Football Manager 2011

[MDK]

So you're Arsenal?

Worse, Orient

[Jimmy]

My top striker, Cedric Bakambu, got injured for 5-6 weeks. I'd like to think we're not a one man team, and I've got a fine replacement in Connor Wickham, if I choose to only play one up front. But it looks like he'll miss both legs against Roma in the last 16 of the Champions League and I really could of done with him for those games. Despite a few good showings in the league (4th and 3rd in the last two years) I've never won anything in my 6 year career. I'm hoping I might be able to swing the FA Cup this year.

[Thrilla]

Why the fuck would my first-choice full-backs get upset that I don't want to sell them to Norwich in the January transfer window? I'm 8 points clear at the top of the Championship and Norwich are in bloody 9th. Do they not want Premier League football?

I've had four bids for Junior Hoilett in the January market, he didn't mind me rejecting offers from Liverpool, PSV and Juventus but kicked up a fuss when I didn't let him talk to Wolves.

[stokeriño]

Well, one of them (Chris Gunter) actually got an offer from a better team than Norwich - in this case, Newcastle. So fair play, I asked for £3.5m plus a future fee percentage and they offered it happily. Used the money to buy a replacement DR/L in Nathaniel Clyne (£1.6m from Palace) and also Man City's young winger Donal McDermott for £250k since it was cheap and my scouts think he's a quality signing (who am I to argue?).

Plus, those two players' combined salary comes to slightly less than Gunter's was. WIN.

[Meacon Keaton]

With your assistant manager being such an idiot, I'm shocked you have as much faith as you do in your scouts.

[stokeriño]

McDermott scored in his debut against Middlesbrough, and we won 2-1.

I'm satisfied with my purchase for the time being. ^_^

EDIT: lol, 3-1. I thought the game has basically over, but apparently there was another injury time goal from Blackstock while I wasn't looking.

McDermott was also named MOTM.

[Whisper]

Grrr... Kevin Doyle just got his 3rd 2-3 week injury of the season and I'm only in November. Luckily Steven Fletcher's goals are carrying us at the moment. Just absolutely dominated Spurs at White Hart Lane and lost 2-0

Edit - What did I say about Fletcher? Just got himself a straight red at home to Everton at 0-0.. somehow we held out and got a dodgy late penalty which Ebanks-Blake put away. So I have league leaders Man City away in the league, Liverpool away in the League Cup quarters and then Chelsea at home in the league... and I'm down to my 3rd choice centre forward!

Can't complain though. 15 games in and we're 8th, with a decent cup run under our belts. Hoping that Liverpool play a few youngsters.

Also, tight marking on wingers seems to work wonders in this game. Didn't do it previously, fearing that my defenders would get too tight and be stripped for pace, but it really seems to cut down on balls into the box.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Whisper in the Wind

[METALMAN]

Saloman Kalou had a good season for me, but it was nowhere near £92,000 per week worth of good. Players are so greedy on this game. :/

[Jimmy]

I've found that the inflated price tags you have to pay for players really puts me off selling mine. I get quite healthy offers for some of my better players, but I know that I cannot find a better replacement for the price they pay me. £6 million players end up costing over 12 million, it's ridiculous.

[stokeriño]

Players are so greedy on this game. :/

I hate contract renewals. Every single time the player is like "I WANTS DOUBLE THE WAGE, PLUS A MASSIVE APPEARANCE BONUS, GOAL BONUS, SIGNING ON FEE, OH AND 20% PAY RISE EACH YEAR KTHNXBYE". This is fine when I'm playing as Chelsea and my wage budget stretches far off to the horizon. As Nottingham Forest, I was right at the limit to begin with.

So to try and avoid dealing with all this bother personally, I set my Team Options to have my assistant manager deal with contract renewals for all levels of the team. And yet this seems to have resulted in fuck all being done, seeing as quite literally half of my senior squad have contracts that expire at the end of the season and we're now into January (thus allowing other clubs to start making offers) without so much as a peep from my supposedly-automated assistant. What the fuck?

I'm sure the summer will be lovely if half my squad leave and I have to build a new one suitable for Premier League survival with nearly no money.

[Guest mr. potato head]

That's what they *ask* for, but I find unless they're really young and quickly improving, they'll settle for what they're currently making or a token raise. Most players over 32 or so will even take a pay cut.

[stokeriño]

Never seemed to have managed that. I've found they'll take a hit on their requested basic wage but the other ridiculous things like bonuses and future increases they refuse to budge on.

And when their requested appearance bonus is more than 30% of their weekly wage, this is significant. ¬_¬

[Jimmy]

I hate it when they demand a Minimum Release Clause. It just causes all kinds of problems and you have to try and give them another rise when a club is rumoured to come knocking for them.

[Thrilla]

So I stuck with the Rovers reserves that got us to the League Cup final (Mark Bunn, Jackson Ramm, Maxime Biset, Johannes Nordstrom, Callum O'Connor, Herold Goulon, Michael Potts, Keith Andrews, Josh Morris, Filip Pivkovski, Ruben Rochina - Biset and Nordstrom are the only signings I've made this year) and we ended up losing on penalties to Birmingham Three days later we beat Liverpool in the fifth round of the FA Cup on penalties and have beaten Derby in the quarters, so another final is a possibility. Really enjoying this game, my youth team is coming along ridiculous well, Cameron Lindsay just got his first cap for New Zealand playing alongside Ryan Nelsen in defence which is pretty cool, Pivkovski is 16 and playing for the Swedish U21s and everyone else is doing well, the tutoring I've set up actually seems to be working for once. Be good to get rid of some of the deadwood in the summer, hoping for a 7th place finish but Sunderland are pushing us hard, eight games to go, should be a good run in.

[Jimmy]

With Ipswich I've really struggled to get any good youth players come through the system. I've had a player or two who had some potential but just never progressed well enough to warrant a few call ups. I've trialed a player or two in cup games, but it's never been anything more than that. I've bought a few really good promising Brizilian's who've made their way into the first team, but it'd be nice to have a few home grown English players come through and break into the first team.

[Thrilla]

I usually check out the U18 and U21 squads, see if there is anyone there I can pick up pretty cheap. Only one I can remember off the top of my head at the moment in Jonathon Page from Motherwell, fits all of my specs for a defender (Over six foot, strength at least 14, etc. I am Blackburn after all), so will look to grab him in the next window. I get lucky with Blackburn as the set up for youth players is great.

A mate of mine is playing a game where a load of Mexican youngsters have developed into the best players in the game, not sure if they're regens though.

[Jimmy]

In the next game I play, I'm definitely setting up a bigger database. I only set up England as the playable nation so my game would run quickly, but it limited me to looking at other players from nations and really getting a good idea on how they're doing. Not being able to look at a couple of foreign league tables has annoyed me at times and I've maybe missed out on a decent player or two because of it.

[Thrilla]

I've found that even when I've got one star out of five for my runtime rating or whatever its called that the game is still ridiculously quick. I usually look at having ten leagues playable (English down to the Blue Square North and South, others usually the top two divisions) and then a large database to search. I've only got a Dell Inspiron 1525 and it runs fine on it.

[stokeriño]

Finally pulled my finger out and went on a contract renewal spree. I had 8 first-team players to deal with and I've sorted out 7 of them...talks with Nathan Tyson have stalled for the time being because his agent is a dick.

Weekly wage budget: £112,235

Wage expenditure prior to renewals: £111,389

Wage expenditure after renewals: £116,677

Could be worse, I suppose...

[Liam]

I usually check out the U18 and U21 squads, see if there is anyone there I can pick up pretty cheap. Only one I can remember off the top of my head at the moment in Jonathon Page from Motherwell, fits all of my specs for a defender (Over six foot, strength at least 14, etc. I am Blackburn after all), so will look to grab him in the next window. I get lucky with Blackburn as the set up for youth players is great.

A mate of mine is playing a game where a load of Mexican youngsters have developed into the best players in the game, not sure if they're regens though.

Yeah, in one of my last games, Mexican regens were fucking awesome.