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[FM20] Manchester United: Falling Giant...


stevemc
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So as per usual, my end of season report at the end of season 4, a season that got disrupted by the 2022 World Cup midway through the season...so how did we do?

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Liverpool may have gone over a century of points in season 2, but we did that and better this season as we absolutely dominated everything in sight! Got on top after the first game and never looked back!

20200915112420_1.thumb.jpg.60c8d8ba791690a5b94c153c097af94d.jpg20200915112431_1.thumb.jpg.3f1aa1e96ee8c90730dc223841685604.jpg Breaking all sorts of records and winning a lot of awards in the process!

But how did we do in the cups? Well we'd already won the Community Shield and the Carabao Cup, could we do a clean sweep of silverware for the first time?

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The answer is no sadly. We dominated the game but Arsenal got a late goal and the FA Cup in the process. Gutting, but we still had one more final to go, the Champions League against our old foes Liverpool:

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Two very similar goals...Maddison from a set piece popped onto the head of Ruben Dias taking him to double figures for the season and netting us our first Champions League win on this save and United's first since 2008, completing a great quadruple in the process! Although credit where credit is due, Antony's equaliser was an amazing solo effort. So how did our players rank up overall?

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Once again Haaland topped both the average ratings and the goals scored, and as always the majority of players with ratings well into the high sevens along with plenty going into double figures for goals scored. Greenwood impressed after returning from a  loan spell, and Kana, Pogba, Maddison, Ake, Dias and Rashford were all crucial for us over the season as a whole. Verschaeren impressed in his debut season, able to slot in everywhere across the attacking midfield, and I even brought Leroy Sane in on loan just for some extra depth in case of injuries and to have a look at him in case I wanted to purchase him this summer (which I don't if I'm honest). Another player who impressed me towards the end of the season was Ethan Laird as injuries to Aarons and Wan-Bissaka meant he was the first choice right-back for some crucial games and he really impressed. I'd wager that he and Aarons will be my first choice right backs going forward which may sadly mean the end of Wan-Bissaka's time here.

I also just want to mention what's happening to some of worldwide stars from the present day. Messi and Suarez will both be retiring at the end of next season, and as for Cristiano Ronaldo? He's reached the end of his Juventus contract and, seeing as he's still highly rated and after taking a decent wage contract, he'll be coming back to United for one last season. Great for nostalgia and I'm hopeful he'll do the works as best as he can!

And this season's transfer window, which has just started as I post this, may be my most crucial yet as two of my best players are being actively pursued by multiple teams. Haaland is wanted by Barca, Real, Bayern and one or two others and PSG are actively pursuing Ruben Dias so I may have to get my elbows out if I want to keep them. Also being sniffed out are Greenwood, although with a new contract I am hopeful of keeping him, Digne, who I may let go dependant on the offer since Brandon Williams has overtaken him as my first choice left back, and Partey. Let's see how it all plays out later!

(ONE MORE THING) De Gea is 32 and ageing but is still my first-choice keeper, although I reckon with the development of my young keeper Vriends, this upcoming season may be his last at number one. If a team comes in for him this summer though, should I keep him or let him go? 

Edited by ShadowEdSide
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On 14/09/2020 at 10:11, the SLC said:

could you put your tactic available for download?

I'll inbox it to you when I get a chance, but I don't really think it will be useful. 

I change PIs almost by the game, and during the game, and it works because of the vision I have for the way my team plays. 

I also have the players that perfectly suit my style and ideas.

A better idea would be to check out the Total Football and Possession with Intent threads as I got a lot of ideas from them.

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17 hours ago, MatthewS17 said:

I'll inbox it to you when I get a chance, but I don't really think it will be useful. 

I change PIs almost by the game, and during the game, and it works because of the vision I have for the way my team plays. 

I also have the players that perfectly suit my style and ideas.

A better idea would be to check out the Total Football and Possession with Intent threads as I got a lot of ideas from them.

Appreciate that. Your tactic will give me a good base to start from and I shall have a look at the threads you recommended. 

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@Gee_Simpson if you haven't started one yet and like the idea of having all the update to transfers, I downloaded a database that I'm going to use from fmscout https://www.fmscout.com/c-fm20-data-updates.html?id=6035 and it takes to this website- https://footballmanagerforum.forumfree.it/?t=77141814# 

It's an update that starts you at the end of may 2020, so end of season 1. It has all the correct league finishes and all the transfers (up to date from 14sept) set for July 1st. So you can start as season 2 with up to date squads and leagues, and start the rebuild from this summer.

There's only 2 things with the update:

1. Cup winners and playoff winners are random, something they can't replicate.

2. Transfer budgets look like they are still set for what you would get at the start of the game, so Man Utd have 50 mil to spend. Plus side though is Sanchez transfer is set so get rid of that wage nice and quick, and put that in the budget.

Edited by sedge11
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@sedge11 Cheers for that mate but I've decided to wait for FM21 before starting my Man Utd save, it just makes more sense. Everything will be properly up to date, so I'll have nothing to worry about there, and I plan to only have 1 or 2 saves at most during a FM so I like to take my time. If I started one now on FM20 I would feel like I'm rushing things because I know FM21 is probably around 2 months away despite the delay. I also have loads of games on my PS4 to catch up with (at least 10), so I want to get them done in time for the new consoles and FM21 so I can then just focus on those.

Edited by Gee_Simpson
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So I finally got FM20 from epic store for free, didnt like the demo but I guess i might aswell go into it while my other save is stale. 

Gonna tweak between a 4231/433/442- Play shorter passing but direct if needs be, gegenpressing with the new added "work rate" team improvements. 

Sancho and Upamencano/skriniar will be my first signings.

Any recommendations with any players that could improve the starting line up or even as back up/rotation? LB might be a priority (new stransfers like donny will be at united so an updated database)

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10 hours ago, BigV said:

So I finally got FM20 from epic store for free, didnt like the demo but I guess i might aswell go into it while my other save is stale. 

Gonna tweak between a 4231/433/442- Play shorter passing but direct if needs be, gegenpressing with the new added "work rate" team improvements. 

Sancho and Upamencano/skriniar will be my first signings.

Any recommendations with any players that could improve the starting line up or even as back up/rotation? LB might be a priority (new stransfers like donny will be at united so an updated database)

I went with a Left footed CB in Pau Torres instead of Upamecano. Best Defensive signing I ever made. 

Telles is a good option for LB. 

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50 minutes ago, MatthewS17 said:

I went with a Left footed CB in Pau Torres instead of Upamecano. Best Defensive signing I ever made. 

Telles is a good option for LB. 

Strange to see upamencano with 11 positioning and poor mentals, ima take your word and go for him and get rid of smalling, jones and tuanzebe.

Got quoted 70m and already spent 90m on sancho, better than United at negotiating atm :lol:

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11 hours ago, BigV said:

So I finally got FM20 from epic store for free, didnt like the demo but I guess i might aswell go into it while my other save is stale. 

Gonna tweak between a 4231/433/442- Play shorter passing but direct if needs be, gegenpressing with the new added "work rate" team improvements. 

Sancho and Upamencano/skriniar will be my first signings.

Any recommendations with any players that could improve the starting line up or even as back up/rotation? LB might be a priority (new stransfers like donny will be at united so an updated database)

Milenkovic from Fiorentina is one of my favourite players this year on fm, excellent cb.

Lb I suppose the obvious one is Telles as we may be in talks in real life, but could try Alphonso Davies or Alaba if you can prize them away from Bayern.

Edited by sedge11
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33 minutes ago, sedge11 said:

Milenkovic from Fiorentina is one of my favourite players this year on fm, excellent cb.

Lb I suppose the obvious one is Telles as we may be in talks in real life, but could try Alphonso Davies or Alaba if you can prize them away from Bayern.

I forgot all about him, will look to scout, might get rid of maguire after a season, seems a bit too slow when being countered. 

Telles got quoted 70m, might have to delegate some sales. 130 for alphonso and alaba is 80m so not much room to maneuvere 

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11 hours ago, BigV said:

Any recommendations with any players that could improve the starting line up or even as back up/rotation? LB might be a priority (new stransfers like donny will be at united so an updated database)

On my save I brought Lucas Digne from Everton for £37.5 million for more depth at LB. He was my best player in the first season and led me to sell Luke Shaw in January

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14 minutes ago, ShadowEdSide said:

On my save I brought Lucas Digne from Everton for £37.5 million for more depth at LB. He was my best player in the first season and led me to sell Luke Shaw in January

First LB I looked at :lol: might be worth a punt, hoping to geat through to jan tonight and have a decent squad for 3rd spot. Shaw has done me pretty bad, gets in LW position and starts crossing long balls to RW cause of his 11 crossing :seagull:

That said I might have to use FB's instead of WB

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1 hour ago, BigV said:

Strange to see upamencano with 11 positioning and poor mentals, ima take your word and go for him and get rid of smalling, jones and tuanzebe.

Got quoted 70m and already spent 90m on sancho, better than United at negotiating atm :lol:

This depends what you're going for. 

Upamecano has the physicals of a top class defender but his mental stats need development. 

Manchester United arguably need a player who can do the job immediately, hence I went for Torres, plus the left being an added bonus. 

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53 minutes ago, MatthewS17 said:

This depends what you're going for. 

Upamecano has the physicals of a top class defender but his mental stats need development. 

Manchester United arguably need a player who can do the job immediately, hence I went for Torres, plus the left being an added bonus. 

Got in skriniar and Pau, got rid of lindelof and jones and rojo. Demoted maguire to rotation. Look alot stronger in the air and on pace. Had some excellent skiriniar recoveries

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6 hours ago, BigV said:

Got in skriniar and Pau, got rid of lindelof and jones and rojo. Demoted maguire to rotation. Look alot stronger in the air and on pace. Had some excellent skiriniar recoveries

Interesting choices. I've still got Maguire, but I've brought in Godfrey to potentially take over that role. 

I like to keep at least one British player in central defence, forming the core. 

How much did that partnership cost you anyway? 

Mine cost me 60m pounds total(Including Godfrey). 

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3 hours ago, MatthewS17 said:

Interesting choices. I've still got Maguire, but I've brought in Godfrey to potentially take over that role. 

I like to keep at least one British player in central defence, forming the core. 

How much did that partnership cost you anyway? 

Mine cost me 60m pounds total(Including Godfrey). 

I wanted something like that but English players are so meh, especially at CB, they even kicked up a fuss about smalling leaving... 

110m, 75 for skriniar and 35 for pau, had to negotiate hard for pau, they wanted 45 at first and I was running out of money, skriniar took a staggering low wage of 120k which probably saved me. Net figure from the sale of jones, rojo and lindelof was 60m so spent 50m all in all which isnt too bad at all. Selling lindelof at 35 and rojo at 15 was a godsend. 

Edited by BigV
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After winning the league from Liverpool by a single point last season you'd think the board would want me to do that again. No, they were just happy with a top 10 finish! Not even top 5 or top 4 for CL football but just a top 10 finish was all they wanted. Perhaps they knew something I did as my first 4 league fixtures were a 2-0 win over newly promoted Millwall, a 0-0 draw with Norwich, a nasty 6-0 loss to Liverpool and a 2-2 draw with Sheffield.

Eventually I realised I had to change my formation mid-season as I was losing games I should have won and drew too many others. I went from a 4-2-3-1 to a traditional 4-4-2. This meant I needed more strikers and fewer central midfielders! I found that Pogba and Fernandes gave me enough creativity and strength in the middle so I had to find time for McTominay, Doucoure, Llorente and Camavinga. Bit of a struggle to fit 6 players into 2 available positions.

I knew I couldn't really rely on Martial and Rashford for strikers so I signed some Norwegian kid called Haaland and Andrea Belotti from City for £46m. Greenwood came good so I was able to rotate him, Martinez, Haaland and Belotti and scored a good number of goals. All 4 strikers achieved hat tricks across the various competitions.

Ultimately we finished 4th, 21 points short of our league winning total. We achieved 4th with 3 games left, i.e. we couldn't get 3rd and 5th couldn't beat us so I was able to play some weaker teams for the last 3 games as I had somehow managed to get to an FA Cup final v Liverpool and a Champions League final v PSG! I wanted to keep my first XI rested and safe from injury. Liverpool took us to extra time and penalties in the FA Cup after 0-0 in normal time. Thankfully Alexander-Arnold and Origi missed their kicks so we won 4-2 on penalties!!

On to St Petersburg for the Champions League final. I really didn't expect to win so when Haaland scored on 13 minutes I thought, "OK still going to lose but at least PSG won't get a clean sheet." Naturally the Brazilian drama queen Neymar Jr scored 2 minutes later to make me think we wouldn't get it and PSG would finally win the holy grail. Martinez scored on 36 minutes to give me the lead again. By now I'm thinking this could be on. Course no-one told Luke Shaw that who gave away a silly penalty on 63 minutes that Neymar took and converted, who else?! It's now 2-2 and I'm thinking that if we lose this I'm selling Shaw in revenge. :seagull: We won but I might still sell him. The only reason I'm not sure is that I don't think Brandon Williams will ever be good enough to be 1st choice LB and Rayan Ait-Nouri isn't ready yet.

Nothing happens in 90 minutes so extra time again. Now I'm thinking there's either no way we'll make it through extra time without PSG winning it or, if we do, they'll spank us on penalties. No way am I going to get away with going to extra time in two successive cup finals! Again no-one had told Haaland this who scored on 105 minutes to make it 3-2 and I'm resisting the urge to change from positive to balanced in case PSG get a break. Pogba, who was injured part way through the 2nd half of the FA Cup final was only fit enough for 60 minutes so I benched him and put Matheus Henrique in his place alongside Bruno. So with Bruno not having a brilliant game I brought Pogba on in the 107th minute to put some steel into midfield and keep hold of the 3-2 lead when he takes the ball in the 119th minute and scores an absolute screamer to give us a 4-2 win over PSG!

Season overview

FA Cup final result

Champions League final result

This is the formation I went to part way through the season. Perhaps if I'd realised a few league games earlier I would have been close enough to City/Liverpool/Chelsea to challenge for a top 3 finish but hey-ho to finish 4th, win FA Cup and Champions League with the difficulties we had in a) scoring enough goals to actually win games and b) not conceding goals this is a very good season. Too many times we only seemed to score 1 goal and then inevitably the opposition would get a late goal and we'd be struggling to find a winner.

The best thing about the season? More than beating Liverpool in the FA Cup and PSG in the Champions League final? The unexpected bonus that with Chelsea nicking 2nd place from Liverpool on the final day and Utd taking the FA Cup, Liverpool sacked Klopp the same day as losing to us at Wembley for a poor league position! :cool:

I've decided that with Maguire only having 10 for acceleration and 12 for pace with Tuanzebe 15/17, Rugani 12/15 and Kehrer 13-17 respectively and Tuanzebe/Rugani also 16 for position that perhaps the time has come to offload Harry and replace him with a faster DC. I saw Pau Torres mentioned higher up in the thread. He's got a good review from my scouts, wants to leave Villareal and has a minimum release fee of £60m but hopefully I can get him for between £36 and £49.5m if the scout report is accurate.

I might also let one of Rugani and Kehrer go as Milenkovic is listed for transfer with a fee of £39.5m. That would leave me with 4 DCs and I feel I should have 5 for injuries/suspension/form etc so I might just sell Maguire and sign Torres and Milenkovic to strengthen the defence. I would go for Dias but Chelsea got him instead.

I think the time has come for McTominay and Gomes to leave. I can't fit McTominay into my plans and Gomes just hasn't improved enough. I'll have to check my homegrown numbers obviously before I left them go.

Stadium wise the expansion to 83,885 was done for the middle of January with an FA Cup 4th round replay v Blackburn on February 3rd the first match to see a new high attendance for the season. I cheekily asked the board on the day the new capacity was available for another expansion and they said yes! The new stadium capacity will be 95,285 and will be ready for 27th December 2021 so hopefully for either the Boxing Day match, if we're at home, or one of the other post-Christmas matches I should be able to get a new record attendance. To pay for the £28.5m cost of planning and building the original expansion £250k a month was added to the monthly debt repayments, taking it up to £5.5m. I'm sure we'll see something similar for the new expansion but I've seen higher gate receipts and match day income from the few months the higher capacity was available and that was with the capacity reduced by 8k or so for the works to be done. Hopefully season ticket income will be higher than last season now we've got the higher capacity, albeit a bit reduced to 78,852 for the new works. That and higher gate receipts and match day income will hopefully wipe out the £250k and whatever gets added this time to the month debts. Normally the high monthly debt repayments and the time to get rid of the debt makes me give up on previous saves with older FM versions but in June 2025 the debt repayments should go down by £2m as that particular debt should be paid off unless the Glazers mess things around again! Being in May 2021 that's only 4 years away and with the promising squad and higher income from being in Champions League and higher capacities at OT I'm going to keep on with this save whilst we wait for FM21 and might even keep it going side-by-side when FM21 does come out.

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So after the ensuing panic of thinking I lost my save and unable to find the backup file, I found the backup file.

Honestly, this is, and surprisingly so, my best season ever and the first time I've ever gone unbeaten.

League.thumb.PNG.0d55afd2b9882cc8ca268b9adb06318c.PNG

 

My front 5 were so lethal that I don't think anybody knew what to do with them. Bruno, Rashford, Martial, Sancho and Greenwood all had more than 10 goals with Sancho and Bruno getting 20 assists and Greenwood, Rashford and Martial all getting above 20 goals. Honestly, it was sheer dominance.

The Team Of The Season Is Hilarious:

TOTY.thumb.PNG.1f0d6d57aeeef161531e410c99aaf594.PNG

 

Unexpectedly, I also ended up winning the Champions League with the easiest run to the Final ever. My opponents were Ajax, Celtic and Benfica before taking on Barcelona in the final. We won 4-1 with Martial picking up a hatrick, but my clean sheet ruined by an unfortunate and annoying penalty.

So, in my second season, I ended up winning a treble. 
The expectations of the board for next season are annoying, as they are expecting me to win everything.

 

Onto the upcoming Season:

As with all my saves, my Net Spend MUST be 150m pounds, give or take 30 million. This is to keep things financially more realistic. So sales are important for potential purchases.

I'm looking at bring in 4-5 players, depending on what I can get, and having to replace the members of the squad that I plan to sell or are ageing. 

On the market will be Dan James and Tahith Chong first. With Brandon Williams shifting to the right side, Dalot is also on the market.
Already sold is Pogba for a massive 150m from PSG, as I am sick and tired of him playing several matches uninterested and always flirting with other teams(IRL effect too, probably). Fred is in negotiations with Arsenal who have randomly put in a 60m offer for him. I mean, he's a squad player so I'm not going to refuse. Tuanzebe is out on loan. 

 

With the Club World Cup annoyingly being two weeks after the Champions League Final, I have to get things done quickly. 
Desperate to continue revamping and redesigning my midfield, I was targeting Frenkie De Jong as a Pogba replacement, but Houssem Aouar was listed for 60m so he's coming in instead, alongside Declan Rice for a frustrating 75m(Couldn't unsettle him and didn't really want to pay this much, but ended up doing so). I was desperate to replace Matic who missed the last 3 months to injury, which actually seemed to affect my defensive stability.

In my original save before it corrupted, I had agreed a deal for Ben Godrey, as he'd asked to leave Norwich, but now I'm weighing in on Upamecano as well, who will cost double the 30m.

At the moment I still need:

A backup LB for Grimaldo(need a left footer)
A backup LW for Rashford(Grealish for sale after Villa relegated)
A World Class potential CB to grow into the side and push Maguire out. 

 

I basically overachieved, as this club still needs depth and to add the final pieces into place on what is looking a more ruthless and challenging team, built around the players that have the right mentality and suit my style.

But this could be my most stable and favourite save yet.

Edited by MatthewS17
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@BigV What updated database are you using?

@MatthewS17 34 league games for Martial and 40 goals?! Lol that's insane, and the most I think I've ever seen. Did you mostly use him as a CF (A) in the end or did you use him as a AF?

After having decided to wait for FM21, I'm starting to get impatient as FM21 hasn't even been announced yet, surely it will be announced this week. Sorely tempted to start a Utd save as I get the feeling the new game may not be out until December now as if it was November we would have heard about it by now surely?

Edited by Gee_Simpson
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1 hour ago, Gee_Simpson said:

@BigV What updated database are you using?

@MatthewS17 34 league games for Martial and 40 goals?! Lol that's insane, and the most I think I've ever seen. Did you mostly use him as a CF (A) in the end or did you use him as a AF?

After having decided to wait for FM21, I'm starting to get impatient as FM21 hasn't even been announced yet, surely it will be announced this week. Sorely tempted to start a Utd save as I get the feeling the new game may not be out until December now as if it was November we would have heard about it by now surely?

I alternated a lot. AF against bigger teams and CF against the lesser teams so he could make a decision to drop deeper. AF is definitely the more prolific, but he may go silent for vast periods of the game. 

I'm not waiting for the sole reason of not really yet warmed to the idea of buying FM21. After purchasing the beta for FM20 and being keen for its potential, only to be disappointed by full release, I imagine I'll wait for the winter update of FM21 to see its reviews before making a decision. 

I'm genuinely enjoying my decisions in this save so I don't plan on putting it down. 

Edited by MatthewS17
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53 minutes ago, MatthewS17 said:

I alternated a lot. AF against bigger teams and CF against the lesser teams so he could make a decision to drop deeper. AF is definitely the more prolific, but he may go silent for vast periods of the game. 

Yeah that makes sense, AF against teams who give you space in behind, and CF against teams who sit in. Have you tried any of the other striker roles? I've been considering trying the PF (A) and CF roles in my 4231 but have also considered the poacher and AF.

53 minutes ago, MatthewS17 said:

After purchasing the beta for FM20 and being keen for its potential, only to be disappointed by full release, I imagine I'll wait for the winter update of FM21 to see its reviews before making a decision. 

This is a good point. In the early ME versions of FM20 the 1v1's were so frustrating, players would miss way too many, and also the balls over the top of the defence were ridiculous also. Usually the game doesn't reach its best until the final patch in March or so. I suppose looking at it that way, I could start my save now and still have around 6 months until the final patch is released for FM21 next year. Not sure what to do atm though.

Edited by Gee_Simpson
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On 17/09/2020 at 21:57, sedge11 said:

@Gee_Simpson if you haven't started one yet and like the idea of having all the update to transfers, I downloaded a database that I'm going to use from fmscout https://www.fmscout.com/c-fm20-data-updates.html?id=6035 and it takes to this website- https://footballmanagerforum.forumfree.it/?t=77141814# 

It's an update that starts you at the end of may 2020, so end of season 1. It has all the correct league finishes and all the transfers (up to date from 14sept) set for July 1st. So you can start as season 2 with up to date squads and leagues, and start the rebuild from this summer.

There's only 2 things with the update:

1. Cup winners and playoff winners are random, something they can't replicate.

2. Transfer budgets look like they are still set for what you would get at the start of the game, so Man Utd have 50 mil to spend. Plus side though is Sanchez transfer is set so get rid of that wage nice and quick, and put that in the budget.

Did you make a start with this then mate? I replied a few days ago saying I'm waiting for FM21 before starting my Utd save but I didn't consider possibly waiting until the last ME patch for FM21 next year, which would be around March, as I wasn't happy with the ME at the start of FM20 so there's a chance I may feel the same about FM21.

Only problem with this file is because it has all the fixtures completed in England, it produces a bug which sees 4 teams relegated from the English League 1 in 2020. Basically any edits made to the English leagues results in this unfortunate bug which would put me off using it.

Edited by Gee_Simpson
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2 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Did you make a start with this then mate? I replied a few days ago saying I'm waiting for FM21 before starting my Utd save but I didn't consider possibly waiting until the last ME patch for FM21 next year, which would be around March, as I wasn't happy with the ME at the start of FM20 so there's a chance I may feel the same about FM21.

Only problem with this file is because it has all the fixtures completed in England, it produces a bug which sees 4 teams relegated from the English League 1 in 2020. Basically any edits made to the English leagues results in this unfortunate bug which would put me off using it.

Yea I have got one started, just finishing up the summer window before start of the season.

Oh I never saw that bug, don’t have league 1 loaded. I only load the prem and championship from England, along with the top leagues from other countries.

Edited by sedge11
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2 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Yeah that makes sense, AF against teams who give you space in behind, and CF against teams who sit in. Have you tried any of the other striker roles? I've been considering trying the PF (A) and CF roles in my 4231 but have also considered the poacher and AF.

This is a good point. In the early ME versions of FM20 the 1v1's were so frustrating, players would miss way too many, and also the balls over the top of the defence were ridiculous also. Usually the game doesn't reach its best until the final patch in March or so. I suppose looking at it that way, I could start my save now and still have around 6 months until the final patch is released for FM21 next year. Not sure what to do atm though.

I've tried the PF role but Martial doesn't have the work rate and it was a complete failure, and I've tried the DLF(A), but bar one or two moments, it was again quite dismal. Probably because he will drop into the space that Bruno will shift into. I like CF because he has the freedom to roam and find space. I'm thinking of trying the Treq role upfront as well.

 

I think the 4-2-3-1 means you may have to consider different roles to me. My striker and left forward are the focal point of my attacks and I focus most of everything into ensuring their productivity in terms of goalscoring. Creativity is intended to come from all areas of the pitch which means that I will tend to overwhelm teams. 

 

I feel with the 4-2-3-1, your number 10 will act as a central point for all things around him, so you'll have to adjust accordingly. Namely, getting your 10 to effective at influencing the plays around your wider players and in turn giving more freedom to your striker. If it was me, I'd focus on getting the 10 to be effective first and then work on getting the striker to be effective around him. 

Also, what do you want your striker to be? Out and out goalscorer, or involved in the play? 

But I'm not an expert, and I'm sure there's a thread here somewhere that describes what I'm saying as utter tosh. :))

 

As for 21,up to you, mate. Go with what you think is best. 

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10 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

@BigV What updated database are you using?

FM20 Transfers & Data Update Packs by pr0 + FMTU on FM scout. Has signings up to the 6th september so I have DVB who is realllyyyy good for a BBM. 

Debating weather to get rid of matic or fred now though 

"Yeah that makes sense, AF against teams who give you space in behind, and CF against teams who sit in. Have you tried any of the other striker roles? I've been considering trying the PF (A) and CF roles in my 4231 but have also considered the poacher and AF."

I couldnt quote that ^ for some reason but i'll help out ish. What MS17 said is kinda true, also it kinda depends on your line of engagement, the lower it is the more direct/dribbler he is rather than get behind, I also find the poacher role more behind the lines than most. DLF-A is a good use at times or in games where you're on the back foot or he isnt getting in games/space where a CAM play off the striker. AF is probably martials best/ most of the strikers, the first thing I did was look at traits for strikers and see how you want to "change" them. 

This is just my gap for fm21, if its worse than 20 ill probably stop playing but I thought ive got fm20 for free so might aswell make something out of it, give a 10 season thing and then cop out or if i enjoy it (seems like it so far) then carry on but the constant im gonna shoot at the side netting rather than cross it to a free man is bugging me off quite alot. Sancho scares me cause he doesnt do it much but im scared he'll learn that stupid trait sooner or later :lol:

 

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20 hours ago, sedge11 said:

Yea I have got one started, just finishing up the summer window before start of the season.

Oh I never saw that bug, don’t have league 1 loaded. I only load the prem and championship from England, along with the top leagues from other countries.

Nice one.

Yeah unfortunately even if you don't have League 1 loaded, 4 teams tend to get relegated to League 2 for some reason at the end of season 19/20, despite the league not being active, you'll notice 4 teams will be recognized as a League 2 side instead of 3 which would annoy me lol, but I suppose it's only a minor thing really. I wouldn't even have noticed it if I hadn't read about it online afterwards, I didn't notice in my previous Utd save when I used the real 19/20 fixtures file, even though it definitely would have happened. I tend to like loading down to English League 2 so I can loan youth out to a level they can cope with. How many leagues do you load in total?

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20 hours ago, MatthewS17 said:

I've tried the PF role but Martial doesn't have the work rate and it was a complete failure, and I've tried the DLF(A), but bar one or two moments, it was again quite dismal. Probably because he will drop into the space that Bruno will shift into. I like CF because he has the freedom to roam and find space. I'm thinking of trying the Treq role upfront as well.

 

I think the 4-2-3-1 means you may have to consider different roles to me. My striker and left forward are the focal point of my attacks and I focus most of everything into ensuring their productivity in terms of goalscoring. Creativity is intended to come from all areas of the pitch which means that I will tend to overwhelm teams. 

 

I feel with the 4-2-3-1, your number 10 will act as a central point for all things around him, so you'll have to adjust accordingly. Namely, getting your 10 to effective at influencing the plays around your wider players and in turn giving more freedom to your striker. If it was me, I'd focus on getting the 10 to be effective first and then work on getting the striker to be effective around him. 

Also, what do you want your striker to be? Out and out goalscorer, or involved in the play? 

But I'm not an expert, and I'm sure there's a thread here somewhere that describes what I'm saying as utter tosh. :))

 

As for 21,up to you, mate. Go with what you think is best. 

Interesting. From what I tested a while back, Martial actually was pretty prolific in my 4231 as a PF (A) lol :D but I agree he doesn't have  the high work rate for it. I usually use a split block so my forwards are expected to press, just a shame his work rate is only 11 but I suppose it can be improved through individual focus training. 

As for the number 10, I'll be trying him as a Treq because I want some goals from him also in addition to making assists. In my first Utd save I used Bruno as a AM (S) but he only scored like 4 goals the whole season which was disappointing, he assisted loads though but I wanted both from him really. For the striker, I mostly want him to focus on scoring goals so AF or a poacher seems the most logical choice here, but I'll probably follow your lead and go with the CF (A) against weaker sides and AF or poacher against the stronger sides who leave space. Using a CF (A) in front of the Treq could be a good combo as they'll both be roaming and will pull weaker teams apart. I feel against weaker sides the poacher can feel like you're playing with 10 men at times, I would imagine the AF would be the same as it's the most attack minded striker role in the game. It would maybe still be effective against weaker sides if I dropped my LOE but I like my teams to press high from the front, as that's what I like to see irl. 

Yeah I'm on the fence regarding playing now or waiting. I'm really surprised FM21 hasn't been announced yet, knowing the release date would make my choice easier.

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15 hours ago, BigV said:

FM20 Transfers & Data Update Packs by pr0 + FMTU on FM scout. Has signings up to the 6th september so I have DVB who is realllyyyy good for a BBM. 

Do you start at the beginning of season 19/20 with that update or can you start at the end of that season like the update sedge11 is using? It would feel weird to start in 2019 with the summer 2020 transfers although then again I'm happy to start in 2019 with the official January 2020 transfer update. I'm guessing you are using VDB in a 4123? As his 7 for positioning is too low to play at MC in a 4231 I would imagine. Pogba can get away with it because he has great physicals to bail him out.

15 hours ago, BigV said:

I couldnt quote that ^ for some reason but i'll help out ish. What MS17 said is kinda true, also it kinda depends on your line of engagement, the lower it is the more direct/dribbler he is rather than get behind, I also find the poacher role more behind the lines than most. DLF-A is a good use at times or in games where you're on the back foot or he isnt getting in games/space where a CAM play off the striker. AF is probably martials best/ most of the strikers, the first thing I did was look at traits for strikers and see how you want to "change" them. 

As for the striker, yeah it's pretty much what I replied to MS17, I'll most likely use a CF (A) against the smaller stubborn sides so he pulls them apart with his roaming, which could be devastating with the AMC roaming behind him as a Treq. Otherwise I'll probably use the AF or poacher against sides who don't just sit back and defend. Alternatively I could stick with the PF (A) which worked for me in the 4231 before.

 

15 hours ago, BigV said:

This is just my gap for fm21, if its worse than 20 ill probably stop playing but I thought ive got fm20 for free so might aswell make something out of it, give a 10 season thing and then cop out or if i enjoy it (seems like it so far) then carry on but the constant im gonna shoot at the side netting rather than cross it to a free man is bugging me off quite alot. Sancho scares me cause he doesnt do it much but im scared he'll learn that stupid trait sooner or later :lol:

Ah okay, will you be buying 21 on release if you enjoy 20? Yeah that hitting it into the side netting thing is weird, it's something that has been acknowledged by SI I think.

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7 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Do you start at the beginning of season 19/20 with that update or can you start at the end of that season like the update sedge11 is using? It would feel weird to start in 2019 with the summer 2020 transfers although then again I'm happy to start in 2019 with the official January 2020 transfer update. I'm guessing you are using VDB in a 4123? As his 7 for positioning is too low to play at MC in a 4231 I would imagine. Pogba can get away with it because he has great physicals to bail him out.

Yeah at the begining of the 19/20 season, I think the one sedge11 was on about is one I looked at but felt like too much of wasted season for me. 4231, his positioning is 13 or 14 I think, that middle bottom where you have off the ball, vision, workrate etc. is all 13 above so he's the perfect BBM. Might have been an edited version of player stats, 7 doesnt warrant his reality, the edited one is probably correct maybe a tad lower at 11-13 at most. Tried many a times putting pogba there and has never worked out for me, dweling on the ball is a massive no no for me. 

7 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

As for the striker, yeah it's pretty much what I replied to MS17, I'll most likely use a CF (A) against the smaller stubborn sides so he pulls them apart with his roaming, which could be devastating with the AMC roaming behind him as a Treq. Otherwise I'll probably use the AF or poacher against sides who don't just sit back and defend. Alternatively I could stick with the PF (A) which worked for me in the 4231 before.

Well worth doing that, bruno does well in attacking midfielder role tbf, I think the AP role in CAM is so off, played mata there with 100 passes in a game and he completed 96 only to find out he's on a 4.5 i was so baffled, 4 key passes and 2 chances created. If you stick with martial and work with him PF role would suit him, get his workrate up to 14-15 within a season or 2 and you'll be pushing boundaries. Tried a game or 2 with CF-A and worked decent, only downside is when he's on the channels no one is there in the box apart from your LW/RW hovering on the other end. 

7 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Ah okay, will you be buying 21 on release if you enjoy 20? Yeah that hitting it into the side netting thing is weird, it's something that has been acknowledged by SI I think.

I wont be buying it when it comes out, I'll need to try the demo first get a taste of the ME (big thing for me), probably watch a few streamers for the alpha testers cause they get it a week early. I like the FM20 layout, if the ME was better or even sorted the central play out i'd be happy with getting fm21 but as we know they fix one thing and unfortunately something else messes up to take its place. 

Yeah it has, hopefully they've fixed it for fm21. Cut backs are always on when they get into the box for crosses so it might have been tweaked to not always score them. 

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10 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

How many leagues do you load in total?

For this save I have 7 loaded.

Prem and championship in England, then just the top leagues in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, then the league I had to load to start in may 2020.

I am think of adding the Dutch or Portuguese league as well though.

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On 26/09/2020 at 03:14, Footygamer89YT said:

Has anyone managed to get Greenwood to be very comfortable at RW as a inside forward at the moment i have coman and Douglas Costa (Loan) in that area but long term would like Haaland upfront with greenwood wide if so how did they managed to do it

Don't take notice of the colour scheme, its only a guide based on their overall attributes, doesnt mean it'll always fit. I've playd him a good amount of times for him to be effective, if I need direct dribbling play then greenwood comes on for sancho, if I need pace them james for counter attacks. If haaland was the focal point as a DLF/CF then he'd play off him quite well imo.  

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The hotfix ruined my full season and had to make a new save at half 12 last night :D gave me time to ponder certain players, skriniar is overrated imo, maguire is a massive liability against pacey sides, midfield isn't great, backup wingers/wonderkids are needed asap and a rotated forward that can take martial on apart from greenwood.

Started the save and then got ruben dias, only to find out city have "agreed a deal", felt like I needed to start again but i thought nahhh screw it, got dias in and i have to say he's a much better player than lindelof, bayern interested in lindelof so could sell him for 45m here would be great to recoup dias's transfer 

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1 hour ago, BigV said:

The hotfix ruined my full season and had to make a new save at half 12 last night :D gave me time to ponder certain players, skriniar is overrated imo, maguire is a massive liability against pacey sides, midfield isn't great, backup wingers/wonderkids are needed asap and a rotated forward that can take martial on apart from greenwood.

Started the save and then got ruben dias, only to find out city have "agreed a deal", felt like I needed to start again but i thought nahhh screw it, got dias in and i have to say he's a much better player than lindelof, bayern interested in lindelof so could sell him for 45m here would be great to recoup dias's transfer 

Your bit about Dias doesn't make sense to me but maybe I have read it wrong. You said you got Dias only to find out City agreed a deal. I am confused by that cos how can you sign him if he already agreed a deal with Man City.

Anyway good luck with your Man Utd restart.

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Just now, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Your bit about Dias doesn't make sense to me but maybe I have read it wrong. You said you got Dias only to find out City agreed a deal. I am confused by that cos how can you sign him if he already agreed a deal with Man City.

Anyway good luck with your Man Utd restart.

I was referring to IRL :lol: I like to be as "realistic" as possible with transfers and stuff. 

Cheers dude, gonna be a short save no doubt

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7 minutes ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

Oh ok sorry my bad. I didn't realize that is what you meant. Thanks for explaining it to me. I think there is a Portuguese central defender called Ferro who is amazing.

Bit too slow for my liking. I tend to go for 14+ pace and accel with 13+ physicals and 13+ for tackling, marking, heading and have good mentals in decisions and concentration. That way Im balanced across the board and backups are either a speciality in pacey or good headers of the ball to mix and match. 

Yeah i should've clarified that part :D

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2 hours ago, BigV said:

Bit too slow for my liking. I tend to go for 14+ pace and accel with 13+ physicals and 13+ for tackling, marking, heading and have good mentals in decisions and concentration. That way Im balanced across the board and backups are either a speciality in pacey or good headers of the ball to mix and match. 

Yeah i should've clarified that part :D

Tuanzebe? 

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Been so busy with lower-league and non-league saves this year I've just got around to completing my first season with United. Went pretty well...

sjpICLnh.png?1

We did our best to bottle the league campaign - we led in the second half of the season but Liverpool had games in hand. We beat them at Old Trafford in a 5-3 thriller but then lost away to City, which cut our lead to 3pts. On the final day we faced Norwich away while Liverpool travelled to Burnley. When we lost 2-0 to the Canaries I thought we'd blown it, but Liverpool could only manage a draw so we claimed the title by 2pts. We saw out the month with a 3-0 win over Watford in the FA Cup final, and then beat St Etienne 2-0 in the Europa League final.

SMAcJ4sh.png?1

Martial was top scorer but signing of the year Moussa Dembele wasn't far behind, and Martial was dire from February onwards. Pogba had the highest average rating but the key player was Bruno, who racked up 9 goals and 23 assists to claim fans Player of the Year award. Young Player of the Year was James Garner, rotating with Fred as DLP in the DM slot - Garner averaged a 7.47 to Fred's 7.45. 

Biggest challenge for the summer will be clearing out as much of the deadwood as possible to provide funds for reinforcements. The perennial problem of right-wing remains, and improvement at CB is needed. The signings of Haaland and Reguillon had already been tied up before the end of the current season

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58 minutes ago, MatthewS17 said:

Tuanzebe? 

Kept him, he's my third CB will probably take over maguire after 1 season. Injury prone is a massive weakness I dont like though, they can grow out of it though according to some FM experts 

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So after a false start a while ago, I finally got my 2nd Man utd save on the go, and will play this now until fm21 comes out.

I downloaded an update that I shared recently from fmscout I think it was, starts you in may2020 (end of season 1) all league tables correct and all transfers set for July 1st.

A couple of things to add, I decided to download the editor, as because of when I downloaded the update some big transfers hadn't gone through yet, so I decided to get the editor to move the likes of Thiago to liverpool, Bale to spurs, Suarez to A Madrid and a few others. I also wanted to improve a few youngsters in line with their development in real life, with the likes of Saka, Foden, Alphonso Davies and a couple others, I didn't really touch Man Utd players as I can develop them. With them bits done editor is now turned off.

The other thing, I did load the start a few times to try and get the cup winners as close as possible, after a few attempts I did get one where Arsenal won the fa cup and Bayern and Sevilla were both in the cup finals. So for realism I did save and make sure they won the cups.

So now that's all out the way , to start of the save. Transfer budgets were the same as what you get at the start of a normal save, but here were my transfers.

1419768519_s2transfers.thumb.png.51663fb172542f86427cc9b83cd64ac4.png

I did struggle to sell slightly, Jones has gone on loan with view of permanent, but I still managed to shift some deadwood. 

Telles was transfer listed, as he was in final year of his contract so snapped him up straight away, winger wise I didn't have the money for Sancho, so had to look around and settled on Coman.

We are now in December, we have had a good start but Liverpool are far and away the best team, and have recently beat us 3-0 at Anfield.

1615307076_s2sofar.thumb.png.804b0876587b833f6ede1478b957cddd.png

This is the tacitc I'm using.

tactic.thumb.png.760accd435ee216498f2b3d85aaf79d1.png

As we are getting close to January, there's some more deadwood I'm hoping to shift. Rojo is coming back off loan and he will be straight out the door, Smalling will probably go as well, and Ighalo's loan deal will be ending.

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10 hours ago, BigV said:

Started the save and then got ruben dias, only to find out city have "agreed a deal", felt like I needed to start again but i thought nahhh screw it, got dias in

Yeah you see things like this was one of the many reasons I decided to wait, just seems to make more sense when you consider FM21 is less than 2 months away, especially considering you can play it 2 weeks before release, making it even closer. 

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3 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Yeah you see things like this was one of the many reasons I decided to wait, just seems to make more sense when you consider FM21 is less than 2 months away, especially considering you can play it 2 weeks before release, making it even closer. 

Agreed, it didnt bother me just more realistic but then again im not having that city team grow any bloody bigger, too OP as it is. stormed my league 1st season in head to head with me. 

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17 hours ago, warlock said:

Been so busy with lower-league and non-league saves this year I've just got around to completing my first season with United. Went pretty well...

We did our best to bottle the league campaign - we led in the second half of the season but Liverpool had games in hand. We beat them at Old Trafford in a 5-3 thriller but then lost away to City, which cut our lead to 3pts. On the final day we faced Norwich away while Liverpool travelled to Burnley. When we lost 2-0 to the Canaries I thought we'd blown it, but Liverpool could only manage a draw so we claimed the title by 2pts. We saw out the month with a 3-0 win over Watford in the FA Cup final, and then beat St Etienne 2-0 in the Europa League final.

Martial was top scorer but signing of the year Moussa Dembele wasn't far behind, and Martial was dire from February onwards. Pogba had the highest average rating but the key player was Bruno, who racked up 9 goals and 23 assists to claim fans Player of the Year award. Young Player of the Year was James Garner, rotating with Fred as DLP in the DM slot - Garner averaged a 7.47 to Fred's 7.45. 

Biggest challenge for the summer will be clearing out as much of the deadwood as possible to provide funds for reinforcements. The perennial problem of right-wing remains, and improvement at CB is needed. The signings of Haaland and Reguillon had already been tied up before the end of the current season

Wow well done! Winning the league with United in season 1 is no mean feat. 

I've thought for the last couple of years though that a couple of players in the squad are still over-rated, and none more so than Pogba. The fact that he racked up these numbers for you further strengthens my belief on this. He is just so frustratingly inconsistent IRL!

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44 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

a couple of players in the squad are still over-rated

Agreed re: the IRL squad and Pogba especially. Not convinced by Maguire either.

Just been through the usual tapping-up nonsense with Pogba - Real Madrid watched him all season, talked him up in the media and then made a non-negotiable £55m offer - £33m up front, the rest in clauses. For a player valued at £70m. When that was rejected we did the usual conversation - Madrid his dream club, etc - and agreed he could go for £80m, which Barcelona suddenly offered and away he went.

But even with that money and wages saved I'm a bit stymied for replacements - can't shift Smalling, Sanchez, Mata, or Perreira and the wage bill is ridiculous. Complete shambles of a club and accurately modelled in FM :idiot:

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6 minutes ago, warlock said:

Agreed re: the IRL squad and Pogba especially. Not convinced by Maguire either.

Just been through the usual tapping-up nonsense with Pogba - Real Madrid watched him all season, talked him up in the media and then made a non-negotiable £55m offer - £33m up front, the rest in clauses. For a player valued at £70m. When that was rejected we did the usual conversation - Madrid his dream club, etc - and agreed he could go for £80m, which Barcelona suddenly offered and away he went.

But even with that money and wages saved I'm a bit stymied for replacements - can't shift Smalling, Sanchez, Mata, or Perreira and the wage bill is ridiculous. Complete shambles of a club and accurately modelled in FM :idiot:

It's true though. Sadly is reflective of real life.

I saw an article yesterday itself - there was about 700k/week worth of players that didn't even make the match-day squad for the first PL game. Handing out new contracts to the likes of Mata & Jones over the past couple of years has made things go from bad to worse.

Who are you looking to replace Pogba with? Maybe another perennially over-rated FM player in SMS :lol: ?

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6 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

Who are you looking to replace Pogba with? Maybe another perennially over-rated FM player in SMS :lol:

SMS was under consideration but he didn't look like value for money and while I was wrestling with Pogba Liverpool did me a favour by signing him up. Initially went for Aouar but his agent wanted ridiculous money so my scouts are poring over Europe at the moment. But I'll probably park this save for a while - I have the urge to start up another EFL campaign :cool:

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Just now, warlock said:

SMS was under consideration but he didn't look like value for money and while I was wrestling with Pogba Liverpool did me a favour by signing him up. Initially went for Aouar but his agent wanted ridiculous money so my scouts are poring over Europe at the moment. But I'll probably park this save for a while - I have the urge to start up another EFL campaign :cool:

James Garner would be the guy I replace Pogba with and he is already in your squad. He has been awesome for me whenever I have had him in any of my teams.

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1 minute ago, Ronaldo Beckham said:

James Garner would be the guy I replace Pogba with

I love Garner but I like him as DLP in the DM spot. If I use him to replace Pogba it'll mean quite a bit of tactical rejigging, but definitely something to think about.

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