How Are You Doing On CM?

[King Pietersen]

I've got a pretty exciting finish in store. 6 points behind Fiorentina, 5 behind Juve, but with a game in-hand. I've got 4 games left to play. Last 4 games are Inter, Fiorentina, Juventus and Empoli. Really tough end, but does give me a massive opportunity to pick up wins, and overtake the 2 sides above me. TBH though, I'd settle for 3rd place and the Champions League money.

 

[King Pietersen]

This is going well. Beat Inter 4-2 thanks to a Mario hat-trick. Then beat Juve 3-2 thanks to a bizarre Balanta hat-trick, and Fiorentina lost 4-3 to Lazio. So I'm level on points with Fiorentina, and I'm playing them next. Such an exciting end to the season.

 

[GIMH]

Lost to bloody Bolton in the championship play off final. Had a crazy good run to get into the play-offs but my top scorer and star man did his groin before the last game of the regular season. Devastated.

Also find my board are repeatedly giving me grief about players whinging about not getting in the team. I have no players making these complaints when I'm losing because I'm trying to find the right combination but to hell with rotation when I'm on a hot streak.

 

[King Pietersen]

Oh Mario. Had buried 9 penalties out of 9 in the season, and it gets to the most important game of the season, against Fiorentina, and he misses one. Ended up drawing 2-2, which opened the door for Juve. They walked straight through it, beat Torino and moved back into 1st, clear by a point. Last game of the season, beat Empoli 3-0, but Juve beat Palermo easily 2-0 to win the league. Not quite sure how they did it, but it's another league title for ****ing Juve. Can't really complain though, first season in charge to finish 1 point behind Juve and come 2nd is pretty good. We're back in the Champions League, and have a lot to build on over the summer. Happy with the first season.

Lallana got Player of the Year. WAG.

 

[King Pietersen]

Good summer transfer window. Abate left on a free transfer, then ended up selling:

Didac Vila to Real Betis - £2.7m
Nigel De Jong to Liverpool - £5.25m
Michael Essien to Aston Villa - £700k
Antonio Nocerino to Newcastle - £4.6m

Then, I boosted the squad with the purchases of:

Gino Peruzzi - Replacement for Abate. Probably my favourite right-back on the game, so he'll be first pick, and I'll move De Sciglio to left-back while Silva continues to develop.
Lucas Romero - Brilliant young midfielder with huge potential. £6m from Ajax, which for one of the most promising midfielders in the world, is a bargain.
Kurt Zouma - On loan from Chelsea. Needed a defender to play rotation/back-up alongside Balanta and Zapata, and Zouma on loan seemed to make sense.
Augstin Allione - Solid young right winger. Didn't have a back-up to Lallana last year, so ended up using Niang there, which worked okay, but wasn't perfect. Allione should develop into a first-teamer, and offer an excellent back-up.
Andrea Pirlo - Was keen to find a regista similar to Pirlo, so thought, might as well buy Pirlo on a one year contract until the likes of Romero and Poli develop into the role; was pretty cheap for £3m too.
Sven Bender - Signed on deadline day. We got over-run in midfield in the first 2 games, so a good ball-winning midfielder was required. Bender, at £15.75m fills that gap perfectly, and finishes off the squad nicely

Spending £43m all in, including buying the remaining 50% of Andrea Poli's co-ownership.

So with those guys signed, my strongest XI is:

-----------------------------------Valdes---------------------------------------
--Peruzzi---------Zapata----------------Balanta---------De Sciglio-----
-----------------------------------Pirlo-----------------------------------------------
---------------------Bender----------------Honda/Romero--------------------
--Lallana-----------------------------------------------------El Shaarawy------
---------------------------------Balotelli---------------------------------------------

Pretty happy with that. Good Italian core, nice blend of young players with potential, and some experience. Pirlo might not be a long-term solution at DMC Regista, but he'll definitely be good enough for a year or two, his attributes are still superb. Just hope it's enough to challenge Juve. They've made some curious signings. Instead of strengthening areas they're slightly weak in, like on the wings, or at centre back, they decided to buy Rakitic, Clasie and Bressan, 3 central midfielders. They'd bought them all before August too, so at that point would have had Pirlo, Vidal, Pogba, Marchisio, Clasie, Rakitic and Bressan, a stupidly strong midfield. No wonder they were so happy to sell Pirlo for £3m!

 

[Pothas]

Well I am still fairly **** at the game this year.

Sevilla is going ok I suppose, 6th at around the half way point but so many crap results. If ever I go a goal behind to a **** team at home I know I am going to lose no matter what.

 

[Furball]

Using those scout things is basically just cheating though. Takes the fun out of it in a big way if you can just check to see if a player is guaranteed to be good/rubbish.

I use it to check the PA of my regens. The AI can see that information so I've no problem using it.

 

[Furball]

So annoying when players throw a strop, can really affect team morale, so in some cases it's almost worth just selling up for as much as you can get.

Not really, if players want to throw strops or ask for stupid contracts then they can **** off as far as I'm concerned. I'll quite happily take the money and replace them with someone more compliant, my team's unity is not worth sacrificing for one idiot moaning their face off.

I remember taking over at Sampdoria in an old career save in FM10 where they were about 15th or 16th and a few players were approaching me concerned about the state of morale at the club. So my solution was to get rid of everyone who was concerned, as they were the problems in the dressing room. Funnily enough, morale improved, as did results, and a 7th place finish and Coppa Italia win was the reward.

 

[GIMH]

Not really, if players want to throw strops or ask for stupid contracts then they can **** off as far as I'm concerned. I'll quite happily take the money and replace them with someone more compliant, my team's unity is not worth sacrificing for one idiot moaning their face off.

I remember taking over at Sampdoria in an old career save in FM10 where they were about 15th or 16th and a few players were approaching me concerned about the state of morale at the club. So my solution was to get rid of everyone who was concerned, as they were the problems in the dressing room. Funnily enough, morale improved, as did results, and a 7th place finish and Coppa Italia win was the reward.

Yeah, on my current save I had a stack of players whinging about wanting to move to bigger clubs and other such nonsense. The board were on my back about it so around March, I dropped all of the unhappy players, demoted them to the reserves and my form picked up. Half of the players backed down as well, I tend to find that happens when I shove them in the reserves.

 

[King Pietersen]

Going for the Furball mindset of telling a player stropping about a contract to **** off. Turns out that player is Arjen Robben, but I don't care. I'm only in November, and he's already had 3 injuries and been out for 8 weeks, so as far as I'm concerned he can piss off. I have already agreed to sign Sterling for £11m in Jan, so not exactly going to need him. Shaqiri's been better than him anyway.

Started as Bayern to test out a tactic I've been working on, and wanted to see how Lahm would perform if retrained as a Regista. Turns out he does ****ing awesome. 3 goals, 5 assists in 17 games, average rating of 7.51 and a pass completion of 91%, he's been superb. The combination of a Regista, a ball winning central midfielder (Martinez) and a box to box midfielder (Kroos, Schweinsteiger or Thiago) has worked wonders. We're 10 points clear of Dortmund after 13 games, with 11 wins and 2 draws. Don't think it's going to be a long-term save. Might end up winning everything a couple of times, and then move on to an underachieving side and turn them around.

 

[sledger]

Manchester United transfer news: Does this picture proves Paul Pogba wants Chelsea move? | Metro News

It's funny, I never think of actual players being interested in playing FM, but I guess it's natural enough. Pogba WAG.

 

[Cabinet96]

So I got this for the first time on Friday. Fair to say I'm not very good.

 

[sledger]

Which team are you playing as? What are you struggling with? Do tell.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Recently started playing FM14 properly after finishing/getting bored and retiring on my FM12 save, have to say I am loving the game. Maybe because I didn't play FM13 really so I've moved two incarnations onwards in one hit, but it seems to be more different than the usual yearly update is, not sure.

Started as Tottenham which for some reason I often do if I'm not doing it properly and starting in the Conference. Moyes got sacked after two seasons and I got offered the United job after two second placed finishes. Won the league in my first season and should win it again this year but I lost last season's CL final to Real and the FA Cup final to West Brom somehow. Have also been dumped out of this season's CL in the first knockout phase by Monaco despite dominating both legs.

The results seem to be slightly more realistic in that you don't need to get at least 95 points to win the league this time, it is possible that they have overly tweaked this though because last season (I am in my fourth season at the moment) I think the second placed team (City) only got 76 points or something. Having said this in my final year at Tottenham, Chelsea won the league with 98 points.

 

[Cabinet96]

I'm Borussia Dortmund. Have only made 14 points in the first 9 games of the Bundesliga. It started pretty well but has gone to **** recently, lost in the cup and the league to Gladbach lost 4-1 away at Benfica and just lost the Revierderby 4-1.

Play a 4-2-3-1 with pressing and a direct attack. Lewandowski is OP but he's my only goal threat. None of the front three who I play (and I've got loads of option) do anything really. I've tried switching around between them being on support and attack but can't really find a combination where they create any goal threat. My defence has managed to get worse in recent weeks despite me devoting more training time to defensive positioning and defending set pieces.

Here's my team at the moment: Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

 

[sledger]

Maybe try moving Reus and Blas wider?

Failing that, if you're conceding lots of goals, maybe move Bender back into a DM position, and have Mykhitaryan operate as an advanced playmaker from alongside Gundogan (also with Reus and Blas playing wider). I find this is quite an effective tactic, especially against good sides. Maybe you could play more aggressively in home games and other matches which you expect to win.

Best way to find out what works is just to play the game loads and loads I guess. Like real life, one particular system won't necessarily work well for every side, and will be much more successful for some than others.

 

[Pothas]

Find you have to change tactics from season to season more these days which I suppose makes sense I suppose.

World Cup and work means I have not played any of late of late but will probably continue with my Sevilla save after group stages are over. I hate this one but I keep playing it.

 

[Eds]

Well all your AMs are doing the same thing, and you have no playmakers in the side.

Lewandowski (AF-A) up top with Reus (T-A) & Mkhitaryan (SS-A) flanking an AP-S would go well I reckon. Then make Gundogan a DLP-S or drop him back to DM strata and make him a Regista. Bender as a BWM-D too.

 

[sledger]

I find you can get away with only making minor changes most of the time. I never like making drastic changes between seasons, as I find that throws out my teams' performance completely. I mainly tinker around with one or two positions. Like swapping an anchor man for an extra attacking midfielder, or playing with a different kind of striker (though the most recent experiment of Fabregas as a false 9 has come to a drastic end).

 

[sledger]

Made some changes (approx 4) to my team in order to give some young/reserve players a run out and end up being beaten 2-0 at home by Ternana. I suppose I have only myself to blame, but I hate it when stuff like that happens.

Also went out of the Champions League at the group stage after being trounced 3-0 by Celtic. Woeful.