stevemc

Couple more...

Following on from here... Manchester United: Season 2035/36 - Complete Summer transfer business was busy with the signing's of 18-year-old fullback Florian Tuba from Bayern for £76m and 21-year-old centre back Jorge Linha from Wolfsburg for £69m and adding a couple more highly rated youngster; Kady Maxted, João Serrador, Gaz Gowshall, Torben Epp and Luis Pérez. We did manage to wrap up Chelsea's left-footed inside forward Michael Siller for £205m along with world-class midfielder Hristo Vandev joining from Fiorentina for £175m. To offset those, we did sell off the likes of Kaiky, Noah Atubolu and arguably the best striker in the world, Prasert Nimkul - I felt I needed to sell him as when I joined he was on one of the craziest contracts I've seen, with his basic pay at £700,000p/w + 25% yearly rise onto of ridiculous bonuses (like £1m for 5 goals etc) - he had no interest in negotiating a new contract, so shipped him out, which free'd up the finances. January was supposed to be quiet, but we received bids of £50m for Nicolás Herrera, £100m for Antony Arévalo from Atletico and £134m for Songül Delibalta from Real Madrid, the later two I was happy to accept due them having wages higher than I thought they were worth, and they didn't enjoy big matches. To replace, I signed my number one target, who I tried to sign when he was 21, Jonathan Maes for £300m from Tottenham, slightly overpaying but he's THE best midfielder in the game currently. Then on deadline day, my ex-West Ham striker was transfer listed for £105m, Simone Bindi. Premier League Winners, by 8 points. Lost 5 games though which I was dissappointed with but I was tinkering with a new tactic until January, which I ended up binning and reverting back to my trusty 4-2-3-1. Martin Šindelář was second in the goalscoring charts with 24, but Michael Siller was sensational with 21 goals and 13 assists in 30 games. Champions League Winners! Beating Liverpool 4-2 in extra time at my ex-teams stadium, end-to-end game with Dimitris Masouras having the game of his life! Thought we'd blown it when Evan Ferguson equalised in the 95th minute, but extra time a no contest, as I'd used no subs up to that stage, I completely refreshed the team and Liverpool couldn't keep up. We topped the league phase too, beating the likes of Tottenham & Juventus twice, Barcelona and Monaco along the way. FA Cup Winners! Tricky run too, beating Manchester City, West Ham and Arsenal (all away) along the way to playing out the most one-sided final against relegated Brighton, running out 3-0 winners Carabao Cup Made it to the Quarter Final before Arsenal dumped us out on penalties, again, a tricky run having beaten Manchester City away in the previous round. Still have not won this cup for United yet. FA Community Shield 3-2 win in the curtain-raiser against Leicester City: UEFA Super Cup 3-1 win against Arsenal: Just wanted to finish this post with a mention to Alfie Hudson, came through the youth intake, 16 years old, looks legit - dropped him in the first team, mentoring off a Model Professional, but he's scored the winner in the Champions League Semi Final and also scored off the bench in the Champions League final against Liverpool. Also picked up a goal in the FA Cup final. He's been dubbed the new Paul Gascoigne. 5 goals in 2 starts (9 appearances total) from inside forward. I'm now 2nd in the Hall of Fame behind Pep Guardiola.

Alfie Hudson, came through the youth intake, 16 years old, looks legit - dropped him in the first team, mentoring off a Model Professional, but he's scored the winner in the Champions League Semi Final and also scored off the bench in the Champions League final against Liverpool. 5 goals in 2 starts (9 appearances total) from inside forward.

Couple of January recruits...

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/579179-fm24-backgrounds-by-stevemc-full-downloads-available-now/

Following on from here... Manchester United: Season 2034/35 - Complete I've had a career spanning Chesterfield, Burnley, Tottenham, Real Madrid and West Ham before joining Manchester United in 2034 after Luis Enrique was sacked. Thankfully, the Glazers have sold-up, they are owned by an Australian consortium currently, no real debt, just £115m for transfer debt, so they're in a good place. Still having issues with the stadium though, they won't upgrade or build a new one. The team finished 7th last season so no Champions League, squad was bang average bar 3-4 world-class players, but they've been handing our ridiculous contracts so as part of my summer overhaul, I also aligned everyone to new long-term bonus enhanced contracts, there's couple still on £700K p/w + insane bonuses which I'm not happy about, so might try to move them on after a season or so. Staff were also all over the place. First port of call was sacking the majority of the staff and bringing my own in, Dan Ashworth came in as Director of Football (who I worked with at Tottenham) with Darren Fletcher and Nick Cox retaining their Technical Director and Head of Youth Development roles. Kieran Trippier came in as my Assistant Manager, who was also my under 21s Manager at West Ham for 4 years. First team staff are all quality now, with notable ex-professionals joining like Danny Welbeck, Mile Jedinak and Robin van Persie who are now have excellent staff profiles and personalities. For under 21s and under 18s I'm big on the correct personalities for staff like, Model Citizen, Model Professional, Professional etc so brought Phil Neville in as U21 Manager and Louis Carey as his assistant with Kevin O'Connor (Manager) and Brian Kerr (Assistant) taking up the U18 roles. Scouting department was overhauled too, with Giuseppe Lupo heading up a 25 strong team of scouts. Into transfers, we sold off 12 players, most notably Mason Mount and Rasmus Højlund raising £416m, bringing in 8 players of my own including previously managed Dennis Seimen (£55m) from West Ham, 25-year-old elite striker Martin Šindelář (£250m) from Tottenham, 25-year-old elite right-back Batata (£107m) also from Tottenham and world class, model professional centre-back David Braddock (£63m) from West Ham. Picked up a late bloomer gem in 26-year-old Guilherme for a £14m release from Flamengo too, followed by a couple of highly rated youngsters in the shape of Luca Femia (£23.5m), Osian Thomas (£23m) and Patrick Meeth (£24m) to try and bring the age and contract size of the squad down. January also saw a further 9 player leave, including Valentín Carboni, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Claudio Echeverri, Destiny Udogie and Noah Atubolu. We went back to my former club West Ham to sign world-class Brazilian defensive midfielder Erivaldo on deadline day for £116m having already secured wonderkid left-back Ron Peretz (£95m) and a couple more highly-promising youngsters Alejandro Ivars, Germán Morales and Fábio José. Premier League Rather surprisingly finished as Champions, board wanted top 4, I felt I'd built a top 4 squad, but the rest of the big clubs dropped so many points we ended up winning quite comfortably in the end. Manchester United's first title in 6 years and only second title in 27 years, but we are still just out in front on 22. Martin Šindelář hit 24 goals in 29 games finishing just 2 goals shy of 34-year-old Erling Haaland in the golden boot. Carabao Cup Made it to the final knocking out Everton, Watford, Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester City along the way before losing the final to Liverpool 0-2 after extra time, I felt like we were going to knick it before Batata's red card, then it was an uphill task from there. FA Cup We came unstuck away at Tottenham in the quarter-final, losing 2-0 having previously knocked out Hull City, Blackburn Rovers and Crewe. Europa League Farce of a competition this, it's so easy to win We won EVERY game against the likes of Lazio, Legia, Beşiktaş, Derry City, Freiburg, HJK, Slovan Bratislava, Anderlecht, U Craiova, Fenerbahçe and finishing off with a win against VfL Wolfsburg at Celtic Park in the final. We already made a start on Summer business with the signing's of 18-year-old fullback Florian Tuba from Bayern for £76m and 21-year-old centre back Jorge Linha from Wolfsburg for £69m and adding a couple more highly rated youngster; Kady Maxted, João Serrador, Gaz Gowshall and Luis Pérez. We've probably got one more in us, I'm chasing just one world-class players and have my eye on Chelsea's left-footed inside forward Michael Siller.

A couple more from me... And these 3 pre-agreed to arrive in the Summer...

For what it’s worth I think FM24 good and value for money (£35) however I don’t think it’s the “most complete edition” we’ve had, it’s still littered with bugs and niggles from previous editions, the kind of stuff seasoned FM players are sick of not being fixed and being rolled over to the next FM. IMO The Winter Patch felt like a quick fix patch too rather than a comprehensive detailed patch, presumably because focus is on FM25 and the new graphics engine, for that reason I’m expecting big things from FM25 however I don’t think this is going to be a smooth transition… but fingers crossed it is - I’d like to see more information on FM25 start to come out during the summer to build excitement rather than the usual September too. My biggest request for FM25 is to improve newgen faces, they’re terrible, no two ways about it - and I don’t see why AI can’t be used in the area to generate real faces. I wrote my Steam review about 3 weeks after launch and won’t be changing it as I do think SI need to do better with the launches for FM titles, launch should be more complete than it has been, feels like a second Beta phase for us to raise further bugs and wait for another patch in December, a day one launch patch should be capturing the majority of that. Still, overall, I’m enjoying FM24

A couple from my Manchester United team:

Yeah that works but you shoudn't have to do the extra click, it should just appear in order - was fine prior to the update so it's a definite bug. Just a frustration.

Weird bug since the update, when you go tot make a sub in game, the whole team line up isn't in position order, and is mixed up... been fine prior to the update...

Did Jim Ratcliffe miss the data-lock to be included at Manchester United as a co-owner?

Done, thanks - it was a "full disk access" issue on Mac Sonoma 14.3.1

Updated, now stuck on "disk write error". Any ideas?

Following on from here I've just resigned from West Ham United in season 2034/35 and been offered the Manchester United job. They finished 7th but the club is a mess The Glazers have sold up, and the only two players remaining from the original squad are Mason Mount and Rasmus Højlund. They have a small squad, barely any academy graduates and few in the HG quota. Average squad bar 2-3 world class players, but they have the best centre back in world football - most the squad are unhappy too as they're not in the Champions League so this will be a bit of a rebuild to get United going again. One league title in 22 years...

West Ham: Season 2032/33 - End Following on from here once again we've had a season of winning basically everything Started off as Community Shield and Super Cup winners... Followed up by retaining the Carabao Cup for the third time on the bounce: The Premier League was closer than it looks, Arsenal folded with 3 games to go which opened up the gap: Retained back-to-back FA Cups with a win against former team, Tottenham: Followed up with with our third Champions League in a row with a win against Atletico: I knew I was going to leave at the end of the season as I've achieved all I can here, but stayed around to pick up the World Club Cup, and another Community Shield and Super Cup After stepping down, Manchester United sacked Luis Enrique so I've applied for that job, as I aim to top the Hall of Fame - currently 4th behind Carlo Ancelotti, Alex Ferguson and Pep Guardiola...

Meet 18-year-old Ron Peretz, currently plying his trade in Israel on his measly £200 p/w contract - agent says he wants a massive increase to £60-72k p/w - after negotiations he wouldn't actually go less than £90,000 p/w: But look, signs for PSV for just £31,000 p/w: My issues with this are: 1. Why would an 18 year old player on £200 think it's acceptable to want an insane wage jump to £60-72K p/w? 2. How the hell did PSV get him to negotiate on £31,000 p/w when the lowest he'd settle with me was £90,000 p/w? 3. Why is the agent wage quote of £60-72K p/w still so far off the £90K he actually wanted? This has been going on for multiple FMs, but I just don't think it's realistic, he doesn't have to sign for me, that's fine - but why the vast difference in salaries and negotiations...

Continued... And finally, I'm close to bringing in Ousmane Ouédraogo who I found for Tottenham when he was 17, he's now 24 and Tottenham have done a decent job of letting him stagnate so he's handed in a transfer request, so I'm going to get him back to fulfilling his potential:

Couple more signings from my 2033/34 season with West Ham, some of these will just be for profit, but one or two good ones in there...

The Ironowl videos on YouTube are great but they're still hit and miss when applying them to your own save (not his fault, it's FM). Scouting has issues and frustrations which need fixing - I'm many seasons in on my save, I have 32 scouts, all set up like the Ironowl videos, however they still don't bring back players, or occasionally I'll get a couple which are B-D rated reports, that I ain't interested in. And you're talking about some of the best scouts in the game too. The most frustrating thing, for example, is a scout I have with 20/20 + a high rating on adaptability can be sent to France and pick up barely anyone in 12 months of being there, but I can jump to the France national team screens and find 5+ players from across the age groups that I'd be interested in, within a couple of minutes. Just makes me think, what the hell is the scout doing there and why am I paying him, if it's easier for me to do his job? The point of this is you're supposed to trust the delegation. To this degree, I manual scout alot as I fear I'll miss out on a lot of the quality newgens coming through - getting Team Reports on U18/19 teams is great too, if you keep on top of that you can have a report come through every day, 365 days of the year too, you get players come through that which you can scout further. Personally, scouting needs fixing properly or revamping for FM25+.

West Ham: Season 2031/32 - End Following on from here the two marquee signings basically enabled us to win everything. Having already started the season winning the UEFA Super Cup, we won the next available trophy, Carabao Cup, on penalties against Manchester United - in truth, this was nearly a case of me being FM'd in a game we dominated yet United scored two (from corners would you believe...) and somehow managed to get through to a shootout, luckily we came out on top. Back-to-back competition holders. We wrapped up the Premier League with 7 games to go, it was a no contest - Benjamin Šeško picked up the Golden Boot with 26 goals as we scored 122 goals in total, we came out 1st in all the main season stats: All this whilst being very strict on the wages too: We followed that up with a convincing 3-0 mauling of Arsenal in the FA Cup final (my 2nd FA Cup in three seasons) - you'll notice Declan Rice in our team after he became available in January, the board bought him for me from Arsenal Finally, lifting back-to-back Champions Leagues (my 4th in five seasons) with a 3-2 extra time win over Everton, who are a very good team - Benjamin Šeško again proving his worth... On to the summer now, this team can get better, and I can also make the odd improvement so we'll see what comes...

Welcome aboard Alfred Nierga - had him at Real Madrid for one season in 2028 when I paid his release fee of £62m to Girona, now in 2032 I've splashed £220m on the 23-year-old who is by far the best goalkeeper in the world, and probably will be for some time

As I mentioned above, I have a couple of variants of it and change depending on opposition/match.

Another one incoming, Noah Hansen, world young player of the year, fully 5 star world class - arriving 1st July

Attacking Mid Centre, but also train him as an Inside Forward (L) so he can cover off all 3 options from behind the striker.