It's Tottenham Mate- the Ange revolution

[Dustman2015]

I find the amount of tactics the game uses refreshing. 

 

How have you guys been setting up Spurs? The only formation we don't seem to be set up well for is the 442

[tomzo_2]

Season 1 Finished!

Not perfect but not a bad effort. We ended up 2nd behind Liverpool:

Some good performances along the way but lost some games that I need to look closer at especially against Sheffield United and then the top six as lost to Chelsea (x2), City, United and Liverpool all away.

Lost in the final of the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal on penalties after a 3-3 draw. 

But finally ended with an FA Cup win after winning 2:0 against Bournemouth:

Team has shaped up well throughout the season and really bought through some of the youngsters especially Jamie Donley who ended up being top scorer and Ashley Phillips:

Now lets see how the next transfer window shapes up. Looking at promoting Mickey Moore as I dont want him to lose potential ability in the U21's.

[Sophos]

Testing my Angeball recreation.

Overall results: 7th, 65 points, 66 scored, 41 conceded. Some really impressive wins (6-1 West Ham, 4-0 Chelsea, 3-1 City) but plenty of dissapointing results too. Fortuntately didn't get thrashed at all, worst result being 3-0.

Maddison shone (7.18 average rating, 20 goals, 10 assists) as the Mezalla. Richarlison bagged 17 goals and 6 assists as the striker. Son was decent on the left (7.07, 9g, 6a). Sarr and Udogie were both good (7.16 and 7.04). However I was dissapointed with Porro (6.71, 3a), Johnson (6.78, 4g, 3a), and Kulusevski (6.96, 4g, 6a) on the right - work to be done there. 

As for team stats, we were 6th for posession (56%), 5th for chances created (161), 5th for passes completed (19288), and 6th for pass completion (89%) - so all pretty decent. Opposition PPDA was a bit high though, 11th (4.54) for that, which needs work.

Overall an okay start. The RPM needs tinkering with, I suspect - not getting enough touches to justify the free role through the middle. Sort that, figure out roles on the right, and I might be on to something.

[tomzo_2]

13 hours ago, Sophos said:

Testing my Angeball recreation.

Overall results: 7th, 65 points, 66 scored, 41 conceded. Some really impressive wins (6-1 West Ham, 4-0 Chelsea, 3-1 City) but plenty of dissapointing results too. Fortuntately didn't get thrashed at all, worst result being 3-0.

Maddison shone (7.18 average rating, 20 goals, 10 assists) as the Mezalla. Richarlison bagged 17 goals and 6 assists as the striker. Son was decent on the left (7.07, 9g, 6a). Sarr and Udogie were both good (7.16 and 7.04). However I was dissapointed with Porro (6.71, 3a), Johnson (6.78, 4g, 3a), and Kulusevski (6.96, 4g, 6a) on the right - work to be done there. 

As for team stats, we were 6th for posession (56%), 5th for chances created (161), 5th for passes completed (19288), and 6th for pass completion (89%) - so all pretty decent. Opposition PPDA was a bit high though, 11th (4.54) for that, which needs work.

Overall an okay start. The RPM needs tinkering with, I suspect - not getting enough touches to justify the free role through the middle. Sort that, figure out roles on the right, and I might be on to something.

Just looking at your tactic, id be tempted to change your AMR to something that isnt a winger as had the same issues early in the season with Kulusevski. As soon as I changed him to an IF he was much better.

I also had issues getting Porro to play as an IWB and switched it to a WB overlapping with AMR cutting in resolved some of these issues.

Maybe worth trialling?

[Sophos]

7 hours ago, tomzo_2 said:

Just looking at your tactic, id be tempted to change your AMR to something that isnt a winger as had the same issues early in the season with Kulusevski. As soon as I changed him to an IF he was much better.

I also had issues getting Porro to play as an IWB and switched it to a WB overlapping with AMR cutting in resolved some of these issues.

Maybe worth trialling?

That would probably perform better, but I'm aiming to recreate Angeball, and Porro is definitely an IWB. Kulusevski as an IF or IW could work, but I'd worry about losing the width, as he does start wide most of the time.

For this next test I changed the RPM to a DLP (S), to add a bit of solidity. Results were pretty good - 4th (+3), 66 scored (unchanged), 29 conceded (-12). Similar performance for possession, passes, chance creation, and so on. Bentancur was superb as the DLP (S). Some slight improvement on the right, but nothing noticable - though now the side is more solid, I may be able to give Porro an attack duty.

Opposition PPDA remains a concern, down to 17th! Though the range within the league is tiny, 4.34 to 4.88, and nothing like real life - where the range is 9.3 to 19.9 - so I supect this may be a weakness of the match engine?

[reece1973]

How do people deal with players being unhappy with managers treatment of certain players.
No matter how much I praise the players and we are in the Top 4 and performing will I end up with SPT supporting teammate under half for the team forever.

Signed an 18 year old kid. Didn't have room for him in the Champions League squad and loads of the squad are unhappy with it

[StatboySpurs]

Fired up an unemployed save last night, and after 10 or so games I checked Spurs. Noticed that Udogie is rotting on the bench on the U-21s, while Sarr barely plays either. Royal is also chosen over Porro in every single match. Udogie and Sarr look like the need decent ratings bumps in the winter update, and I'm guessing that will happen. Until then, I may give them both a tweak in the editor. But I want to be careful because I don't want to be totally biased and go overboard.

[Sophos]

On 14/12/2023 at 13:29, StatboySpurs said:

Fired up an unemployed save last night, and after 10 or so games I checked Spurs. Noticed that Udogie is rotting on the bench on the U-21s, while Sarr barely plays either. Royal is also chosen over Porro in every single match. Udogie and Sarr look like the need decent ratings bumps in the winter update, and I'm guessing that will happen. Until then, I may give them both a tweak in the editor. But I want to be careful because I don't want to be totally biased and go overboard.

I remember SI telling us the AI was better at using promising young players this year! Hasn't happened.

The AI seems to rate Van de Ven quite highly as a left-back which can make it tricky for Udogie to get games. Not sure why it prefers Skipp to Sarr, though.

[reece1973]

Just signed Neymar on a free on a 400k one year contract from 1st July 2025.

 

[tomzo_2]

Second Season January Update:

Currently sat in fourth but some interesting league positions:

Lacked consistency this year - comfortable controlling possession and XG but losing games and feeling like I am being FM'd a lot!! Seem to lose against the traditional top 5 a lot which is frustrating. Out of the Carabao Cup in the fourth round. Still in the FA cup (Dumped Arsenal out..!) and qualifying round of the UCL after losing final game against Barcelona.

Wanted to shift a load of players at the start of the season which just didnt happen, which stopped all of my incomings as I like to control the squad size:

Biggest mistake was not replacing Son either as LW or as a Striker. Played Maddison (8G, 4A in 28 apps) and utilising Mickey Moore (1G, 1A in 20 Apps) off the bench but neither have assisted or scored enough and this was also the same with Richarlson (11G, 2A in 26 Appearances).

Which is why I was surprised when I managed to sell him in January for 92Mill to City. Haaland is injured for 2 months and Alaverz has only managed 2 goals in 16 appearances. Now don't shoot me on the following as I am not a Spurs fan but:

Hojbjerg was the reason we lost in the Carabao Cup to Forest with a stupid red card and I have been playing a 5 players ahead of him (Ndombele, Bentacur, Skipp, Sarr and Bajcetic) was an easy decision to sell. He wanted to leave due to lack of game time. I wanted Neves as think he is brilliant but needed to clear some slots so got rid of Giovanni as well, never really sure where to play him. And with Richarlson going, I needed a striker. Donley has top scored with 15 goals and Veliz has chipped in with 9 but I need to score more consistently. So I went shopping:

Tried:

• Tels (Wage demands and Price tag ended up being ridiculous)
• Evan Ferguson (Same Issue)
• Osimhen got close with (300k and 40 Mill in Jan agreed only for him to choose Arsenal for free in the summer on 115k...)
• Viktor Gyokeres again wages were way to high for a player I didnt feel was that good (69 mill and 200k a week)
• So up popped Eddie Nketiah - Counts towards the Home Grown elgibility was transfer listed for 23 million and was demanding 140k which i managed to reduce to 110k. He is also close to his prime years. I know it wouldn't be pleasing for the fans but still scored a B+ with the caveat of needs to start scoring quickly!

So January completed and into the business end of the season. I cant see much summer transfer business needing doing other than further players going either on free transfers (Rodon, Spence, Ndombele - not signing a new contract currently with Madrid lurking).

Current first team squad is as follows:

 

 

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by tomzo_2

[stevemc]

I've been doing a little journeyman save, started with Chesterfield enjoying back-to back promotions into League One, then took the relegated Burnley job taking them from the Championship back to the Premier League, which ended up with me landing the Spurs job in Summer 2027, squad needed a lot bit of work to make it fit how I wanted to play, but got there in the end:

*Ederson wasn't my signing.

We ended up winning the Carabao Cup and Premier League in my first season:

 

 

Buzzing Burnley managed to stay up after I left, but they also won the Europa Conference League - qualifying after I won the Carabao Cup with them whilst in the Championship  

Special shout out to Assan Ouédraogo for 17 goals and 4 assists in 36 games, other noticeable signing were Dennis Seimen who I brought with me from Burnley, Iván Fresneda, Moisés Caicedo, Nestory Irankunda and Benjamin Šeško. Most of my other signings were newgens, so I'll post some screenshots of them later.

Unfortunately, Milan beat us 1-0 in the Europa League final:

 

After that season's success and qualifying for the Champions League, Daniel Levy armed me with a £4m transfer budget, yes £4m   Which led me to look at their finances... £865m in debt. So this Summer will be a cheap one, but I do have Harry Kane already coming home on a free transfer.

Edited January 2 by stevemc

[tomzo_2]

End of the Second season and ended 4th. Laptop nearly disappeared out the window as lost our way. Not sure if the updates had anything to do with it but my formations and tactics became very hit and miss. Ironically I ended the season with 2 more points than the previous campaign but 4th rather than 2nd.

Lost in the Quarter Finals of the UCL to Arsenal. Dont...

Lost in the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup to Manchester United.

Lost in the Fourth Round of the Carabao Cup to Nottingham Forest.

 

Summer Transfer window completed in my second season completed and started to get some more movement.

Players Out and Ins

Skipp was unhappy I wouldnt offer him a new contract and asked to be transfer listed for £52 million (Would propbably accepted half) but had interest with Everton agreeing to the full amount. 

Tanguy Ndombele Signed a new contract but had been wanted all season by a host of clubs and Real Madrid came in for £46.5 rising to 54million.

As I wasnt planning to sell both felt I needed to bring in someone in the midfield I went to relegated Bournemouth and bought Alex Scott for 25 Million. A little more versatile and can plug the gap, certainly of Skipp. 

Brennan Johnson sold for £30 Million. A bit of an odd one as never really sure where to play him - either as a ST or as AMR. One that I decided to cash in on although his value was higher (60 Million) West Ham were happy to pay the money.

Alejo Velez - Odd one as quite liked him and scored well as a substitute but Real Sebastian offered 19.5 million and are in the Champions League. Player wanted to leave so let him go. Small profit too. But this left me with the need of a 3rd good Striker alongside Donley & Nketiah with Will Lankshear as my fourth option. Brentford had been relegated and had paid 18 Million for Marcus Leonardo. On the transfer list for his release clause and worked all summer to see if I could get them to reduce this but couldnt so paid the 42 million. Will see how that goes for me.

Djed Spence gone for 9.5 Million - never good enough. Reguilon left on a free as wouldnt agree to a new contract that wasn't ridiculous wages.

Loans for:

Tyrese Hall, Luka Vuskovic, David Martinez, Yago Santiago and Jude Soonsup-Bell.

Squad is now at a desirable size and hope to keep it around this level going forward. Lets see what this season brings but keen to win something as only got the FA Cup to my name (First Season) after 2 promising season that didn't end how I wanted!! 

We go again...

[Hackers76]

Haven't purchased Fm for a couple of years so was intrigued to see how much has changed.  To say it's been a frustrating first couple of seasons is an understatement.  The constantly unhappy players have nearly broke me.

 

Season 1

Finished 4th in the Premier League with 77 points earning Champions League football.  Got knocked out of the FA Cup in the 5th round by Man City which is where the first revolt started.  Expectations were to reach the latter stages of the competition so most of the squad were angry despite over performing in the league.  Crazy the game doesn't take into account strength of opposition for this sort of thing.  Playing with a 4231 pressing style similar to how Spurs line up now with the exception of the inverted full backs.

Transfer wise I try to play the game with a bit of realism and don't try to sign too many players focussing on squad harmony.  Of the second window transfers only Geetruida joined straight away with the others staying at their clubs until end of the season.

23/24 In:

1st window: Wilfried Gnonto £14.5m

2nd window: Lutsharel Geetruida £81m, Alberto Moleiro £23m, Adam Wharton £16m, Martin Baturina £12m,

23/24 Notable outs: 

1st window: Hugo Lloris £1.8m

2nd window: Lo Celso £47m

Gnonto was a good signing playing 37 times mainly off the bench but provided good cover up front and on the right. Maddison was Spurs player of the season scoring 18 goals in an injury hit season, he managed 28 games in total.  I was gutted to lose Lo Celso but the Saudi Pro League came in and I had no choice.  They also put bids in for Bissouma and Romero, I managed to keep hold of them by agreeing to sell if an agreed offer came in which never happened.  I was expecting to lose them and others in the summer due to the constant rumours which caused many of my problems for the second season...

 

2nd season:

The off season did not go very well, I had so many players hoping to move due to bigger clubs sniffing around and this seemed to drag on for ages.  I decided not to wait and be proactive in the transfer market.  However the offers for many of the players never materialised and I had a bloated squad.  Due to European registration rules I had to make some tough choices and some new signings and established players were left out.  Queue the second mini revolt which was deserved due to my mistakes.

Despite some challenges on field things went very well, Premier League winners with 94 points which was a close run battle with Liverpool who run out of steam towards the end due to good runs in all cup competitions.  In the Champions League managed to finish 2nd in the group with some impressive wins notably 2-0 away to AC Milan.  Unfortunately they were a tougher proposition in the round of 16 and I lost to them on penalties.  Maddison once again was the player of the season, the right side was also exceptional with Porro and Kulusevski getting 17 and 22 assists respectively.

24/25 In (all first window):  Viktor Gyokeres £35m, Josh Doig £14m, Nicolas Seiwald £55m, Federico Chiesa £82m (px with Joe Rodon going the other way)

24/25 Notable outs: Bissouma £62m, Reguillon £14m, Son £114m, Hojbjerg £32m

So due to the size of the squad and the registration rules I had to leave Baturina, Doig and Ben Davies out of the initial squad, all of which were very upset.  Doig also suffered an injury which would keep him out for 3 months, he still constantly complained about lack of game time and has been an absolute pain since he joined so will be shipped out as soon as possible.  I also managed to upset Chiesa as I had promised to improve the coaching team.  I managed to get it to the best in the league but he still wasn't happy and had the full support of the squad.  I then worked on the performance analyst team getting all with decent qualifications which still didn't help, he gave up complaining when we won the league!

Now in the off season ready to start the third season, the aim is to trim down the squad and rely on the likes of Ashley Phillips, Adam Wharton and Mikey Moore to provide cover, this should allow a smoother ride when it comes to squad registration.  Josh Doig will be the first I will move on, would love to get rid of Romero as his constant "aggressive" state during matches scares me.  Plenty I have struggled to move on too, Richarlison, Skipp, Sessignon, Gil and Solomon keep rejecting contract offers which is a pain.  Despite that I have a transfer budget of £150m and currently operating £320k a week under the wage budget.  Tried to get Dean Henderson as back up keeper with Forster retiring but he wants £120k a week and I refuse to give that to a bench warmer.  Weak spots in the squad are in goal and up front, I love Vicario in real life so I'm struggling to move on from him but it may need to happen.  I may get Restes from Toulouse and loan him back for another season.  Up front tempted to go for Evan Ferguson, his performances have not really caught the eye test yet (Brighton struggling will be a factor) but his numbers and scouting reports are superb,  Be interesting to hear how he has performed for others or if anyone else has done the trick as a pressing forward.

 

 

 

 

[stevemc]

Continuing on from this post in my second season with Spurs in 2027/28.

My squad was picked apart before the season started with Yves Bissouma, Rodrigo Bentancur, Karim Konaté leaving for "bigger" clubs, then Manchester United coming in right at the end of the window with £145m for star man Dejan Kulusevski. So brought in a few Newgens plus Endrick, Luís Guilherme, Khephren Thuram, and Nicolò Rovella.

Also brought Harry Kane back on a free, but he was a disaster - bagged 1 goal in 15, moaning about being benched then forcing a move to Newcastle United in January, I got £25m for him and he saved Newcastle United from relegation, so I guess everyone was happy in the end  

Anyway, we ended up just winning the league on goal difference (now back-to-back titles), or more importantly, Arsenal BOTTLED IT - they had an 11 point lead at Christmas, and we won on goal difference  They also bottled the FA Cup with a penalty loss - Arsenal turned me down before I ended up taking the Spurs job, so I enjoyed that.

 

We also won the Community Shield, Carabao Cup (again) and the Champions League:

 

Only need to win the FA Cup in England and I've done the lot, but can't see myself staying much longer here, Levy gave me a £4m transfer budget last year and a £20m transfer budget this year which I making sure I can't sign the players I need, so more than likely I'll play the Super Cup (or maybe one more season) then step down.

I've got my eyes on moving abroad, or if I stay in England then either Newcastle United, possibly Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham (tycoon takeover) or Blackburn Rovers (tycoon takeover). Also consider Manchester United if the Glazers leave (they've still not sold up!).

[tomzo_2]

Following on from this post I have now hit January 2026. Things are again looking promising which I keep saying and bites me... The league is extremely tight:

And remain in all the cups currently - Semi Final in the Carabao Cup, Top of the UCL, FA Cup has just started. So far so good. Interestingly my signings have been started to improve - Nketiah from last January has started scoring and Marcos Leonardo has come in and been great. Jamie Donley who was my top scorer last year and has been disappointing. Squad looks as follows:

 

Not really looking to do any business in this window unless I get an offer I cant turn down and need to replace. 

[bestbrother]

10th then 6th, hoping to nick a trophy this year.