Football Manager 2015

[King Ellis]

How cute, a time when Gazz was satisfied with winning trophies in just one nation.

[Bobfoc]

Wasn't that the version of FM with JR on it?

[Jimmy]

Finally managed to sign Bale on deadline day. He scored 2 goals in his first start after an injury to Lamela (the exact reason I bought him), so it should be fun to have him around for a year or two while he's still half decent. Extended the unbeaten run to 14 games, which takes me 4 points off the top 4. It'll definitely come to an end soon, but I'd just be happy hit the aim of Europa League and build on that. An outside challenge for 4th would be great though. 

[JasonM]

I wanted to sign geriatric Bale in my first Liverpool season, but I didn't have the money to pay for his sign-on fee... Season afterwards he had retired

[Mad Jack]

Won the Champions League with my PSV team at the first attempt! Group stage and first knockout rounds were easy, then got paired with Barcelona. Switched to 5-4-1 diamond and beat them 3-1 at the Nou Camp. 1-1 draw at home was enough to go through to face Man City. 1-1 at home, then an 86th minute Depay goal was enough to win it in Manchester.

Final was against Chelsea who attacked me for 80 minutes or so without success. Move into a more attacking formation and have a goal disallowed for offside so it's off to extra time and then penalties. Mikel misses the 5th for Chelsea and that makes me champions. A shock loss in Dutch Cup final means I don't do a treble though, so still something to aim for in this save... then I think I'll be off to try an international job.

[JasonM]

Officially the most ridiculous loss I have ever suffered.

[DavidMarrio]

So update on my Portsmouth team. 

After leaving Gateshead to go back into League 2 I have pretty much walked it. Currently after 40 games I am on 85 points with a +50 goal difference. I have gained promotion with 6 games left and I am 17 points ahead of Hartlepool who are currently 2nd. 

I got to the FA Cup fourth round after beating Southend 3-2, Havant & Waterlooville 2-0 and Newport County 1-0 before getting beat by Southampton away 3-0. 

In the Johnstones Paint Trophy I got to the quarters before getting beat by Leyton Orient 7-4. I was 5-1 down at one point during that match.

 

So I'm going up to League 1 and should be winning League 2 while possibly breaking the record amount of points if I win the remainder of my games. Gateshead who are now managed by Karl Robinson are currently 20th in League 1 with Adam Campbell on 21 league goals and 24 in all competitions so he's now joined me on Gateshead's favoured personnel. But Campbell has a twisted ankle so its twitchy bum time for Gateshead!! Hopefully they stay up and I can face them next season. 

Edited July 5, 2015 by David Marrio

[Jimmy]

Managed to keep up the good run to about 16 games unbeaten, until a run of Chelsea, Arsenal and United saw me pick one point up from 3 games. I think I only lost one more game for the rest of the season, but with 3 games left I found myself 5th, one point behind Arsenal. Somehow ended up finishing 3rd on goal difference, with Arsenal finishing 5th. 

So yeah, from nearly getting sacked to finishing 3rd! Very happy with that. Bale came in and really helped out, and we have a pretty sweet blue print of a squad which has a nice mixture of youth or experience. Definitely going to need some money to improve squad depth to compete in the CL. I think being in a European competition is going to be tough, so would just be super happy to solidify a top 4 spot and try and win another cup, cos I've still only got the championship to my name in 7 or 8 seasons. 

[JasonM]

So I always thought this was a myth of sorts. But I got my first ever Newgen duo with family ties...

Last year's star intake player, who might become the best English full back in ages, Neil Isaac now has a little brother, as my intake just happened and a 15 year old goalie named ''Wes Isaac'' has arrived at the club (from Brondby, despite being English...).

Both are born in Bradford, both are English + Antigua & Barbuda.

Of course Neil Isaac is the big star of the future...

But his little brother, who is half a foot taller than his ''big brother'', seems to have the potential of becoming a mid-table goalkeeper, or my next backup goalie behind Scottish superstud Jack "Rob" Conway.

And here's the proof that they're related.

 

First I had little interest in developing or simply caring about Wes Isaac, but when I found out that he's the ''little'' brother of the best young English talent, I feel obliged in nurturing him and making him the would-be backup goalie, so that he and his brother can play together at Liverpool

EDIT: Gotta correct myself, Wes Isaac is actually the older brother who for some reason only became part of the youth intake as an 18 year old... Which is interesting to say the least...

Edited July 6, 2015 by Jasonmufc

[TCO]

That's actually a pretty cool touch that they've added! Are those haircuts the default for regens or is that one of the downloadble hair packs I've seen but never bothered with, they look cool!

[JasonM]

That's actually a pretty cool touch that they've added! Are those haircuts the default for regens or is that one of the downloadble hair packs I've seen but never bothered with, they look cool!

Edited July 6, 2015 by Jasonmufc

[METALMAN]

they still all look like they're on ketamine 

[TCO]

Yeah I just found the first one you posted there and installed it. It'll definitely add to the game when you're decades in and everybody is a regen!

[JasonM]

Yeah I just found the first one you posted there and installed it. It'll definitely add to the game when you're decades in and everybody is a regen!

[JasonM]

To return on that last thing I said, here is my first (terrible) attempt at trying to recreate myself... Which has ended up as a bastard child of Rusev and Jeffrey Dean Morgan...

For people that wanna try it for themselves... I followed this tutorial that tells you everything that you need to know about it.

 

Edited July 6, 2015 by Jasonmufc

[Cymbols]

The Danish Superliga is pretty stupid sometimes. It's transfer window ends two days before anywhere else, so of course Newcastle decide to match my star player's release fee on our deadline day. I have to accept it, the board won't give me any money to replace him. Then the deal goes through after our window has shut so I can't replace him. Totally leaving Denmark at the end of the season. 

[MDK]

David James has two goals to his name at his current club Kerala. 

wat

[Jimmy]

How do you get more out of loaning your players out? I have a 17 year old with great potential, who could play a few games here and there for me this season, but decided to send him out on loan to championship club. He's getting first team football, and is being picked for the England Under 19's, but his stats aren't changing at all. And a quick look at my other players out on loan shows the same. We're about 10 - 15 games into respective seasons, and I don't really know what to do. 

[JasonM]

I tend to follow a simple system when it comes to loaning out players.

- Anyone below 17 years of age won't get loaned regardless of how good they are.

- I want them to be at a level where I don't need to give them specific training to get certain skills up, e.g. Midfielders need to have 10+ passing, defenders need 10+ marking/tackling/heading.

- The team I am loaning them to needs to have average or better training facilities. This is a very important aspect, because if the facilities aren't good enough they're better off in my reserve squad, despite not getting playing experience.

- Really talented players (3* or higher) need to be playing in good leagues, or else they're not going on loan. So Championship, Premiership level leagues or none at all. Again, this is in part due to the facilities, but also due to the level of competition. Anything below those levels will mean they're stagnating. If they're not yet good enough to play at such teams, they're better off staying in the reserves anyways.

Your bet is that the training facilities of the Championship club are worse than your own facilities (pretty obvious), and that they're at such a level that despite the playing time he's simply not getting good enough training to improve his game. You're probably best off getting him back ASAP, and simply giving him bench-outings and cup ties instead, sure he might not be getting the most playing time, your facilities and staff will make a big difference.

Here's another fun development tip for you guys, unrelated to loaning.

Any player with 3+ (depending on the team) or more stars potential I will put in my first team whilst making him available for either u21 or u18 fixtures. This is done for two reasons.

Reason 1: I won't forget about them when there needs to be rotation, so I will have an easier time giving them the extra playing time they need to improve quicker.

Reason 2: If you put them in the seniors, they will also be training in the senior system. I have noted that this is actually less intensive than playing for the youth side, despite being on Heavy position training. I don't know why, but the gist is that I can give them more training than they get in the u18. I've not noticed players being more prone to injuries either this way.

Also, one final thing. Try to get players with ''professional'' personality. Whether it's fairly or model pro, those players are the best bet for reaching their potential the quickest. There have been tests done by people on other sides like the sigames forums where they tested 10 identical talents all with different personalities, and the one with high professionalism ALWAYS jumped out big time. And if your player is not professional, maybe try to find a decent veteran player to tutor players so that it rubs off on them. In older games I always got Yossi Benayoun from Chelsea, because he was amazingly good at tutoring thanks to his model-pro and high mentals.

[Benji]

Mine sucked before*, but I seem to slowly be getting better results from loans, but generally from what I've seen you're better just to keep them at your club if you've got good or better facilities, and just rotate them into your squad whenever a chance arrives. My rule is that unless they have achieved "trained at club" then they will not be loaned full stop, once they've hit that then they only get loaned out to clubs with the following rules:

• The club must be the top of the level the coaches estimate their current ability to be or higher
• Only loaned as a first team or key player
• Only to clubs with good or better facilities and a manager whose working with youngsters is 10 or above
• Never loan for more than half a season unless they have a recall clause (to ensure that if they're not getting their agreed playing time, they can come back to me)

Of course, if their potential is 3* or less, they can swan off on whatever loans they want because they'll never be more than a fringe player for me anyway.

Even so, like I say, any player worth their salt in potential is worth just keeping at your first team in rotation to develop and play/train with the highest level players possible.

* though it wasn't actually as bad as I thought, their potential was going down because my squad was improving so fast through wheelings and dealings