dane0

This I think is essential. It's been mentioned many times, but SAF is a "team builder" and probably the best manager ever at that so far. He's built 4-5 of the best teams in the world more or less from scratch and to me the most amazing part of his reign is this fact. He doesn't necessarily just buy the best players (although the list of world class players he's brought in is long indeed), but he buys players that will make a great team, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I try to emulate this in FM if I'm at a top club, by only buying players who I know are determined, hard working types. Unfortunately judging personality traits such as the ability to stand up to pressure and how professional the player's attitude is, is needlessly complicated in FM, even as those are massively important in how far you can push your players via team talks. A team of driven players who are motivated to the hilt is a sight to behold :-)

I just took over Tottenham in late 2012 and after 7 matches watching Defoe, Pavlyuchenko and Keane sending shots everywhere, except for into the back of the net I splashed £ 22M and £ 83K a week on this guy. The debut went exceedingly well, as he scored after just 39 seconds and added another one later on. Will be enjoying having him in my team I think :-)

I would like to hold up my beloved Aston Villa as an example. Apart from the Chelsea match we've looked very solid at the back (32 conceded from 37 matches), but in the attack the only reason we were spared a very embarrassing barren run was that John Carew suddenly found some form and started scoring, but still a goal total of 52 from 38 is hardly anything to shout about for a top 6 team. Anyway, I think for the 4-4-2 to work at the top level against some of the more modern formations there is really a need to either: 1) Make one of your strikers drop off and become a deep-lying striker instead and use more defensive wide midfielders and have your central midfielders drop deep, thus ensuring that you're still able to retain some possession in midfield. 2) Play a very deep, counter-attacking style. The 'ole kick-and-rush, which should only really be played against vastly superior teams to your own. In the first case your formation isn't really a traditional 4-4-2 anyway, but nominally it's still one. I'd probably consider it more a 4-4-1-1 or maybe even a 4-2-2-1-1 considering how deep the central midfielders will usually have to drop, but yeah. In the second case you can do pretty well, but will probably end up in more or less the same position as Aston Villa, it just doesn't seem like there'll ever be progress beyond the current point, with such a defensive approach.

PSV 1 - 0 LOSC Lille (Europa Cup Final) Winning some silverware certainly expanded my options in the transfer market over the summer, am now taking way too long sifting through the available options...

Since he's from Trinidad & Tobago he should already speak English... Still a pretty funny name :-)

I'm afraid not, I'll put it on my list of things to add. </div></BLOCKQUOTE> Has this happened yet? I'd love to know :-) </div></BLOCKQUOTE> I'll add another voice to the "would-love-to-know" crowd.