[FM21 - Barcelona - The return of the King]

23 hours ago, mefirst said:

First season with Barca. Won La Liga, lost Champions league final to Man City. 

I rotated my team a lot. I gave lots of playing time to Pedri, Fati, Puig and Araujo. 
 

Second season transfers in:

Yusuf Demir

Lautaro Martinez

Youssoufa Moukoko

 

Out:

Coutinho

Junior Firpo

Nice one! Where did you play Pedro and Puig, and what tactic did you play?

[FM21 - Barcelona - The return of the King]

So, we've finally made it to the 1st December...

The good news is that we're unbeaten in all competitions, with 4 wins out of 4 in the Champions League Group Stage (drawn alongside Bayern, Dynamo Kyiv and Basaksehir F.K.) and 9 wins and a draw from our opening 10 league games. In all competitions we've scored 34 goals and only conceding 8 in the process. Goals and assists have been spread around quite nicely, with Messi being our top scorer on 6, and Pedri leading the assists with 6. Tried to give as much game time as possible to Araujo, Pedri and Fati who have all had great starts - Pedri in particular has been immense and has outperformer De Jong comfortably. Moriba is getting minutes here and there, but I just haven't been able to squeeze him in. 

The bad news is that despite calling this thread the return of the King, Lionel is not exactly playing ball. He's played 13, scored 6 and assisted 3 at a 7.12 average rating - not a bad return considering I have him flexing between playing out on the right as an IF (A) and down the middle as my DLF (A), but not what I had hoped for. Worse still, I am currently unable to tie him down to a new contract, and look as though I may lose him at the end of the season. We have twice offered a 2 year deal at £650,000 a week (still absolutely mental money), but cannot afford the £850k that he is demanding. I would love to keep him around until he retires, and am willing to overpay to do it as I will push to move on the likes of Coutinho (£400k p/w until 2023), Dembele (£210k p/w until 2022), Griezmann (£600K p/w until 2024), Busquets (£275k p/w until 2023), Sergi Roberto (£175k p/w until 2022) and Umtiti (£210k p/w until 2023) to free up some cash. One of these will have to go in January if we are able to meet Messi's wage demands - I will keep you posted.

Would be interesting to hear what you would do. If we let him go at the end of the season, who would you look at to replace him? 

This is my tactic, and go to starting 11 at the moment. Things work nicely down the left hand side, but I'm trying to work out how I can tweak things on the right to make it a bit more productive.   

 

Cheers for reading guys. Interested to hear if anyone else has started a Barca game to see how they have gotten on. 

 

[FM21 - Barcelona - The return of the King]

 

4 wins and a draw from our first 5 games is a solid start, but we have an away game against Bayern up next in our first Champions League game, which will be a good test of where we are at. 

Oreo Biscuits scoring a 92nd minute winner away at Osasuna in our last game was a big two fingers up to me after my previous comments. Good to see that he looks as though he'll be able to provide something for us over the course of the season!

Still tweaking the tactical setup to get the best from our front three while making sure they aren't going direct too early. Messi being swapped between IF on the right and our DLF down the middle. I feel he will have more of an impact coming off the right, but Griezmann has had a really poor start to the season out on the right hand side. 

Pedri has had an unbelievable start to the season, with 1 goals and 3 assists in 2 starts and 2 substitute appearances in the CM (AP-A) role - definitely the standout performer so far.  

Coutinho having a stinker, and not really what i'm looking for in a left sided IF. I'll continue to try and find him some form in the hope that we can also then find him a new Club. 

Away for a few days, so no update now until next week, but we'll try and blast through when I'm back at it. 

 

[FM21 - Barcelona - The return of the King]

I've not managed to play FM very much at all over the past couple of weeks, so have not managed much progress at all, but here's a little update on how the squad and tactic setup's are now looking at the beginning of the season.

Transfer business was pretty straightforward, with Martin Braithwaite leaving for Villareal (£9.5 mil) and Matheus Fernandes going out on a season long loan to affiliate club, FC Ultrecht.

@lblanc Thanks for the heads up on the Busquets brother dilemna. Despite thinking that he may not be up to standard initially, I have brought Oriol Busquets into the first team squad to cover the CDM spot - he seems to be the best option to help cover both a DLP or HB role in the team. The only bit of incoming business is the £39.5 transfer of Rodrigo Bentancur from Juventus. I was happy enough with most other aspects of the squad, but wanted to bring in a strong CM option to rotate with Pjanic. Bentancur will provide a bit more steel, with stronger physical and defensive stats than Pjanic, and is very comfortable on the ball. This will help us both with and without the ball and gives us really good strength of depth in the midfield now. 

 

Our tactical setup has been tweaked a lot during pre-season, with the wing backs being pushed higher up the field, and the CDM duty being changed to a half back. This will allow the wing backs to get into more advance positions and to provide that much needed width, with Busquets dropping into a back 3 to provide more stability and protection against the counter. 

Both inside forwards have been changed to a support duty to ensure they are both more involved in the teams build-up play, with the F9 role being changed to a DLP (A).

 

We kicked the season off by welcoming Valencia to the Camp Nou. A strong 2-0 win, was a great way to start the La Liga campaign, with Fati grabbing both goals, and having a third cancelled out for offside. 61% possession and 15 shots (1.66xG) to their 1 (0.07xG) demonstrated our total dominance of the game, and (hopefully) shows that we're on the right track. 

Our next three fixtures are against Real Sociadad (A), Athletic (H) and Celta (A) - I will crack on and aim to update in the next couple of days.

Really keen to see how @MAECK and @frog-kvfb are getting on too. 

Hope you enjoy reading, and welcome any suggestions!

 

 

[[FM21] Rate my Regen/Newgen Thread]

Picked up for £6.25 mil at the end of the 2nd season. Best newgen I've ever picked up - just gutted I have to wait a year as I'd love to get him straight in the 1st team.

[FM21 - Barcelona - The return of the King]

Given Barcelona's worldwide status over the past decade (and some), this has been a boring, sure thing FM save for a long time, but I feel like this year could be different. Although judging by the lack of other Barca threads, I may be wrong... Regardless, this is my first post, so at least it's a weight off to have finally gotten involved after lurking for far too long!

As I start the game and look at the contract information of our first team squad, I understand why Barca are in such financial trouble. Ignoring Messi's £1.1 million weekly wage, there are a number of ageing stars on enormous contracts. We will try to get the best out of the likes of Busquets, Pjanic, Griezmann et al. for the first season, and will then look to move them on and to recruit for the future. 

I'm going to focus on bringing Tiki-Taka back to Barcelona. My initial vision is to stick Messi back into the F9 role that he made his own almost a decade ago, although I am not entirely convinced that he will have the impact needed to propel the team from this role - this will be a work in progress that I'll monitor as we go. We will be building the strongest staff infrastructure possible from top to bottom to make sure we are able to develop the young talents (Fati, Pedri, Moriba, Todibo etc.) that La Masia is famous for producing, to ultimately return Barcelona to the top of world football once again. 

First things first, this is how I've set us up tactically. We will look to always play on the front foot, stretching the pitch with the ball, and squeezing the pitch without it. I have not used this tactic in any of my other saves, and have created from scratch so there may need to be a couple of tweeks, but I feel confident with this setup as a starting point.  

 

   

The Squad

There are some very talented players in the squad, but I will be focussing on a couple of the younger superstars that we are going to be able to build the team around for the next decade. 

Goalkeeper

Marc-Andre Ter Stegen will, I expect, be our number one for the next 5 years+. He is no spring chicken but his £150k per week is reasonable in comparison to some of the older players in the team, and he is still up there as one of the best sweeper-keepers around. 

 

 

Defence 

There are a number of good young prospects at the back. The likes of Dest, Firpo and Wague look like decent wing back options, but none of them are elite. Firpo looks really well-rounded to me, but my report says that he has no more room for growth. I'll be rotating him with Alba in the LB spot this season and seeing if he cuts the mustard.

Jean-Clare Todibo and Ronald Araujo are the stand out defenders for me, and are likely to be Pique replacements. I will be keeping a close eye on Todibo whilst he is on loan at Nice and hope that a year of regular first team football puts him in a position be be my first choice CB in the 2nd season. 

Araujo will rotate with Pique and Lenglet, and I would hope that decent performances can push him ahead of one of these two in the first year. 

 

Midfield

Frenkie de Jong is going to be my main man. Great attributes and personality make him the ideal playmaker to take Barca back to the big time, and I think that the experience of Busquets and Pjanic alongside make this a pretty strong midfield 3 to kick off with. Probably my most important player, and with the Model Citizen personality, I will be looking to retain him for as long as I play.

Pedri and Ilaix Moriba are already absolute monsters attributes wise. I see them both as a big part of the longer term future, and so will try and get them as much game time as I can first season. Would love to have Pedri in that AP role of the midfield three, as I just imagine Iniesta when I look at his technical stats, but worry that his low work rate and teamwork make this a non starter. Would be interested to see how anyone else has used him, but I imagine he will be out on the right wing as an Inside Forward. 

 

 

 

Forwards

Ansu Fati. Another 17 year old monster that La Masia has created. He will be starting whenever he is fit to push his development and to nail down the Inside Forward role on the left. Great stats all round, and probably the one that I feel is closest to being the heir to the King here at Barcelona.

 

Deadwood

At first glance I have picked out Matheus Fernandes and Martin Braithwaite as deadwood. Fernandes will free up little to nothing for the transfer budget, but Braithwaite is as average as they come, and on over £100k per week. Both will go, if I can shift them.

 

Recruitment

Barca start with a Transfer budget of £5 mil with £60k free on the wage budget, so we will be focussing on talent from within and seeing where we are once the deadwood is out the door. I'm thinking that I'll only need a CDM to rotate with Sergio Biscuits. Sergio is decent, but his brother Oreo is not good enough. I will update once I've delved a little deeper tomorrow.

 

Looking forward to cracking on with this and seeing how we start off the season, and also to hear how anyone who has started a Barca save has got on.

Cheers for reading  👍✌🤙

 

 

[[FM21] Tottenham Hotspur - All or Nothing]

On 10/02/2021 at 23:48, Underated said:

I'm in my first season with Spurs - I didn't sell Bergwijn but now have no intention of using him. I left him out of the Europa squad, and the players are all unhappy with me. They called a meeting with me to discuss this, and the squad faith in me was 'abysmal'. Isn't this slightly over the top and any idea on how best to resolve this?

 

Also, to add, I see an incredible amount of yellow cards per game. Usually one always occurs within the first five minutes, and then again 10 minutes after that. I don't instruct the players to tackle harder or get stuck in. Any idea why this is?

First season, is the main problem I think. Once you have a few senior players that trust you those kind of things are easier to squash. I would probably either sell him and get in a better replacement, or U-turn in the short term to get the squad back on side.

What tactic are you using? Difficult to say why there are so many yellow cards without the get stuck in or tackle harder instructions without knowing how you set up 👍

[FM21 - Manchester City]

On 14/01/2021 at 12:50, dido53 said:

thank u for answer   ı play lıke this low tempo is ı dont know but never get me good results.ım open to advice.ı win the games but on counter or set pieces mostly 

I'd say you're probably too conservative with your midfield, and I would try changing Rodri to your DLP, to dictate your play higher up the pitch, and make the left of your two midfielders an AP or RPM. If you're on a lower tempo I would always want more than one playmaker in the middle of the park.

You could also consider making your RB an attacking WB to provide further options for a pass higher up the field. 

Last suggestion for players is to potentially try your striker as a CF or F9 so he is more involved in the game.

I play as Spurs and start every game with an attacking mentality. Your team is so good, you should be looking to dominate teams for 90 minutes 😉

Let me know if you have any thoughts 👍✌️

[[FM21] Tottenham Hotspur - All or Nothing]

12 minutes ago, RazorsEdge said:

What is the lowest amount of money anyone has accepted for Harry Kane, or do you turn offers down and make him unhappy?

End of first season I've just turned down a £150 million pound bid from PSG. He was unhappy(ish) for a few weeks, with no effect as it was during off season and then dropped it when no other Clubs interested. Will renew contract in 6 months or so to push his value, and maybe sell at the end of season 3. 

[[FM21] Tottenham Hotspur - All or Nothing]

I felt similarly to you at the beginning of the release, but once I ironed a few key things out I'm really enjoying the game and getting good performances from the players I want to perform. Couple of things which might help you fall back in love with the game;

1. The numbers that Son and Kane are posting IRL are ridiculous, and are not easy to replicate in the game. I think you'd want to try a two striker formation to get them both scoring bag loads of goals. I've seen some success using a 2-3-2-1-2 formation with Son AF and Kane CF (attack)

2. Continuity is super important, just like IRL. I would suggest picking a couple of tactics, and the player roles within it pre season and sticking with them. You can make minor tweaks game to game but your players will struggle to perform individually and as a team if you're constantly changing the formation and player roles. 

I've just finished my first season with Spurs, winning the league by one point and losing in the final of the Europa to Leicester. Signed Stones early on for about £20 mil, and did no other business. Played a 4-2-3-1 to get the best out of our best players, and to make sure Dele was playing in his preferred no. 10 role.

Feel free to message if you want to talk through your formation ideas etc. Happy to help 👍💪