FM23: Manchester United The Ten Hag era

[insai]

I for one look forward to my Peter Schmeichel regen

[insai]

ENd of year awards, Season 3!

 

Garnacho got Golden Boy

Costa was 2nd for Goalie of the year

Bellingham was England Player of the year

De Ketelaere was Belgian player of the year beating de Bruyne and Courtois

 

In other news, my team is the 2nd worse for yellows and the worst for reds :s NFI why, i even started using stay on feet option in matches.

[insai]

End of Season 3 - This season was quite easy compared the the last 2. Won everything.

One black mark is I got into a row with Barella after he got his third red card of the season. He got xfer listed as a result, and is now joining PSG. PSG have also bid for Joao Pedro, and im inclined to sell.

 

 

Finally got coach of the year!

 

Discipline was horrible this season with my team having the 2nd most Red cards and most yellows in the league, but i scored a tonne of goals and conceded fewest.

 

ECL final vs Barca went to penalities after a 1-1 finish. Rashford was the only player that missed for me -_-"

Rashford, what a guy:

Time to refresh the squad for next season, and bring in some youth who are developing nicely

Plan to see Arizo and 50/50 about selling Garnacho (Real want him) as he wants 300k p/w to renew but doesnt have the squad status to warrant that salary.  Arizo will be 40ish and Garnacho is worth 70. Barella and Pedro already gone to PSG for a nice profit.

 

This guy was the best of this years intake :

 

Old mate here went to Watford on loan and developed really well, got his first international cap and will be part of the first team squad next season, replacing Joao Pedro.

 

THis is the other prospect currently out on loan:

Mainoo went out on loan and now is a wonderkid apparently!

 

Buddy here is developing slower than I had hoped, so will likely be going out on loan next season:

 

THis guy was picked up by my scouts @ Auxere and I got him for 6M - seems like it will be a very profitable bit of business if he doesnt work out

 

Last of my prospects, will likely be going on loan.

 

I have a decent warchest after selling Barella and Joao Pedro - not sure if I want to get anyone established as yet. I have to find another first team box to box mid for a couple of seasons while Steve develops. Rest will probably be spent scouring around South America and Europe for young prospects to develop and use/sell, like this guy at Sao Paulo that ive had my eye on!

Edited November 18, 2022 by insai

[insai]

[VDB34]

About 7 games in quite inconsistent in form. Casemiro is good but gets booked nearly every game without fail. Martinez has being good at centre back it’s Varane who has flattered to deceive 

[Chapman7]

14 hours ago, VDB34 said:

About 7 games in quite inconsistent in form. Casemiro is good but gets booked nearly every game without fail. Martinez has being good at centre back it’s Varane who has flattered to deceive 

Post your tactic screen then people can have a look see if they feel your tactic is the reason for your form and maybe suggest some options to change

[sedge11]

Transfers for season 4 are done and the season is well underway.

So I expected a big summer but ended up bringing in more than I spent. 

David was good but just not consistent enough to be my no9, Martial wanted a new challenge so he left. So I needed to replace them, Olise is someone I have been looking at for a while, Spurs brought him last season for 75 mil, at the time I didn't want to spend that much which was a mistake as he is brilliant. I was going to spend big on a new striker, but Napoli and Juventus both wanted upwards of 150 mil and more for Osimhen and Vlahovic. So I saw that Leipzig were barely playing Sesko and I couldn't let that potential go to waste so he comes in for a bargain of 13 mil, and he is already proving his worth with 8 league goals in 9.

Now Costa, I brought him in season 2 to replace De Gea, but De Gea has always then got his place back and been one of the best players in the team, so I decided to move Costa on and I made a 5mil profit on him. De Gea continues to justify the decision as he's been excellent again.

Caqueret is a player I have liked since being Lyon on fm21, brought him in as Eriksen left on a free and Mctominay was finally moved on, and he has been incredible. I have mainly been playing him as a DM as Casemiro's replacement but just look at his stats.

 

Super cup loss I wasn't bothered about and didn't play my best team. We have had a tough start in the champs league but that is our hardest games out the way.

We have been very good in the league, the 7-0 against Villa was particularly good. The loss to Wolves was frustrating but after the 7-0 win, then the draw against Madrid that we should of won, I kind of saw that loss coming in that game. Still we have the best defence in the league with De Gea already on 8 clean sheets in 11 games, and only Liverpool have scored more than us.

Oh we also had the club world cup, but I sacked that off and took some youngsters back up players, so we went out of that quickly.

[Cobblers]

@sedge11 You did well to get Sesko for £19m. Got him start of 3rd season but for around £80m in my game.

Has anyone seen club take overs happen yet? Glazers mid way through 3rd season are getting close to selling. Just hope I don't get an existing director wish to takeover, as I'd prefer someone with money to come in for obvious reasons and remove the debt.

Have enjoyed these first 3 seasons, but I appear to of already got myself into a position whereby I need not purchase any more players for a while (focus on youth only). With this in mind I might try a "lesser" team out instead to draw the game out for longer in order to keep my interest.

[sedge11]

1 hour ago, Cobblers said:

 

@sedge11 You did well to get Sesko for £19m. Got him start of 3rd season but for around £80m in my game

 

Yea Leipzig barely played him on my save. Going by what my staff say, he won’t improve much more, so I don’t think I’ve got a Sesko with his highest potential but he’s still banging the goals in and an absolute bargain.

 

[Sherkey]

End of season 1, and we won the Carabao Cup, PL and Europa League. Need to strengthen the squad for CL, but having a mixed bag in selling players.

Sold Casemiro for 60 MN$, Brandon Williams for 11 Mn, wan Bissaka for 20 Mn, Tuanzebe for 6.5 Mn and Ronaldo for 1 Mn; let DDG, Fred leave on frees.

Bought Tielemans (25 Mn S1), Marcos Leonardo (15 Mn S1), Diogo Costa (60 Mn RC), Max Aarons - 35 Mn, Sutalo - 20 Mn and Schdeljerup (8.5 Mn)

Still have about 120 Mn left in the bank, with two targets of Bellingham and Scalvini, but I might move on them next season, as I don't have registration spaces currently. Unable to sell Lindelof and another CM to make space currently.

Also, players on high wages generally are okay with accepting a lower price on their wages, bringing it under control. So far, I've gotten Sancho to reduce to 250k (from 325) and Martial to 250k (from 300). Speaking to agents to reduce demands helps massively with that, especially after successful seasons. 

What role do people think is Bellingham's best? He literally looks like a multi-utility player - DLP, DM, AM (RL) and B2B all seem to suit him. He could be a good B2B midfielder in a 4-2-3-1.

[Matty89]

Doing my first offline United save in years

Looking for some advice below is the tactic im wanting to use

Any advice on players to sell, keep. sign

Looking at youngsters to sign in RW,RB,ST,GK

[sedge11]

5 hours ago, Matty89 said:

Any advice on players to sell, keep. sign

Looking at youngsters to sign in RW,RB,ST,GK

Livramento at RB is really good, starts the game injured so may need to wait until end of the 1st season to get him though.

GK wise Dennis Seimen looks really good to develop.

I would highly recommend Caqueret from Lyon for CM, I signed him 3 seasons in, and he's been brilliant wish I signed him earlier.

[Matty89]

58 minutes ago, sedge11 said:

Livramento at RB is really good, starts the game injured so may need to wait until end of the 1st season to get him though.

GK wise Dennis Seimen looks really good to develop.

I would highly recommend Caqueret from Lyon for CM, I signed him 3 seasons in, and he's been brilliant wish I signed him earlier.

Cheers mate

Any strikers you recommend

[sedge11]

53 minutes ago, Matty89 said:

Cheers mate

Any strikers you recommend

If you don't go for one of the obvious big names like Osimhen or Vlahovic, then Sesko though you would have to wait a season or 2, Ramos from Benfica, Evanilson from Porto or Toney is pretty solid as well.

I brought David from Lille, and while he is good just wasn't consistent enough, so have brought in Sesko and he's been quality.

Edited November 25, 2022 by sedge11

[Matty89]

12 minutes ago, sedge11 said:

If you don't go for one of the obvious big names like Osimhen or Vlahovic, then Sesko though you would have to wait a season or 2, Ramos from Benfica, Evanilson from Porto or Toney is pretty solid as well.

Cheers

[Matty89]

Cant decide what to do with Ronaldo can sell him but clubs want me to pay part of his wages which i really dont want to do

[Chapman7]

On 26/11/2022 at 10:03, Matty89 said:

Cant decide what to do with Ronaldo can sell him but clubs want me to pay part of his wages which i really dont want to do

Keep him I would say only got the year remaining can play a part for that season 

[Matty89]

2 hours ago, Chapman7 said:

Keep him I would say only got the year remaining can play a part for that season 

i want to play pressing forward ideally

[Chapman7]

22 hours ago, Matty89 said:

i want to play pressing forward ideally

I play a combination of Pressing Forward, Complete Forward and Deep-Lying Forward depending on opposition

[FourFourRED]

Has anyone managed to get a new stadium built? I'm approaching 2031 and they reject me every year. Current capacity is 84,629. 

[Sherkey]

What sort of budgets have people got in the 3rd year? It's showing be 33 Mn in the Transfers screen (budget for next year). Surely, that can't be right?

 

[Zeonflux]

Anyone else finding that your TIs seemingly do nothing this year?

I play with shorter passing and high closing down and yet consistently in every game my players a hoofing the ball miles (9/10 times to the opposition) and they always let the opposition run pass them with out getting close or trying to tackle

[duvels]

10 hours ago, Zeonflux said:

Anyone else finding that your TIs seemingly do nothing this year?

I play with shorter passing and high closing down and yet consistently in every game my players a hoofing the ball miles (9/10 times to the opposition) and they always let the opposition run pass them with out getting close or trying to tackle

No, not for me (at the moment). I do find that TI's need to be combined with the correct player roles, or at least some PI's.

For example, my left back was hoofing it up the field all the time. I did notice he often really didn't have a shorter forward passing option: my left winger was playing on the shoulder of the opposition defence while my left sided central midfielder was sticking to the middle of the pitch and easily marked out of the game. I added the "stay wider" PI to that central midfielder and now my left back as a short forward option available. I guess roaming from position could help too, but that one is a bit more random to me.

[the SLC]

I'm at loss, I just can't seem to win! 

I have no idea what to do!!!! How I haven't been sacked is beyond me. 

Currently on a 3 game losing streak conceding 12

 

[warlock]

13 minutes ago, the SLC said:

I'm at loss

Post a pic of your tactic. I'm no tactical genius but I'm happy to brainstorm if it helps!

[the SLC]

20 minutes ago, warlock said:

Post a pic of your tactic. I'm no tactical genius but I'm happy to brainstorm if it helps!

 

[warlock]

There's a lot in that tactic I don't understand... For example, why you've gone for a two-striker system when you appear to be rather short of strikers. Also not sure why you have a high press, triggered more often but with regroup essentially telling your players not to press. It also looks a bit laborious, distributing to the backline, lower tempo, work ball into box, probably allows the AI to settle into their defensive shape before you get players around their area.

And I think in a narrow diamond you need hard-working wingbacks bombing up and down the line to provide width. Fullbacks, particularly on support, don't seem likely to provide what you need.

There's some players there I don't recognise but it seems like you have the personnel for a 433dm or a 4231 - there are plenty of threads in the tactics forum to help you set one up. That might help you steady the ship.

A bigger problem might be off-field issues, judging by the number of unhappy players you have, and the number of transfer requests. That's likely to be harder to resolve, but I'd be looking at my fixture list for the chance of a couple of draws and a home win to stop the rot.

Hope you can turn it around, but console yourself with the thought that, as everyone knows, the game's too easy  .

[the SLC]

18 hours ago, warlock said:

There's a lot in that tactic I don't understand... For example, why you've gone for a two-striker system when you appear to be rather short of strikers. Also not sure why you have a high press, triggered more often but with regroup essentially telling your players not to press. It also looks a bit laborious, distributing to the backline, lower tempo, work ball into box, probably allows the AI to settle into their defensive shape before you get players around their area.

And I think in a narrow diamond you need hard-working wingbacks bombing up and down the line to provide width. Fullbacks, particularly on support, don't seem likely to provide what you need.

There's some players there I don't recognise but it seems like you have the personnel for a 433dm or a 4231 - there are plenty of threads in the tactics forum to help you set one up. That might help you steady the ship.

A bigger problem might be off-field issues, judging by the number of unhappy players you have, and the number of transfer requests. That's likely to be harder to resolve, but I'd be looking at my fixture list for the chance of a couple of draws and a home win to stop the rot.

Hope you can turn it around, but console yourself with the thought that, as everyone knows, the game's too easy  .

Thank you for the response. Since I posted I have been sacked. 

Back to square one. What formation would you recommend as a starting point? I see a lot of people use the 433DM one which I'm not a fan of but would be willing to try. I always prefer my strikers to be the main scorers so I've always stayed clear of it as.

 

[the SLC]

18 hours ago, warlock said:

Hope you can turn it around, but console yourself with the thought that, as everyone knows, the game's too easy  .

I wish I could agree!!

[warlock]

1 hour ago, the SLC said:

I have been sacked

Commiserations, but look at it as a new opportunity.

1 hour ago, the SLC said:

What formation would you recommend

United are really set up for a 433dm or a 4231, but it's possible to make other shapes work - 2-striker systems are difficult because of the lack of suitable players, but you could try a 4411 with Bruno as a shadow striker, or you could even go narrow if you retrain Sancho and Anthony to other roles. But for getting up and running quickly and easily I'd stick with the 433dm or 4231.

I started a new United save a couple of days ago and this is what I'm running:

It's a slightly tweaked version of the system I used to great effect in the beta (posted earlier in this thread). Early days, but it's doing OK again:

If you wanted, this easily transforms into a 4231 simply by pushing Bruno up to AMC and dropping Eriksen alongside Casemiro in a double-DM pivot. It also gives me a clear development plan for future seasons, just by upgrading the weaker players in successive transfer windows.

[the SLC]

That's a good start to the season. I'm trying a 4141. Only played 3 but I won them all. Even beat Liverpool

 

[FourFourRED]

The year is 2031 and Osimhen, Antony & Endrick are unbelievable!

[DominicForza]

4 hours ago, the SLC said:

Thank you for the response. Since I posted I have been sacked. 

Back to square one. What formation would you recommend as a starting point? I see a lot of people use the 433DM one which I'm not a fan of but would be willing to try. I always prefer my strikers to be the main scorers so I've always stayed clear of it as.

 

I completely understand having a strong desire to play a certain way.  I've stuck with HOW I want to play over what is best way to "exploit" current match engine.  I've been using 433 (433 DM/Wide) for a decade or more cuz I like how it "feels."  It isn't important to me where the goals from, or even if we score a lot (as long as results are good!), it is more important to me how the play "feels."  Having said that I haven't had an issue with STs not scoring in 433, or 4321.

Prior to that, dating back to CM days I always used 4132/4312.  A narrow flat 3CMs with either DM or an AM. 

I dont like a narrow diamond, I dont know if it reflects in match engine, but it feels/looks to narrow to me.  A flat 3MC gets better central width (yes, central width is an oxymoron!).   I found the key to playing Narrow formations was to get width from the outside MCs and for ATTACKING FBs.   In Narrow formations the space is wide, so I set passing to both flanks, set the outer 2 MCs to get wide and experiment from year to year with width.  In some iterations of the match engine width seemed to have significant differences.

Basically my philosophy regarding width is play wide in a narrow formation, play central (or mixed) in wide formation.   Where the space is. 

 

As I'm writing this I remember that in addition to 4132 and 4312 I also often played 4411.  In 4411 I always liked the ST to drop deeper pulling the back line with him and the AM to play more like the current FM role SS-Shadow Striker (this was pre-Player Rolls FM/CM).  In that tactic it was the AM/SS who was the main goal scorer.   

 

There are people having success with 424 (2DMs, IFs, 2 STs).  I dont know what you think about using other people's tactics.  I'm fine with it and see it as TIME SAVER not "cheating."   There are plenty of 424s online (I never know what's ok to say about other sites, so I dont say anything!) or maybe you can work on one yourself

 

For me a 3 man midfield is the most flexible and adjustable.  Its also where the game is controlled, not just in terms of results but in dictating HOW the game is played.  Quick, smart technical players for Barca/ManCity, athletic workers for more of a Gengenpress or an old school physicality.   

 

So if you want to play 2 STs AND take advantage of ManUtds strength in IF (and they are IF or IW more than Wingers) maybe try a 424.   I'm cringed inwardly just typing that!   The idea of only playing with 2 central midfielders makes my skin crawl...probably like the idea of not using 2 STs does for you!

 

Without opening another big can of worms - so much of how your team plays is about Morale, Cohesion and players personalities.  Winning is the best thing for morale, but team talks and press conferences do make a difference. The strongest impact a manager can have is MAKING THINGS WORSE.  Team talks are tricky, in part because different player personalities respond to them differently.  I ALWAYS give a team talk and then follow up with individual talks to players based on their reactions.  I pay a lot of attention to player personalities in Ins/Outs because when I find a way to do effective team talks to a personality type I want more players like that...cuz I know how to get more out of them.  I dont want the players who I dont know how to talk to, or who wont respond well to what the rest of the team will respond to.

 

This is so important to me about team talks - its not what i WANT to say, or what will make me feel good saying in the moment, its about learning WHAT WORKS. 

 

Glory Glory 

 

 

[Dale0718]

18 hours ago, FourFourRED said:

The year is 2031 and Osimhen, Antony & Endrick are unbelievable!

What's your tactic for this?

[FourFourRED]

6 hours ago, Dale0718 said:

What's your tactic for this?

Hey, thanks for showing an interest. This is my usually go to plan:

Also a nice stadium expansion:

Edited December 8, 2022 by FourFourRED

[Dale0718]

14 hours ago, FourFourRED said:

Hey, thanks for showing an interest. This is my usually go to plan:

Also a nice stadium expansion:

Thanks for the quick response mate! I'll give this a go! Can't get a tactic to work atm.

[Ellisio]

Just about to start season 4…

First season I finished 3rd, massively over-performed considering my only signing was Diogo Costa for £30m. 

Won the league in season 2 and 3, I only have two players from the original starting 11 in the squad, that being Varane and Bruno. The rest have been sold. Massively cut down the wage bill in the process.

Signed Lautaro Martinez who has been a goal machine and my best buy. Other notable signings include Milinkovic-Savic from Lazio, Ansu Fati from Barca (only £40m!), Olise from Palace who has been outstanding, and Declan Rice. Udogie from Spurs worth a mention too.

I’m now in the process of signing some younger players to bring through and to bolster the quality of the squad. Endrick, Livramento, Wanner and Scholl (both from Bayern) join in the summer. Kobbie Mainoo is now in the first team squad and now a wonder kid with 5 star potential! I’ve also had a couple of other 5 star prospects in the youth intake.

Last season I bought Timber from Ajax, circa £70m and he was awful. Had an average rating of 6.6. Never performed no matter what. I’m sure I’ve heard someone else mention that on these forums, but anyway, great stats but terrible performer! Big mistake.

[vrig]

23 hours ago, Ellisio said:

Last season I bought Timber from Ajax, circa £70m and he was awful. Had an average rating of 6.6. Never performed no matter what. I’m sure I’ve heard someone else mention that on these forums, but anyway, great stats but terrible performer! Big mistake.

I think FM just hates centre backs with low/lowish Jumping Reach, pretty much no matter what you do. Part of the issue most have with Lisandro I imagine, and it seems to get worse the longer the saves go on.

It also hates fullbacks with low crossing, so moving Timber to RB hardly helps. Maybe as a IWB he'd perform quite well, although he weirdly has low dribbling too, so probably won't make the line-breaking runs you might want from the position.

[duvels]

Lisandro is doing a good job for me as a defensive midfielder. I guess Timber might do a similar job in that position.

[Stevmon]

First season done!

Managed to secure 4th place in the league by beating Man City away in the 37th GW. Won the Europa League to offer De Gea and Ronaldo a good send off. Went out early in the League Cup and lost to Liverpool (runaway league winners…) in the FA Cup semi final.

No new signings year one, not much money to work with due to poor financials because of the high wage bill.

In the middle of the summer 2023 now and have sold let go of:

DDG
Heaton
AWB
Jones
Bailly
Telles
Fred
Ronaldo 

Loaned out a few players, among them Fernandez, Laird, Mengi, Iqbal, Savage, Hannibal, Pellistri.

New signings:

Schemichel
Antonio Silva
Bellingham
Goncalo Ramos

The wage bill is heavily reduced, I have a strong core in Varane, Casemiro, Bruno and ready to let my younger players (Henderson, Dalot, McTominay, Bellingham, Rashford etc) take over the leadership going forward.

Should be a fun season 2!

[saware]

Have recently started a new game with United having previously tried Citeh. Wanted to see if Haaland was as good as people had suggested, turns out 80 goals in his first season made the game a little dull.

Figured United would pose more of a challenge, & yet provide me with enough funds to buy some good players to keep the fun going.

Playing a 433, & have just gone into January top of the league, unbeaten. Liverpool are just 3 points behind as I’ve drawn a couple of games recently as the fixture list has built up & Ive had to rotate.

Went with Rashford up top & he’s nearly on 20 goals for the season, a lot of other players are contributing though so pretty happy with how it’s going. Up there with Liverpool again for best goal difference, they’ve scored more but we’ve conceded less.

Started with the 1st transfer window turned off so I’ve only just made moves in the market. Managed to bring in Danilo from Palmeiras from £15m, sold Tuanzebe to Lyon for £7.5m, & sent Elanga out on loan to Freiburg for the rest of the season. Trying to offload Lindelof, Van De Beek, & Williams but not getting much joy. Jones has agreed to joint Galatasaray when his contract expires, whilst Ronaldo rejected a move to Real Madrid. Have been looking to bring in Sutalo & Seiwald but will have to see what I can afford. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by saware
Added info.

[saware]

On 22/12/2022 at 13:00, saware said:

Have recently started a new game with United having previously tried Citeh. Wanted to see if Haaland was as good as people had suggested, turns out 80 goals in his first season made the game a little dull.

Figured United would pose more of a challenge, & yet provide me with enough funds to buy some good players to keep the fun going.

Playing a 433, & have just gone into January top of the league, unbeaten. Liverpool are just 3 points behind as I’ve drawn a couple of games recently as the fixture list has built up & Ive had to rotate.

Went with Rashford up top & he’s nearly on 20 goals for the season, a lot of other players are contributing though so pretty happy with how it’s going. Up there with Liverpool again for best goal difference, they’ve scored more but we’ve conceded less.

Started with the 1st transfer window turned off so I’ve only just made moves in the market. Managed to bring in Danilo from Palmeiras from £15m, sold Tuanzebe to Lyon for £7.5m, & sent Elanga out on loan to Freiburg for the rest of the season. Trying to offload Lindelof, Van De Beek, & Williams but not getting much joy. Jones has agreed to joint Galatasaray when his contract expires, whilst Ronaldo rejected a move to Real Madrid. Have been looking to bring in Sutalo & Seiwald but will have to see what I can afford. 

Managed to offload Lindelof to Brighton until the end of the season for 50% of his wages + a modest monthly fee, & Van De Beek to Wolves for his full value of £31m. Had an offer for Williams but was way below his £17m value so I’ll hold onto him until the summer.

Managed to bring in Sutalo & Seiwald (Loaned back to Salzburg until the end of the season) for £40m & £25m respectively. Maybe overpaid but wanted to bring them both in early so I could focus on bigger targets once the season has finished. Will be looking at possibly upgrading on Maguire & Wan Bissaka as well as a right winger to compete with Antony.

[RuokOrnot]

Started my United save and though I did not turn off transfer window, we didn't really have funds to delve into the transfer market. But I did get these :

That took out most of the $20M budget. 

First thing I did was to make CR7 our captain. And what a great decision that turned out to be :

C

CR7 basically carried the team and we end up doing the quad:

 

Just for context, in this fantasy world England won the World Cup too :

Tactics used were primarily 4321 Gegenpress and 433 tiki-taka

The Europa cup was really lucky; went to penalties in the semis against Roma and then penalties again against Arsenal. Any other day the quad would arguably be just a domestic treble.

The Premier League was a shock especially but the confidence was built after we managed big victories against Liverpool (3-0) and Man City (5-0) :

Key takeaways :

CR7 is really good despite his age and low FK (madness) attribute if you can make him happy. But he is moving to Real Madrid in S2 (wanted to go and I readily agreed)

Maguire in-game ain't that bad and Martinez was actually the worse performer along with Anthony.

De Gea seems to be past his peak towards the end of the season. Almost lost the last game for the title because of him.

 

For S2, I'll will be looking at CR7 replacement, most probably targeting a Juve CF. We would want a good successor for De Gea also. Last of all we are looking to get a wonderkid CB even though Mengi who was out for loan was actually Player and Young  Player of the Season in the Championship and we would want to start developing him.

[Zeonflux]

On 30/12/2022 at 11:27, RuokOrnot said:

Started my United save and though I did not turn off transfer window, we didn't really have funds to delve into the transfer market. But I did get these :

That took out most of the $20M budget. 

First thing I did was to make CR7 our captain. And what a great decision that turned out to be :

C

CR7 basically carried the team and we end up doing the quad:

 

Just for context, in this fantasy world England won the World Cup too :

Tactics used were primarily 4321 Gegenpress and 433 tiki-taka

The Europa cup was really lucky; went to penalties in the semis against Roma and then penalties again against Arsenal. Any other day the quad would arguably be just a domestic treble.

The Premier League was a shock especially but the confidence was built after we managed big victories against Liverpool (3-0) and Man City (5-0) :

Key takeaways :

CR7 is really good despite his age and low FK (madness) attribute if you can make him happy. But he is moving to Real Madrid in S2 (wanted to go and I readily agreed)

Maguire in-game ain't that bad and Martinez was actually the worse performer along with Anthony.

De Gea seems to be past his peak towards the end of the season. Almost lost the last game for the title because of him.

 

For S2, I'll will be looking at CR7 replacement, most probably targeting a Juve CF. We would want a good successor for De Gea also. Last of all we are looking to get a wonderkid CB even though Mengi who was out for loan was actually Player and Young  Player of the Season in the Championship and we would want to start developing him.

If your after a striker and want a younger player to develop may I suggest:

I’ve just brought him during the Jan transfer window of my second season and he’s got 8 goals in 5 matches as an AF, cost me £31m and is classed as a Wonderkid 

[sedge11]

A striker to look at is Beljo. Can get him real cheap for around 4 mil from Croatia. I have him in my Union Berlin save and is a monster, I plan to buy him when I do another Man Utd save later down the line.

[Gee_Simpson]

Does anyone in here use Daveincid's realism pack?

[Zeonflux]

Tresoldi finished the season with a record of:

Apps: 22(2), Goals: 26, Assists: 2, PoTM: 8 and Av Rate: 7.62.

Quite possibly the best January signing I’ve ever made in an FM save

[Bahamontes]

vor 21 Stunden schrieb Gee_Simpson:

Does anyone in here use Daveincid's realism pack?

Started my "no attributes" save with Daveincids realism pack, including the injury file.

 

Looking forward to my first season. I try to replicate Fergies 06-09 United approach switching between a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1/4-1-4-1 and I am kinda curious how this will hold up, in particular seeing all the success achieved here so far.

[Matty89]

I want to play a 4-3-3 (2 cm's & 1 dm) but ive always found it hard to make it work

Cant get goals from midfield from Bruno for example 

Any suggestions not started the save yet but will be later on tonight any advice is welcome

 

[saware]

1 hour ago, Matty89 said:

I want to play a 4-3-3 (2 cm's & 1 dm) but ive always found it hard to make it work

Cant get goals from midfield from Bruno for example 

Any suggestions not started the save yet but will be later on tonight any advice is welcome

 

I currently use a 433 & have had some joy using Fernandes as a AP-S or a MEZ-S alongside Fred as a BWM-S with Casemiro as a DM-D behind. Admittedly, goals have mainly come from Martial & Rashford, but Bruno has certainly chipped in.

My usual starting line-up is

De Gea - SK-D

Dalot - WB-A

Varane - CB-D

Martinez - BPD-D

Shaw - CWB-S

Casemiro - DM-D

Fred - BWM-S

Fernandes - AP-S or MEZ-S

Antony - IF-S

Sancho - IW-A or Rashford IF-A

Rashford - AF-A or Martial DLF-A

Instructions are:

Short passing

Work ball into box

Play out of defence

Low crosses

Much higher line

Higher engagement

Urgent press

Prevent GK distribution

All seems to work pretty well as a base, obviously some instructions, roles, & duties may change depending on player selection/opposition.

Edited January 2, 2023 by saware