Jump to content

Third Time Lucky - Starting Where I Should Have


AcidBurn

Recommended Posts

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

Best 11 From Last Season and New Signings

aaaaaaaaaip.jpg

The best 11 from last season as you can see Nugent was good but not as prolific as last season, Dicko was awesome again and despite playing most of the season at AML instead of upfront Lee Campbell had a great season. I have high hopes for Picchi next season, he is attracting interest and when he played a full game he was great but seems slightly injury prone. Apart from the attacking three no one else really stood out as having a brilliant season.

Transfers

aaaaaaaab.jpg

Most of the players that went out were released because I don't think they are good enough to play in the EPL but a couple Chatto and Bachirou had match highest earner clauses. I tried to negotiate them into a new contract but they wanted too much or wanted to keep the highest earner clause I decided to simply let their contracts expire and put the wage they would have earned to better use.

Michael Mancienne

The guy is quick, a loan signing from HSV if he performs well enough I will look to buy him next season his speed could be vital in the heart of the defence.

Charles N'Zogbia

Not the best player attributes wise but he was brilliant for my missus Villa side so I thought why not take a risk and get him, he is better than most of the players currently in my team.

Wayne Hennessey

I have been after a decent GK for awhile not, I tried to get Mignolet from Sunderland first but he wanted crazy clean sheet and appearance fees so I went with Hennessey instead.

Fernando Canesin Matos

Never heard of this guy before but thought he was worth a bid for £950,000 he is quick has a good first touch and can play multiple positions RM, LM, AMR, CM and AMC.

Fiston Maguire

He wasn't brilliant for us last season but he has a load of potential 5 stars of it according to my coaches. Plays DMC as well as he plays DC, will hopefully develop into a great defensive player for the club.

Kyle Bartley

Not the greatest CB you will ever see but he is now our joint highest signing at £5 million. I have been looking for decent CB's and he is one of the only ones that was willing to join us that had decent attributes in most needed to be a solid CB.

Jay Rodriguez

Despite how good Dicko, Nugent and Campbell were last season I have my doubts about their abilities to score a the top level so I equalled the biggest transfer fee in the clubs history to bring in Rodriguez who I hope can grab plenty of goals for us or at least enough to keep us up.

James McClean

Had my eye on him for awhile and despite failing to get him a month before the window shut I managed to bring him in on a free transfer a few days before his contract was up. He has decent attributes and can play on either wing so should come in handy over the season.

Kyle Naughton

Again not brilliant but a good ability to play at either fullback position is a big bonus for us.

Overall I am pretty happy with all the transfers the clubs weekly wage bill now stands at £260,000, we are also £14 million in debt. I am hoping the small crowds we get along with the TV money will make us not lose too much money every month and if we stay up the prize money will cover our debts, I hope.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Replies 278
  • Created
  • Last Reply
What an absolutely mental final day. If that was real life, Sky would be orgasmic!

Congratulations on getting Crewe up to the Premier League. :thup:

Now the real work starts - keeping them there :lol:

Thanks dude, never had a good game as Crewe on FM11 so trying to make up for it now.

Matos looks handy.

Had never heard of him until he was offered to me, under £1 million is a very good price.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Well done on taking Crewe somewhere they will never get to in real life.

Four teams finishing on 88 points, never seen that before, nor a team winning 9-0 to secure promotion.

Thanks, main reason I took control of Crewe was to make them bigger than they will ever be in real life looks like that's been done in three season lol.

That is one hell of a way to end a season! Congrats on promotion to the big time :)

Cheers, great ending to the season.

Link to post
Share on other sites

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

Premier League Here We Come

eplsept.jpg

eplres.jpg

Not too bad of a start league position wise, leaking goals like crazy but also scoring a fair few at times. Started with a pasting off Man City but bounced back with two 4-1 wins in a row, then another beating from Arsenal was followed by a thrashing of West Brom. However the last two matches we have been well beaten in. Not sure how the season is going to pan out now looks like we will get destroyed by the big sides but beat the smaller teams at our our own ground, I guess it depends which team shows up most often the team that destroyed West Brom or the team that limped out against the bigger sides. Dicko scored a hat trick on his EPL debut and has 8 goals so far not bad for a player with pretty poor attributes.

Link to post
Share on other sites

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

Nearly Half Way There

17res.jpg

70217344.jpg

Not too bad managing to stay away from relegation but as you can see we just went through a really bad patch with four draws and a loss, I suppose one point is better than none though. Jay Rodriguez has been playing well and Liverpool recently enquired about him I told them £15 million to scare them off and have yet to have a reply back. Managed to get our first win in five against the team I support in real life and I hope this can lead us onto better things. I am hoping for a midtable finish to build on for next season.

Hatem Ben Arfa

Decided to bring in a couple of player Ben Arfa has been available since his contract at Dallas expired so I signed him up on £10,000 a week but his contract will expire at the end of the season so it's a risk worth taking and hopefully it will pay off.

Craig Dawson

£2.7 million from Everton also on a pretty low wage, looks like a good CB but I doubt he will make much difference to our inept defending.

flamengow.jpg

Had one concrete offer from Flamengo but their wage bill seems very big for a Brazilian club but I think they may have a big TV deal. Not tempting enough to make me leave Crewe in the middle of the clubs first ever EPL season.

Link to post
Share on other sites

villarrealw.jpg

westbrom.jpg

swansea.jpg

newcastlen.jpg

Being linked to a load of jobs in late December, already rejected Swansea and West Brom would not be much of a step up at all from my side. Villarreal was slightly tempting but I don't think they have the base to become a really big side. Well the last one is horrible, I would never manage them on FM ever. I don't think there is any job that would persuade me to leave Crewe at the moment. I want to journey around the world and win every continental trophy there is but I can see me sticking with Crewe for awhile as long as a new stadium is built in the next couple of seasons because the 12,609 all seater Gresty Road stadium is nowhere near big enough to build this side into Champions League contenders.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I noticed that yesterday but I used the same link I always use, will have a look and see if I can change them.

It seems that everytime I take screenshot of a player and upload it it is always really small.

Link to post
Share on other sites

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

End of February Top Half Possible?

febgt.jpg

feb2.jpg

The league is very tight and I am not sure we will end up this high in the league, I switched to a 4-4-2 with two DMC's to try and steady the defence a bit it has sort of worked and we have only lost one of the last eight matches. We were leading at Chelsea until quite near the end. Most impressive has to be the win at Anfield along with the home win over Arsenal, no one is really standing out but the team is playing well as a whole. Two strikers is better because it allows me to team up Rodriguez with 6 foot 8 academy striker Lee Campbell.

[video=youtube;SDMqWhcxaro]

Thought some of you might like this AI own goal, it is the funniest I have ever seen.

Link to post
Share on other sites

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

Possibly My Best First EPL Season Ever

70655291.jpg

clres.jpg

Wow, switching to a 4-4-2 and employing DMC's really helped the club move forward. Important wins over Birmingham and Liverpool on the last day to seal a fantastic 3rd place finish, half down to how well we played and half down to how poorly the rest of the league played. So-called big clubs Liverpool, Man United and Chelsea never really put together a big run of results to break into the top four. This has resulted in us and Birmingham playing Champions League football of course Birmingham will have to get past the qualifying round, luckily for them the Champions League final is between Man City and Arsenal and not the other bigger clubs.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Flagbig.GIF

Road To World Cup

chileleg.jpg

chile16.jpg

I took charge with Chile sitting in the play-off place after winning a fair few of the qualifiers we were able to get to the 2018 World Cup with ease pulling away from the teams in and around the play-off area. Losses to Ecuador and Argentina were disappointing because they did not reflect how we played but the defeat to Brazil well we more than deserved that one. I also survived the Confederations Cup we drew Spain, Mexico and Ivory Coast, the annoying thing was if we had beat Mexico by one goal instead of two then Spain would have gone out. We were outplayed by a very good Russian side and then lost for the second time against Spain.

2018 World Cup

Group A

Uruguay

Holland

Russia

Algeria

Group B

Iran

Brazil

Poland

USA

Group C

Japan

Honduras

Argentina

Serbia

Group D

Egypt

Chile

Germany

Scotland

Group E

England

Ukraine

Saudi Arabia

Morocco

Group F

Mexico

Czech Republic

France

Colombia

Group G

Nigeria

Ireland

Australia

Spain

Group H

Belgium

Italy

Senegal

South Korea

Not a bad group for us but not easy either. Germany will be hard especially with me forgetting to do something and leaving them with all grey players, Scotland can be good on their day and Egypt have a few decent players. Saying that I would be very disappointed if we didn't get to the knock out rounds of the World Cup.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Haha, lets hope you are right I am still shocked that we did so well avoiding any big injuries was key to our success.

Question is how much do I build on this? Do I start giving out big contracts or keep them under £30,000 a week like I am at the moment?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Annoying being stuck in a 14,000 capacity stadium. We were making a profit of £1.5 million a month last season without Champions League football, so financially I should be able to offer a few better contracts out.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Well the World Cup was a complete waste of time, we got splatted 3-0 by fake Germany then lost 4-2 against a Scotland side who had 2 clear cut chances compared to our 5, Alexis Sanchez got injured against Germany within the first few minutes keeping him out of the other games. So after two defeats we were knocked out and I resigned, I hate international management I always seem to under perform when I venture into it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

End of Season - Best 11 and Domestic Cups

inbest11.jpg

As you can see Rodriguez and Campbell struck up a good partnership with Campbell getting most of the goals, earlier in the season he had kept Campbell out of the first team because I only played one up front but switched mid-season and it worked a treat. N'Zogbia started well but never kept it up and he got upset at me rejecting a bid in January so I decided to move him out for £1.5 million and got Ben Arfa instead another player who was inconsistent, Ben Arfa also wanted me to double his wages from 10k a week to 20k to stay so I let him go. Picchi was brilliant at DMC and just as good earlier in the season at MC. There were a few under performers and despite how well we did the best 11 proves we need a few more quality players in.

Domestic Cups

We started the FA Cup well with a 4-1 home victory over Swansea but it was disappointment in the 4th round as we got beat 3-2 at home against Wolves. The League Cup was a little bit longer a 2nd round 4-1 win over Plymouth was followed with an impressive performance in a 2-0 win at home against Aston Villa, however we couldn't beat their rivals Birmingham who dispatched of us 2-1 at their ground. Overall a disappointing run in both cups and something I would love to improve on next season.

New Season New Players

Luca Casolla

Signed from AC Milan for £4.2 million he is extremely quick and I originally signed him to play up front but I am strongly considering retraining him to play as a AMR where he can use his pace to get into the box and hopefully destroy the AI defenders.

Jorge Nunez

The biggest signing in the history of the club at £7.5 million, I had been after him for a while after giving him his first cap for Chile. A year a go the club wanted £18 million for him but after unsettling him he started to reject new contract offers from them, I bid but negotiations collapsed due to his agents demands for himself, I then received a news item saying due to the collapse of talks with Crewe Nunez had fired his agent. I bid and got him for £7.5 million. He is a good player and can play at CB but is more of a DMC, I look forward to seeing him play alongside Picchi in the DMC slots next season.

John Flanagan

He has been unable to establish himself at Spurs and they wanted £5 million for him but I went in with a loan offer and they accepted. Can play both fullback positions, he is a bit slow but hopefully he will be better than Naughton who didn't have his contract renewed due to stupid wage demands.

Fredy Montero

After deciding to convert Casolla to an AMR I felt I needed another option up front so I signed Montero. His age is against him but he only cost £2.9 million and is on a small wage, he has everything I wanted reasonably quick with decent finishing he will become a back up to Campbell and Rodriguez and competition with Dicko when ever the main two are out injured or need resting.

Miguel Aranguren

An expensive signing for us at £5.75 million he looks a decent player and will add some depth and competition to the centre of defence. Quick slow but he has a bit of room for improvement so some decent training with individual focus on quickness should knock that up a couple of points during the season.

Felix Gonzalez Antunez

Should become a great CB he is only rated at 2 stars for current ability and 4 and a half for potential. Needs a bit of work but with games and training I have a good feeling he can become a great player and he was free as well.

Overall I am happy with the players that have come in this season and I do think we are stronger although a couple more signings would be nice. I did manage to re-loan Mancienne he is available on a free in the summer of next season but he will be 31 by then so I am not sure if we will make a move for him or not. I still have £11 million left along with £140,000 spare wages but there is no need to spend them just for the sake of it.

wagesout.jpg

Obviously bringing players in also means moving a few out. All were released because they had stupid wage demands or because they never reached their potentials. Cattermole had matches highest earner clause and would not drop it so I let his contract expire, as I mentioned before Ben Arfa wanted us to double his current wage which was a big no from me. I felt sorry for Nugent who was a big help getting us to the EPL but was just not good enough to play in the first team. Naughton wanted a rise to 20k a week which I didn't think he was worth so I let him go. Another I felt sorry for was Elliott Whitehouse who played a huge part in our rise through the leagues but just couldn't get into the first team in the EPL.

wages.jpg

Successfully managing to keep the wages at a decent level but obviously they will naturally rise as our success does. I have hired a load of scouts to go out and try to find some decent younger players I can bring in and give a few games to. I have £11 million left so I am saving that to see if the scouts can find any players with decent potential that are under 21 and can play a role now. I will also be looking at all the international U-21 teams of the big nations as there are usually a few decent free players in there.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Successfully managing to keep the wages at a decent level but obviously they will naturally rise as our success does. I have hired a load of scouts to go out and try to find some decent younger players I can bring in and give a few games to. I have £11 million left so I am saving that to see if the scouts can find any players with decent potential that are under 21 and can play a role now. I will also be looking at all the international U-21 teams of the big nations as there are usually a few decent free players in there.

This is exactly what I do.

If you have ever read my threads, I always, without fail, recruit as many scouts as possible, all with the highest possible Judging Player Ability & Potential and then send them to all parts of the globe.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Scouts can definitely help in finding young talent in the corners of the globe you've never thought of before. Always nice to find the gem of a 20 year old that can lace up and play a role.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I normally use my own judgement but in also looking too my scouts to give me more info,

As a big club if a 16-18 year old has good attributes I would bid for them and take a risk, can't afford to do that here.

Excellent Premier League debut.

Thanks Nobby, just hope we can follow it up with another similar season.

Scouts can definitely help in finding young talent in the corners of the globe you've never thought of before. Always nice to find the gem of a 20 year old that can lace up and play a role.

Picchi is a great player that was released as a youngster and is now a top DMC that can only get better. Those are the sort of signings I love players that no one wants that can be turned into class players.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The group I would have had most confidence in qualifying from was Real Madrid, Celtic, Zenit and Standard who we would have replaced. Obviously Real Madrid would have been losses but Celtic and Zenit I think we would have had a good chance of beating.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Fantastic second half to the season there - that's usually when the bubble bursts for most promoted sides but you managed to reach the Champions League! Tough group but I think you will at least get the Europa League spot. :thup:

Much like DazRTaylor, I also keep my scouts busy on my club saves. Once the board allow it, I also send them off to youth tournaments (U20 World Cup is a favourite as are the South American U20, EuroU21 and Euro U19 finals) - there are often many star performers near the end of their contracts to be found there. :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

Woo new stadium! :)
Over double capacity is great for a new stadium! Definitely give you something to grow into. :)

I just hope I can be in the Champions League when the new stadium arrives.

Fantastic second half to the season there - that's usually when the bubble bursts for most promoted sides but you managed to reach the Champions League! Tough group but I think you will at least get the Europa League spot. :thup:

Much like DazRTaylor, I also keep my scouts busy on my club saves. Once the board allow it, I also send them off to youth tournaments (U20 World Cup is a favourite as are the South American U20, EuroU21 and Euro U19 finals) - there are often many star performers near the end of their contracts to be found there. :)

Thanks, I have a couple of scouts constantly searching South America for players under 20 with 4 star potential. 2nd half of the season was brilliant and so far this season it looks like we will need another great run to get anywhere near Europe.

Link to post
Share on other sites

65533p.jpg?rnd=808

Second Season Syndrome?

2ndseasonepl.jpg

2ndseasonres.jpg

Not really sure what the hell is going on, there were several injuries to key players during these first games but that's no excuse for this. 6-3 loss against a team who had 7 shots all game was extremely annoying and losing 3 of the last 4 is not the sort of form I need at the moment. I know Wigan are not strong but it makes no sense to lose 3 games and have a 7-1 win sandwiched between these poor results. I think we are going to have to go on a decent run asap or a late surge to make it into the European places, we did it last season although maybe I am panicking a bit too much.

Champions League Is A Welcome Distraction

2ndseasoncl.jpg

Strange how European competition is usually an unwanted distraction yet we are doing really well. We beat Inter and somehow got a draw against Bayern despite them having 25 shots a win away against Metalist has put us in a strong position to qualify for the knock out round.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...