see it staying that way for more than a couple of weeks, given Marseille play PSG then, but we play Marseille in our 3rd-last game of the season which could end up being a title decider!

Also, this may be a significant reason for us being top on goal difference:

 

[zlatanera]

Clauses have become my friend this save, allowing me to re-sign Fekir and Lopes for £50k and £72k per week. The latest one is Memphis:

I gave Fekir the same competition clauses, I did not expect to already have paid out the CL semi-finals clause!

I've always been averse to them, but when you're not expecting to win everything it makes sense to have performance bonuses. 

[zlatanera]

We're also into the semi-finals of both the Champions League (playing Real Madrid) and Coupe de France (PSG, in between the two legs of the CL). I'm not going to mention what I think we can do... 

my (formerly Jurgen Klopp's) assistant has no such qualms!

Our u19s are also in the final of the u19 Champions League, playing Club Brugge u18s, and are 8 points clear of their rivals in the u19 National. Our reserves are top of the National 2 - A, 1 point clear of Monaco reserves and 11 ahead of Marseille reserves  

[zlatanera]

Lyon academy product Maolida doing his bit for our title challenge!

[zlatanera]

PSG bounced back from that hammering to scrape a 1-1 draw, drag us to extra time and then beat us 6-5 on penalties, with future Lyon player Adrien Rabiot denying us an opportunity at the treble by scoring the winning penalty. But, either side of that this happened:

Manchester United defeated Atlético in the other semi-final to prevent threepeat Madrid derby final, instead it will be The Anthony Martial Derby!

EDIT: I like to think that as we were playing Real Madrid i.e. "Royal Madrid", in France, that Jean-Michel Aulas ran  onto the pitch screaming "LA FRANCE EST UNE RÉPUBLIQUE!!!!"

[john1]

Superb win over Real Madrid!!

[zlatanera]

@john1 it gets better...

Obviously I'm absolutely thrilled at scoring 6!!! in a CL final, and also this kinda comes full circle in that the only other time I won the CL with Lyon was also against my own team Man Utd, but I have to feel sorry for Anthony Martial. He scored a hat-trick in a European Cup Final yet didn't win!

 

[john1]

Now that is a top notch result  

[Geordieboy52]

My first youth intake I got this lad - insane I know, I have had him in a mentoring group and he's gone from 'fickle' to resolute!  Chuffed to bits - so much so that I sold Fekir!

intake was classed as a 'golden generation' because I also got these 2 fellas:

 

 

 

 

 

[zlatanera]

2018/19 Season Summary

Obviously I've spoiled arguably the biggest success of the season, but I still thought I'd do my usual season overview thing.

The tactic will be found in this thread:

Denayer, Dubois and Dembélé are real-life transfers, but the rest is all me. First up I trimmed the squad by offloading 8 youth players whilst identifying targets for the area most significantly in need of upgrade - the defence. I'm going for a French and French-speaking African heritage bias, but if the next Juninho Pernambucano appears on my radar I won't say no. Jérémy Morel was small, slow and declining so I decided to forgo his mentoring potential in order to get a better CD, and ended up with 3 as I moved Denayer into the DM position. Zagadou and Aké shared LCB and Konaté shared RCB with Marcelo for half the season, then either Denayer or Solet. Kenny Tete threw a hissy fit at me declining a pathetic bid (£3m) for him so I negotiated a better selling price and brought in Aarons from Norwich, which I did not regret. Once the opportunity came up to sign Kephrem Thuram from Monaco I knew I had to have his brother, so Marcus was bought and immediately loaned back to Guingamp until the end of the season - he's scored 21 goals overall this year, but 2 were in the process of dumping us (and his brother) out of the Coupe de la Ligue! That would probably have been it but Marçal kicked off, unsettling his friends Rafael and Marcelo, so I got rid of all 3 of them, shifted Dubois to LB and brought in Mbabu.

As mentioned, Marcus Thuram dumped us out of the Coupe de la Ligue, but before that we got a tough draw against two top division teams in Bordeaux and Monaco, both easily dispatched with Bordeaux (and Guingamp in a slight miscalculation) not even warranting a full strength lineup. 

We played Bordeaux 4 times this season, putting 4, 3 and 5 past them (but also losing 3-1 in the league). The PSG game came in the middle of the CL semi-final and we just couldn't break them down as I played a strong lineup but also refused to play anyone with high injury risk. A good trade-off though, and our future player Adrien Rabiot scored in the final.

We won the league for the first time in 11 years! We were undefeated at home and racked up some spectacular wins such as 7-0 at Amiens, 6-1 at home to PSG and 6-0 at home to Angers, scoring the most goals but also conceding half as many as PSG, who had the 2nd best defensive record. Montpellier weirdly were the only team we didn't beat, holding us to 1-1 at home and 0-0 away. Also shout out to Stade de Reims, two-times European Cup runners up (number 1 and 4 of Real Madrid's 5 in a row at the beginning of the competition) who in a higher ranked league would be back in the competition. 

The first 3 group stage games were played with our possession tactic, and whilst beating Inter 3-0 is impressive ultimately the performances were only good in the first two thirds of the pitch and we were reliant on free kicks, so out the window it went and we started scoring! We scored 35 goals overall on the way to our maiden CL trophy, defeating teams who have 28 of them between them. I thought the Barcelona game would be the best, and it was certainly the most surprising result as only 2 of the 11 I put out were first choice, but that final was truly something special. 1-0, 1-2, 2-2, 2-3, 3-3 at the death and then 6-3 by the end of it all. All 9 goals came from open play too! After failing to win the CL for entire years with previous games, I've now done it in 3 saves which is fun

Overall we scored 145 goals in all competitions which is spectacular, with six players on double figures goals and four for assists:

Moussa Dembélé (29 Gls, 9 Ast)

Nabil Fekir (20 Gls, 10 Ast)

Bertrand Traoré (17 Gls, 10 Ast)

Tanguy Ndombele (13 Gls, 3 Ast)

Memphis (13 Gls, 8 Ast)

Maxwell Cornet (11 Gls, 4 Ast)

Houssem Aouar (5 Gls, 10 Ast)

Max Aarons (14 Ast)

The only non-GK to not contribute to a goal was Oumar Solet who only made 5 starts.

In terms of future planning I'm going to stick with this playing style but may move to a 4231, before doing an Overload 433 from season 3 if possible. We already have Adrien Rabiot joining on a free and young Thiago Almada coming in from Vélez at a tiny £1m, which was arranged when I didn't expect Memphis to sign on again. I've also got a mammoth contract offer out for Lacazette - £150k basic wage would blow our current top earner (Memphis, £77k) out of the water, as well as Rabiot's £80k. Corentin Tolisso is an option too if his asking price drops - it was £29m but he wanted a bigger club, now we've won the CL suddenly Bayern want £60m. I'm not letting them turn a profit on him, but if it drops back down I'll try again. I don't really need to sign anyone, but the dream is to have an entirely homegrown squad win the quadruple. 

We've got 3 players in the France squad: Moussa Dembélé, Nabil Fekir and Léo Dubois which is an achievement given how strong the nation is. 

Also, speaking of the future our reserves won the National 2 - A and our u19s won the u19 National - Group B and the u19 Champions League so certainly they're going places!

[Rasmus]

That’s very impressive. Interesting to see that Fekir scored so many goals as an APa. And which role did you use with Traoré? Do you see Memphis playing more like a traditional winger running to the byline, or does he cut more inside like an inside forward would?

[Geordieboy52]

FFS! 94 points this season, only to finish 2nd by 7 points

[zlatanera]

20 minutes ago, Geordieboy52 said:

FFS! 94 points this season, only to finish 2nd by 7 points

If this was Facebook, I would sad react. That sucks. I had a couple of seasons like that on FM18. 

[zlatanera]

43 minutes ago, Rasmus said:

That’s very impressive. Interesting to see that Fekir scored so many goals as an APa. And which role did you use with Traoré? Do you see Memphis playing more like a traditional winger running to the byline, or does he cut more inside like an inside forward would?

Traore subbed for either Fekir or Dembélé, and even for the last three games of the season play in Memphis' role, getting 3 goals and 2 assists in that role (1 of each in the CL final off the bench). Memphis tends to stay wide until he's about level with the edge of the penalty area then cut inside to either cross, pass, or keep going and then shoot. He sucked until January because he got injured just before we changed the tactic, otherwise he would have probably reach 20 for the season. Of course we also have so many counter-attacks that our forwards pop up anywhere. Fekir in particular can be found basically anywhere between the right touchline and the left half-space.