FM07 - Who'd you pick?

whippet

I got FM7 for christmas .. after taking nearly a year out from FM05 .. I am addicted again.

I took on The Drogs (Droheda Utd) and managed to win the IPD in the first season, money was very tight and the club was loosing money hand over fist. I lost to Shels in the All-Ireland cup final, nice bit of prize money but not enough, the saving grace was managing to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League giving a massive cash boost . about stg£2.7m upfront and with a point at home to Man Utd and Away to Hamburg and the TV revenue I have managed to improve training facilities and sign some decent championship reserve players.

Now in my third season I am top of the league 17 games played .. 7 clear of shels and into the second qualifing round of the CL, won the All-Ireland cup.

I am also a feeder club for Aston Villa and have got some useful loan players .. Yugo Bellon is a star. From the Drog's youth team Matt Clarke is one to watch for .. 17yo in 2009, some premiership clubs started to enquire. I decided to throw him in the deep-end .. ave rating of 7.3 and the best offer by June was stg£100K + 30% resale fee from Fulham. Eamon Zayed has netted a whopping 42 goals in the first season and 37 in the second .. but the stubborn git won't sign a new contract (despite being offered £3300 p/w, huge bonuses and a signing on fee of £160K !! ) He'll be gone on a bosman at the end of the season.

Has anyone tried the Handheld version on the PSP?

Mushy

I took on The Drogs (Droheda Utd) and managed to win the IPD in the first season, money was very tight and the club was loosing money hand over fist. I lost to Shels in the All-Ireland cup final, nice bit of prize money but not enough, the saving grace was managing to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League giving a massive cash boost . about stg£2.7m upfront and with a point at home to Man Utd and Away to Hamburg and the TV revenue I have managed to improve training facilities and sign some decent championship reserve players.

Its things like that that make me love this game. Drogheda in the Champions League...brilliant. I really must do that with some club...take them all the way through the respective League, then on into Europe

kippy

Guys,
I must try get one of the Irish teams into Europe and also try get some of the lower league teams in England up to the top of football but I always get very frustrated with the difficulties. I understand this may be a seperate thread but how do ye manage to do it? What type of formations, tactics, how to you sign decent players?
Kippy

Peyton Manning

Decided to start a new season with Fulham. Pre-season expectations were 14th place, but I only had £3.7 million to spend. So, with Boa Morte and Boup Diop both handing in transfer requests, I made a handsome £11.5 million altogether. Also sold Mark Pembridge for £52k to Sheffield Wednesday. So, I decided it was time to hit the transfer markets with just over £15 million available to me and got the following players:

Hedwiges Maduro - £1.2 million
Elano - £6.5 million
Gary Cahill - £3 million
Luka Modric £1.8 million
Sherman Cardenas - £950k compensation

I still have a couple of million left over for the January transfer window, and will be looking at my team to see where cover is needed. Niemi hasnt been that impressive, and at 34 I might try looking for a long-term replacement for him. If I can scrape enough cash together for Libis Arenas from Lazio, then Id be delighted. Formation wise, I dont have much width in my team despite having the players available to do so. Instead, I play a 4-1-2-1-2 formation as follows:

Niemi
Rosenior...Knight...Bocanegra...Volz
Maduro
Modric...Bullard
Elano
John...McBride

Subs: Helgusson, Crossley, Queudrue, Cardenas, C. Jensen

My main players have been Bocanegra, John and McBride. Ive set McBride as my target man with Elano and John feeding from whatever he knocks down to them and its pretty impressive results so far. My tackling is set to Hard, with Elano as my playmaker. I also have another tactic saved should I need to switch to it. Ive called it 'DEFEND!!' so the name pretty much gives it away. It's a 5-3-1-1 formation with Ultra-Defensive tactics including 'Defend Deep', 'Long Balls', 'Tackle Hard', and 'Often Time Wasting'. Its not pretty, but it generally does the job. I have 3 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses from my first 7 games which has me in 7th place so far. Most notable was a 0-0 draw away to Arsenal which in truth I should have won considering I missed 2 penalties. Also beat Ipswich in the 2nd round of the league cup (my main ambition this season is to win the league cup and achieve a top half finish) and got a nice draw at home to Stoke in the 3rd round. Im still under my wage budget, so Ive made a pretty solid start to my managerial career at Craven Cottage. Long term, I hope to break into the top 6 and qualify for the Uefa cup (maybe 3-4 seasons work needed on that one) and I also need to upgrade my training and youth systems. Otherwise, I doing grand and enjoying the challenge. I'll report back once I have more games under my belt.

Mushy

Am continuing on that aforementioned game with Leeds more often now. In second season, bout 3 months in, coming 4th so far, playing well, need to turn my draws into more wins (obviously!) and I'll challenge more for automatic promotion. Unfortunately Im above my wage budget so cant entice players to come, even on loan (how I want Anthony Stokes back with me). But at least the accounts are in the black, have over a million as the balance, but not that much for transfers.

Team at the moment:
Enckelman

Kelly Kilgallon Gregan Crainey

Derry

Carole Jamie O Hara(loan) Lewis

Cresswell Horsefield

Have a reserve player for Carole quite often, but thats a position I hope to improve upon ~(Stokes out here is a really good player when I tried him). Derry is injured sometimes so Nicholls takes his place. If Lewis is injured, I have either Gary Speed or Gustavo Lopez for his position. Horsefield is rotated amongst my other forwards(Blake, Healy, Long). One or two players Im trying to get rid of to reduce the wage bill and get better players in on loan. If I can keep the books in the black, it'll bode well for next summer and who knows, might even be preparing for Premiership football at that stage

Peyton Manning

Continuing on from the Fulham game a few posts ago.

Well, things started to go downhill during the Christmas (in-game) period. Collins John was out for 5 months, and I went an a terrible streak of no wins in 10 games and dropped down to 17th in the table, but footballs a funny old game, isnt it? Things just picked up when I switched to a 4-4-2 (my old tactics were being heavily criticized) and I went on a run of 13 games unbeaten which propelled me to 8th place in the table going into the last game of the season. Spurs and Bolton were level on points, both 1 point ahead of me in 6th and 7th in the table. They both drew their respective games on the last day, with me thrashing West Ham 4-1 (and condemning them to championship football next season). I finished 6th, and from my position and TV revenue, got a nice 21,000,000 to bolster up the bank balance. Jimmy Bullard won the English Player of the Season, but imagine my horror when I was given another measly 3.7 mill transfer budget

So I sold a few players, raised my budgetand signed Walcott and Benni McCarthy. Ive also brought in Vela and Vianna on loan for 6 months each, but should have no problem extending the loans should I need them. Second game of the season, and Benni McCarthy (2 goals on his debut) gets injured for 4 months. But Ive won one and lost one, and have Uefa cup football to look forward to. Im aiming for another top 6 finish this season (media prediction - 8th) and have aleady begun to improve training facilities.

Vokes

Archimedes - wow, thats a bit freaky! I, too, started with Fulham and decided on a 4-1-2-1-2 (no wingers) Targetman approach. McBride is a legend with John and Vela feeding off his flick-ons

Peyton Manning

if you can get theo walcott, do so at any cost!!!!!

Timans

There's no need to play the target-man approach.

I am Fulham all the time. They've got a lot of good players. Radinzki and John up front. Boa Morte on the wing. They're pretty unbelieveab;le.

I introduced short passes, quick tempo wing play game and came 4th with them.

Timans

I've started as Coventry.

Pretty bad team to start off with but 4.4 million euro to spend! I was very surprised.

I bought Freddy Adu, building the team around him. got him for 3mil but 35% sell-on clause means I'll HAVE to keep him.

Picked up Chris Sutton on free as well as cover. He's alright, hasn't scored in any friendlies but not really an indicator.

I'm playing Adu in the hole with a free role and creative freedom. I want to bring the best out in him but dont know how.

Supermax

played with man united. just about to finish my 4th season nd have won everything there is to win. lookin for a new challenge now. my two best buys are marcello(18 year old left back) and Tim Cahill.

Peyton Manning

Continuing my Fulham game (see previous page)

Im in January in my second season and things are going excellent. Im in 9th in the table, with 3 games in hand and if I get maximum points (Newcastle, Wigan and Charlton) it will lift me up to 2nd place (Chelsea are running away with it). Theo Walcott has been a revelation scoring 21 goals in 24 games. The January transfer window came round, and I was flooded with offers for players. I ended up maing a hefty €17 million without even selling any of my starting 11! Gone were players such as McBride, Helgusson, Radzinski, Fowler, Jensen and Bocanegra (a regular last season, but ousted from the squad by Maduro this season) and a few others. With Hugo Viana and Carlos Vela impressing me during their loan spells, I tied up permanent deals for the both of them, also securing the transfer of Libis Arenas from Lazio. My team now plays a normal 4-4-2, with a fast tempo, short passing and very wide play.

Abbiatti
Queudrue Maduro Knight Rosenior
Elano Bullard Viana Modric
Walcott Vela

However, Modric has been injured for sometime, but having retrained Collins John as an AML during the end of last season/start of this season, he's doing a great job. Benni McCarthy is just back from injury, so him and Bjorn Rumstrom are providing good cover for my strikers. Sherman Cardenas just keeps getting injured, which is affecting his stats. Newcastle are showing an interest so I might be forced to cash in on him while I can.

I should also mention that I am through to the latter stages of the Uefa Cup having topped my group ahead of teams such as Parma & Partizan. I am also in the League Cup final against Bolton, and got a nice draw in the 4th round of the FA Cup against Yeovil. And to top off a fairytale season, a takeover of the club is imminent which should clear my financial restraints (I havent been able to get a feeder club, and have always been forced to raise my own transfer kitty).

Pepe LeFrits

SofaKing wrote:

Id concurr with this. I bagged him on load form Arsenal and he was a revelation (turned into Wonderkid too). I deployed him as a goalscoring AMC latching onto flick-ons, etc... and he finished top-scorer. Consequently he was valued afterwards at £10mil, which was out of my league

They don't reckon he's a cross between Ronaldo and Messi for nothing!

My resolve has broken; I'm going out to buy FM2007. Who needs a social life!

iRich

My first game was with Inter Milan. Brought in Aaron Lennon for €18 million to compete with the aging Figo. Won the league comfortably (10 points ahead of Roma), the Italian cup (beat Roma in the final) and the Champions League (3-1 victory over Chelsea in the final) in the first season. Decided it was too easy so started a new file with Portsmouth.

With Pompey given a huge transfer kitty of €30 million. I bought Eduardo (Croatian/Brasilian AMLC/FC) for €7.25 million. I played him along with Benjani up front. I also bought Manuel Fernades at the already agreed price of €10.25 million. He finished the season with an average rating of 7.40.

Started off the season well hovering in the uefa cup spots. During the winter transfer window I bought Curtis Davies from West Brom for €11.75 million to replace Primus at the heart of my defence with Sol Campbell. I won the League cup, beating West Ham in penalties after knocking out Liverpool in the Semi Finals. Winning the League Cup seemed to give my players a huge boost of confidence and from then I lost just one match in league (Chelsea away 0-1) I shot up the league table and I was able to clinch the title on the last day of the season, drawing to Spurs while Chelsea were beaten by Aston Villa.

In the summer I brought in Blasi (€4m) and Gasberonni (€6m) from Juventus as well as Guardado (amazing AML wonderkid) for €5.25m from Atlas. I managed to walk the league by 10 points and beat Barcelona in the Champions League final 1-0

Keith C

If you really want a challenge pick leeds utd & see how you get on

pyure

just starting season 6 with west ham
bit of an up and down run so far - best results so far: 5th in prem, semi finals fa cup, won eufa cup, won euro super cup, league cup 5th round

apart from the one 5th place finish every other season has been a relegation battle and typical 12th-14th place finish. got a good squad, but struggling to make them perform

line up (basic 442)

green
pognocli ferdinand plesek hoyte
pederson motta denilson cardenaz
qvist ashton

got a bit sidetracked for a while building the old real madrid team - got beckham (ret), raul, ronaldo, van nist. fun for a while, but they're overpaid underachivers (except raul) and now my finances are going down the toilet

oh well

edit: also got usa job, took em to world cup finals did ok and then moved on to the nigerian job (ranked 3rd in the world)
turned down big offers from deportivo and roma (still annoyed about that one, 30mil to spend and a great squad)
actually that was a bug in the game, asked em to delay the offer till the end of the season, they agreed, then turned around and hired someone else

besty

I started a new game with the latest update with Sunderland. (felt bad giving Keano the chop). I've brought in Sheringham, Trevor Sinclair, Gareth Bale, Dong Fangzhou so far. I'm very inconsistent in the league but going well in all cup competitions. I want to bring in Robbie Fowler but he isn't prepared to drop a league!

Pepe LeFrits

Played a few games now and starting to get the hang of things, so I went with Leeds.

In my first season I was on the verge of getting sacked for almost the entire season, but I squeezed the team into a play-off place and got into the Premiership that way. Lost my first game in the big time 1-0 away to Wigan, and figured I'd get relegated and sacked pretty quickly. Then things got strange - I beat Chelsea 6-0 at home in the next game, went on a run of 6 straight wins and eventually finished 4th, reaching the Carling Cup semis and losing the FA Cup final to Everton. Got Carlos Vela and Denilson on loan off Arsenal for the season and they were both absolutely dynamite. Picked up a few young players for small fees off the big clubs who did well also - Seb Larsson, Ryan Garry, David Jones, Jimmy Smith etc.

3rd in the league at the half way stage this season, signed Croatian CB Vedran Corluka (22) for £1.6m and he's been immense. He's like a cross between Terry and Vidic.

besty

That sounds like serious addiction material there Pepe. Fair Play...

Keith C

Im still with West Ham & have made a killing on transfers.

Bought Leondra Lima CM £4.4m in 2006
Sold to chelsea in 2010 for £20m & £40m over 24 mths & 50% next sale clause :eek:

Bought Ochoa GK €9.5m in 2007
Sold to Man Utd in 2009 for £10m & £40m over 24 mths & 50% next sale clause, bought Arinikeev GK as replacement for £23m

Now have West Ham ranked as 3rd richest club after Barcelona & Man Utd, Chelsea have dropped to 8th richest :eek:

Pepe LeFrits

HA HA HA HAVE IT!

Revenge is a dish best served...!

I was competing with Chelsea for the PL title, they were also in the FA cup final and we were drawn together in the CL semi final.

They knocked me out of the CL semi finals with a goal from Kalou in the 93rd minute of the second leg, absolutely gutting. To compound my misery I dropped points in my second last game of the season against Newcastle that left me two points behind Chelsea with one game to play, but with a superior goal difference. All Chelsea had to do was beat Wigan on the final day to be champions, and possibly go on to do a treble.

I won my last game 5-0, Chelsea were 1-0 up going into the last half hour of their game, but then Emile ****ing Heskey pops up and equalises for Wigan. It finished 1-1 and I won the league on goal difference

Chelsea went and thrashed Newcastle in the FA cup final, but then lost the CL final on penalties to Barca.

HA HA HA

BlackWizard

I'm with Real Madrid at the moment and I put one of my best scouts on Adu. The scout reported back that he is playing close to his full potential. He is aged 19.

Anyone have an experience with this guy? I bought him with Liverpool in my other game but I never used him.

besty

Sunderland update;

I got promotion through the playoffs by beating Norwich in the final. I was defensively vulnerable all season long but had a limited budget. Got Mido in for free after he was released by Spurs. Then brought Stephen Mc Manus and Gary Caldwell from Celtic to sure up the back. Allied to this, I signed Billy Jones as a utility defender and an option in midfield and finally, I brought in Danny Murphy to add something in attack in midfield.

I haven't played a game in the Premiership yet but am quite worried that Connolly/Elliott/Mido will not get the service from my midfield to score enough to keep Sunderland up. Anyway, only time will tell.

Notorious

I took on Sunderland. Currently in my second season up in the Premier League! Its February and I'm 15th in the league, the only team who won promotion (along with Norwich and West Brom, I came 1st in the league) out of the drop zone. Out of the League Cup (0-1 to Watford, and it was a lucky penalty), but I'm still in the FA Cup (just drew 1-1 with Man Utd in the fourth round). Had my best win in the Premiership against Bolton, with a result of 0-5!

The biggest problem I've got is the severe lack of transfer funds. I only got €875k for the second season, and whatever money I make from selling players. Signed Robbie Fowler (€500k, now worth €2.5m) in the '07 January transfer window, and so far hes been my best signing (he gladly dropped a league in my game)! Also signed Anthony Stokes (Aresnal - €1m; last season), Fulop (for free) and Ahmed Hassan, Nolberto Solano (free) and Claudio Reyna (free). Manchester Utd have let me offer Ryan Giggs a contract (since hes currently out of favour - they've set a transfer price of €3k!!!!), but Giggs is looking for a salary I can't offer him so it doesn't look like he'll make the move.

Another huge problem is my injury list. Connelly (best striker for my last season) out for the season since December, lost Hysen my main left winger (out for another month), Kavanagh is just back from injury after 2 months and Chris Brown (who has strongly developed thanks to my recruitment of good coaches) is just back in the squad after multiple injuries.

The team was tipped to be relegated this season so I'm doing well so far. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a sizeable amount of revenue will be made available to me if I manage to keep the team up this season.

Ravelleman

After abandonning my game as Portsmouth I selected West Ham, my favourite team.

I began the first season by making a number of important signings during the summer transfer window after my board agreed to increase my transfer budget. I signed Nakamura from Celtic and vanden Borre from Anderlecht, both of whom proved instrumental in my first season. My attempts to clear out the West Ham riff raff like Cole, Walker, Mears etc failed so I had to hang on to them until later in the year.

The first half of the season was uneventful, seeing my team lie in a healthy mid table position. A serious injury to Ashton allowed Harewood to step in a become my top goalscorer in the league, while Tevez excelled in Europe. At Christmas my transfer ambitions led to the sale of Ashton to Liverpool for some much needed cash, which I quickly spent on some much needed depth. The second half of the season saw me climb through the table until I peaked at 4th place with the end in sight. A poor run left me in 6th place on goal difference by the end, but I did manage to win the UEFA cup (with a run of Newscastle in the 1/4 final, Spurs in the 1/2 final and Blackburn in the final!) and the FA cup (in a fluke job penalty shoot out against Arsenal). With European football twice assured I began planning for my second season, which will be detailed in another post on another day.

Kiith

Picked Spurs, and finished 5th in the first season. Just missed out on my champions league place, after West Ham (bastards!!) beat me 6-2...i mean come on...6-2. So Chelsea got the last spot. Still got some nice money, and made it to the semi's of the Uefa cup.

Looking forward to next season, after picking up Paletta for 3.5mill and Collicini(?) for a similar price. Should close a few holes on defense, especially since King is gone (he was woeful all season).

Im_No_Superman

In my 7th season as Notts Forest manager, first season didnt get promoted probaly thought it was going to be a stroll but league one is tough! Second season I got promoted to the championship, third season snuck into the playoffs and managed to win the playoff final. In my first season in the premiership I was doing quite well and sitting in mid table then from around march on I couldnt get a result for love nor money and got relegated with 42 points, couldnt believe it, the highest points total for a team to be relegated!

The next season in the championship I ran away with it and won the championship.
Next season in the premiership I strenghtened the team with Djibril Cisse and Benayoun and managed to finish way above expectations and come 6th and get a UEFA cup spot
In my current season, I had a terrible start with no win in my first 8 games, but have managed to turn it around and am know sitting 7th with 42 points in March, in the 6th round of the FA cup against Watford and in the 2nd knockout leg of the UEFA cup against Dortmund.

So far in my career as Forest boss Ive won the League One title, Johnsons Paint Trophy, the Championship Play off title and the Championship title. Not a bad haul.
I also got the Ireland managers job this season too.

My current Forest team:
GK - Anthony Low (cracking goalkeeper, got him for 45k off cardiff, englands number 2 now.)

RB - Nigel Watts (really good young full back, cost a pricey 3.5m off boro but was worth it, hasnt missed a game all season.)

CB - Jelle Van Damm (a brilliant consistant defender, only cost me 375k back in 09-10 too!)

CB - Madgrid Bougherra (A solid defender, in truth I expected abit more from him and I will be replacing him in the summer)

LB - Thomas Mangani (Bought him in the summer when Bale chose man utd ahead of me, has done quite well, also have Jloyd Samuel so I rotate between the two of them)

RW - Jermaine Pennant/Chris Eagles (Pennant is in his second season and has been pretty disapointing, think Ill ship him out in the summer. Was thinking of selling Eagles too but he has stepped up to the plate recently with some afew goals and assits)

DM - Ritchie Jones (A good solid midfielder, was contemplating playing him in a more advanced role but his finishing is woeful! Also have Tom Tawio who also does a good job)

AM - Tony Davis (My super star, just bought him in the Jan transfer window the board wanted a high profile signing and I had been trying to sign him for ages, so the board let me splash out my biggest transfer fee of 10m. He has got 5 goals and 1 assist in 11 games. I was really lacking goals from the middle of midfield so he has solved that problem. He replaced Yossi Benayoun who I just couldnt keep fit this season and is 32 now.

LW - Antonio Puerta (A fabulous winger, he is in his fourth season with me now and for the first 3 seasons he was constantly injured and i was thinking of getting rid of him but this season he is flying. Also have a young portugese winger called Pedro who I have high hopes for)

FW - Craig Linfield (Hugely disappointing, bought him for 4.9m in the summer from Celtic and he hasnt got going at all, has been picking up alot of injuries too, hopefully he will improve next season. His back up is Chris Brown who I got from Sunderland, a decent striker.)

FW - Djibril Cisse (the goal machine himself, a great striker, think next season could be his last though, his trade mark pace isnt as lightening as it once was, he has got 16 goals in 26(10) for me this season. His back up is Anthony Stokes, Stokes was one of my first signing as Forest manager and I expected him to be a superstar but he has never really got going, but his pace and finishing are excellant)

So thats my story so far........

Dalli.S

i started with Leeds Utd again, this time with the 7.0.2 update and loading up players from 15 different countries.

Am finding it completely different now. Manage to win games by 1 goal diff and loose by alot more. things were good at the beginning of the season, was top for 6 games, but now have started to loose some games now and have dropped to the 3/4 positions. West brom are running away with it. finding not as easy as previous games

The enjoyment i have is in trying to not sign the same players as previous games, so have all in all made some blunders, made loads of signings so far,

Inc: Gavilan (free), Hlinka (220k), El Karkouri (720k), David Clarkon (50k), huntington (loan), stack(150k), berger(60k) and sibierski (55k)...i think my addiction to signing players is effecting my performances. I still keep my eye on the world transfers section for released players, you do get some doozies there. in my last game Beckham and Ronaldo were released.

Am finding it really difficult to ship out players, even if i offer to clubs for no money.

Goal is to be in a position to sign two players, Lennon and Hargreaves.

Am looking forward to FM2008, cant wait to start with Leeds in League 1

Nalz

Sunderland - got them up through the playoffs in first season

Championship
bought - Stokes, Edwards, Sutton
sold - Lawerence, Delap, Whitehead
loaned - Denilson, Aliadiere, Seán Evans

Premiership
bought - McShane, Dunn, Diaz
frees - Davids, Vieri, Hilario
Sold - Neill Collins, Dwight Yorke
loaned - Denilson, Weah, Fletcher

I'm struggling in the premiership at the minute:

-P---W---D---L---Pts
-11--3---3---5---12

Dalli.S

Trill,

that Weah guy is that the junior young one, at some swiss club??