SergeiG

You definitely can with a young squad, loans, free transfers, selling "old timers" and little budget adjustments. Last year I got Salford to the prem and had about 405K wage budget and finished 10th if I remember correctly.

Did you get sacked after this result?

Dude, I am unemployed and even I aint got no time for that.

I dont know for sure if the game "cheats" but I do know that we got selective memories when it comes to remembering good and bad stuff. So, for every shot you take you mostly remember all the great or bad shots straight to the keeper's hands. In the last version of FM I remember managing Manchester United and I was dominating the league with 15 or so wins in a row and when I played Arsenal they were winning 2-0 and in the last 15 minutes or so I subbed Ronaldo for Greenwood and he scored 3 goals and won the game for me in the 95th minute so often times it happens the other way too.

So I started A new save with AZ Alkmaar and as usual I give my squad a promise to give youth a chance because it's a very easy promise for me to keep especially with a young team like AZ, I never failed to keep it once since it was introduced in the game many years ago, until now. The thing is, I failed it before the season is over with at least 6 more games to go and I definitely played lots of youth. Maxim Dekker - 19 YO 15 league games(missed some games due to injuries) Fabricio Díaz - 20 YO 20 league games Myron van Brederode - 19 YO 22 league games(missed some games due to injuries) Jayden Addai - 17 YO 8 league games Damienus Reverson - 19 YO 12 league games Miloš Kerkez - 19 YO 18 league games(missed some games due to injuries) Wouter Goes - 18 YO 2 league games Ernest Poku - 19 YO - 7 league games Mexx Meerdink - 19 YO - 5 league games Tobias Gulliksen - 19 YO 10 league games(missed some games due to injuries) Not counting cup matches, Conference league and 21-24 year old players. No way you can tell me I am not giving young players a chance. Anybody else experienced it? Now some of my key players are unhappy and got poor moral and I am in a very crucial moment of the season, with league title race and Conference league semi-finals coming.

Definitely ignore staff recommendations, they are all idiots.

I agree, if not the worst then one of the worst in the last 20 years I got with this game.

This really pisses me off, I lost some players on a free because of that(some good once at that). Some player was crying for 2 years when I refused to sell him(despite being an important player and playing about 30 league games per season) and after I accepted the fact he is not going to re-new his contract I did try to sell him(and for some low prices to about 20 different clubs) but he would refuse every offer for the next 2 seasons, despite me not playing him anymore as I found a better option. I even tried to include a wage contribution, despite his wage being less than 60K per week. After refusing some of the biggest clubs in Europe, he signed on a free for Fiorentina(A team he rejected a few times too BTW). The transfers were always broken but this year it's a total **** show.

Great trolling by SI

Spend tons of money and get the club in debt, they will sell the club quick.

It's definitely too easy. Doesnt matter if you play with PSG or some team from the 6th tier of English football, if you understand the basic game mechanics you will get results, win the CL, get back to back promotions, etc.

Try to manage a small Croatian team and win the league. Knocking Dinamo Zagreb from the top is kinnda challenging because they got tons of money, an OP squad and a good youth setup, unlike the rest of the league.

I got a question. I just had a takeover in my club and the new owner's culture is "Strive to make progress on and off the pitch". Its very vague...Whats considered "progress" on and off the pitch? Winning trophies? Investing in new facilities? Making money? Winning lots of games? I have never seen this type of culture before and got no idea what it means exactly. Anybody got and idea?

From my 20 years of experience with the game and I have done it countless times, Ajax most recently, where I developed a team full of 18-22 year olds and won the treble 2 years straight.

Thats not what I said. I said the game does not account for it at all so it's easy to exploit.

It is in my opinion, the game can't account for your team's lack of experience so you dont actually dont need any senior players. Thats an exploit.

Well thats my point, how long gegenpress is OP in the game? 2-3 years and SI won't fix it. But the player base of the game just prefer to sweep it under the rug and suggest to everybody to avoid it instead of holding the devs responsible and demand it fixed and balanced. That not some crappy niche tactic no one ever heard of, it's a very common tactic in modern football. Pressing in modern football is a must and you tell me I can use it because SI is incompetent? Anyway, I am not using it in the new game I started after the latest patch and It's still as easy as before. Regarding the old professionals, most of them are first team regulars until they are physically unable to be anymore. I am in my 4th season now and Eriksen(33), Fernandes(31) and De Gea(35) are my first team regulars. I dont think its a "hack" or an "exploit" or "easy mode", it's a realistic practice that most players actually dont do and prefer to use 18-26 year olds and then sell them before their value drop or their wages get too high so it's not a problem to offload them. Now thats an exploit.

How is mixing your squad with older professional players or using gegenpress is "a hack" or unrealistic? It's way more unrealistic to field a squad of 18-21 year olds and win the Champions League. Thats by the way is another easy aspect of the game, mentality dont matter at all. In real life if you stock your team with 20-year-olds your squad will crumble under the pressure.

I actually did, last year and this year. This year's thread was closed because I compared personal challenges(like the youth challenge) to bringing your own salt to a restaurant and the mods used it as an excuse to say it went off-topic about food and such. (check my post history if you are curious, lots of people had lots of interesting things to say) I just stopped wasting my time about explaining stuff after that,

No, it's not making the game harder. Especially the youth challenge, it's just crippling yourself because the game is too easy. Well, I have been playing the game since CM03/04, never skipped a version since. I just want to play the game with the team I support or some league I like(Belgian league for example) and not achieve everything in the game in 2-5 seasons.

OK, what is this have to do with what I said?

I wish because the game is way to easy.

Staff are idiots in the game, they show enthusiasm and professionalism of a minimum wage employee.

I definitely agree, you can basically bankrupt a club but the board will just inject some money and it's fine again.