FM12: Swansea City - Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Abertawe

[DandyDon]

Thanks for the quick replies! I'll try drahun and henrikson, maybe they'll be more willing to play for welsh barca

Yeah, I'm from Zagreb (the city where Badelj and Vrsaljko's club Dinamo plays in) so I jumped to get those guys straight away. Badelj signed for Porto, Vrsaljko wouldn' even listen to my proposal and Kovacic signed for Man City (dumb move, he'll warm the bench)

I even tried some other highly rated youngster such as Bertolacci, Strootman, Kvekveskiri and Toro and all were either uninterested or denied the WP. At the end I even got snubbed by Rochina ffs.

Anyways, I really should've loaded the medium database at least, I just don't have a very quick laptop, so I went for the safe option.

EDIT: Wigan kinda saved me, sold me Jordi Gomez for 2mill. I know it's not ideal, but I'll make do for the first season. Hope I can capture Gylfi at the start of next season. Also, I got Erick Torres, Berra and Prestia. Do you think I can stay safe?

Forgot to ask, did you check if Andile Jali the South African midfielder is on your database? I've seen him agree to move to Swansea on several saves now, and managed to sign him on my save. He can play at DM, MC and AMC at a push, usually available for about £350,000.

Also I'm fairly sure Mahamadou Diarra and Guti were available as free transfers at start of the first season, before and after the update. Couple of other options also playing in Italy would be Albin Ekdal or Federico Casarini, I know their clubs will accept pretty reasonable fees for them, but no idea if they'd be willing to talk to Swansea.

The one from Wigan I would recommend would probably have been James McArthur, I think he's got the work rate and passing ability to slot in quite nicely to the Swansea style.

[Welshace]

also.. gadzhev is a superb little amc

[muhammadrizka]

My transfer progress for 2012-13 season, pretty satisfy so far.

And Tottenham not let me to get Caulker. 10 milion for cash, too expensive.

[DandyDon]

2012/13 Season - Midway point

Halfway through the second season with Swansea and the squad have coped fairly well with the additional burden of European football so far. We got the new campaign off in fairly disappointing fashion with a loss at Newcastle, but we got over that fairly quickly and with some of the new arrivals finding their feet we started to get some very good results.

We did have a truely abject showing against Man City where we conceded 7 at the Etihad, and it should probably have been more but for some wasteful finishing on their part. Fortunately we didn't completely crumble in the aftermath of that hammering and after an improved performance against Sevilla (we still lost but played far better and with a little luck could have gotten a draw) we went on a good unbeaten run until the end of December.

That run enabled us to sneak top spot in our Champions League group ahead of Bayern Munich and kept us in contention for a European spot in the Premier League as well. A hard fought win over West Brom means we've got a semi-final against Arsenal in the league cup in January while we've been drawn against Italian giants AC Milan for the 1st knockout round in Europe.

Once again Gylfi has been our star performer so far with the highest average rating in the squad plus 7 goals and 16 assists. The wide men have really impressed as well, Scott Sinclair and Junior Hoillet reaching double figures in terms of goals and Nathan Dyer was playing pretty well until a serious injury in November. Kolbeinn Sigthorsson having a good first season too, our top scorer at the end of December with 15 goals. The main worry for the second half of the season is the effect of injury on our form, Ciaran Clark has proved to be prety injury prone and if we pick up any knocks to Williams or Granqvist we could be in real trouble at the back, and of course a serious injury to Gylfi would be massively damaging.

[DandyDon]

Managed to make it through to the League Cup final after playing Arsenal three times in January, hadn't paid any attention to the other half of the draw though.

Until I got this in the inbox

EDIT: Job done...thought I would've preferred a more convincing scoreline

[Chicha_14]

Good to see your doing well in your Swansea save Dandy. I see you mentioned Andile Jali as a good buy. I would recommend buying him as well because in my current Arsenal game he is worth £20m at Spurs with worldwide reputation, though they did pay a pretty hefty £23m for him a few years back.

[DandyDon]

Cheers Chicha

2012/13 Season Update - Deja vu?

We managed to repeat our feat of last season in nabbing the last Champion's league spot. We had a chance to grabbing one of the automatic qualifying spots but had a poor run of results in the last few weeks (barring one amazing game against Man Utd) as Vorm was out injured and several defenders struggled for form. We lost 3 of the last 5 matches, and conceded 4 goals in successive games and to make it worse we conceded those goals against Southampton and QPR . However we were far enough ahead of 5th place that those results didn't cost us too much in the end, and we did manage to destroy Man utd 5-1 in our last home game.

Gylfi won the Footballer of the Year award for the second year running and was again our star performer by some distance scoring 15 goals and making 26 assists in total. His Icelandic mate Sigthorsson was our topscorer with 19 goals and 9 assists in his debut season and there was some important goal scoring contributions from the wide players, Scott Sinclair bagging 17 and Junior Hoillet managing 16 (half of them in European fixtures).

In the cups we managed to grab some silverware in the League Cup, beating Cardiff in the final, but were disappointingly knocked out of the FA Cup by Crystal Palace in the 4th round. In Europe we cruised past AC Milan in the 1st Knockout round before falling to Barcelona 4-2 on aggregate, though we gave them a hell of a game in the Camp Nou where it finished 3-2 to them. (Probably should have gotten a result at home as we had 60% possession and plenty shots, but were undone by a David Villa counter).

Results from Jan to May

Third Season Preparation

In preparation for the third season I released a few of the bit part players who weren't getting many games with the likes of Bessone, Orlandi, Tremmel and Moreira all left on free transfers. I finally managed to sell Wayne Routledge as he joined Middlesborough for £1.2 million and Alan Tate went to Hull on loan.

During the season just past I'd gotten notification that the club had cleared it's debts and with no loan repayments and the healthy boost of prize and tv money I was handed a provisional transfer budget in June of £38 million. My main aim was to add some quality to the squad, and again build the strength in depth so we could keep pushing for Euro qualification via the league and hopefully do well in or more of the cup competitions.

However my transfer window didn't get off to the greatest of starts with several of my main targets either refusing to talk to us, or choosing to sign for other clubs. First off Dries Mertens chose Atletico Madrid over us which I thought was fair enough as they also had Champs League football and a far higher rep, plus offered much higher wages. Then the transfer listed Marko marin wouldn't even talk to us and was snapped up a couple weeks later by PSG. Even more disappointingly we agreed a deal for Younes Belhanda only for him to pick Wigan! (I mean, really..Wigan? They'd only just been promoted back to the Premier League via the playoffs, I mean seriously Younes!)

Then the board accepted a £12.5 million bid from Chelsea for Junior Hoillet, over my head, and one of my best players from the previous season was gone in a flash. We aren't even getting the money upfront with £10 million being paid over 30 months.

So all in all it wasn't a great start to the summer. However in July the board set the expectations and the official budgets and I was offered a massive £56 million kitty to achieve Euro Qualification again and some deals started to fall into place. I snapped up Sotiris Ninis for £750,000 to play at AMR and also provide back up for Gylfi. Managed to persuade Jack Wilshere to spend the season with us on loan and then also signed Jojnjo Shelvey and Kyle Bartley for a combined £4 million to add another couple of young British players to the squad. Karim Ait Fana arrived from Montpellier for £2.1 million to give Sinclair some more competition at AML and I signed up Spanish goalkeeper Miguel Angel Moya on a free to backup Vorm.

The two biggest deals I've made so far came at the end of July and start of August. Might have overpaid slightly for the first one as I bought Steven Fletcher from Wolves for £9.5 million and then got into a bit of a bidding war with Inter Milan for Kevin Strootman of PSV. Originally had a bid of £6.5 million accepted but when Inter went in he turned down our contract offer, so I put a new bid in and had to go up to £8.5 million and he had higher contract demands, however persistence paid off and he eventually chose to sign for us.

I still have about £27million of the budget left and might try to sign another striker, but only if I can find one with real pace to give us something different up front, I'd like to find a good young keeper to be our third choice behind Vorm and Moya. I've been tweaking the tactical instructions to see if we can tighten things up a bit there, but may still dip into the kitty to buy a real commanding centreback if we still look a bit weak once the season starts.

[Wildie]

Currently 9th in the PL in my 1st season - not managing to get Gylfi firing at all this season. I have got him as an Advanced Playmaker just behind a Poacher and an Advanced Forward. Dont know if i will sign him permanently yet. Caulker has been superb all season, as has Allen. Looking to next season now, as I'm 15 points from the relegation places.

[DandyDon]

Not sure how anyone else has been playing him, but I've been using Gylfi as a Treq, behind a lone striker in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Have him selected as the teams playmaker and given a lot of creative freedom compared to the rest of the lads. Seems to have gotten some pretty good performances from him over last 2 seasons. He does have the odd completely anonymous game, but he's finished both the previous campaigns with an average rating over 7.5.

[Wildie]

Started to get a bit more form out of him in the last few games, changed his position and role in the team - he is always a grumpy sod though, never listens to team talks! Sanogo has found some form, and Caulker still continues to be my best centre back. Jorge Ribeiro is my left back and has an average rating of 7.86 from 29 games so far - 9 assists! Ritchie de Laet was my first choice right back, but i bought Dennis Diekmeier in January though and he has ousted De Laet!

[DandyDon]

Started to get a bit more form out of him in the last few games, changed his position and role in the team - he is always a grumpy sod though, never listens to team talks! Sanogo has found some form, and Caulker still continues to be my best centre back. Jorge Ribeiro is my left back and has an average rating of 7.86 from 29 games so far - 9 assists! Ritchie de Laet was my first choice right back, but i bought Dennis Diekmeier in January though and he has ousted De Laet!

That's some rating from Ribeiro there

[Wildie]

Been happy with him, even better that he was on a Free Transfer. Will be a few players moving on in the Summer, wont be keeping Gylfi, or Josh Mc. Got Rincon and Wellington as my 2 ball winners in midfield, i favour Rincon as he is better developed. Got Sanogo and Vossen (Erik Torres too) up front so will need to add to that. Got Leandro, Sinclair and managed to get successful bids in for Gokhan Tore and Isco so my creativity should be better. Defence may need a bit of work. Liverpool are offering me Coates for £9 million. Trying to get them down a bit though

[Chicha_14]

After nearly a month off my Swansea game I've decided to go back to it. Loaded it up and I'm in October 2022, I'll give you guys an update on how it goes from here at the end of the season.

[DandyDon]

2013/14 Season Update

Playing through the third season on my Swansea save and we'd managed to find ourselves in amongst the big boys, still in the title race with just one game to go. Spurs had led the race from pretty much the 1st week until the middle of January when we actually managed to nip ahead of them after we beat Man Utd and Arsenal in the space of 6 days. (We actually completed league doubles over both Man utd and Arsenal this time round )

However in February we lost Steven Fletcher to serious injury during the second leg of our Champs League knockout. He had 22 goals from 27 games at that point, 17 of those from 18 league appearances. Added to injury problems for Sinclair and Dyer we were lacking a few options in attack for the last few weeks of the season and Man Utd recovered from their defeat at our hands to start utterly bulldozing teams. (As you can see by their 110 goals scored with one match still to go).

Even missing Fletcher for the run in we managed to keep pace with other title challengers and, but for a disallowed goal and a penalty claim not given at Anfield, could have gone top again heading into the last day. Despite a narrow 2-1 loss to Liverpool, we still had a chance to pull off a real upset in the final game. We had to face West Brom at home while Spurs and Man Utd had to face one another at White Hart Lane, if we could grab the win and the other two cancelled each other out with a nice boring draws we would be champions.

Things got off to an ideal start when Sigthorsson was flattened in the box after a nice pass from Wilshere, Gylfi calmly slotting home the penalty. We had a huge wobble when Graham Dorrans smashed home a 30 yard rocket to equalise on 25 minutes. Things were getting tense with Spurs and Man Utd drawing in their match and us dominating in ours, but missing chance after chance. Finally on 70 minutes we had to rely on another piece of Gylfi magic when he cut in from out wide to curl another of his delicious long range efforts. Four minutes later Gylfi set up his mate Sigthorsson to make the game safe.

I was feeling quietly confident that we'd managed to grab the title right at the death only to check the result in the other game to find that Spurs had crumbled in the last 15 minutes, Utd smashing in 3 late goals to grab a 4-1 win.

Gits.

Road Ahead

With automatic qualification for Europe and having come so close to a title win I'm hoping to add some real quality to the squad with perhaps 2 or 3 real big signings.....assuming I can persuade them to sign. Several players may also need replacing as I've had reports from the backroom staff that both Ashley Williams and Steven Fletcher have taken several steps backward in their development. (I'm assuming due to severity of their injuries this season).

I've already secured one signing, after missing out on Belhanda last summer when he went to Wigan for £5.5 million, they offered him to us for a bargain £4 million with theirrelegation on the last day. I've now also been offered Sami Khedira for £4.8 million and his wage demands weren't too crazy, so decided to put in a bid for him.

With Fletcher struggling to recover from his cruciate ligamnet injury and Vossen in my bad books for injuring Williams, Vorm and Taylor at various points in training, I'm looking to buy in another striker to compete/support Sigthorsson upfront. The board have announced they are expanding the stadium again, plus making improvments to the youth facilities and I'm hoping to persuade them into also upgrading the training facilities as well.

[y02chs07]

Hi people, I'm considering starting a Swansea game but not sure if potential recruits will be deterred to stay in Wales. Will such a thing happen in FM? For instance, i was looking to sign Carlos Fierro but i'm not sure why he isnt interested in joining, even though he did not mind joining West Ham in the Championship

[Wildie]

I have signed Fierro for the 2nd season - think most of my failed signing attempts were due to the teams reputation and mine at the start of the 1st season. You can build a pretty good side with Swansea mate, got a decent side to start with but pretty poor youth players, so replacing those at the start will be difficult

[DandyDon]

Hi people, I'm considering starting a Swansea game but not sure if potential recruits will be deterred to stay in Wales. Will such a thing happen in FM? For instance, i was looking to sign Carlos Fierro but i'm not sure why he isnt interested in joining, even though he did not mind joining West Ham in the Championship

Yeah you'll find quite a few players turn you down in the first few seasons due to the club's rep. I've had Jack Wilshere on loan in the second season, but he's not willing to consider a permanent move in the third season even though Arsenal are happy to sell.

Try and persuade the board into improving the training facilities if you can, I had a player turn down a move this summer as he wasn't impressed with them.

[y02chs07]

Thanks for you guys prompt replies. Ive just started a Swansea game anyway, but my original question is intended to ask if any players would turn down Swansea because it is in Wales instead of the other BPL clubs in England?

[Wildie]

not encountered that at all

[DandyDon]

Thanks for you guys prompt replies. Ive just started a Swansea game anyway, but my original question is intended to ask if any players would turn down Swansea because it is in Wales instead of the other BPL clubs in England?

No haven't encountered that as yet, I don't think the location puts players off if they are willing to sign for a club of Swansea's rep. You might get some overseas players who only consider moving to London, but they probably would be looking to sign for higher rep clubs anyway

[Chicha_14]

Thanks for you guys prompt replies. Ive just started a Swansea game anyway, but my original question is intended to ask if any players would turn down Swansea because it is in Wales instead of the other BPL clubs in England?

I didn't encounter this either. After a few years I also didn't have much trouble getting good potential youth players.

[Wildie]

Just finished my 1st season - finished 9th, but only 4 points off 5th - we had a dismal run through January and early February, as i did ship some players out.

This is my 1st save on FM12, so that is my excuse for not doing better, i was messing with tactics a lot, and trying to find the right balance! Looking forward to the close season now, got most of my player turnover already done with signings coming in, so they will have a good month and a lot of friendlies to get used to each other

[Welshace]

good luck with your save wildie

update us with your transfers etc

[Chicha_14]

Just completed my 12th season and had yet another great season. We started off fairly badly in the league drawing with lower table teams but from November onwards we showed the form we had been in for the past few years. Went out of the FA Cup very early which was pretty disappointing but we made up for that in the league, Champions League and Carling Cup.

In the league we went without getting beat till the 36th game vs Everton, then a week later lost again to United but it was already over by then. So it came down to yet another Champions League final which was won convincingly against Marseille 3-0 making it the 3rd in a row.

Overall Competition Wins - Updated after 2023 transfer window

2x Premier League (2022, 2023)

3x Champions League (2021, 2022, 2023)

1x Europa League (2017)

4x Euro Super Cup (2017, 2021, 2022, 2023)

2x Club World Cup (2021, 2022)

5x F.A Cup (2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)

3x Carling Cup (2020, 2021, 2023)

5x Community Shield (2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023)

Current First Team Squad

Over the past few years I've been delighted with the Progress of born and bred Swansea man Daniel Webber.

Daniel Webber Attributes

Daniel Webber Profile

Daniel Webber History

[Chicha_14]

Gone a bit quiet in here.

[DandyDon]

Gone a bit quiet in here.

Yeah, haven't been playing any FM really since I caved in and bought Skyrim. Might be back on it if finish everything on Skyrim before the summer's over...otherwise might just wait for FM13 to come out. Obviously still dropping in on the forums

[Welshace]

haha , finish everything in skyrim.. it wont happen soon fella... my favourite game ever ...

[DandyDon]

haha , finish everything in skyrim.. it wont happen soon fella... my favourite game ever ...

Yeah was kinda coming to that conclusion myself...and haven't even got the Dawnguard dlc yet

[Wildie]

I have started a Journeyman career - in Brazil with Guarani at the moment, just starting 2nd season

[Chicha_14]

I've decided to start a career with Forest. Will definitely get back to my Swansea game though, my last game was a loss in the Champions League Final to Dortmund, ending are run of 6 in a row.

[Llew_Arshavin23]

I've started a save with Swansea!

I've been contemplating as to whether I should since the release of the latest patch, but I've finally got around to doing so now. With the transfers of Michu, from Rayo Vallecano, and Chico Flores edited into my save, I'm hoping to build a strong squad in order to challenge for a European slot - but that will come in time. Here's how my pre-season went;

I won't be providing regular updates as it does tend to slow down my progress on the save, but I'll update you with what I deem necessarry

[pedromanuelpinto]

It's easy to get a spot in the top 10 in the first season?

What are the main transfer to do? (Stricker and CM)

I thinking the best tactic it's a 4-2-3-1 with high possession ball, but isn't this risk because it's a end table team?

[DandyDon]

Have had a little time to play some FM over the last couple days while I was catching up with some podcast listening, so figured I'd expand a little on my transfer moves for the third season, and the impact it's had on the team.

Players Sold:

Matej Lazarevic sold to Everton for £9.5 million. Was really annoyed about this deal, he was a potentially world class young regen winger I snapped up in between the 1st and 2nd seasons. He broke into the squad during the season finished and the board promptly accepted Everton's bid over my head.

Danny Graham to Derby for £2.1 million. Hadn't played much in my team during the first couple seasons, so decided it was only fair to let him move on.

Bashkim Kadrii to Wolves for £3 million. Signed him in the first season as cover for Gylfi and Scott Sinclair, but injury in the second season and new signings meant opportunities would be prettly limited for him

Jelle Vossen loaned to Sevilla for a £1.1 million loan fee. He's been a good player for me, but with Fletcher and Sigporsson ahead of him, plus some useful looking regens being targetted I decided to accept Sevilla's loan bid for him.

Players Signed:

Younes Belhanda signed from Wigan for £4 million. He chose Wigan over us the season before, but with their relegation they offloaded him in the summer and I jumped at chance bring him in.

Sami Khedira signed from Real Madrid for £4.8 million. This was a bit of a coup, he was transfer listed by Madrid, but didn't think he'd be willing to sign for us. However he agreed a deal with pretty reasonable £49k a week wages.

Kyle Walker signed from Spurs for £2.4 million. Not quite sure what Spurs were playing at but they had him on the transfer list and I was happy to bring in another home grown player

Kyriakos Papadopoulos signed from Schalke for £15 million. This was my main transfer target of the summer, strong commanding centre back. Absolute beast physically and I figured he'd help to tighten things up for us in defence.

Eduardo Vargas signed from Napoli for £750,000. Signed on a bit of a whim when Napoli offered him to us toward the end of July. Turned out to be a bargain, can play striker or AMR, good finisher, dribbler and crosser with real pace and acceleration. Gives us a decent alternative upfront, and can cover for Nathan Dyer and Karim Ait Fana on the right wing.

Along with the new arrivals the board have also finished expanding the stadium and by Novemeber we had a 45,000 seater stadium, and now I'm turning my aim toward persuading them in to improving the training and youth facilities as much as possible. Currently we're sat second in the league, level on points with Arsenal and whilst not yet as strong defensively as I'd like we've improved on last year and we're scoring pretty regularly. We also managed to secure top spot in our Champs League group with one game left to go and have managed to eliminate Inter Milan in the process.

Gylfi is yet again our star performer so far, but he's being pushed close by Papadopoulos and Vargas who are having great debut seasons. The only cloud on the horizon is a mounting injury list going into the busy December/January fixture list.

EDIT: Forgot to mention it's the 4th season of this save, now in December 2014

[SRL88]

This has nothing to do with FM, but I am trying to plug some interest in the GPTG. If you are interested in creating a fantasy football team then this should interest you.

I have created a couple of leagues on fantasy.premierleague.com. As always, go onto the website, create your team and these are the two following leagues you can enter:

FM GPTG Head to Head:- 200057-60478

FM GPTG:- 200057-60472

[DandyDon]

2014/15 Season - Squeaky you-know-what time

Decided to try and finish this season off today before picking up where I was on Skyrim and it's getting tense . We're currently sitting top of the table with 9 games left to go, Arsenal are just 3 points behind and with a game in hand. About to face Fulham before we have a run of 5 very difficult fixtures against Man Utd (H), Newcastle (H), Spurs (A), Liverpool (A) and Stoke (H). Stoke are this years surprise package and currently sitting in 4th spot. After that run we finish off with games against Leicester, Wolves and Ipswich, all teams in the relegation dogfight that we've hammered already this season.

Despite the congested fixture list and getting knocked out of the FA Cup right at the start, January turned out to be a great month for us. Jack Wilshere arrived at the club on the 1st of January after having been transfer listed and offered out for a measly £4.2 million (seems Marcelo Bielsa wasn't taken with him). Then we were offered young Spanish midfielder Isco for £2.9 million by Malaga and were able to persuade him to sign on as well and before the window closed I was also able to secure the signing of one of our main scouting targets, a highly recommended 19 year old Argentinian AML/AMC. (Unfortunately he hasn't been able to make his debut yet as he was called up for the Argentine u21s the same week he signed, and promptly got injured training with them).

Wilshere has been in sensational form since he arrived, and really helped spur us on in the second half of the season so far, with 3 goals and 10 assists in 14 appearances, and all from playing out in the AMR position. He's been very effective at cutting in from wide and sliding nice diagonal balls through opposition defences to Fletcher or Vargas. Isco looks like he'll fit in nicely as well, his chances have been a bit more limited as he had an injury when he arrived, and Gylfi hasn't missed many games in the AMC spot but Isco has managed a goal and 3 assists in 5 games so far and should be plenty more to come.

The two new arrivals had a huge impact on what was probably our best result of the season so far when Arsenal visited the Liberty on league duty just a couple of weeks after dumping us out of the FA cup. They had the chance to open up a 6 point gap on us if they won, and when they scored on 7 minutes I thought we might be in for a hiding. The players showed me they had plenty of fight left though and gradually began to pen Arsenal back and take control of the game. We went in level at half time and played the better football in the second half with Wilshere obviously out to prove a point. He set up Fletcher's first goal to let us take the lead, then started the move that led to our third (which included a nice little assist from Isco on his debut).

In between all the fun and games in the league, we managed to overcome Chelsea in 2 legs of an epic League Cup semi-final. Beating them 2-1 at Stamford Bridge, then 3-2 at the Liberty with a 2 goals in the last minute to avoid going in to extra time. In the final we were 2-0 up and dominating against Man City before a crazy 6 minutes late on where we let Dzeko score two easy tap ins on 71 and 77 minutes. Just when I thought we'd completely blown it, Nathan Dyer popped up with a volley inside their box to put us back in front, and this time we didn't go straight to sleep from the kick-off.

In Europe we were given a bit of pasting by Lyon who beat us 3-1 in the first leg, before going 2-0 inside 20 minutes on our ground with 2 Gylfi-esque screamers from outside the box. We did manage to add some respectability on the night by fighting back to 2-2, but they'd dumped us out of the competition fairly easily. That does let us focus purely on the league now though, which should be a massive help as we were starting to look a little threadbare in terms of squad depth due to injuries and general fitness.

Our new 'Sultan of Swing'

Pinning a lot of hopes on the lad fulfilling the potential my scouts think he has. Arrived from Argetine club Gimnasia for £8.25 million which was a little more than I wanted to pay, but I had a feeling that if I wanted until the end of the season to make a move that he'd have signed a new contract and the asking price would have trebled. With this lad in the squad along with Wilshere, Ninis and Belhanda, I'm planning to tweak the 4-2-3-1 formation we've been playing. Until this season the two wide men in the 3 have always been speed merchants playing as Inside Forwards to cut in and support the central striker, but I've started to change it to play them as Advanced Playmakers (though still at AMR and AML) with a bit more creative freedom and a license to roam. Wilshere seems to have been flourishing in that role at AMR since he arrived. Long may it continue and hopefully can helps us grab the first league title.

[DandyDon]

2014/15 Season - The Finale

Apologies for the lengthy second post in a row, but just finished off the season and figured I'd post the update before heading off to snooze-ville.

Well, managed to hang on to top spot and clinch a league title, despite a fairly concerted effort late on to throw it all away. At one point having just beaten Liverpool and Stoke we were being cuffed by relegation haunted Leicester only for the game to crash.

After loading up an earlier autosave from before the Liverpool game any relief I felt about being spared the hammering by Leicester quickly vanished as we proceded to not only lose 4-3 to Liverpool, squeak a barely deserved win against Stoke, but still lost against Leicester even with a second chance.

All that meant we went into the last 2 games just clinging on to top spot on goal difference. Arsenal played their second last game as an early kick off and duly won, so we had to play Wolves knowing anything less than a win was trouble. A nervy performance in the first half saw Wolves walking all over us but thankfully failing to score and eventually right on the stroke of half time Jack Wilshere popped up with his most important contribution of the season, nipping in at the nearpost to volley home a cross from Neil Taylor. I'd actually a chat with Wilshere during the week as he was in something of a form slump in the last few games and it was nice to see it pay off with Jack going on to help set up Karim Ait Fana to grab the all important 2nd goal and make the points safe.

In the last game of the season we faced an Ipswich team who were already relegated, while Arsenal had to head to Newcastle. Thankfully this performance was nowhere near as nervous as the Wolves game and we dominated from the start. Gylfi and Wilshere constantly combining to good effect, especially when Wilshere opened the scoring from a nice pullback from Gylfi. A minute after Jack scored, Arsenal went 1-0 down against Newcastle and a few minutes later a cross from Wilshere was deflected in off the backside of an Ipswich defender to pretty much wrap things up. We finished the much pretty comfortably, keeping Ipswich hemmed in to their own half and Gylfi signed off on another star performance with yet another long range screamer. A late penalty from Scott Sinclair added extra gloss to the scoreline.

Gylfi finished the season as our star player, yet again, and won the Footballer of the Year award for the 3rd time in 4 seasons. Ciaran Clark and Kyriakos Papadopoulos joined him in the Premier league team of the season. I'm not sure we'll be able to hang on to Gylfi during the summer with the number of clubs now chasing him, there's a good chance that at least one of them will put in a bid the board feel is too good to turn down, but fingers crossed.

No real targets planned in the transfer window, other than a long term replacement for Vorm in goal, as I feel we've got quite a lot of depth in the squad now. However might snap up another player or two if any real bargains turn up on the transfer list.

[DBurns]

Considering starting a Swansea save to run alongside my Barcelona game, partly to test a tactic I've been using with Barca on a 'lesser' team but also because Swansea interest me and seem like a good challenge. And I can't lie that seeing DandyDon's progress hasn't influenced me. Any chance you could post up your squad at the moment?

[DandyDon]

Considering starting a Swansea save to run alongside my Barcelona game, partly to test a tactic I've been using with Barca on a 'lesser' team but also because Swansea interest me and seem like a good challenge. And I can't lie that seeing DandyDon's progress hasn't influenced me. Any chance you could post up your squad at the moment?

There you go mate. That's the squad as it now stands at the start of October 2015, we're sitting second in the league at the moment a point behind Liverpool but with a game in hand.

Made a few significant changes during the summer moving on a few players who weren't regular starters with Sotiris Ninis (partly to stop him getting crocked by his Greek compatriot Papadopoulos who injured him on 3 seperate occasions in training!), Jelle Vossen, Ignacio Camacho and finally Kolbeinn Sigporsson all leaving on permanent deals.

Brought in 2 new youngsters in Geison and Casado who were recommended as definite purchases, the deal for Geison actually done 2 years before when he was only 16. The big changes though were the arrivals of Wesley Sneijder from Inter Milan and Abel hernandez from Palermo. Brought in Sneijder as he was transfer listed by Inter and although he's now 31 his technical and mental stats are still fantastic, want him to play the more creative role of the 2 MCs in our 4-2-3-1 formation and tutor the two South American midfield talents Sultan and Geison. I did have to take a hit on the wage front to get him, he's currently earning over double the next highest salary at the club, but I decided his influence for 2 or 3 seasons would be worth it.

Hernandez was the big cash deal, costing us £21.5 million, but we brought in £16.5 million from the sales, so I wasn't too worried about that. He started slow, but has started to find his feet in last few games. We also managed to hang on to Gylfi as strangely none of the 8 clubs who are apparently interested in him bothered to make an actual bid. Arsenal made 6 seperate bids for Papadopoulos but we were able to turn them all down, though he's a bit miffed as I wouldn't give in to his wage demands when his agent asked for a new contract.

The tactic has evolved a little and we seem to be creating more chances at the moment, but our pass completion rates and possession stats don't seem to be quite as high.

[DBurns]

Looks like quite the squad considering you're only 4 years in. I've followed your progress and transfers and this was a major influence in me wanting to start with Swansea. I seen the screenshots of the mentioned regens, they really do look the real deal! Also, a great achievement to win the league so soon!

Game is loading up as we speak, although as I'm using an update it means no Gylfi

How do the finances turn out as the years go on? Also, any chance you could post a screenshot of Rory Donnelly if possible? Its just he used to play for my local team and want to see how he progresses! Cheers!

Takes me quite a while getting through pre-season so could be a while before I have a worthwhile update!

[DandyDon]

The finances seem pretty solid, especially if the board expand the stadium. We've no outstanding loans on my save, and last season quite often made a profit each month. Not expecting to make monthly profits this season with some big wage packets in the squad now. I've been given some pretty hefty transfer budgets since the first season as well, though I usually haven't spent the whole amount. The board have been a little slow to improve the facilities for me, but since winning the league they've been pretty amenable this summer Agreed to improve the training and youth facilities, as well as increase spending on youth coaching and expand our recruitment network and got me a Turkish premier side as a feeder club.

I'm afraid I released Donnelly on a free at the end of last season as there wasn't much chance of him getting regular games. Sorry He did do pretty well out on loan at Portsmouth and he's now up at Hibs in the SPL.

[DandyDon]

Looks like quite the squad considering you're only 4 years in. I've followed your progress and transfers and this was a major influence in me wanting to start with Swansea. I seen the screenshots of the mentioned regens, they really do look the real deal! Also, a great achievement to win the league so soon!

Game is loading up as we speak, although as I'm using an update it means no Gylfi

Shaping up to be one of my favourite squads that I've put together. So happy with Jack Wilshere for only £4.2 million

I take it the update you're using means Gylfi and Caulker are both at Spurs, but you've got the lads that Laudrup has added to the squad in real life?

[DBurns]

The finances seem pretty solid, especially if the board expand the stadium. We've no outstanding loans on my save, and last season quite often made a profit each month. Not expecting to make monthly profits this season with some big wage packets in the squad now. I've been given some pretty hefty transfer budgets since the first season as well, though I usually haven't spent the whole amount. The board have been a little slow to improve the facilities for me, but since winning the league they've been pretty amenable this summer Agreed to improve the training and youth facilities, as well as increase spending on youth coaching and expand our recruitment network and got me a Turkish premier side as a feeder club.

I'm afraid I released Donnelly on a free at the end of last season as there wasn't much chance of him getting regular games. Sorry He did do pretty well out on loan at Portsmouth and he's now up at Hibs in the SPL.

Just seen that the club have a small debt of £5.75 million. Will definitely try and upgrade the facilities as soon as possible. Thinking of implementing some sort of wage structure as it worked well with Barca on my other save. I think improving the club as a whole is as important as improving the squad on the pitch so will be doing my utmost to improve things behind the scenes as well as on the pitch.

Shaping up to be one of my favourite squads that I've put together. So happy with Jack Wilshere for only £4.2 million

I take it the update you're using means Gylfi and Caulker are both at Spurs, but you've got the lads that Laudrup has added to the squad in real life?

Yes it it certainly a great squad with a lot of options. A terrific bargain for one of England's best midfielders on the game!

Yea, they're both at Spurs although I may look into loaning Caulker if I can. The update is just before the Michu transfer but I have Chico in and de Guzman on loan.

[Chicha_14]

I've just moved into a new stadium named after me. After filling out The Liberty year after year finally the board decided to build a new 62500 stadium without me even asking.

[DandyDon]

Caulker did a good job for me in 1st season, but Spurs wanted over £10 mill for him in the summer...and I only wanted to spend big on making Gylfi a Swansea player at that point. He ended up going to Norwich a couple seasons later for just £2.2 mill, but he's been struggling formwise there.

If Kyle Bartley is no longer on loan at Rangers in this update I'd recommend having a look at him. Seems to be quite an underrated FM player, he's doing a great job for me at the moment. Been a real bargain for us. Are you looking at buying an AMC since Gylfi won't be there?

[DandyDon]

I've just moved into a new stadium named after me. After filling out The Liberty year after year finally the board decided to build a new 62500 stadium without me even asking.

Nice one...never managed to play a save long enough to have that happen. Well done

How many seasons in are you now?

[DBurns]

Caulker did a good job for me in 1st season, but Spurs wanted over £10 mill for him in the summer...and I only wanted to spend big on making Gylfi a Swansea player at that point. He ended up going to Norwich a couple seasons later for just £2.2 mill, but he's been struggling formwise there.

If Kyle Bartley is no longer on loan at Rangers in this update I'd recommend having a look at him. Seems to be quite an underrated FM player, he's doing a great job for me at the moment. Been a real bargain for us. Are you looking at buying an AMC since Gylfi won't be there?

Looks like I'll be able to loan Caulker if I want him but I'll see what other centre backs are loan listed or available before I decide. Kyle Bartley could be an option, I'll take a look.

Haven't quite decided what to about replacing Gylfi, think I'll just see who is available first as de Guzman could play AMC and Sinclair might be an option to be used there as an 'central winger' as one of my Barca tactics utilises a central winger and I think Sinclair could thrive in the role.

[DandyDon]

Yeah de Guzman looks like quite a useful signing, the one player I tried to sign several times in first couple seasons was Matias Fernandez the Chilean AMC, he'd done a great job for me on another save...but annoyingly he kept failing to get a work permit on this save. He was available so cheap too

[pedromanuelpinto]

Hello,

I'm making a 4-2-3-1 (with 2 DM, Allen and Britton).

I have some questions, first in this formation I normally play with a poacher, but the best position to Graham is Target... Should I go for it or put Luke Moore in place?

In the team specs i will go for short passing, no rooming, balanced mentallity and balanced (in the fluid or rigid camp).

With a deep line between the DM and AM is better to put a normal pass?

[DandyDon]

I found Danny Graham played quite well for me in 1st season when I used him as a defensive forward. I also bought Jelle Vossen and used him in the same role.

Once I had a bit more quality with real pace and compsure then I started playing the lone striker as a poacher. (Took a couple seasons though before I did that).

Not sure about the short or normal passing making a huge difference with you playing 2 DMs as I played my 2 at MC instead.

[pedromanuelpinto]

I'm thinkin to use 1 DM and 1 MC, with the role DM support and MC support. With this change it won't be a big gap between defense and attack.