Plainlayzee
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Posts posted by Plainlayzee
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On 18/01/2021 at 14:52, FMunderachiever said:
Its because the game has too much choice.
Its like looking at a menu and thinking theres ten things on it youd like to order.
Its too easy when the going gets tough to think ahh stuff it, ill manage someone else.
Real life isnt anywhere near as easy as that, and in real life our expectations are lower too. Because we can play multiple games a night and because its not real life, i think we just expect to win, not least because we see people online winning with whatever club they choose.
So i can totally relate to you!
Exactly this.
I find myself going as the lowest team I can find or relate to and then 2 seasons in thinking I can go and rebuild Barcelona, or one of the Milans.
Guarantee I'd play as them for a season or two, be bored rigid of not having to manage a budget and spending 200m on players and then be off playing in the Dutch 3rd division with a 20 year plan to conquer AJax, which I'd quit after a year haha.
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I had him in the championship, league one and two with oldham and he scored at all 3 levels. Not huge amounts in the Championship but got 20+ in league one and two.
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8 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:
Brilliant season! York and Darlington nowhere to be seen in the table is a surprise. Very decent budgets for next season too, should be back-to-back promotions and the 'Deva' will be delighted (whoever she is).
Not even that sure myself and the place is only 40 minutes from my house haha.
Fancy another crack at promotion if I can keep Broughton, Francis and Elliott firing.
Got Max Robson (spurs youth player) signing on a free too who I think will be brilliant at conference level.1 -
Well that is season one done. Promotion by a country mile, a win the FA trophy and a impressive FA cup than took us to the 4th round after beating Charlton and Derby in the 2nd and 3rd round.
To be honest, I had a tactic that won the first few games and stuck with it, barely made a tactical switch all season, just relied on Danny Elliott (who scored 43 goals overall, 35 in the league) which generally got us the wins we needed.
Due to our good cup runs, we have a million in the bank and 300k to spend in the conference, so fingers crossed we can get some absolute quality in and have another crack and get ourselves up to the football league.
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Some really good work here. @goonergez you've done well there, keep it up.
I am currently playing as Chester so not posting regular updates since I'm not in the football league (yet). I might post as end of season one or something but I will see.
One thing I wanted to check, is it me or are there huge amounts of penalties given on the game since the update? I never noticed it on my Oldham save, and maybe its playing at a lower level and the players being a bit more clumsy, but it seems to be a penalty every other game at the minute.
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9 hours ago, warlock said:
No need to shut up. Non-league stories are welcome on the grounds that a) there's no where else to post them; and b) with a bit of luck, you'll be an EFL side in fairly short order. I usually do a Darlington save in the VNN every year, but I'm thinking I might go a tier or two further down this time. In recent FMs I've done saves with Gateshead and Dulwich Hamlet, and last year I spent half a season at Boston United before that one fizzled out.
Non-league can be a lot of fun. Many managers opt for an agricultural 442 but you can play almost any tactic regardless. The real trick is learning to manage with no money
See I have a real love of being the minnow and up against it, and a lack of finances don't bother me, I prefer that to mindlessly spending 100m on players at the big prem clubs.
Just going to have a good look now, Chester (local team) might be the one I think. I did consider Chorley too given their recent cup heroics.0 -
Salford? Never been this high up the football league, got money with rich backers, decent squad, go and compete with the other big clubs in the area
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I have played my first 4 games of the season as Oldham and for whatever reason, it feels a bit flat.
Not too sure why, I have built a good squad but I am struggling to keep it going and maintain the enjoyment so it might get parked for a while.As that was my first save game, I am tempted to go again and start as either Tranmere or potentially go one lower and go into the non-leagues for a bit of a change. I am aware my Tranmere save might just become a copy of my Oldham save as I'd be tempted to sign the exact same players knowing that they work well (Bobby Duncan etc).
Anyone had any experiences with non-league teams? either conference or north/south.
I noticed Halifax randomly have a 15,000 seater stadium, Stockport from watching their game the other night seem to be ambitious, maybe take Notts County back up the leagues. Really not too sure?
Appreciate this is a football league thread, I will shut up once I have chosen where I am going and find somewhere else to post haha.0 -
6 hours ago, warlock said:
Exeter, December 2021
After a good start to life in L1, reality caught up with us in October.
Rather too many draws, and finishing the month with back-to-back defeats was extremely disappointing. A one-match experiment with a 433 system failed to produce any improvement and we moved quickly on. Eagle-eyed readers will notice one significant fact in those results... after starting the season in the form that won him the L2 golden boot, Nicky Ajose suddenly and rapidly declined. He has now played about a billion hours of football without finding the net. He's been encouraged, cajoled and threatened and nothing has worked, and he's now a candidate for transfer-listing in January. On the plus side, Adebayo has taken to L1 with relish and he's now the first name on the teamsheet with 16 goals from 17 starts.
My hopes for an easier season in terms of games-per-month have, so far, come to nothing. Eight games in October and seven in November have taken a toll and injuries are mounting. Our biggest problem is in central midfield where we're having to start very tired players, and I set my scouts to look for any out-of-contract players who could do a job. They turned up former Leeds man Conor Shaughnessy, who had been out of contract since the summer. As is the FM way, as soon as we showed an interest a host of clubs came out of the woodwork. Despite agreeing a contract with us, he ultimately went to some obscure outfit in the Australian A-League. Moving on, we identified former Wigan and Sheffield United midfielder Lee Evans. His attributes aren't outstanding, but my coaches rate him a 4* player in CM role and he's looked okay so far.
Despite my best efforts, we are still in the Deep Pan Trophy and face AFC Wimbledon in the next round in December.
Looking ahead to January, I think we'll need to sort out the Ajose situation up front, and bring in an upgrade in central defence where the big disappointment has been Racic, on loan from Brentford. He might lead out passing stats and he's certainly capable of producing a first-class performance but is equally capable of horrendous mistakes that lead to goals.
Despite this litany of woe, we're actually doing fantastically well:
For a team predicted to battle against relegation, second place is an amazing position to be in. We have the second-best attack, decent passing, good tackling - but idiotic lapses in defence keep costing us points.
I demand more!!
Going well there mate, no shame in being second in the league at the nearly half way point.
Interesting Adebayo doing well, he is someone I keep looking at for Oldham and then changing my mind as I am not sure how far up the ladder he can go. What role have you been playing him in?
Good luck finding a centre back too, I had the same sort of issue and ended out playing Wheater and Rhys Williams practically every game, no wonder Wheater had enough and retired, he was 35!!!0 -
15 minutes ago, Welshace said:
Stop thinking like a real manager for a second and have a think where you will get the most enjoyment and challenge that you will enjoy?
Why accept the saints offer just because its a prem team? Will it be more fun to take Stoke back up? What do you want from the game? glory? silverware? journeyman career? lifetime with Oldham?
Ideally I want this to be a long term save, gradually working my way up.
Not 100% convinced I can do that with Oldham but at the same time I have a mid season wobble in most saves, I find myself really struggling to find players and then i'll get 6 in a week.
Doesn't help with 4 of my key staff have retired, 2 players have retired and 4 where out of contract and there was no point giving them another, but its meant the likes of Wheater (retired) & Piergiani have gone.
I effectively need to rebuild my dressing room and backroom staff....and pray someone lets me keep Duncan on loan.0 -
Having a bit of a problem at the minute surrounding a few things.
Firstly, the board is yet again (for about the 3rd time) In the process of a board takeover, which no doubt won't happen. Whilst it hasn't yet stopped me signing players, I've no doubt it will soon.
I am also being linked with Stoke (finished lower half of championship) Aberdeen (finished 6th in Scotland) and Southampton, who stayed in the prem by a point.
Do I stay at Oldham and muddle through with my quite unsatisfactory squad and lack of money or jump to a "bigger" club. Heart says stay, head says go to Stoke and take them back up, but if the Saints offer it, can I really refuse?
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Is there an official download for tier 8 etc? Ive thought of doing this loads before but saw someone say once the games are prone to bugs due to the downloads being un-official? If they do work and are reliable then I know where I'm going after Oldham!
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I won't post a full update of all the details as that would bore you all to death, but with 3 games to go, we've done it.
Champions of league one after a remarkable season, our form carrying on from last season.
Despite us winning only 1 game in 7 from the end of Jan through February, Wycombe, Hull and Doncaster all decided to have equally bad spells around the same time, meaning the gap only ever get down to me being 6 points clear before accelerating away. Wins against Hull and Doncaster pushed them back and Donny have gone on a complete wobble, from being 2nd to 4th and bang out of form.
Key players - we have a great defensive record and have only conceded 26 goals all season, however we have also only scored 63, winning a huge amount of games 1-0 or 2-0.
I'm not sure if others have noticed but there has been a lot of games when I've had say 4 shots, 1 on target to their 3 shots and 1 on target and win 1-0, or maybe I just play really boring football haha.
Anyone got any recommendations for championship players? My aim now needs to be to sign and own some players and not rely on 5 or 5 key loan players.
I have secured James Bree from Luton in the January window but i can't see my getting Bobby Duncan back as his 22 goals this season have rocketted his value and his agent says he wants 10k a week!
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21 hours ago, dozzie said:
It's the end of my third season at Cambridge and, staggeringly I've secured my third successive promotion into the Premier League. Considering the opposition in the league and my squad i'm really not sure how. I'm starting to believe I'm a tactical genius. I'm sure the Premier League will soon knock me down though.
This is how the league season ended.
I was consistently in the play-off places all season while the south coast clubs at the top ran away with things. I had two moments during the season where the wheels started to come off, the first was just as my squad was getting fatigued and I couldn't stick with my best XI and I really suffered - i was also struggling for goals. The second time was when my Goalkeeper got injured for 6 weeks and I had to use my reserve who I thought was OK, but turned out to be shocking. Those 3 results in February where i conceded 3 goals in each game was where my reserve was in. He had a proper shocker in the first game so i was quick about finding a free transfer replacement who helped me right the ship. After that, I went on a great run that got me that play-off spot.
The star man on that great was Tjaland. I'd had to wait until January for him to come back from loan and get a work permit, but when he did, he scored 10 in 16 games to the end of the season with a AVR of 7.25. Really made the difference. Also making the difference were some January signings - i'd struggled with my full backs and 'went big' to try to get re-enforcements. They came in the shape of Alpha Dionkou and Lutsharel Geetruida both on loan from Schalke and Rennes respectively. I wasn't sure which would get a work permit so pursued both, they both did so I thought what the hell and brought them in. Geertruida ended up my first choice DM and both massively improved my team.
My other signing was a bit of an impulse buy. For years in FM i've played as Man Utd and Nishan Burkart was always a fun member of the squad - he was often a lethal finisher that I'd try to develop into the first team, but never really made it. When I spotted him while looking for attacking re-enforcements my sense of nostalgia and whimsy took over and I spent £60k on him. He wasn't prolific but he scored some really important goals and his pace saw him absolutely smoke some Championship defences at times.
So, onto the culmination of the season. The play-off final was epic, but I have to share my semi-final first leg with West Ham first of all where I Football-Managered the hell out of them with a really cagey counter attacking style that brought me two set piece goals from my only two shots on target. Sorry Hammers. It happens to the best of us.
I drew the home leg 2-2 with West Ham in a really tight and tense match. But, talking of tight and tense, the play-off final with Brentford was maybe the most stressful Football Manager match I've ever played. I again went super defensive trying to contain Ivan Toney amongst other lethal forwards Brentford have and ground out a 0-0 all the way to Extra Time and Penalties.
You see that scroll bar on the penalties? We had a lot of penalties.
We took 17 penalties each in the end and I won 13-12. It was ridiculous. Also, a nice moment for Ryan Tunnicliffe to get the winner. He had been very dependable all season but his contract is up and I don't intend to renew it. The press even asked a question before the game about how it could be his last match for the team etc. So it was nice he was the hero of the day.
I don't know what will happen in the Premier League, I have a £28m transfer budget and am being temporarily relocated to Millwall's 'The Den', for two seasons while we build a new stadium because The Abbey isn't up to Premier League standards. I'm sure there should be somewhere more convenient than that for all my Cambridge fans.
Wow, some performance that. I do find with this game (both this year and historically) if you win a promotion the form generally carries through to the next year and you have a good chance of staying up or doing back to back promotions from league 2 and league 1. I am going to post my own update in a minute and a similar thing has happened.
How much have you got to spend in the prem and who are you targeting? Re build the spine of the team maybe?
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I got a bit carried away with my save and I've flown through half a season.
This is how it stands at the minute...
Who wouldn't be happy with it. Some excellent performances but more important some excellent wins against the teams around us. We've won away to Wycombe, Hull and Coventry so far which has been huge.
For anyone going into league one, Bobby Duncan, 14 goals in 23 games has been our star player by a mile.
I've had a look and the teams in 2nd and 3rd went up last year with 79 points, so the aim is 80 hoping that gets me automatic promotion. That means I need 29 points from 24 games which to be honest, the form we are in, I can't see us not doing.
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12 minutes ago, warlock said:
Give us a clue
. That's a pretty grim run of form by any standard.
Sorry didn't mean to cut the top off, it's Sunderland ....
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Off topic and not an update, but struggling to remember a time I saw a team of that magnitude, expected to come 2nd in the league, score less goals
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AC Milan is a save that keeps sparking my interest in Italy but not quite at the stage of wanting to do it yet.
As a Liverpool fan the joy of winning us our first title has gone out the game and everyone seems to say they just win everything, so the challenge isn't there.Maybe even rebuilding Barca back could be interesting but they don't seem to have the financial issues in the game that they have in real life?
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Thought I'd update where I am up to after playing through a few months.
Firstly, the main aim for the window was to try and keep the players that had performed so well last season and add some league 1 quality, ideally through youth players.
As we knew Bahamboula was due to leave and I allowed the full back Badan to leave as well as he had no role going forward.
Incoming was as follows:
Two youngsters added from Chelsea and Tottenham who will play a bit part more than likely before moving up the ranks, and Mcginty comes in at centre back. Experienced added in Liam Kelly from recently relegated Coventry, plus bringing back Richards and Galbraith on loan who did well last season. Allsop was added due to the need to have someone to complete with Woods for the no1 shirt. Diallo, 22 year old released by Wolves gives us some more legs in the middle of the park, and he has a 12 for most of the stats I wanted such as work rate, team work and passing which for me in league one is good. James Bree is costing me 5k a wee in wages but he gave me someone who can play in that attacking bull back role.
Finally bringing in Bobby Duncan from Derby on loan, someone who I believe can score some goals at this level and get his career back on track.
We did have a fair few failed bids too, in particular for James Wilson, ex Man UTD winger who was released by Salford and Matthew Pennington who was released by Everton. Both looked likely but opted to go elsewhere.
Anyway, happy enough with my deals, onto the first few games...
As you can see, a great start. 3 goals in the first 15 minutes saw off Wimbledon, a late winning v Blackpool and then great wins against Salford and Wycombe, two teams I imagine will be near the top of the league. Bobby Duncan has got 4 in 4 and 3 MOTM's which is great promise.
More winnable games coming up in my opinion so hopefully we can continue the good start and get as many points on the board as possible before we inevitably fall apart haha.
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@warlockThanks, I just had a look on other threads people generally seem to think it will work with saved games so that's good, otherwise all this was a complete waste of time haha.
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The ratings thing I never really realised until recently.
So my team are on a 1 defeat and 3 draws in what about 20 games, not one single player in squad has an average rating of above 7?
If a fix is released, any idea if it'll be save game compatible?
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Well done @Jogo Bonito, great performance that well done on promotions.
Now your in the same boat as me trying to find signings!!
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Well here is how it ended, what a run.
Honestly can't remember the last time I was so overly emotionally invested in a FM game. Towards the end of the season, 4 late winners in our last 7 games kept us fighting to the final day, when we took apart Forest Green 3-0 in what was one of our best performances of the season.
With Tranmere and Colchester playing out a 2-3 Colchester away win and Grismby only drawing 0-0 against 10-men, we finished the season in 3rd place by 1 points, promoted back to division 1.
I've absolutely no idea how we managed that one, nor how Mansfield who were some 22 points above at one point finished all the way down there!
I need to have a full review of the squad, it's likely nowhere near good enough so we need some clever deals and loans to give us that quality so we can make an attempt at staying up.
I've also had a few notifications saying other clubs are considering approaching Oldham for me, I won't lie...its tempting to jump ship if the owner doesn't start looking to improve the club soon. So far he has refused to improve anything at all, not even increasing the junior coaching budget.
Let's see how the first few weeks after the end of the season play out.
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It goes to the final day...thanks to this result....
.Tranmere play Colchester, we play Forest Green. Unreal stuff, has it ever been closer?
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. That's a pretty grim run of form by any standard.
.Tranmere play Colchester, we play Forest Green. Unreal stuff, has it ever been closer?
FM21: The English Football League thread
in Good Player & Team Guide
Posted
This is what I do a lot of.
Load up Brazil as start on December 7th or 21st and pick the team bottom of say league one or two. Always get someone who is 10 points adrift and you can go in and do a big sam and try and save them