WhoAreYa?
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Posts posted by WhoAreYa?
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Southampton 0-0 Lyon
Something interesting has happened that I need to discuss and hopefully find a solution for. This is now the second time that I have noticed us get completely out passed. The first was against Shandong but we won 3-2 and so I think I glossed over it a little. Shandong had 63% of the ball and Lyon has just kept the ball 64% of the game - with 10 men. I either don’t have a skin which tells me their mentality or I’m doing something wrong when scouting the opposition because their match mentality is a mystery to me. One thing that instantly stands out on the action zones screen is that they both dominated the midfield. Thinking back to the matches this did seem to be low midfield so maybe this is a case of them completing cautious passes. I’d expect that from Shandong but not Lyon. Before their sending off, which was very early, they were controlling the ball so I don’t know if they switched mentality or not. They are still a highly reputable team, I can’t really understand them not playing their usual attacking game against us.
It’s quite a worrying observation because I want to be in control of the ball more often than not. Couple this with us being a low ranked team in the EPL then we are already up against it in terms of being on the front foot. Then triple that with our entire tactical set up being aimed at keeping the ball then you can see the problem! I’m not sure if they were playing cautiously against us and so because EPL teams won’t be (mostly) I should be ok, or if there’s something glaring in my tactical set up which points to us not being able to keep the ball. Or indeed win the ball back. I’ve got one more pre-season game against MK Dons then I face Leicester at home. My optimism has swung towards pessimism.Should I be that bothered though? I won the Shandong game 3-2 with both of their goals coming from set pieces. As you can see from the Lyon stats I was probably unlucky to not win that game too because I had more chances (and you can't see that they were actually good chances). It irks my inner need to control games but can I let that bother me? If these were EPL games then I'd consider it bad luck to not be sitting on 6 points.
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This isn’t dead. I've just been very busy and not had a chance for any gametime. I’m still very much looking forward to this game and can't wait to get cracked on. If anything the break has allowed me to add a few more young, up and coming players to my shortlist for January. I’ll play the MK Dons game then turn my attention towards scouting Leicester and preparing for that game.1 -
Southampton vs Bejing Renhe (1-0)
Much, much, much better. Interestingly, we had exactly the same amount of possession with 58% of the ball but much better penetration. We also had the same amount of key passes with another five in this game too. I didn’t actually show the key passes last time but I’m going to show both games side by side and it shows exactly why I’m so much happier with our most recent performance.
vs Beijing Renhe vs Tianjin
All five in the second game were into the box with only one from out wide - and this wasn’t really a cross because P. Hojbjerg chased down a loose ball, swivelled and picked out S. Armstrong for an easy header at the back post.
There were also 2/3 other dangerous through passes from S. Armstrong towards C. Adams which were intercepted by last ditch defending. We cut them open for fun from the number 10 zone which equals very dangerous, high percentage chances.
I made another tactical change after 20 minutes because at that point we were doing well but could do better. We had two key passes and 69% possession but I felt that we were a bit too safe, so up we went to positive and P. Hojbjerg was given get further forward. He thrived and was 0.1 match rating behind goal scorer and MotM S. Armstrong. We sacrificed 11% of possession but we got the goal and dominated the game.
Mixed bag here, I’m toying with work ball into box. I may leave it and trust their decision making but I see a few too many shots from outside the box. It may be a byproduct of switching to positive mentality. If I see any player consistently shooting from too far out I’ll address that with a PI.
In the last game we saw an extremely rigid and defined 4-2-3-1 shape. This meant that players were being very safe and sticking to their allotted zones. Here, we see clearly the full backs overloading the midfield and P. Hojbjerg is supporting S. Armstrong so I’m very pleased here. If I was nit picking, O. Romeu could be slightly more central and C. Adams does look quite isolated up front.
The Tactics Board
I think I’ve found my base shape so I’ll do some heavy work on familiarity in the next few weeks. I’ve got one more game in China followed by a morale booster when I get home against Met. Police. Match fitness minutes will be shared out equally. I liked the positive mentality against these sorts of teams so I’m going to start with that and I’ll also give P. Hojbjerg more license to support attacks. I just have to be careful not to train that too much because I don't see us being the favourites in many PL games.
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Thanks @Djuicer I'll do that next time.
Just about to watch the game again and see if I notice anything different. I'm really not in a rush to whizz through this save. I'd rather take my time and actually build something like I was actually in control. I'd rather have one fantastic, engaging season than five underwhelming ones.
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Well, it didn't get better with a second viewing... I think I've got a mismatch of roles here that don't really work together or compliment each other. I've had a tinker with the tactics board and come up with the following; it looks a bit more dramatic than it actually is.
- The huge gap between defence and midfield was going to be trouble in the league so one midfielder becomes more defensive. The eventual plan here is to create a deeper and a more avanced playmaker set of roles with instructions and traits without those actual tags which will attract the ball.
- S. Armstrong becomes a Treq. It's still an attacking role in which I will expect goals and assists, but hopefully he will drop into holes looking for the ball too.
- I've ditched the wingers and brought them deeper. This will give S. Armstrong more space and help our defensive shape. I've given them both get further forward, stay wider and take more risks. So still acting like a winger just with reduced dribbling and an option to look for a killer pass. S. Boufal is right footed and has runs with ball often as a trait so that adds something different and is why I placed the defend duty next to him.
- The full backs were not acting like I wanted them to so out go FB(S) with cut inside instructions to actual IWB's. I'd like to see J. Ward-Prowse sitting central letting my full backs flank him, forming a 3 man midfield and a strong DM/CM presence.
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Also, what on Earth is going on with my formatting? I'm using Google Docs to write up my posts and pasting in.
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Touchdown in China
My pre-season tour of China is finally underway. Three games await us well away from prying eyes. My squad is ravaged either by being on holiday still or through niggly injuries. I’ll be using a lot of back up players, but hopefully I’ll still be able to look at the system. I've set up training, scouting and now I can finally turn to the football. I realise these games are early, non-competitive and come when we are very short staffed.
Southampton vs Tianjin (1-1)
Well that was dull. We had 58% of the ball and completed 88% of our passes. We had a decent amount of shots from inside the box which were mostly off target. However, these were not very good chances at all. The majority were headed attempts either from a cross or a wide free kick delivery. We really struggled to create chances for C. Adams or W. Smallbone who usually took up good positions in the box but we bypassed them. The crossing output was what perhaps frustrated me the most watching the game. We tried 65 crosses in the game with a 17% connection rate. The wingers were very keen to run into dead ends and were wasteful in possession - despite the high possession stat. They touched the ball far more than any other position.
(Shots)
We were very safe and steady in possession, P. Hojbjerg completed 97% of his passes and Romeu 95%. These were quite deep, safe passes from the central areas, often wide to the wingers. They’re neither here nor there as CM(S) not really offering much but drifting forwards and leaving acres of space behind them. As predicted my AM(A) wasn’t involved and neither was C. Adams. Also the full backs didn’t really seem to be working as intended, often just being cautious and wide and often drifting through on the overlap. K. Walker-Peters does have an eye for a pass, though.
(Passes from central midfield)
(W. Smallbone (AMC) involvement)
(C. Adams involvement)
It wasn’t all bad, our high press forced many turnovers and we have shown that we can keep the ball. The central midfielders did show for the ball but didn’t attract it like magnets and I often saw either the defenders or GK bypass them with a good pass, but this was to the wingers who then just ran and left everybody else behind apart from the AMC but the crosses were poor and didn’t find the dual targets in the box.
The Tactics Board
I don’t want to make too many rash tactical decisions based on one game. I wanted to leave this set up for the full tour at least but I’m not sure if I can, it really seemed that bad. The wingers, attacking midfield, full backs, central midfielders and striker all underperformed. I’m going to try and bullet point potential changes or areas of improvement and wait for some community advice before I move onto game two.
Wingers hogging the ball and making poor choices (swap roles, IF from favoured foot side and add roaming and/ or more risky passes)
Full backs far too cautious and not making enough central movements (Change to IWB’s which would mean keeping some sort of winger role even if it's WM or modified IF)
I’m putting a break in here because I think the next three are all linked...
AMC/ ST not involved
CM’s cautious and neither attacking or defensive
Poor/ lack of build up play
If I do change my full backs I don’t think I need to touch my central midfielders and if I move my CMs to DMs I don’t need to change my full backs because I’ve removed the space for them.
I’m considering a Treq role at AMC. IF’s will step on his toes but DM’s will give him more space to bring the ST into play.
I think the winger roles are my main source of poor build up play. By getting the ball and running I can’t tell if my tempo or passing instructions are too cautious or not - which I think they are anyway but I've no way to tell.
If I change one role I could easily spiral into 3,4,5 changes which I really don’t want to do but I feel like I need to do something...
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17 hours ago, wixxi said:
I think an AM on attack duty without the 'Comes deep to get ball' PPM may be positioned too high to receive the ball in a possession system, and I think you should probably pay close attention to the double pivots since having both on support duties may leave you open in transitions, but other than that this seems like a logical base for what you have planned
. Spielverlagerung recently published an article on Sassuolo's positional play system, I recommend giving it a read for some more insight on to how their system functions. While it's quite difficult to recreate some of the positional concepts shown in the article such as the CM's positioning relative to the ball side in build-up, there's still some things to be learned there.
Thank you wixxi.
AMC - You're right, potentially too aggressive. I may go support with the get further forwards PI. Without, I think we don't have enough penetration and bodies in the box to share the goal scoring burden.
MC - Maybe a hold position shout or a player who stays back at all times or something could work. Again from what I've read about Sassuolo I can't work out the roles of the midfield two who are usually Obiang and Locatelli. I think they are shielders but play a high number of forward passes. Maybe drop them back to defensive midfielders on support? Or just watch a few games!
17 hours ago, Jean0987654321 said:Thank you, it was pretty much these two articles that made me want to play as them. I saw the spielverlagerung one first then TFA for de Zerbi and their striker Caputo.
17 hours ago, JoOSTAR said:I'll be following this
Good to have you along for the ride thanks!
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I've added a couple of team instructions and decided to see how we fare at our Chinese training camp. We play three games in China followed by three home games against Met. Police, Lyon and MK Dons.
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I’ll be using Southampton which immediately throws up a few problems before I begin. They’re not Sassuolo and as such I don’t have the same players or the same opponents. The players are pretty average to be honest and as such I won’t be able to dominate games from day one. This will probably have to be a developing project. They are however both middle to low teams and Sassuolo have taken that in their stride but for me it will be difficult to replicate entertaining, possession football when teams don’t let me have the ball.
I haven’t been very tactically astute for a number of years now but what I can do is create possession orientated systems. Although, these tend to be slow and quite dull. I really struggle to create possession with intent without quality players. I know this is a buzzword (buzzphrase?) at the minute and there are a lot of threads but I’m still struggling so I’m opening up my own thread. My latest attempt at PWI was with Sunderland, where we were the league leaders in possession and were automatically promoted but sat quite a few places back for chances created and goals scored. It was a successful season where I learned a lot, but at times it was awful to watch! Previously (Maybe FM16/17), I created a successful Guardiola/ Spanish National Team inspired positional 4-2-3-1 that had PWI and made my Spartak Moscow side a very strong team. The point being I don’t think this challenge is beyond me.
I’ve chosen De Zerbi’s Sassuolo for a couple of reasons. I came across their style quite recently and saw that it ticks some of my favourite roles and I found I really enjoyed watching them. The deep, narrow full backs acting almost like Pep’s inverted wing backs are something that I did manage to use successfully at Sunderland and I love crowding that midfield. Also, the number 10 is iconic and easily my favourite role in football that I need to get working. Deepish central midfielders, wingers and an aggressive forward (all used at Sassuolo) should give him the space needed to flourish - all of which have come from the #10 thread and make perfect sense. See, I have done some reading!
I’m starting with the following system which does need some key additions before match day one:
The front four have more urgent pressing (I can’t use the ball if I don’t have it)
The full backs cut inside (creating passing options and a midfield overload)
My AMC takes more risks and moves into channels
It’s a messy tactics screen at the minute with them all still on holiday but I’ll talk you through a couple of key players. The full backs, crucially I think, don’t have any hugs line or runs with ball traits but K. Walker-Peters does like to get forward whenever possible. S. Armstrong will be my preferred AMC and he is a clean slate. I’ve chosen C. Adams over D. Ings because Ings likes the ball at his feet and I want my striker going the opposite way creating AMC space. C. Adams runs with the ball and places shots but doesn’t have any movement traits. Central midfield is tricky. They sort of need to be allrounders but apart from that I’m struggling to define their Sassuolo roles. They don’t come too deep but they also don’t stray too far forwards. Also, I have two completely different players and it will be interesting to see how they play the same role. J. Ward-Prowse is a clean slate but P. Hojbjerg tries killer balls, dictates tempo and switches the ball to the other flank. Those traits do excite me, especially as he’s already a workhorse. At first glance I thought wow he’s bad but maybe he has a chance.
These are the rest of my players in a threadbare and quite average squad (no transfers allowed). A few youth players will be promoted to fill the gaps. Southampton finished 16th on 39 points last season. This season the board wants to avoid relegation and I personally want to beat last season, so I’d be happy with 15th and/ or 40 points.
Other tactical thoughts: I want us to play out from the back and I’m considering play out of defence and giving my GK short distribution instructions. I think with the back six I have enough options for them to find these passes even in a top-heavy formation. I don’t want shorter passing though because I want to see passes releasing the wingers and forwards as teams push up and press me. Not sure about tempo either, I don’t want them to panic on the ball but equally I don’t want slow possession for possession’s sake. Is balanced too cautious? I don’t think I need to counter-press either with my front four being high and already urgent and don’t see the point of working the ball into the box with wingers (maybe set them to low crosses) and hopefully S. Armstrong and P. Hojbjerg especially are set up to play through balls into the box ahead of C. Adams. Possibly dribble less because the wingers will already dribble and the attacking mentality of S. Armstrong will probably see him attempting a few dribbles. With not a lot of possession instructions, this one might help us keep the ball that bit better. These are all instructions discussed in Herne's thread but I struggled to find the right balance in my Sunderland game.
This should be a developing thread as I play around with the system to try and create a successful brand of football that raises Southampton up the league. It is an education though and I’ve tried to document every thought process. I may be doing something fundamentally wrong with how I see some roles or completely omitting something key. I’m here to learn!
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I've had an extremely busy window but it's interesting to see a couple of familar faces between our games in Alan Forrest and George Honeyman. If you're interested here are my dealings; fingers crossed they are good enough! Just putting it on hold now to make sure I still want to progress.
Out: C. McLaughlin (mut termination £60k); Wyke (£150k); Watmore (free); Lafferty (free); Smith (free); Winnall (exp loan); Semanyo (exp loan); John (exp loan); Burge (loan); Plus gutting the U23 squad and staff on frees (£150k profit).
That leaves the following squad:
*Honeyman and Smith are still in progress
Goalkeepers: McLaughling, Smith (free)*
Defenders: O'Nien; Perry Ng (£350k); Willis, Lynch, Baldwin, Flanagan, Obita (free), Hume
Central Midfield: Dobson, Embleton, Power, Leadbitter, Mumba, Scowen, Honeyman (£475k)*
Wide Midfield: McGeady, Gooch, Maguire, Forrest (£90k January)
Strikers: Grigg, Hepburn-Murphy (loan), Balogan (loan.
Very light for the Championship but hopefully I've got just about enough cover. Lots of money left over for January if needed. Total wages are around £200k per week despite the turnover and having a very structured wage will (excluding McGeady and Leadbitter).
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Annoying waste of money on overpriced transfers and a ridiculous wage package too by the sounds of it... Sunderland owners just don't learn! You've had a great start, especially so if your first eleven hasn't really changed. I'd take that! I've said this a few times now but I just don't really see anyone in the squad capable of turning this club around. It's a massive rebuilding job.
I fear my Sunderland game is at an end. I was promoted (my first for a long, long time) in 2nd place barely surviving a few wobbles and have started to cut down the playing squads. I got one prospect through the youth intake who is already getting poached and will be leaving for peanuts. I was forced to extend the contracts of McLaughlin (I do like him), Maguire, and Flanagan (possibly Baldwin too) and I'm still absolutely barebones. I just don't have enough confidence in the players who I have or the confidence that I can even bring in adequate squad players. The good news is that we've had a takeover, almost exactly the same financially as yours but different investors. The money is there but we have to be smart because as you said there's the likes of McGeady coming back, plus an aging Leadbitter and Watmore who has to go too. The whole point of the save is to bring Sunderland back in a sensible and sustainable manner so they never have such a crisis ever again.
This season our football has been horrible. We controlled the ball but nothing that I did had us scoring goals or creating chances on a regular basis. We were just a bit too ponderous and wasteful, often relying on a bit of brilliance. It's a shame because the challenge is a good one and there are quite a few players in the squad who I've grown quite attached to: O'Nien, Dobson, Grigg and Gooch to name some. Just not sure that I have the stomach for it!
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Fantastic end to the season! Just shows how tough of a league this is. You've come from struggling in fourth to topping the league and it was very, very tight! Exactly what I'm seeing in my game, it's dog eat dog.
Love these spreadsheets that you're doing to help your squad building. Sunderland are in a right mess with a squad that's barely good enough, but still highly paid for this level. I'm trying to go through the squad now and see who fits in and who we can let go. The problem is I could have a massive firesale... but then that would cripple squad harmony and potentially derail the promotion push. The U23's and even the current U18's will be gutted but also there are sooo many players on expiring contracts in the first team. There are three leaving on loan and I still have another seven expiring. I have also already extended the contracts of Lynch, Dobson and O'Nien (not sure if they were all expiring or not but they are key players). I'd like to keep Jon McLaughlin but the others are expendable but I just can't deal with that level of turnover. So maybe Maguire, Flanagan and one more will stay if the finances are ok. My immediate concern is that I need to start building now (in January) for next season with free transfers but I'd also like to cash in on players like Smith, Lafferty and Watmore but the gamble is can I actually replace them now? We need a good squad to survive the last half of the season! These players like Lafferty (Wyke) and Watmore are not producing anything but they are good to bring on when games are wrapped up to rest Grigg, Gooch etc.
It's a lot of fun!
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Steadying the ship nicely Sean. Pressure is on now to maintain this form to the title. Dominic Samuel looks a handful, big and quick. Hope he does the business for you. I've come across him in my game when I manually scouted a few transfer listed players and I'm tempted. Scouting is coming up good for me so far though I have a growing shortlist of realistic targets with my 4 allowed scouts roaming England and Scotland.
I can't wait to get stuck into the financial side of the game. You're further on than me, how much do you think you will lose over the full season? What transfer budget did you get in January? Any other areas of the squad that you think need strengthening?
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Following.
Hi Sean. Great concept and great choice of club. Sunderland certainly has had some issues in recent seasons so best of luck. When the current season halted, Sunderland was outside the play-off spots which says it all really. I've also started a Sunderland save after starting the netfix series, so I know how demanding this board is!
I've never tried setting up scouting assignments like you have so I'll be borrowing that style. Do you find that your scouts return with enough reports or is it too restricting? I'm playing with first window turned off so hopefully in January I'll have a decent shortlist.
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1 hour ago, CowShedBarmyArmy said:
Thanks for the link, I've read his posts before and they are excellent. I will try and integrate some ideas into my stuff.
I've made some progress today with converting data etc so it should be full steam ahead now.
Think I have a decent way to assess goalkeepers:
Saves/90 vs Goals Conceded/90
Theory being a keeper making lots of saves in a team that doesnt concede much must be doing ok.
I'd love total shots faced but I can't find that in FM20. I had to calculate Saves/90 myself as it doesn't exist.
If you have specific metrics you'd like then let me know and i'll create them and upload the file.
I seem to remember that there's a stat shown on a player's data profile that isn't shown on the search filter. Their personal data report card near where you look at their coach report. Sure it's something like shots faced or saves made. I can't check right now as I'm waiting for a new computer and can't quite remember it!
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Playing devil's advocate here, isn't it also unrealistic to sign a player like Gravenberch for £25m or Pellegri in Scotland? Also, Gravenberch came from Ajax? A team with a much higher reputation than Celtic and also the dutch league (about 10th in Europe) is way more reputable than the SPFL (20th?) unless something drastic has happened in those 5 years. You would have seen him sign for £25m and then immediately reduce in value due to new reputations (plus/ minus contract stuff). Maybe the 1.5 seasons just isn't long enough for him to raise his reputation back to the level that it was at Ajax.
As for the 16 yr old, poaching players at that age is always difficult, track him for a season or two, watch him, scout him, praise him etc then swoop when he's on low professional terms.
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This may be of interest to you, @CowShedBarmyArmy?
https://theresonlyoneball.com/2019/12/31/0104-scouting-and-transfers/ from @fmFutbolManager
As I mentioned with my Brentford save, this is the kind of thing that I want to be setting up. Fascinating stuff!
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Pre-season is very important for me and like you I want variety in the teams that I face. For scheduling I try and have five weeks of two games per week after a one or two week block of pure training. So ideally I like a long pre-season of seven weeks which isn't always possible I know but I'd be unhappy with anything under five weeks - one week of training followed by four weeks of two games per week.
The first three or four games should be in a training camp or tour (USA/ China/ Dubai etc). (I think training camps are still only arranged by the board?) A nice block of warm weather football to prime your squad for the ardours ahead. This is followed by some games on your own hallowed turf, around another four. These are against teams of a decent but not amazing standard, think Club Brugge or Sparta Prague or Braga etc. Games that should be tough but winnable. Similar stature to your own team so scale those up or down. Maybe a glamour tie in there too for some money. May even play the Prague game away from home with another game away at Ajax for example, give your fans a nice trip. Finish it all off with morale boosting ties visiting your local clubs and done.
Tactical familiarity, £££ and an interesting nation hop around Europe.
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This is fantastic! The Python aspect is perhaps beyond me but your statistical analysis is very much up my street. I've just started a save with Brentford FC who are massive on stats in real life and it is definitely an area that I'm going to be placing a lot of emphasis on, in the transfer market especially. Football seems to be becoming more analytical by the day and, honestly, it surprises me that more people don't look at the in-game stats which are actually quite numerous now - and will only become more so. There are some that I find very important such as save % for keepers, shots on target for strikers and key passes.
What are your favourite stats and how do these change by position or by role? For example what stats do you place most emphasis on for say central defenders?
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Thank you very much @Smurf I'll take a look.
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23 hours ago, WhoAreYa? said:
I've just had the beginnings of a fantastic save ruined by a malfunction so I'm in need of a new toy. I have a few questions.
1. At a maximum budget of £500, is the better value in a desktop or laptop? (not forgetting the accessories)
2. I've read back a few pages and it looks like the geforce gtx 1050 is a good card for the 3D engine. I don't think I can afford this so what's an example of the next level down?
3. I think I know this one, but should there be more longevity in a desktop? This purchase would need to last as long as possible.
Sorry to bump this...
I think I'm waiting for the answer to question 2 more than anything please.
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I haven't forgotten about this save. Technical gremlins have put it on ice for a bit but I'll be coming back to it ASAP.
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I've just had the beginnings of a fantastic save ruined by a malfunction so I'm in need of a new toy. I have a few questions.
1. At a maximum budget of £500, is the better value in a desktop or laptop? (not forgetting the accessories)
2. I've read back a few pages and it looks like the geforce gtx 1050 is a good card for the 3D engine. I don't think I can afford this so what's an example of the next level down?
3. I think I know this one, but should there be more longevity in a desktop? This purchase would need to last as long as possible.
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On 01/05/2020 at 01:13, Ronaldo Beckham said:
Yeah Joel Valencia never performed for me so it was probably a good move for you to get rid of him.
If I play this right we could make a very big profit on him which will all be reinvested in the club. This is good because from the projection screen it doesn't look too good. Speaking of reinvestments I'd like to improve the data analysis facilities at somepoint. However my initial impressions of the staff are not good at all. There's actually a terrible mix of personalities, playing styles and then actual attributes to back those up. Georgson is decent and O'Connor is a model citizen but bang average and on high wages. I think most will get another year with us (when a lot of contracts will expire) and then that will be a job for next summer. It's not as big of a job as it usually is for me with me not being bothered about intake day, which is of course directly affected by all of the above. Scouting is my next job. Again, horrible staff attributes! They'll have to do though for now.
It's a massive project is this and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a new challenge. On the first page there are a couple of articles that are skeptical at best of the success of the project. It has been far more successful in Denmark than England and I think the current FM assessment of the club such as fairly average squad, poor staff attribute, fairly precarious finances etc are a good reflection. Still, I'm very much enjoying it so far. Limited playing time means I'm still early in pre-season but I'll get there!
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1 hour ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:
I think from what I remember is eventually you can ask for a B team or Under 18 team I think so you might be able to get that but I can't remember for definite. Sorry mate.
Not a problem. I enabled the first season transfer window for this very reason. I've gone on a cull of the development squad this evening and the only two players that I haven't loaned out are Yearwood and Carre. Very pleased with the percentage of wages freed up and also I put in a lot of small loan fees, enough to add up over the season and recoup the nomimal transfer fees paid for these players before my time at the club. I also manually filtered the offers based on playing time and quality of training facilities. Hopefully this will pay off come the end of the season.
What I've tried to do with the higher rated players like Valencia is really think about market value. He signed for Brentford for £1.8m but I saw him as 3rd choice on either wing. He was also sitting on £15,000 per week. I offered him for loan and had a few interested parties and so he heads to Huddersfield Town for the season. They're paying all of his wages plus £550k fee (I think that's minimum and could raise if he misses matches). Huddersfield also say he will be a rotation option which is more than I could offer him (again, if he's on the bench I get more loan fee) plus, crucially, Huddersfield have fantastic training facilities - better than us and better than the other teams who matched their bid. He either doesn't play and I get more money (plus he wouldn't play at Griffin Park anyway) but still trains at better facilities or he plays, raises his maket value and I get a more developed player at the end of the season. Brilliant.
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Brentford FC – BenhamBall – Summer 2019
I’m not in a hurry to start the season. My first few days on the job will be spent analysing the task at hand – the squad, the staff, the expectations, the infrastructure etc. This thread has been a goldmine of information so I don’t feel like I’m going in blind.
Youth Development - The first difference to a standard FM game is the whole youth situation – or lack of it! It’s a very unique set up and I’m still not entirely sure how to go about it. I like it though and I have no plans to ever develop the youth facilities. There are quite a few gems in the U23 squad and I’ll refer to these as my development squad. The first decision is how to develop the players in the development squad. The tricky players are Gunnarsson, Racic, Thompson, Oksanen, Zamburek and I’d even say the likes of Yearwood and Fosu from the first team. These are good players with high potential who need careful man management to develop. Similarly, this bracket of players also have their pathway to the first team blocked by more able candidates so I can’t guarantee them many first team minutes. In a regular game, I’d leave them to play in the development league, monitor their training schedules and wait and see if any injuries or fixture congestion arise to give them their big break. As far as I’m aware, but I do need this confirming please, Brentford’s U23 team do not play any competitive games and the most would be weekly friendlies? I’m not sure that this is enough for them to significantly improve and take a first team, rotational place?
Tactics – I’m quite set in my ways on how I like to see football being played. It needs to be possession orientated, progressive and entertaining. Brentford have a good, technical squad but good is probably the correct adjective. Good just doesn’t quite cut it though so I’ll ‘phase in’ a more expansive playing style slowly. I’ve based that on two key areas, central midfield and central defence. Defensively, the DC pairing of Pinnock and Janssen is very good. However, they are not ball-playing or ball-carrying defenders. If pressed they will make mistakes. Also, I don’t have a deep-lying playmaker (player traits being a factor here) and would have to use Mokotjo or Baptiste, who has enough potential to grow into this role. Both won’t really create angles for the DC pairing and will not be able to quickly take the ball and find somebody in a better position. It will all be quite slow and ponderous which is easy to defend against. Even higher up in midfield my only “passer” is Norgaard (who I’m not sure actually starts), unless I can squeeze some technical development out of Jensen. To counter this lack of trust in my central areas I’ll have to build from the wing backs and hope that again isn’t too easy to defend against. My front three will be Mbeumo as an IF from the left, Benrahma as a winger on the right and Forss as a deep-lying forward. I’m hoping players like Jensen can switch play to Benrahma to offer something different because it all feels a bit turgid. We have good depth but form may have to decide who plays where. Pre-season will be very important.
Scouting – As you’ve probably guessed I’m not too happy with my squad. That’s harsh, there are some good players with potential to improve. But I just don’t see this team going up first season like you all have done! Eeek! I’ve opened up the first transfer window, I usually start with the same squads while January at least for realism, but I didn’t know if I needed to loan any players out or not. I won’t be making any incoming signings in this first window and I’ll use this time to scout and shortlist some realistic signings. This has been a hot topic in this thread, so, what’s my take on the subject? Well, I think there’s a real market to see someone have a go at a pure ‘BenhamBall’ or as much as the game can offer. Signings need to represent good value, they must be young and also fit my tactical style. Over the coming few days, I will try and narrow down a statistical blueprint for identifying players with key ‘metrics’ for each playing position. With my rigid tactical style this should be fairly easy to do. For example, key passes per game for my midfielders, percentage of shots on target/ goals for strikers (see the signing of Benrahma as an example), percentage of shots saved for GK’s etc etc. I think that could be very interesting to see who the game identifies as productive players. Then it will be a case of scouting realistic leagues with further scrutiny of any players that the numbers highlight.
Pre-season will be busy. I’m currently scheduling friendlies to see the entire squad in action. I’ll be tweaking roles and duties, setting up my scouting assignments, appraising staff and I honestly can’t wait! I haven’t been this excited about a save for a very long time!
Sorry, I know I’m banging on about this, but does the U23 squad have any competitive games? What about in the second season? That will really change my perspective on who I would like to keep at the club and who would be better served going on loan for first team minutes.
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. Spielverlagerung recently published an article on Sassuolo's positional play system, I recommend giving it a read for some more insight on to how their system functions. While it's quite difficult to recreate some of the positional concepts shown in the article such as the CM's positioning relative to the ball side in build-up, there's still some things to be learned there.
How to develop a De Zerbi Inspired 4-2-3-1?
in Tactics, Training & Strategies Discussion
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Leicester City Scout Report
A boring 1-0 victory over MK Dons, where we again lost the possession battle, leads us through pre-season and into competitive action.
I’m taking a good look at the scouting package that has been prepared for me. There seems to be an immediate anomaly between their expected formation and the one that they have been using in the previous two games. They are predicted to use a narrow 4-4-2 diamond yet their last two games have been a more conventional 4-3-3 with a DM. Both formations will see S. Armstrong struggling for space as my #10. B. Rodgers prefers the deeper 4-3-3 so I’m edging towards expecting this set up. All of their systems include an attacking mentality with gegenpressing. The saving grace is that I don’t see fantastic levels of work rate or fitness in their midfield or attackers (J. Vardy aside who is expected to only play if they use the 4-4-2 diamond). Again, not sure that I trust that. I think they’ll look to press the ball and then use the vision of J. Maddison and Y. Tielemans to launch quick balls to their rapid front three. Chances are created from deep which links into this prediction. My assistant recommends I counter this by using the aerial ability of J. Vestergaard but there’s no way that his 8 pace gets anywhere near this game.
Looking at their analyst report from their final pre-season fixture you can clearly see J. Maddison spraying key passes from deep. Very progressive, forward passes. 115 forward passes and 224 medium passes also supports this. 43% of attacks are also through RW D. Gray, I’m happy with this as R. Bertrand is a strong option at LB for me who should be able to match him.
I’ve touched upon how I think my shape will play against this set up but I want to delve a little deeper.
Positives:
Concerns:
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