FM22: Manchester United: Never ending transition

[Draakon]

I'm playing an Ajax save at the moment, but I thought I'd share this. It's Summer 2022 now and ManU (AI) have been raiding Ajax a lot, in addition to Donny van de Beek who has now returned from loan.

• I sold Noussair Mazraoui to ManU in Summer 2021 (actually good deal for them, because his contract was to run out and it was a bargain at £13,5m). He played 30 games in the league in his first season with rather mediocre 6.90 av. rating
• In Summer 2022 they signed goalkeeper Andre Onana (who had decided to leave Ajax) for free in 2022 and promised  he'll be an 'important player' while still retaining David De Gea. I smell conflict in the dressing room in October the latest
• another addition was Jurrien Timber from us for £46m. Wonderkid and one for the future.

Besides those transfers, they appointed Zinedine Zidane as their manager in December 2021, but finished 9th in the Premier League nevertheless, so... usual ManU stuff.

[Chapman7]

1 hour ago, Draakon said:

 

• I sold Noussair Mazraoui to ManU in Summer 2021 (actually good deal for them, because his contract was to run out and it was a bargain at £13,5m). He played 30 games in the league in his first season with rather mediocre 6.90 av. rating

 

6.90 rating is good rating to get anything over is something on a great season level, wouldn’t say mediocre. 
 

But on United raiding Ajax wonder if it’ll be a thing Ten Hag may look at doing over the years to come 🤔

[Draakon]

Well, to be fair - player rating is in correlation with team results. So, for a team that finishes 9th, 6.90 is a good rating. In the title winning team it's probably one of the worst average ratings in the first eleven.

[Billy0810]

Just started one final save with Utd. Finished 5th in season one with no transfers. Set Mata, Matic, Cavani and Lingard to be released. 
Keeping Pogba for now managed to get his contract down to 125k. 
Also looking to sell Telles, Martial, Pereira, Maguire, Bailly, Williams and a few more. 
 Agreed free deals for Kamara, Eriksen, Belotti 

Main 3 targets are Rice, De Ligt and Ward Prowse (For rb role) Not sure if De Ligt will want to come but can definitely try

Next season looking for a new main striker, goalkeeper. Keeping an eye on Bellingham and Nkunku

Going to try and give youth plenty of playing time 

Any suggestions on what else to do with the save??

 

[ctfm2012]

Started first season with United.  3 players that i bought were Hazard, Sanchez & Nunez.  ending up winning the season with 101 points and Ronaldo scoring 47 goals in 35 games.  Now second season in and time to say good bye to the oldies. 

[Smaldini]

This is the fourth and final United save I've started this year. We won the treble, although it wasn't the '99 special. Arsenal knocked us out of the FA Cup in the fifth round, and they went on to win the competition beating Luton of all teams in the final. In the Carabao Cup we faced a better Championship side in the form of Fulham, who we beat 4-2. The league was interesting because Liverpool pushed us all the way to the end of the season, usually for me on FM the league is wrapped up earlier regardless of whether I win it or not. Final day was a bit nervy because Wan-Bissaka was sent off for a two-footed lunge, so we had to play 60+ minutes with ten men and I had the scores up showing that Liverpool were winning their game. Fortunately we scored twice from set-pieces, N'Dicka nodded in from a throw-in and Varane did the same from a corner. Brentford pulled a goal back but it was into injury time so they didn't have time to equalise.

As for the Champions League, we faced Milan in the final, who we also shared a group with. We won the final 2-1 but it wasn't our best performance, and both sides were wasteful in front of goal. That completed a hat-trick of England v Italy finals, with Leicester beating Lazio and Spurs beating Roma too. Ronaldo had an excellent season despite the nerf, particularly in Europe where he scored 13 goals.

 

 N'Dicka has so far been a good signing, but Young Player of the Season could easily have gone to one of two academy players that performed above expectations. The first one is Noam Emeran, who I was forced into debuting at home to Newcastle earlier on in the season due to several injuries in attack....he scored a hat-trick. It wasn't a one off performance, and over the rest of the year he had more goal contributions than higher rated youngsters Elanga, Hannibal and Shoretire combined. The second player is Hugill, who stepped up as Ronaldo's understudy after I agreed to sell Cavani in January (he'd been moaning about a lack of games so I just let him go early). I dropped Edi from the squad completely in the late December games and put Hugill in his place, who was able to score off the bench in his second appearance. He was able to score 8 more times in the second half of the season, with his biggest goal coming in the CL semi-final against PSG (first leg we won 2-1, he opened the scoring in the second which finished with the same scoreline). 

Despite our success there was a lot of inconsistent performers, some of which was down to injuries. Sancho had a stop-start year and picked up 8 injuries, including a torn thigh muscle that put him out for two months. The exact same injury happened to Bruno in January, which is why I decided to bring in Asensio. We also had five different players seeing red (a record for me) so I found myself having to rotate lineups even more often than I usually do. 

I probably won't bring in too many youngsters this summer, as between the ones already at the club, those I've signed myself and an excellent youth intake; the future is looking bright. I've got Boubacar Kamara arriving on a free (he'll be taking Pogba's number), and he'll be joined by fellow Frenchie Mbappe who no one else approached in January for some reason (he had all the big clubs trying to get him in the other saves I did, with him always agreeing to join Pool)...so that's already a strong start to the window. My outgoings will determine whether I bring anyone else in.  

[Bruce Drundrige]

What the heck am I supposed to do with 30+ scouts 

[Ronaldo Beckham]

2 hours ago, Bruce Drundrige said:

What the heck am I supposed to do with 30+ scouts 

Send each one to the best 30 countries. 1 scout per country.

[Woolly]

On 16/05/2022 at 06:05, Bruce Drundrige said:

What the heck am I supposed to do with 30+ scouts 

Use them then cut down the number down by getting rid of a couple of the poorest by letting their contracts run out. It may take a couple of seasons but it will be worth it in the long term.

[sedge11]

So I started my Man Utd save again, as previously I using an update using the real results, and I played the final 6 games finishing in 6th place.

So onto the rebuild, here were my transfers for season 2.

Nunez, Kamara and Timber were signed again as I did last time, but this time going for Antony over Nkunku and signing N'Dicka for another cb.

Lots of outs, I don't think I really need to explain any of them, Pogba also left joining PSG on a free. Martial who joined Juventus on loan, had played the required games so that deal will now become permanent with Juventus paying us 26 mil for him.

So onto the season, defensively we were brilliant and ended with the best defence in the league. We only conceded 23 goals and De Gea got the golden glove with 23 clean sheets, however our problem came with scoring, we had 6 0-0 draws in the season and ultimately that cost us as Man city ran away with the title.

We did win a trophy though, winning the fa cup beating Man city 2-1 in the final. We had a fairly easy run to the final, though Lincoln gave us a tight battle that went to extra time.

In the other comps we lost straight away in the carabao cup to Brentford. Europa league we got some tough draws, but beat Barcelona and Roma on our way to the semi final. We then had Spurs in the semi final, we beat them 2-1 in the 1st leg, before 2 late goals for spurs in the 2nd leg saw us crash out, which was incredibly frustrating.

We struggled with injuries throughout the season with Bruno, Timber and Antony all spending time out, while Dalot, Kamara and Shaw also picked up a couple of suspensions.

Nunez was our top scorer with 25 goals in all, but Garner was my best player. As you could see he got the most assists in the league and he became my 1st choice midfielder, he was simply brilliant.

Garner wasn't the only young player to breakthrough, with Mengi, Hannibal and Garnacho all getting plenty of game time, especially in the europa legue group stage. A few players did struggle though, with Bruno having the worst season I have ever had with him but still got 7 goals and 9 assists, Antony struggled in his 1st season so hopefully he can settle in better next season. Rashford and Elanga also had poor seasons.

N'dicka turned out to be a great buy at cb as well.

We had a pretty good youth intake as well, but with 1 standout player, who looks like he could become a great player.

Now onwards to the summer and season 3.

 

[sedge11]

So season 3.

Firstly the summer.

We brought in more than we spent. I wasn't going to sell Shaw, but Chelsea came in for him and he kicked up a fuss and wanted to leave, so Wijndal came in as my new 1st choice LB. I wanted a world class cm, my 1st choice was De Jong but he wasn't interested, so SMS came in. Johnstone came in as my new back up keeper, comes in on half the wages Henderson was on, with 6 mil once he plays 50 games.

In January we brought a young regen from Birmingham, who is a RB, he doesn't look great at the moment but the scouts reports were raving about him. I also sold McNeil and Iqbal.

So the season was a frustrating one, a very frustrating one.

To sum it up we had 7 red cards throughout the season, and this really cost us.

So we reached the carabao cup final, Wijndal got injured after I had made all 3 subs, so I am sure you can imagine what happened.

That's right, City scored a 97th min winner .

Next up the league with 4 games to go we were 4 points off City, with them to play next. A win would put us right in the fight, lose and the title was basically over.

To say this was one of the worst games I have ever managed on fm would be saying something. It started badly after Sterling scored after 20 seconds and it just got worse.

2 RED CARDS in the 1st half , they then just destroyed us.

This obviously meant the title race was over, and city went and won the league. Yet as your see above Haaland got 51 league goals for City and 71 in all comps, I have never seen anything like it for an AI team, its difficult to compete with that. My highest scorer in the league was Nunez with 18.

We also reached the champs league final, beating Ajax, Liverpool and Barca on the way, we faced Spurs in the final. Ronaldo in his final season before retirement had 13 goals in the champs league this season and was the top goal scorer, could we end the season on a high and end Ronaldo's career with another champs league trophy.

Well no we couldn't, a frustrating end to a very frustrating season. Fair play to spurs they beat Bayern, PSG and Real Madrid on their way to the final, but seriously bottling it to Spurs is a low .

Ronaldo in his final season got 28 goals in all comps, with Nunez getting 26 goals. Garner again getting double figures in assists. N'dicka also continues to be my best defender. SMS though got 3 red cards had a really good season.

However Wijndal just didn't work out and had 5 separate injuries, Varane along with some suspensions also spent some time out injured. Rashford missed 3 months with a fractured leg right when he was on top form, and Laird who broke into the 1st team and was playing well, then picked up a 3 month injury at the end of the season as well.

Last season we were excellent defensively but didn't score enough, this season was the opposite we scored loads but defensively were quite poor apart from N'dicka.

So all in all a season to forget, but a season that drives this save on as I like that I've not had it all my own way.

Onwards to season 4 (3rd season in charge). We need to end the Man City dominance, if Haaland gets 70 plus goals again though its going to be tough. Ronaldo will be retiring so I need to replace him, and Raspadori is my main target. The defence also will need some work as well, with N'dicka the only 1 I can rely on. I plan to spend big if I need too, we have kept the wages just below 4 mil a week as well, so with Ronaldo going I should be able to keep it below that whilst also improving the team.

 

[Monsieur-Beev]

Hi all it's been a while since I've posted here but I'd been playing my trade at schalke this year until United came knocking and I couldn't refuse.

Im in season 30/31 and now have a team dominated by youth players and regens with a few of the old guard still knocking about. 

In my third season with us I'm doing really well in the league but Ive used a new system and the data hub has me a little confused when I'm trying to analyse it.

 

So I've been looking at the data hub and my defensive statistics are a bit weird and could do with some help clarifying something. 

I play a high press but all of my defensive actions (87%) come within my own half with 30% at the edge of my penalty area. However I've got the fewest blocks and clearances per game in the league, the least goals conceded/ xg against but I've got an insane amount of interceptions per game. 

Does this tell me my press is effective forcing opposition to play long ? Or does it mean my press is terrible and I'm just being bailed out at the last minute? 

[Matty89]

Looking for a long term keeper to replace de gea want someone good at distribution don't mind getting someone one

 

Anyone got any suggestions 

[krisdonna]

On 27/08/2022 at 16:41, Matty89 said:

Looking for a long term keeper to replace de gea want someone good at distribution don't mind getting someone one

 

Anyone got any suggestions 

If you look for potential then i suggest to look at Maarten  Vandevoordt.

[Matty89]

9 hours ago, krisdonna said:

If you look for potential then i suggest to look at Maarten  Vandevoordt.

Yeah considering him

[Chapman7]

On 27/08/2022 at 15:41, Matty89 said:

Looking for a long term keeper to replace de gea want someone good at distribution don't mind getting someone one

 

Anyone got any suggestions 

Diogo Costa is pretty solid 

[Chapman7]

What role are people using Bruno in? Used to use him in Mezzela but since winter update been a struggle to find a role to get his G/A numbers as good. With Pogba as inconsistent need to find a role that gets Bruno going ideally in a 3 midfield(2CM 1DM)

[RazorsEdge]

11 hours ago, Chapman7 said:

What role are people using Bruno in? Used to use him in Mezzela but since winter update been a struggle to find a role to get his G/A numbers as good. With Pogba as inconsistent need to find a role that gets Bruno going ideally in a 3 midfield(2CM 1DM)

CM-Attack

[Lesterfan_Cambiasso]

23 hours ago, Chapman7 said:

What role are people using Bruno in? Used to use him in Mezzela but since winter update been a struggle to find a role to get his G/A numbers as good. With Pogba as inconsistent need to find a role that gets Bruno going ideally in a 3 midfield(2CM 1DM)

fair to say Bruno's role IRL is more of a false 9 type role now? forward dropping deep?

[BigV]

29 minutes ago, Lesterfan_Cambiasso said:

fair to say Bruno's role IRL is more of a false 9 type role now? forward dropping deep?

He's actually closer to the CM- Attack role, playing deeper and inbetween the lines. Hybrid 8/10 role. 

[benn312]

So do anyone can help me with tactic?

now when casemiro, eriksen and antony comes in united.

how can i setup tactic? Which formation.

thank you guys!!!

[DaveMurray23]

Any recommendations for right back? 

[sedge11]

On 08/09/2022 at 21:02, DaveMurray23 said:

Any recommendations for right back? 

Pedro Porro is good, usually has a release clause as well.

Denzel Dumfries and Ridle Baku are both good as well.

Edited September 10, 2022 by sedge11

[Chapman7]

On 03/09/2022 at 10:50, RazorsEdge said:

CM-Attack

 

On 03/09/2022 at 22:40, Lesterfan_Cambiasso said:

fair to say Bruno's role IRL is more of a false 9 type role now? forward dropping deep?

 

On 03/09/2022 at 23:11, BigV said:

He's actually closer to the CM- Attack role, playing deeper and inbetween the lines. Hybrid 8/10 role. 

Thanks guy! Funnily enough had been thinking of switching to that role but wasn't sure on it but seems to be paying off more so now 

[Chapman7]

On 06/09/2022 at 13:22, benn312 said:

So do anyone can help me with tactic?

now when casemiro, eriksen and antony comes in united.

how can i setup tactic? Which formation.

thank you guys!!!

       DM-D 

DLP-s - CM- A

IW/IF-S -------     IW/IF-A

          DLF-A 

[Gee_Simpson]

On 08/09/2022 at 21:02, DaveMurray23 said:

Any recommendations for right back? 

Alexis Saelemaekers.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Gee_Simpson