FM18: Chelsea FC

[bucket]

Not a bad win..

[torquayfmer]

Started my first save with Chelsea this year. Like the look of some of the youth players so looking at getting them involved and developing.

I thought that Ozil was a bargain as he was transfer listed but do regret getting him as he didn't really perform during pre season and hasn't started the season great either. Christ Kayembe is a regen 17yr old goalkeeper who looks to have good potential. Andre Gomes was brought in last minute, felt like we needed an additional central midfield player and didn't have any money left. 

Sold Willian as I didn't think he would fit into how I wanted to play, in hindsight I'd probably have kept him and not got Ozil. 

Season started ok, beat Arsenal on penalties to win the Community Shield and after drawing 1-1 with West Brom in the first game of the season, I changed formation and brought Hazard straight back from injury and duly beat Liverpool 4-1 at Anfield. Belotti has had a slow start with poor performances, Morata is starting the next game as I've brought him on in every game so far and he's scored 3. 

Going to give Redan plenty of game time this season and hope he develops as well as others have got him. 

[PitchPosh]

Sorry for the disappearing act, gents. I have just finished my last graduate school application and a couple of free lance jobs, so I have a bunch of free time to fire up my Chelsea save again. I picked up where I left off in the summer of the 3rd season and have just beaten Man United in the Community Shield 2-0. Not any crazy signings, though I do have a £419m transfer budget! I feel kind of guilty for not using it, but the board has unveiled plans to expand Stamford Bridge into a 57k seater! Can't wait to get back into it, hopefully we can get this thread back to it's early activity levels 

[Viadro]

Im also playing Chelsea atm, resched half of the season and I will post a full review once I finish the whole season. 

 

For now I have only one question: Hazard was doing great until recently and now his average from the last 5 games is 6.78, how do you play him? I got him as an IF with supp on AML

[PitchPosh]

55 minutes ago, Viadro said:

Im also playing Chelsea atm, resched half of the season and I will post a full review once I finish the whole season. 

 

For now I have only one question: Hazard was doing great until recently and now his average from the last 5 games is 6.78, how do you play him? I got him as an IF with supp on AML

I have had problems with Hazard at that same position. He either finishes a game with a 9.0 rating or a 6.3. I find that the penalties he takes pads his stats a little bit, and that he doesn't contribute as much as I would like him to. He gets dispossessed far too easily for me and doesn't get into many good chances. I'm sure it's something with my tactics, though, as others have gotten quite a lot out of him. 

[Viadro]

Yeah, I also noticed that he looses the ball far too often while dribbling

 

The range shots bug (shooting in weird directions) doednt help either =/

[seanDCFC]

On 1/19/2018 at 12:53, Viadro said:

Im also playing Chelsea atm, resched half of the season and I will post a full review once I finish the whole season. 

 

For now I have only one question: Hazard was doing great until recently and now his average from the last 5 games is 6.78, how do you play him? I got him as an IF with supp on AML

I'm getting great results with Hazard in this system, he won world player of year and he is scoring and assisting loads. 

[PitchPosh]

17 hours ago, seanDCFC said:

I'm getting great results with Hazard in this system, he won world player of year and he is scoring and assisting loads. 

I may give it a shot because my tactics have stagnated badly. I seem to do well against lower teams, but against bigger clubs my team disappears

[seanDCFC]

12 minutes ago, PitchPosh said:

I may give it a shot because my tactics have stagnated badly. I seem to do well against lower teams, but against bigger clubs my team disappears

I recommend it, it works great with the players Chelsea have. I've hammered a lot of top teams with it, one of them being Man Utd who I usually struggle to beat with other tactics. 

[essien_5]

I haven't played the last two years of FM, but really starting to get the itch again now!

I think I'll wait until the January update is done before I jump in as there should likely be a bit of activity beyond Barkley IRL (so long as it's not Carroll or Crouch!).

 

[Viadro]

On 21.01.2018 at 01:41, seanDCFC said:

I'm getting great results with Hazard in this system, he won world player of year and he is scoring and assisting loads. 

I see we are playing quite similar tactic. I will give Hazard a try with Advanced Playmaker and see how it works. Do you tell him to go narrow with the ball? Can you show me his individual settings? 

[Viadro]

A quick question: why cant I offer a contract to Sanchez even though its 13th of January already? I try with offer contract and it says I need to offer money to the club first. 

Is there some new function to do that or what?

[bucket]

3 minutes ago, Viadro said:

A quick question: why cant I offer a contract to Sanchez even though its 13th of January already? I try with offer contract and it says I need to offer money to the club first. 

Is there some new function to do that or what?

It’s because your an English club mate. Have to wait until end of season to snap him up. 

[Viadro]

What?! So if someone else wants him, lets say Barca, they can sign him now and get him free at the end of the season while ai have to wait for the end of season to start negotiating the contract? 

[bucket]

2 hours ago, Viadro said:

What?! So if someone else wants him, lets say Barca, they can sign him now and get him free at the end of the season while ai have to wait for the end of season to start negotiating the contract? 

Correct. 

[Viadro]

I guess now I have to pray that nobody oitside UK wants him.. Great

When did they chanhe these conditions?

As far as I remember I could always negotiate a contract when it was within the 6months expiry period.. 

[seanDCFC]

19 hours ago, Viadro said:

I see we are playing quite similar tactic. I will give Hazard a try with Advanced Playmaker and see how it works. Do you tell him to go narrow with the ball? Can you show me his individual settings? 

I just use the default instructions for hazard, he goes narrow and deeper to get the ball with this role. I've tried other roles for hazard but I've had the best results with advanced playmaker. 

[bucket]

So this fella just came through my Regen Intake..

[essien_5]

8 hours ago, Viadro said:

I guess now I have to pray that nobody oitside UK wants him.. Great

When did they chanhe these conditions?

As far as I remember I could always negotiate a contract when it was within the 6months expiry period.. 

It's been like that for years mate, it's only between 2 English teams. Therefore if a player's contract was expiring say in France then an English team could approach him in January to sign him for free.

As an example Emre Can's contract at Liverpool is running down in real life. English clubs cannot negotiate to sign him until the summer, whereas Juventus or anyone else interested could try to sign him now ready for the summer.

[Viadro]

OK, I need to ask something:

What is the actual difference between SHORT and DIRECT passing?

Until now I thought that short passing is very safe and tells the player to only pass to the closest player while direct pass means he will try to pass directly to another player, doesnt matter where that player is and hence the latter should only be instructed to players with high passing attribute. Is that the case?

Reason I'm asking is that my tactic is based on short passing and yet every single match starts with a note from my assistant that I should change my passing to direct...

[essien_5]

4 hours ago, Viadro said:

OK, I need to ask something:

What is the actual difference between SHORT and DIRECT passing?

Until now I thought that short passing is very safe and tells the player to only pass to the closest player while direct pass means he will try to pass directly to another player, doesnt matter where that player is and hence the latter should only be instructed to players with high passing attribute. Is that the case?

Reason I'm asking is that my tactic is based on short passing and yet every single match starts with a note from my assistant that I should change my passing to direct...

My understanding is that short passing is possession based, slower build up...think Barcelona.

Direct is better suited for a quicker tempo or counter attack game where you look to get the ball forward much quicker.

I could however be completely wrong!

[avonseller]

Looks to be an exciting save with the January additions, Emerson looks pretty good. Just a shame our youth is quite underrated in-game..

[Viadro]

I fnished my 1st season.

Was playing Conte tactic with 3 x DC.

Some screenshots below

Competitions

Squad

Tactic

Tactic settings

Transfers

I never like to sell players in the 1st season as I always want to give everyone a chance and then assess who is a valuable and who is not
So I only bought some future stars and I needed 2 additional DC to have 2 x 3 DC to rotate.
On the tactic screen I put my first squad, it is the squad that was shaped really late in the season, especially de Ligt and Moses exploded out of nowhere and Rahman came back from serious injury.

The tactic itself was also evolving, at first I was using Control mentality at home and Standard mentality away. Funny thing was I was getting better results away than home... until the half of the season hit when suddenly the AI cracked my tactic. This was a real bump and my 13 pts differnce with Arsenal melted to 5. This was the moment I decided to play attacking mentality away as I was pushed really hard to my defence and punched all over.

The real issues I was strugling with where:
- wingbacks: their rating was almost never higher than 7, no assists, nothing, 15 crosses each with 0 completed, they finally exploded when Rahman and Moses stepped in and when I switched them to Complete wingback on Support rather than Wingback
- Pedro and Hazard: both were inconcistent, they either got 9 or 6, I solved the problem with Hazard thanks to help on this topic, switching him from Inside Forward to Advanced Playmaker really worked like a charm and I decided to put Pedro as Raumdeuter. I know lots of pple were complaining about Pedro but he was really great in my team.

As for the players themselves:
Biggest dissapointments:
- Azplicueta (terrible whole season, dropped him quite early for Zappacosta and sucked whenever got a chance)
- Fabregas (pretty ordinaly with lots of misplaced passes)
- Willian (he was injured whole season, every time he came back from one, he got a new one immediately)

Biggest surprises:
- Morata (scored 29 goals in 29 games, amazing whole season with very few 1-2 days injuries)
- Kenedy (he was bad on wings but when I had to put him as a striker, he scored 2 goals in 1st match)
- de Ligt (wasnt planning to play him in my 1st team)
- Moses (good assists and goals despite ******** attritubtes)
- Drinkwater (amazing goals and assists)

The only thing that drives me crazy is playing against top4, every single much was a struggle ;s
I have also loaned Asensio in the middle, he got listed initially for 58 mln and then dropped to 38. I loaned him with a 30 mln buyout clause which I'm planning to acticate of course. I'm also plannning to get Sanchez on free.

Now I wonder what to do, whether I should continue with my tactic to the next season with some minor tweaks and replacements or should I go with some heavy offensive setup with Hazard, Assensio, Sanchez, Morata and another striker upfront. This would solve my next problem: when attackng from deep or intercepting during the match, the ball goes straight to Morata and he is ALONE, the rest is not catching up and hence Morata got no other choice but shoot which ends badly in 99,9% of scenarios (range shots are bugged if you ask me, lots of them makes no sense positionwise and directionwise).

Funny thing about CL: there was BVB, Juventus, Chelsea and City in the quarter final, no Spanish club  and I smashed Juventus 5:0 home and 1:0 away ^^

[silv3rf0xx]

ok just starting my first save need one player in cm to be a lampard type any ideas i looked at dele but prob cost too much then there is barkley but unsure on him 

[bucket]

7 hours ago, silv3rf0xx said:

ok just starting my first save need one player in cm to be a lampard type any ideas i looked at dele but prob cost too much then there is barkley but unsure on him 

Savic from lazio. Wow wow wow!!

[silv3rf0xx]

cool im thinking of the tactic from 2004/2005 been testing it with other teams to get it right thats y i have not started a save until now might be worth waiting till new patch i dont think the tactics changed till we got ancelotti really only the rcm role and dm role changed aas for roles this is how i see 2004/2005 

gk gk def

rb&lb def 

cb cb stopperwith bpd def

dm i would have said anchorman but i settled on dm def 

cmr dlp sup i.e tiago role

cml b2b

amr&aml switch between wing att and in for sup these players swapping position i.e cole robben 

st comp for att

 

the key is to have it pre set up so when a wide player is on the same side as his strongest foot they become wing att with switch positions with opposite wing it creates havoc with opposition fbs. if im not creating enough i use early cross and if im chasing i also use pump into box and att mentality is used for last 10-15 mins

[Gruffyd Llywellyn]

Hi guys, finally decided to join you as I'm having a real fun save with Chelsea at the moment, beginning a 3rd season. Gradually building up the squad and adding world class players one or two at a time. Winning the league quite comfortably both times, CL once and bunch of other minor trophies. Somehow we always struggle in FA Cup and get knocked out in 4th round or something... My squad isn't anything revolutionary, I settled for the well known best players - Hazard, Dybala and Asensio upfront (Asensio a real steal, bought for 25M, must have been a bug), Özil, Verratti and Kanté in the middle and Alex Sandro, Zouma, Christensen and Azpilicueta in the back with Courtois in goal. Cahill and Luiz settled for rotation options, Jay Dasilva performs well in the left back area, still have Zappa. In midfield Bakayoko is the 4th choice and is helped by Palmer and retrained Willian. The backup front three is Musonda, Morata, Abraham.

However, silv3rf0xx, DLP doesn't perform for me since 2017 and this particulary combination neither. DLP on defend duty plays nicely in the DM position, spraying the ball around and controlling the game, but the ratings never reflect that and DLP on support duty in the CM position has average ratings of 6.7s and doesn't stand out in highlights anyway. This year I tried Verratti, Drinkwater, Bakayoko, van Ginkel and bunch of youngsters there but to no avail, with Kanté as our primary BBM. After that I tried my great combo I think from 2016, AP on support duty with DLP on support duty, but as mentioned above, DLP never performed. This season I switched my midfield to double APs on support duty, using the same formation as you and added Hazard on AP attack duty and we started to really unlock the other teams, which has been a problem before. We have been keeping the ball, but not creating enough and lot of shots were from the distance. So far we have demolished Man Utd twice, in CS and in the first league in Old Trafford. We'll se how it goes from there.

[Viadro]

19 hours ago, silv3rf0xx said:

cool im thinking of the tactic from 2004/2005 been testing it with other teams to get it right thats y i have not started a save until now might be worth waiting till new patch i dont think the tactics changed till we got ancelotti really only the rcm role and dm role changed aas for roles this is how i see 2004/2005 

gk gk def

rb&lb def 

cb cb stopperwith bpd def

dm i would have said anchorman but i settled on dm def 

cmr dlp sup i.e tiago role

cml b2b

amr&aml switch between wing att and in for sup these players swapping position i.e cole robben 

st comp for att

 

the key is to have it pre set up so when a wide player is on the same side as his strongest foot they become wing att with switch positions with opposite wing it creates havoc with opposition fbs. if im not creating enough i use early cross and if im chasing i also use pump into box and att mentality is used for last 10-15 mins

Please notice that Hazard is very inconsisten as IF in this FM, his best role seems to be an Advanced Playmaker so I suggest chaning that role right away to avoid frustration when he gets dispossessed all the time

[Viadro]

2 hours ago, Gruffyd Llywellyn said:

Hi guys, finally decided to join you as I'm having a real fun save with Chelsea at the moment, beginning a 3rd season. Gradually building up the squad and adding world class players one or two at a time. Winning the league quite comfortably both times, CL once and bunch of other minor trophies. Somehow we always struggle in FA Cup and get knocked out in 4th round or something... My squad isn't anything revolutionary, I settled for the well known best players - Hazard, Dybala and Asensio upfront (Asensio a real steal, bought for 25M, must have been a bug), Özil, Verratti and Kanté in the middle and Alex Sandro, Zouma, Christensen and Azpilicueta in the back with Courtois in goal. Cahill and Luiz settled for rotation options, Jay Dasilva performs well in the left back area, still have Zappa. In midfield Bakayoko is the 4th choice and is helped by Palmer and retrained Willian. The backup front three is Musonda, Morata, Abraham.

However, silv3rf0xx, DLP doesn't perform for me since 2017 and this particulary combination neither. DLP on defend duty plays nicely in the DM position, spraying the ball around and controlling the game, but the ratings never reflect that and DLP on support duty in the CM position has average ratings of 6.7s and doesn't stand out in highlights anyway. This year I tried Verratti, Drinkwater, Bakayoko, van Ginkel and bunch of youngsters there but to no avail, with Kanté as our primary BBM. After that I tried my great combo I think from 2016, AP on support duty with DLP on support duty, but as mentioned above, DLP never performed. This season I switched my midfield to double APs on support duty, using the same formation as you and added Hazard on AP attack duty and we started to really unlock the other teams, which has been a problem before. We have been keeping the ball, but not creating enough and lot of shots were from the distance. So far we have demolished Man Utd twice, in CS and in the first league in Old Trafford. We'll se how it goes from there.

So you play flat 3 x MC? Then two wingers and steiker? Correct?

[silv3rf0xx]

 

1 hour ago, Viadro said:

Please notice that Hazard is very inconsisten as IF in this FM, his best role seems to be an Advanced Playmaker so I suggest chaning that role right away to avoid frustration when he gets dispossessed all the time

i did see that commented in early posts but with him switching sides with say pedro on the right he then becomes a winger on the right im going to stick with it as i think thoses swapping of positions will help but only testing will prove my thinking it certainly worked with my test side who again had a left inside for ward who done the same but when i think back to the early cfc of mourinho the wide men swapped sides to become more like wingers and back again to be more like inside forwards.

 

[Gruffyd Llywellyn]

5 hours ago, Viadro said:

So you play flat 3 x MC? Then two wingers and steiker? Correct?

No, I play the same formation as silv3rf0xx. DM is my favorite position and my tactics seldom work without it.

[Viadro]

I see, i always used the same tactic before but this time I said meeeh, need to try something new for a change

[Viadro]

Starting my 2nd season, decided to stick with my tactic. I also decided not to change the squad too much and use as many players comming back from loan as possible. 

So I sold the players that failed last season like Willian (injured whole season, sold to Real for 30mln), Fabregas (loaned to Milan), Michy (sold to Red Bull for 20mln) and some minors, Alonso (PSG for 25mln)

Brought in Sanchez for free, Assensio for 30 mln, Whilshire for free and Kieran from Celtic to replace Alonso. At the last day dexided ti get Ings from Lpool for 10mln to get as many homegrown as possible and so I loaned Dolberg to Inter for another season. Alao got some GK for 5 mln with decent stats and HG status. 

My squad looks like this. 

GK: Courtois (Random GK) 

DC: Luiz, Rudiger, Zouma (Christensen, de Ligt, Omeruo) 

WBL: Rahman (Tierney) 

WBR: Moses (Zappacosta) 

MC: Wilshire, Kante (Deinkwater, Bakayoko) 

AML: Hazard (Assensio) 

AMR: Sanchez (Pedro) 

SC: Morata (Abraham/Ings) 

Won the charity shiekd vs MU 1:0 so far. Got 220 mln to spend if needed. I tried to get Bellerin but Wenger wanted 200mln for him xD

[Gruffyd Llywellyn]

On 14/02/2018 at 11:13, Viadro said:

AML: Hazard (Assensio) 

AMR: Sanchez (Pedro) 

SC: Morata (Abraham/Ings)

How do you play the top three and how is Asensio performing for you on the left hand side? : )

[Viadro]

Hazard is great since I play him as Advanced Playmaker, had to put his dribbling to minimum as he was getting dispossessed too many times. 

Morata plays as F9 and is great, scores with his left, right and head all the time. 

Sanchez managed to play only one serious game so far (charity shield vs Manu, he was man of the match) so Assensio plays there, also as Advanced Playmaker and is doing fine on both sides. When I see he is struggling, I change his role to IF. 

Funny thing is that Wheelchair is awesome, Drinkwater sits on the bench and is awful when hetting a chance. 

[PitchPosh]

Wow! Since adjusting Hazard's role in the AML position to Advanced Playmaker (Attack) he's scored 3 and assisted 4 in 5 games! Hope he can keep this up 

[Viadro]

How does the Brexit work exactly? It says that I will be able to have 19 (or 17?) foreign players.. Can anyone explain the details please? Will all players I currently have count as non-foreign once the new rules hit? Who will count as a foreigner exactly? Need to know how to prepare my squad for the 3rd season. 

 

P. S. Brought Ings from Lpool for 10mil and he scored more goals than Morata until now xD

P. S. 2 what role you play Sanchez with? 

[jmckillo]

Finished my first season and we completed the domestic treble, as we beat Bournemouth in the FA Cup 3-0, won the Premier League by 8 points, and beat some Premier League team (who I can’t remember at this time) in the League Cup. 

Hazard won the Player of the Year award, after earlier finishing second in the ballon d’Or. New signings Sergej Milinkovic Savic and Mahrez helped lead the team to the treble and were chosen in the Team of the Year alongside Courtois and Emerson. 

Unfortunately, we were knocked out of Champions League in the Round of 16 by Juventus. In the Home Leg, we tied Juventus 3-3 after an early red card for elbowing someone in the face by Morata and goals by Dybala in the 90th and 94th minute. In the Away leg, we lost 3-0. At the end of the season, I sold Morata to Manchester United for 95 million (largely because of his red card and subsequent 3 game ban, plus he was injured a lot) and managed to get Dybala from Juventus for 128 million. 

Further sales included Courtois, Willian, and Alonso to PSG for a combined total of over $250 million and Luiz to Arsenal for $50 million. Luiz, Courtois, and Willian all raised a stink about playing time and wanted to be sold as soon as possible and Alonso did not play well all season as the back-up. 

With the large influx of money from those transfer, I brought in Oblak (62 million), Gaya (28 million), Pulisic (63 million), and Isco (114 million). 

The team now looks like this going into the second season. 

 

GK: Oblak, Butland, Beeney

DL: Emerson, Gaya 

CDL: Rudiger, Zouma, Cahill 

CDR: Christensen, De Ligt

DR: Azpilicueta, Zappacosta

DM: Kante, Bakayoko

MCL: Milinkovic-Savic, Barkley 

MCR: Isco, Fabregas 

AML: Hazard, Dolberg 

AMR: Mahrez, Pulisic 

ST: Dybala, Batshuyai, Giroud 

 

Real Madrid has offered over 60 million for Zouma and Giroud has gotten one or two offers from mid-table sides, so I may look to move both depending on how they perform in friendles and early season. 

 

Gunning for Champions League glory this season! 

[bbuullddoogg]

Any chance you can share that tactic? Really trying to get a 4-3-3 going with Chelsea and having major consistency problems.