Jump to content

santy001

Moderators
  • Posts

    7,025
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by santy001

  1. Season 6 - Early Summer Business:

    A few early deals done as usual for both clubs. Real Madrid hoarding more youngsters as ever, meanwhile I've aimed to be rather precise with my signings this year to fill specific roles. Kobel as my new GK, Thuram to play as my Libero although Kai Evans and Antonio are speculative youth signings.

    Barcelona Transfers: 

    f321cf0c04ec86ae382db44273be6528.png

    6d57b70c319b5c99c8efcc299e65a5df.png

    Real Madrid Transfers:

    8a6f29d5817725e239d390a25590eef0.png

    a182341c7f52fbc360cb609a18eb1d05.png

  2. Season 5 Complete - Back to Back Invincible Seasons

    Another domestic campaign in which Real Madrid did not lose a league game, and another season in which my Barcelona side finish runners up with over 100 points. Having begun tweaking things tactically to introduce a Libero in defence and a Segundo Volante in midfield I'm hoping I can close the goal gap a little more and hopefully get those few more results necessary but the reality is I do need Real Madrid to slip up too. At this point the only positive to take is statistically it cannot go on forever. Courtois has to replaced soon, but the rest of the team are pretty much in a position where they have years ahead of them. A clean sweep of all 4 trophies including the CL has been the case this year however.

    a339e8d69d1cd9dbf0f2e16a393ac5c1.png

    Sesko did well in his first season proving competitive with Haaland for goals. Haaland has played less games but still gotten more, but that is one of the few areas to hope maybe some recurring injuries and fitness issues are going to pose some problems for the Real Madrid team in the future.

    176d213967bf7ef4d54d2bc6684aa559.png

    Barcelona Best XI:

    271d5464c4d42d8ce62a9b1ebdab64aa.png

    Real Madrid Best XI:

    f06e250825ffb5ed887eadfea0265749.png

     

     

  3. It depends on what you mean by getting the best out of them. Not every player can be amazing every game, in my sides the DM's are often never going to get great ratings as they're there to do fairly basic things but to a consistently high standard. If they do their job correctly then other players will have higher ratings because they've benefited from that work.

  4. Nothing meaningful has happened from a throw in during one of my matches in recent memory, the best I've generally been able to hope for is getting a corner from one high up the pitch. It's rather been a source of frustration that I haven't even been able to get a goal from a throw in despite trying a few different things. If you're conceding regularly it suggests you may need to alter your set-up to defend them. Sometimes there may be issues/bugs with particular set-ups so might be worth checking to ensure that isn't the case with your side.

  5. Despite the resources out there in terms of shortlists for the starting DB I never particularly bother with them myself as being a researcher I can tend to assess players rather well directly, and a particular strength is finding niche players who can perform very defined roles well. So in terms of getting to line up promising youngsters that probably does give Oli an advantage, especially in the early game. There aren't really the players ready to go in the game now that are of the strength to compete with the Real Madrid squad, so I'm in a position of having to develop them myself through training or find something else tactically. 

  6. January - Season 5

    In January the £300m battle for Warren Zaire-Emery concluded with him signing for my Barcelona side over Real Madrid. Not exactly cheap, but after last season especially it feels like only the top tier players can potentially make a difference. That being said it didn't help in the league as despite arguably having the better of the game on the stats I lost 2-0 to Real Madrid and a 3 point gap has emerged between teams. Effectively 4 given the head to head sorting of the league. 

    c332944727049e7272127e72e25ca7e0.png

    Barcelona Transfers:

    2552c1f295110f6deac441c205f62386.png

    b598798ce1f8fb93f239efcdbb9d92fb.png

    Real Madrid Transfers:

    4988c76faf0acccee6602da286c61ee5.png

    *No permanent departures from Real Madrid, only loans.

  7. Heading into the first international break it's probably the tightest start we've had in the league. A 4-4 draw between us in the league in which I really failed to capitalise on Real Madrid missing Courtois and not having a decent backup keeper, but both sides have won every other game. Sesko missed the first couple of matches of the season with injuries, but is pursuing Haaland for goals already.

    1a6c1a56833637804de8586937615f6d.png

    0137d1f3a00a94fd6d2977d8ecede71f.png

  8. Season 5 - Early Summer Business

    So after the previous seasons disappointing campaign resulting in losses each time Real Madrid turned up I knew really it was time to try and further add some variation to my side. Pedri despite being a genuinely good player didn't make the Best XI last year because he struggled to get a look in. With Osimhen and Roque on the left & right respectively of the central striker and Lamine Yamal starting to cement that role in the middle there was no space for Pedri and I couldn't see a viable retraining like I did with Gavi. I let him go in part to focus on bringing through youngsters as well. A couple other sales of Alex Valle for £30m and Milinkovic-Savic back to Saudi Arabia for another £50m have bolstered the clubs sizeable coffers. Another summer of mostly low profile hoarding youngsters for Real Madrid bringing in a further 6 young players. 

    Barcelona Transfers:

    aa6d653fbc601164cbe1f4ee3a3c9c06.png

    a9f1e8e1edd008ee04d2466e8efa3067.png

    04ab95a8bb20710d8c30e89623b0e750.png

    7a87fc2a8a3ba61b4265c9af4fc6bb41.png

    Real Madrid Transfers:

    ce720bbc80514fb4ed61ecabefa6fd7d.png

    202a90bd6b2f63e1d64fe397a442958c.png

    471c16aeb61505a841899b47e699709f.png

  9. End of Season 4 - Nearly a Perfect Season and the Ghost of Gyokeres Past

    While @oliscott completed an unbeaten season in the league and finished with a 37 wins, 1 draw record the unbeaten season nearly extended to all competitions. While my Barcelona side put that to rest in the Champions League final former Real Madrid front-man Viktor Gyokeres put 4 past Real Madrid as part of a 5-3 win. My only trophy this year being the European Super Cup compared to the haul over at Real Madrid of the League, Spanish Cup and Spanish Super Cup my team are falling behind in the overall trophy race. 

    6233f7fed2738c2648eb6f9f3585ab69.png

    Barcelona Best XI:

    26328c076a3e686e9294ee7fcd35ddd9.png

    Real Madrid Best XI:

    55d382e3e0a6dee9571202adfda24279.png

  10. Took a deep dive through his fixtures to look to see what teams he has struggled against, not just this season but in previous years too. AC Milan have always fared well against his side and they play a narrow 4-1-2-1-2. Not really suited to my side outright but I gave it a go and while my side faded away (6-2 at full time which took the game to extra time) and it turned up results. Once Oli changed formations mid-match I struggled again and the goals dried up, if Osimhen had his goal in the 68th minute count I'd have gone through 7-6 on aggregate. 

    As that fixture list shows though, I've fallen up short in every other fixture this season. Overcoming the might of the squad @oliscott has assembled is now almost a case of waiting them out to retire rather than being able to identify genuinely better players. 

  11. My own January business consisted of me having a bit of a recognition that neither my striking options in Vitor Roque or Victor Osimhen could get much out of the Real Madrid defence. Haaland was always going to be a decisive signing once Man City were open to offers. Changing things around in my side I decided to give Nelson Weiper, a 6'4" forward I signed a couple of seasons back a run in the side. Osimhen with more space playing a little deeper and someone to run off of became more effective. With that in mind I turned my attentions towards signing essentially the target man style forward who could lead the line. I tried my luck with Sesko but Leipzig would not negotiate at all and when I looked at Ferguson at Brighton they were wanting close to £200m. I turned my attentions to 29 year old Tammy Abraham who I hope at £30m can help demonstrate across the remainder of the season whether this is an effective approach or not. My Transfers in this season proving quite costly, MIchael Sjoquist has already begun proving himself and I'm hoping the January additions of Suarez and Rodriguez can be ones for the future.

    e23f111f7e72517c627a24505acc27d5.png

  12. Season 4 - The Summer Business

    A pretty busy summer in terms of outgoings for my Barcelona side as a number of players were entering the final 12 months of their contract already on big deals. The choice between renew on higher wages for probably their last or main big contract or move them on made for a difficult choice. As Real Madrid procured Haaland there has been a couple of high value sales on their side and a whole batch of youngsters too it seems.

    Barca Transfers:

    f5d41e026548e966c115102a4d6e8b34.png

    aa24ebdb2bd0428134eedd93a2571ed0.png

    RM Transfers:

    1753d3f382961364d1113f5b218df916.png

    31ceaa31e3c0128259a7929960a05aa0.png

  13. As we're in the territory now where regens are coming through and beginning to look like they could feature soon here are a few of my top prospects. 

    First of all is Soren Birk, signed for £17.5m during the second season scouts uncovered him early and rated him highly across 3-4 scouting missions. I moved quickly as I worried Real Madrid interest wouldn't be far behind. 42 goals and 20 assists with the under 19's and I'm retraining him to operate as an inside forward on the right hand side. I probably need to get him working on his weaker foot but during the next 18 months he will start to be integrated into the team.

    af9f8bc581c83f984c906d3819777592.png

    Alfred Delmas is a product of the club academy, came through almost looking ready to play for the senior squad but I've decided to take it easy and let him develop with the U19's once he turns 17 I might give him some limited first team exposure but I feel there's time to let him grow organically and no pressure to come in too soon.

    d9b79fb85bc20e9802d8f59b93c8b1a6.png

    Antoni, another club prospect who may be likely to feature sooner rather than later as I consider letting Jules Kounde go. Very raw technically but has some good physical and mental attributes already, if he can develop the technical side this could be the kind of player who has a spot cemented 15 years from now.

    183727261a8b4a0a00f35b94649daee3.png

    Josep Lluis Brugue is a little less impressive at first glance, but I like the mental attributes and both footed nature of the player. A couple of strong technicals to start him off and he could be a good player in the future, certainly one I'm keeping an eye on over the next 2-3 years.

    11bb3872da76ec983e80a25e4913d943.png

     

  14. End of Season 3 - Another strong Real Madrid Year

    A fall off in the middle of the season from my Barcelona side combined with an even stronger performance from @oliscott and his Real Madrid team saw them comfortably win another league title. Meanwhile in the Champions League we met in the final and I won my second successive CL with a careful countering performance that saw me run out 3-0 winners really against the run of play. A lot of the youngsters signed by Real Madrid mean I'm staring an uphill battle to close the gap in terms of squad depth but the board at Barcelona are finding more money to try and compete. While I've been able to get the better in head to head matches a couple of times with Real Madrid recently season-long consistency has been a problem.

    Messi got to return for a swansong year with a CL win, department with 10 goals and 5 assists from 8 starts and 21 sub appearances. 

    b224f21d71e9342946146d345848e00c.png

    Barca Best XI

    2f262da63b6f6febcafeb807d1d4de6f.png

    RM Best XI

    90f8c1606372f551e72a0afeea8103dc.png

  15. 5 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

    I do that. The downloads mostly never happen. If it's 'just me', it will be due to my location. Steam doesn't 'recognise' my country.

    I haven't downloaded anything from the workshop for FM through steam, but with other games I've found I've had to subscribe while the game is open, close the game down and then the next time I open the game it is available then. If I do it while the game is closed then it doesn't work with games I've tried.

  16. It's a huge reality of football that is a consequence of continuous 24 hour news cycles so SI has to reflect it in game really. Does anyone find press conferences in real life to be anything other than tedious though? Almost all managers are media trained, they rarely put a foot out of place and they're a relic of the time before managers had that training and there were potentially interesting things to find out. Most of the time its the media trying to make something out of subtle gestures, minor details or winding up a manager and getting an inadvertent remark. 

    Chris Kamara on Soccer Saturday was the last source of finding out anything remotely interesting from pre-match conversations with managers and they weren't even press conferences. These days it's not even likely to get a Keegan-like interview again, the last on that front was probably Benitez. They're a huge part of football now because 30-40 years ago the less frequent interviews of non-media trained managers turned up cracking stories. They got some longevity out of it when it became adopted at lower levels and caught a new batch of managers without that training but now it's pretty much redundant. 

    There is a little utility in doing them if you do them well, they're always a potential hazard which is essentially a reflection of what they really are.

  17. End of Season 2 - Another Real Madrid dominant year:

    Up until the international break in March the league was tied neck and neck with my Barcelona side still sitting at the top with the head to head record this year. From January onwards though I'd been in an unfortunate cycle of recurring injuries and it came to a head at this point where so many players were missing the squad just ran out of steam. From 29th March I went 7 league games until I won again. That comfortably handed the title to @oliscott and Real Madrid. Despite this downturn in form I still managed to get to the Spanish Cup final, however, despite a dominant display in terms of stats the game finished 1-1 and I went on to lose on penalties. 

    The Spanish Super Cup was a resounding 4-0 defeat against Real Madrid in January, with ter Stegen injured after 3 minutes and not putting a goalkeeper on the bench Eric Garcia had to deputise and while 4-0 is a terrible score it feels somewhat respectable given an outfield player was in goal for 87 minutes. 

    I had the misfortune of meeting @oliscott in the semi-finals of the Champions League, however, despite thinking my squad was not read for this a 1-1 draw in the first leg and a narrow 2-1 win in the second saw my side face PSG in the final. A resounding 4-2 win saw my Barcelona side wrap up the Champions League as our only trophy this season. So Real Madrid finished with another 2 for the league & Spanish Super Cup, I finished with one in the Champions League.

    6ee82fc6de66b3b7e80f1b8b17cb23f5.png

    The gap at 10 points seems quite large, but I'm not as concerned given I was down 7-8 first team regulars during March/April when my side fell away. Additionally after 2 years of heavy cost cutting and operating on bargains the board have freed up a £196m budget which is getting put to use. 

×
×
  • Create New...