hitmanhart

I started a save with Fiorentina, one of my favourite teams from Italy. Playing 4231, currently in February in my first season, Serie A is characteristically tight with only 2 points between 1st place (Inter) and 4th - where I'm sitting. Topped the Conference League group and still in the Coppa Italia with a semi-final against Roma coming up (had a pretty easy draw against Lecce and Spezia). Lost in the Supercup final to Inter after narrowly beating Napoli. It's a good squad all over so I'm hoping to make top 4, especially since I promised Nico Gonzalez Champions League football, desperate to keep hold of him. I brought in Valentin Gendrey for 4.6m since we start with a bit of an injury crisis at right-back for and he has potential but I can see him being pushed out when Dodo comes back from injury, plus Kayode is our best prospect and is already first team ready at only 19. I don't think Pierozzi is at the level I require so will probably move him on next season. Also brought in wonderkid Valentin Barco (3.9m release clause was hard to pass up), even though leftback is well covered by Biraghi who at 31 still has the pace and is bombing in crosses and Parisi, another strong prospect. Milenkovic (thankfully) has a long-term contract and was willing to stay despite big offers from the likes of Man Utd and Newcastle. Easily our best CB, mostly partnered him with Ranieri. Yerry Mina is decent but this is an area I want to improve. Martinez Quarta keeps kicking up a fuss about a new deal but I'm not willing to give him such high wages, will move him on once I find a better alternative. Alfred Duncan was in the last year of his contract so I cashed in. Brought in Simon Sohm as a decent back-up and has time to improve at 22. Central midfield has been made up of mostly Mandragora and Maxime Lopez (on loan). Amrabat comes back from loan next season, but he has massive contract demands, may well sell him if a good offer comes in. In attack, there's Barak and Castrovilli who are both capable, and 34 year old Bonaventura who has another season to provide some depth. Don't need to worry too much about the wings which are well-covered by Niko, Kouame, Sottli, Brekalo who are all in their 20s and good quality. Our out-and-out are strikers are new signings M'Bala Nzola and Lucas Beltran. Nzola has been immense, 12 goals from 12 games (2 from pens), just really good physical and technicals, only lacks aerial ability. Beltran has been a bit disappointing so far given his price tag, but is only 22 so I expect him to improve. 32 players in the first team squad, a number of players out on loan with contracts coming up. Will have a bit of a clear out next season, don't need to radically alter the squad but a new GK is also needed since Terraccino is 33 and his deputy, Oliver Christensen, doesn't look good enough. I'd like to keep an Italian core for the team, I think maybe at least 5 Italian players in the first 11 is a good target, and there is plenty of young, quality Italian players about.

My problem is there's no player interaction that says something like, "I'm rotating the squad because I need you fully fit for Barca away instead of keeling over from exhaustion in the Carabao Cup 4th round against Crewe". Game importance should be a factor, especially when you want to give the kids a run in dead games after you've won the league. Maybe it would be too easy to game the system but I feel it should take into account minutes played as well, rather than just games started.

I've found it pretty easy to rocket up the leagues, mainly because the teams tend to be all of a similar standard so a few stand out players (with attributes in the most important positions) and a good tactic is all you really need. Usually the challenge comes from the first couple of seasons in the top league, but loans and free transfers help a lot whilst you accumulate some money to hoard quality under 21s and within about 5 seasons, you begin to start dominating. The Prem is the easiest simply because the money is huge there. It's really only difficult to break into the European elite and start winning the Champions League regularly. I think the game is more difficult these days, I remember back in the CM and early FM era it was so easy to break the match engine and go multiple seasons unbeaten... Plug in a supertactic and you could win the FA Cup whilst in the conference division and get your striker scoring 100 goals a season. I don't think I could do that in FM24. But ultimately, the AI will never be more intelligent than a human player. I haven't played deep enough to know whether the AI is better at squad building now but it should be made to focus more on attributes and ratings than reputation. That's why we've always had the AI buy over the hill players at age 32 for huge transfer fees instead of playing their talented youngsters and why the game gets easier the more seasons you play. The most fun challenges to me are self-imposed restrictions like only signing free transfers or under 21s, only playing a 442, only signing players from a certain nationality etc.

I've been playing since CM0102, first time making an account here though. I was on the fence about purchasing FM24 since I own FM23 but I heard people praise the match engine so I took a punt on it. Really have to say I'm glad I did, feels so much more fluid, the deflections look great (almost too good sometimes), the goals feel like what you'd actually see in a real game of football, defenders aren't as atrocious as they were in FM23 (which even in the top leagues felt conference level at times). Injuries honestly seem fine to me, I started my first save as Arsenal (the team I support) and lost Saka for 6 months and a few other serious/moderate injuries over a couple seasons but it's lower than the amount of injuries actual premier league teams have to deal with. A 26 man squad with heavy rotation is able to cope by turning down training intensity about half way or two thirds into a season. My biggest issue is that scouting seems broken. I'm using the same set-up I did in FM23 - no star CA and 3 star PA by nation, this got me loads of reports in FM23 but I've gone through a whole season in FM24 and I can count on one hand the scout reports I have received with the exception of those I manually requested. This is a real shame and it's making me hesitant in carrying on my long term save, manually scouting teams takes a long time but it's the only way I can find players. Unearthing hidden talents is one of my favourite parts about the game so I really hope scouting assignments are looked at (from what I've read I'm not the only one to experience this)