Gaming Football Manager 2020 (PC, Mac, Switch, Android, iOS, Stadia)

[sebsheep]

So.....got sacked by Jamaica
We failed to get out of our Gold Cup group of USA, Costa Rica and Bermuda. Costa Rica scored an 88th minute goal in the last game to go through on goals scored.
We had actually already qualified for the World Cup with 2 games spare and had been promoted from the North America Nation League B after winning every game. I thought it was going well.

 

[Maluco]

I went on a tirade after a terrible loss to Liverpool and two 0-0’s in the league.

Sold Umtiti to Ajax for £35 million (He was 31 and couldn’t be trusted in the end) and sent Adarabioyo to China for £25 million. Backups Pieire and Tete also left for £15 million each.

Have now plunged us firmly into FFP problems signing Hoever, Mitic (who looks like a Vidic regen!) and Oguenne for over £150 million, paying half of it out over the next 3 years. We were conceding too many goals so chose to act to try and keep us in Europe, after we scraped through following the Liverpool humiliation. We beat out Bilbao and Red Star to scrape second. We get Manchester United in the last 16. Wonderful.

Hoever has been a target for about two years but we were always quoted 180 million and the like. Finally got a bid of £60 million accepted and got him in. Mitic seems like the rep for Ayala that we should have signed in the summer. Oguenne was the other option, in case we couldn’t agree to terms with Mitic, but when both agreed I just closed my eyes and clicked “Accept” and sold off whoever I could. Hopefully that is the defensive rebuild done.

Patience has finally gone with the front two also. Brewster sold to Brighton for £35 million before the window shut. Will try and use the time to settle in a youngster. I waited until the window closed and then agreed a £32 million deal for Kean to leave in July, to Anderlecht. I wasn’t planning to play him much again but needed him on the bench for Europe, so this serves to sell him for a good fee, while keeping him until July and losing value as he sits on the bench. In the summer, we will look to being in a few options, possibly on loan. We will have to sell before we buy.

The quality of the teams that came in for these players probably shows where they are at. Very disappointing because I imagined the whole save with them. This rebuild wasn’t

So we have to sell a few players in the summer and get a few loans in again and just be careful with spending for the next few years.

We are looking much better defensively after the restart, but the strikers are still an issue. We will have to see if we can afford some sort of overhaul in the summer. We have spent far too much for a small club, but we have also worked hard to bring in big fees for players that were underperforming.

 

[Chipper]

So.....got sacked by Jamaica
We failed to get out of our Gold Cup group of USA, Costa Rica and Bermuda. Costa Rica scored an 88th minute goal in the last game to go through on goals scored.
We had actually already qualified for the World Cup with 2 games spare and had been promoted from the North America Nation League B after winning every game. I thought it was going well.

Blimey! So.....err.....what now?

 

[Lay]

That was a tough fecking group

 

[Chipper]

Where to start? Been offered the England job and took it, must be mad.

The ground share with Burnley looks like it will go well. Sold 18,000 season tickets and capacity is only 22-something or other. First game in the PL at home to Norwich is a sell out. Who knew Southport had all those fans desperate to get in?

Going to use that 4-1-4-1 formation I mentioned in another post as England's primary tactic just to play around with more than anything. I want to do well on the international front but heart is still in the club stuff. That tactic is Southport's second tactic now too, to switch to when trying to hold a lead as it's supposed to be good defensively. Usually just play the same way throughout no matter what.

Squad overhaul:

Spoiler: Goalkeeper

IN:
Constantin Frommann - £2.7m - Vfl Bochum - Our new #1 'keeper and the third German in a row we've had in that role.

OUT:
Hagen Bergner - End of loan - Schalke 04 - Our #1 from last season returns to his parent club. We did offer him in a contract to sign permanently in January but he chose to extend his stay with Schalke instead.

RETAINED:
Bernard Acheampong remains as cup goalie/2nd choice.

Spoiler: Right back

IN:
Ramon - Loan - Barcelona - Exciting young player who is very much at home in central midfield too and may be used there at times. First choice in this position.

Tim Hackett - Loan - Man United - After 2 successful seasons on loan Hackett returns for a third year. This time the plan is for him to cover for Ramon but plans sometimes change. Feels a bit strange loaning in two guys in the same position but for his wages and what else was out there I think this was the way to go.

OUT:
Eduardo Perez - Loan - Yeovil. Brought in as cheap cover on a free last season Eduardo steps all the way down the the National League with a season-long loan at Yeovil. Last season didn't go too well as he missed 5 months with a blood clot. He's better than National League level imo and has some edges that can be polished off at the right team but he's not PL level at all. This is the 2nd and final year of his contract and he will be released on a free at the end of it.

Spoiler: Central defenders

IN:
Ronald Araujo - £7.5m - Sheffield Wednesday - Uruguayan international defender steps into the heart of our defence as the club's record signing.

Marco Carraro - £2.4m - Perugia - Will partner Araujo in our strongest XI. Plays a little DM/CM too and I've got an eye on using him in DM if/when we make the switch from 4-4-2 to 4-1-4-1 during games. Striker off, Carraro into DM, CB on.

OUT:
Kyron Gordon - £275k - Charlton Athletic - Brought in last season on a free as 4th choice in central defence, Kyron joins Championship Charlton. He started 12 games for us in all comps and came off the bench a further 11 times.

Theo Bonnet - End of loan - Man City - Bonnet returns to his parent club. Thought about loaning him again but he's since got a new contract and I didn't want to pay what it would take.

RETAINED:
Matt Clarke - Successful signing last season on a free and made 41 (1) appearances moves one place down the pecking order to 3rd choice CB. Will still get a good amount of games.
Dylan Thompson - Entering his 6th season at the club after being released by Everton and coming with us on the journey all the way from the National League to Premier League he still has a place in the squad as #4 CB.128 (34) games for us so far in all competitions.

Spoiler: left back

IN:
Christoph Alsfeld - £2.7m - Vfl Bochum - young German left back will be vying for a place in the best XI.

OUT:
Reece Devine - £575k - Watford - After 4 years and 94 (33) appearances for Southport, former Manchester United youth player Devine joins newly-relegated to League One Watford and will be looking to help them bounce back up.

RETAINED:
Zonzamas Moreno - club captain expressed concern about Alsfeld joining and is worried he might lose his place in the side.

Spoiler: Right midfield

IN:
Luis Carbonell - £4.6m - Frosinone - will make the starting XI more often than not and is also a decent poacher which is something I use. Handy pickup.

OUT:
Herve Otele - Loan - AFC Wimbledon - Versatile winger who can play on either flank moves on loan to League One Wimbledon after 4 seasons with us.

RETAINED:
Jordan Stevens - After 3 seasons of being undisputed #1 in this position is now #2.

Spoiler: central midfield

IN:
Miguel Escobar - £1.1m - Olimpia - Paraguyan international Escobar leaves the club he grew up at to try his hand in the PL. Will use him as a BBM.

Vincenzo Buono - Loan - Inter Milan - Capped at U20-level, Buono joins Southport and will most likely start as a BBM ahead of Escobar.

OUT:
Bobby Carroll - £1.2m - Nottingham Forest - After 2 years with Southport where he made 38 (16) appearances and scored 4 goals Carroll moves to Forest in League One.

Emanuel John - End of loan - Liverpool - Was our #1 pick as a BBM the past 2 seasons on loan and did well enough although nothing spectacular. 6.94 in his first season, 7.02 the second in the league.

RETAINED:
Jimmy McCann and Alessio Vanni - both DLPs, still only 23 and 22 that have competed for this spot ever since we signed them on free transfers ahead of our League Two campaign 4 summers ago now. They've improved as we've gone through the divisions playing at higher and higher levels of football and rising to the challenge. McCann got a 7.12 in the Championship last season, Vanni a 7.15.

Spoiler: left midfield

IN:
John Yeboah - Free - Vfl Wolfsburg - was hanging round in Wolfsburg for years and never really playing for them, just 4 appeances and often getting shunted to Wolfsburg II. He'll get opportunities here.

OUT:
Denis Mas - End of Loan - Chelsea. Was class with us last season, won club and Championship player of the year. Another I could have taken on loan again but cheaped out on the wages as he's had a pay rise.

RETAINED:
Abdoulaye Sidibe - Entering his 3rd year as 2nd choice left winger. He's alright but wants to leave. Made a promise that we'd sell him this summer but no takers even for free. Might still be some movement here.

This post seemed like a good idea when I started it. Not going into so much detail ever again!

Edit: Can also only do 20 images in a post, strikers moved to a new post, not that anyone is following all this.

 

[Chipper]

Spoiler: Strikers

IN:
Mario Commisso - £2.4m - Sassuolo - Young, inexpensive striker with hopefully a decent future ahead of himself. Pencilled in as first-choice poacher in our setup.

OUT:
Salim Rachidi - £525k - Stade Lavallois - Burst onto the scene in his first season with us scoring 20 goals in the Championship but struggled for a place in the starting lineup last campaign starting only 5 league games. Moves to Ligue 2 in his native France after making 40 (22) appearances in all competitions and scoring 26 times.

RETAINED:
Lorenzo Lucca and Alessio Cerri - Two big target men signed last summer. In the Championship Lucca scored 16 in 24 (1) with an average rating of 7.49. He had a few injuries and Cerri deputised well, also scoring 16 in 22 (11). Lets see how they go in the PL.
Diego Boza - Championship top scorer last season with 28 playing as a poacher, got 9 the season before in an injury-hit campaign where Rachidi filled in admirably for him. Was a bargain £210k, now worth £7m.

Media prediction 20th as expected. 1000-1 to win the league 2-5 to go down. Genie Scout, which I always think is more accurate has us down as 19th best, but even then we tend to punch above our weight. Think we'll stay up.

 

[sebsheep]

I went on a tirade after a terrible loss to Liverpool and two 0-0’s in the league.

Sold Umtiti to Ajax for £35 million (He was 31 and couldn’t be trusted in the end) and sent Adarabioyo to China for £25 million. Backups Pieire and Tete also left for £15 million each.

Have now plunged us firmly into FFP problems signing Hoever, Mitic (who looks like a Vidic regen!) and Oguenne for over £150 million, paying half of it out over the next 3 years. We were conceding too many goals so chose to act to try and keep us in Europe, after we scraped through following the Liverpool humiliation. We beat out Bilbao and Red Star to scrape second. We get Manchester United in the last 16. Wonderful.

Hoever has been a target for about two years but we were always quoted 180 million and the like. Finally got a bid of £60 million accepted and got him in. Mitic seems like the rep for Ayala that we should have signed in the summer. Oguenne was the other option, in case we couldn’t agree to terms with Mitic, but when both agreed I just closed my eyes and clicked “Accept” and sold off whoever I could. Hopefully that is the defensive rebuild done.

Patience has finally gone with the front two also. Brewster sold to Brighton for £35 million before the window shut. Will try and use the time to settle in a youngster. I waited until the window closed and then agreed a £32 million deal for Kean to leave in July, to Anderlecht. I wasn’t planning to play him much again but needed him on the bench for Europe, so this serves to sell him for a good fee, while keeping him until July and losing value as he sits on the bench. In the summer, we will look to being in a few options, possibly on loan. We will have to sell before we buy.

The quality of the teams that came in for these players probably shows where they are at. Very disappointing because I imagined the whole save with them. This rebuild wasn’t

So we have to sell a few players in the summer and get a few loans in again and just be careful with spending for the next few years.

We are looking much better defensively after the restart, but the strikers are still an issue. We will have to see if we can afford some sort of overhaul in the summer. We have spent far too much for a small club, but we have also worked hard to bring in big fees for players that were underperforming.

Might just be time to start playing without strikers!
Looking at the amount of changes you made to your squad I'm guessing you ended up with some annoyed players when it came to the European registrations. Hopefully those changes will boost you enough going forward.

 

[sebsheep]

Blimey! So.....err.....what now?

Cry in a corner. Not sure what to do now, think I'll avoid just international management saves as it's far too easy to get sacked.

 

[sebsheep]

Where to start? Been offered the England job and took it, must be mad.

The ground share with Burnley looks like it will go well. Sold 18,000 season tickets and capacity is only 22-something or other. First game in the PL at home to Norwich is a sell out. Who knew Southport had all those fans desperate to get in?

Going to use that 4-1-4-1 formation I mentioned in another post as England's primary tactic just to play around with more than anything. I want to do well on the international front but heart is still in the club stuff. That tactic is Southport's second tactic now too, to switch to when trying to hold a lead as it's supposed to be good defensively. Usually just play the same way throughout no matter what.

Squad overhaul:

Spoiler: Goalkeeper

IN:
Constantin Frommann - £2.7m - Vfl Bochum - Our new #1 'keeper and the third German in a row we've had in that role.

OUT:
Hagen Bergner - End of loan - Schalke 04 - Our #1 from last season returns to his parent club. We did offer him in a contract to sign permanently in January but he chose to extend his stay with Schalke instead.

RETAINED:
Bernard Acheampong remains as cup goalie/2nd choice.

Spoiler: Right back

IN:
Ramon - Loan - Barcelona - Exciting young player who is very much at home in central midfield too and may be used there at times. First choice in this position.

Tim Hackett - Loan - Man United - After 2 successful seasons on loan Hackett returns for a third year. This time the plan is for him to cover for Ramon but plans sometimes change. Feels a bit strange loaning in two guys in the same position but for his wages and what else was out there I think this was the way to go.

OUT:
Eduardo Perez - Loan - Yeovil. Brought in as cheap cover on a free last season Eduardo steps all the way down the the National League with a season-long loan at Yeovil. Last season didn't go too well as he missed 5 months with a blood clot. He's better than National League level imo and has some edges that can be polished off at the right team but he's not PL level at all. This is the 2nd and final year of his contract and he will be released on a free at the end of it.

Spoiler: Central defenders

IN:
Ronald Araujo - £7.5m - Sheffield Wednesday - Uruguayan international defender steps into the heart of our defence as the club's record signing.

Marco Carraro - £2.4m - Perugia - Will partner Araujo in our strongest XI. Plays a little DM/CM too and I've got an eye on using him in DM if/when we make the switch from 4-4-2 to 4-1-4-1 during games. Striker off, Carraro into DM, CB on.

OUT:
Kyron Gordon - £275k - Charlton Athletic - Brought in last season on a free as 4th choice in central defence, Kyron joins Championship Charlton. He started 12 games for us in all comps and came off the bench a further 11 times.

Theo Bonnet - End of loan - Man City - Bonnet returns to his parent club. Thought about loaning him again but he's since got a new contract and I didn't want to pay what it would take.

RETAINED:
Matt Clarke - Successful signing last season on a free and made 41 (1) appearances moves one place down the pecking order to 3rd choice CB. Will still get a good amount of games.
Dylan Thompson - Entering his 6th season at the club after being released by Everton and coming with us on the journey all the way from the National League to Premier League he still has a place in the squad as #4 CB.128 (34) games for us so far in all competitions.

Spoiler: left back

IN:
Christoph Alsfeld - £2.7m - Vfl Bochum - young German left back will be vying for a place in the best XI.

OUT:
Reece Devine - £575k - Watford - After 4 years and 94 (33) appearances for Southport, former Manchester United youth player Devine joins newly-relegated to League One Watford and will be looking to help them bounce back up.

RETAINED:
Zonzamas Moreno - club captain expressed concern about Alsfeld joining and is worried he might lose his place in the side.

Spoiler: Right midfield

IN:
Luis Carbonell - £4.6m - Frosinone - will make the starting XI more often than not and is also a decent poacher which is something I use. Handy pickup.

OUT:
Herve Otele - Loan - AFC Wimbledon - Versatile winger who can play on either flank moves on loan to League One Wimbledon after 4 seasons with us.

RETAINED:
Jordan Stevens - After 3 seasons of being undisputed #1 in this position is now #2.

Spoiler: central midfield

IN:
Miguel Escobar - £1.1m - Olimpia - Paraguyan international Escobar leaves the club he grew up at to try his hand in the PL. Will use him as a BBM.

Vincenzo Buono - Loan - Inter Milan - Capped at U20-level, Buono joins Southport and will most likely start as a BBM ahead of Escobar.

OUT:
Bobby Carroll - £1.2m - Nottingham Forest - After 2 years with Southport where he made 38 (16) appearances and scored 4 goals Carroll moves to Forest in League One.

Emanuel John - End of loan - Liverpool - Was our #1 pick as a BBM the past 2 seasons on loan and did well enough although nothing spectacular. 6.94 in his first season, 7.02 the second in the league.

RETAINED:
Jimmy McCann and Alessio Vanni - both DLPs, still only 23 and 22 that have competed for this spot ever since we signed them on free transfers ahead of our League Two campaign 4 summers ago now. They've improved as we've gone through the divisions playing at higher and higher levels of football and rising to the challenge. McCann got a 7.12 in the Championship last season, Vanni a 7.15.

Spoiler: left midfield

IN:
John Yeboah - Free - Vfl Wolfsburg - was hanging round in Wolfsburg for years and never really playing for them, just 4 appeances and often getting shunted to Wolfsburg II. He'll get opportunities here.

OUT:
Denis Mas - End of Loan - Chelsea. Was class with us last season, won club and Championship player of the year. Another I could have taken on loan again but cheaped out on the wages as he's had a pay rise.

RETAINED:
Abdoulaye Sidibe - Entering his 3rd year as 2nd choice left winger. He's alright but wants to leave. Made a promise that we'd sell him this summer but no takers even for free. Might still be some movement here.

This post seemed like a good idea when I started it. Not going into so much detail ever again!

Edit: Can also only do 20 images in a post, strikers moved to a new post, not that anyone is following all this.

Getting offered the England job is just a sign that your football manager game isn't bugged, happens in pretty much every save.

Those signings look good and with keeping players like Buono and Mas if you can stay up then you'll have a good base to build off.

 

[Chipper]

Getting offered the England job is just a sign that your football manager game isn't bugged, happens in pretty much every save.

Those signings look good and with keeping players like Buono and Mas if you can stay up then you'll have a good base to build off.

Haha, yeah in previous versions of the game I always got offered it too. It's a tradition at this point. Usually do a very long term save and stay 4-6 years in the international job before getting sick of it, returning to club management only then taking another international job after 2-4 years. Think in FM 2015 I won the World Cup with 3 different countries.

Fun for me in this one to actually get to pick more familiar names than I've been dealing with at Southport so far.

October 2026 squad:
Pickford
Pope
Woodman
Alexander-Arnold
Wan-Bissaka
Maguire
Mohamed (regen)
Gomez
Chilwell
Aarons
Potter (regen)
Sancho
Longstaff
Rice
Lambert (regen)
Foden
Smith (regen)
Hudson-Odoi
Bellingham
Kane
Abraham
Greenwood
Rashford

Dele Alli still around, had in my first squd, left him out of this one. Would have picked Sterling but he's retired from international football and didn't want to reconsider when I asked him.

 

[Maluco]

Might just be time to start playing without strikers!
Looking at the amount of changes you made to your squad I'm guessing you ended up with some annoyed players when it came to the European registrations. Hopefully those changes will boost you enough going forward.

I just used the three changes to sub in the three new defenders, and no one missed out in the end. So it actually was fine. Probably some ill feeling about moving on to many favourites though! We weren’t going to win any European trophy with both the backline shipping so many goals against big sides and the strikers not scoring anyway. Just have to hope we can win a round or two for the money/rep.

Im hoping by the summer, I will be able to move on a few more and start next season with a fresher team. Think the cycle was just done. Far too drastic and wouldn’t have done so much if I weren’t playing at 3AM, and certainly wouldn’t have spent so much, but whats done is done. Just hope I can correct FFP in July

 

[Maluco]

Haha, yeah in previous versions of the game I always got offered it too. It's a tradition at this point. Usually do a very long term save and stay 4-6 years in the international job before getting sick of it, returning to club management only then taking another international job after 2-4 years. Think in FM 2015 I won the World Cup with 3 different countries.

Fun for me in this one to actually get to pick more familiar names than I've been dealing with at Southport so far.

October 2026 squad:
Pickford
Pope
Woodman
Alexander-Arnold
Wan-Bissaka
Maguire
Mohamed (regen)
Gomez
Chilwell
Aarons
Potter (regen)
Sancho
Longstaff
Rice
Lambert (regen)
Foden
Smith (regen)
Hudson-Odoi
Bellingham
Kane
Abraham
Greenwood
Rashford

Dele Alli still around, had in my first squd, left him out of this one. Would have picked Sterling but he's retired from international football and didn't want to reconsider when I asked him.

I got fobbed off when I went in for the international jobs. Only Uruguay offered me a role and there were no players coming through, so I said no!

 

[Chipper]

I got fobbed off when I went in for the international jobs. Only Uruguay offered me a role and there were no players coming through, so I said no!

Did you go for the Dutch job at any point in this save? Just thinking that managing in England might mean it more likely that I got offered the England job. On top of that my in-game nationality is English which probably helped. Have you applied for the same country as your nationality?

Update on my save, things are not going well.

Spoiler

There's some tales of hard luck in there but that's obviously not good enough and we need to figure out some sort of defensive tactic to either hold onto leads or use against much better sides. The current set up just isn't cutting it. The stuff I call hard luck is probably part of that. Things like drawing 2-2 with Norwich conceding in the last minute, drawing 3-3 with Sheff Utd away after being 2-0 up and playing against 10, losing 2-1 away at Wolves when leading 1-0 after 75 minutes. Switching to a defensive tactic that worked in those games and could have had 6 or 7 more points and Sheff Utd/Wolves 2 or 3 less. We'd be on 20 or 21 and they'd be on 17-20.

Tried that 4-1-4-1 a couple of times in the league for it's supposed defensive strength and that didn't work. We're not used to it so maybe it would improve over time but I couldn't stick with it after an 8-3 loss at West Brom. That was just humiliating. We just lost 5-2 at City playing the second-string as it's Christmas time, there's a packed schedule and we have a more winnable game up next. They were our two big defeats. Take those two matches out and our GD would be -7 from 17 games. Maybe that's clutching at straws but I don't think we're completely awful, and while this is a bad spot to be in we are competitive in games a reasonable amount of the time.

One last thing on the tactics front, the two central defenders that were signed over the summer have formed a bad partnership. Going to stop using them together.

Spoiler

Now to decide to what do transfer-wise in January. Finances are doing nicely, there's £37m in the bank although we don't have a ton to spend. £6.7m left for transfers and about 60k in wages.

Options:
Signing a player or two is certainly tempting to try and stay up. We do risk a bloated squad and/or pissing players off who off lose their place in the side as a result.

Loans in January I like more. Can probably get better quality than I what I could buy plus they're gone at the end of the season. If a player or two got annoyed about losing his place in the side there's a chance we could rebuild a good working relationship next season in the Championship if we went down as they'd become regulars again in that division.

Bosmans - the long term option, trusting what we have to get us out of trouble. By virtue of currently being in the PL I think I should be able to get a good quality player or two to agree to join us in the summer on a free if we make the deal in January. That would put us in a great position if we did go down to come right back up again assuming I'm even still the manager. Don't think I'll get the sack unless we finish 20th and well adrift.

In other news things are going great with England. That's somewhere I do have the players to play an attacking tactic and make it work:

Spoiler: nations league

 

[Chipper]

Anyone know what happens when you protest a transfer?

Spoiler

Kind of pissed off with that and feel like having a blazing argument with the board. He's our best player and went nuts in the next game after my last post scoring 5 against Brighton. We followed that up a home draw against Arsenal and the table looks a bit better now. We need him to help try and keep us up and if we do go down I feel like he'd fire us back up again.

Spoiler

It would give us considerably more money to spend this January but I'm not happy. Going to eat then come back and decide what to do.

 

[sebsheep]

One last thing on the tactics front, the two central defenders that were signed over the summer have formed a bad partnership. Going to stop using them togethe

That could also be the roles they're being given as well, tbh if my team is playing the way I want them to then I just ignore things like that. I had it at one point when the players were putting in very good performances and the team was playing well, pretty sure it went away in the end.

Anyone know what happens when you protest a transfer?

Spoiler

Kind of pissed off with that and feel like having a blazing argument with the board. He's our best player and went nuts in the next game after my last post scoring 5 against Brighton. We followed that up a home draw against Arsenal and the table looks a bit better now. We need him to help try and keep us up and if we do go down I feel like he'd fire us back up again.

Spoiler

It would give us considerably more money to spend this January but I'm not happy. Going to eat then come back and decide what to do.

Don't think I've ever protested one before, I assume it just means there is a chance of them cancelling it depending on what your director is like.

The bottom of the league looks pretty close so you have a decent shot of escaping the drop if you can beat the teams around you and pick up a few points elsewhere.

 

[Chipper]

That could also be the roles they're being given as well, tbh if my team is playing the way I want them to then I just ignore things like that. I had it at one point when the players were putting in very good performances and the team was playing well, pretty sure it went away in the end.


Don't think I've ever protested one before, I assume it just means there is a chance of them cancelling it depending on what your director is like.

The bottom of the league looks pretty close so you have a decent shot of escaping the drop if you can beat the teams around you and pick up a few points elsewhere.

Ended up protesting and kept calm. After asking the board said something along the lines of "your recent results haven't been very good so why should we listen to you?". Thought that was really cheeky but then I said "after everything I've done for the club just do this for me" and they still said no. I then said that I can't overstate how important how I think it is and they agreed to reject. Could have threatened to resign or brought the fans into it but I played nice.

I did read that sometimes you get another offer for an even larger amount a few days later and there's nothing you can do, they will accept it and you can't protest. That didn't happen and to try and stop it happening I offered the player a new contract which he signed as that often deters clubs too. It's not done us much good, we've gone absolutely awful and I don't think we'll stay up now. I keep tweaking this and that and it's doing nothing.

In better news I've got a couple of players coming for free in summer and if Lucca is still around I very much like the chances of coming straight up again. This season has done a lot for our finances and there's large payments even if we go down so we might have a really nice budget for the Championship too. Not completely sure on that as we might move back to our old stadium seeing as we're only sharing with Burnley because of being in the PL and our own ground isn't big enough for the rules of the division. If we move back we'll be bringing in a lot less in ticket sales.

Spoiler: Future transfers

 

[Dancfc]

Does anyone else struggle with away form on this? I have downloaded it recently and played as Chelsea.

February into the first season I've won every home game bar one (against City which was 1-1) but only won twice away all season, it's not like I'm struggling in general play either, I batter many teams but it just won't go in.

Anyone else have similar issues?

 

[Chipper]

Relegation officially confirmed on matchday 37 following a 3-1 loss at Newcastle.

Last match of the season was a 1-1 home draw with Bournemouth who finished 14th and we ended up in 19th place, exactly where we were predicted to finish. I just didn't have the players or the money to acquire them. I'm sure we could have done better than we actually did but I wasn't so good to overcome the gulf in class at this level.

Last match of the season was case in point. As England manager Bournemouth have Harry Maguire who I'm picking for his country at the age of 34 and he's on higher wages that I was able to pay for anyone. Absolute maximum for me was £69k and he's on £89k a week with them. They also have Lewis Cook on £95k a week, another who I picked in my last international squad plus a regen called Thomas Stacey who undoubtedly would be my star player and was yet another who I picked for England. He's only a squad player for them and remember that they finished 14th in lower mid-table. They have 12 players on more than my maximum overall. I can't compete with that and couldn't sign players of that calibre. My best players are not good enough for England or any big international side. Longstaff at Newcastle who finished 16th is also a step up from anyone I had in midfield and I gave him a cap recently too.

Anyway, it was fun. We've got more money exiting the league than what we had in it. New budget is 702k per week on wages and £42m on transfers for the Championship. In the PL it was £376k/25.9m, those parachute paymetns are going to be huge for us. We have better players now too and have to be in with a strong chance of coming straight back up again. The board only want a top half finish next season anyway so that will be easy enough.

New stadium is officially going ahead as well which is great news.

Spoiler: Stadium plans and final table

So despite all that went on I'm optimistic.

 

[Chipper]

Does anyone else struggle with away form on this? I have downloaded it recently and played as Chelsea.

February into the first season I've won every home game bar one (against City which was 1-1) but only won twice away all season, it's not like I'm struggling in general play either, I batter many teams but it just won't go in.

Anyone else have similar issues?

Well I just went absolutely winless for the entire season away from home with Southport in the PL but Chelsea might well be a different kettle of fish. Are you playing the same tactics away as you are at home? Maybe that's something to do with it?

Is the battering clear cut chances or just shot count? Maybe they're letting you shoot from distance and sticking loads of men behind the ball? Alright, you'd expect them to do that at your place too but maybe you're able to overcome it at home but not away? Or perhaps they just don't show you same respect at their ground and go for it, whereas at yours they go in to the game expecting defeat?

 

[Dancfc]

Well I just went absolutely winless for the entire season away from home with Southport in the PL but Chelsea might well be a different kettle of fish. Are you playing the same tactics away as you are at home? Maybe that's something to do with it?

Is the battering clear cut chances or just shot count? Maybe they're letting you shoot from distance and sticking loads of men behind the ball? Alright, you'd expect them to do that at your place too but maybe you're able to overcome it at home but not away? Or perhaps they just don't show you same respect at their ground and go for it, whereas at yours they go in to the game expecting defeat?

Against the shit house team i go quite attacking 433 with fullbacks deployed as wingbacks and usually two 8s. Against the big teams I play the same attacking style at home but fullbacks not as adventurous and Kante in for Kova/RLC (and still win) but away I go a lot more cautious (and draw/lose, those attacking tactics don't work in big away games).

If I was drawing games 5-5 or losing 3-4 then I'd quickly identify that I need to tighten up and adjust accordingly but that's not the case, all the draws are 1-1 or 0-0, it's ridiculous, in my 20 years playing the game I've never been so stumped.

 

[Chipper]

Against the shit house team i go quite attacking 433 with fullbacks deployed as wingbacks and usually two 8s. Against the big teams I play the same attacking style at home but fullbacks not as adventurous and Kante in for Kova/RLC (and still win) but away I go a lot more cautious (and draw/lose, those attacking tactics don't work in big away games).

If I was drawing games 5-5 or losing 3-4 then I'd quickly identify that I need to tighten up and adjust accordingly but that's not the case, all the draws are 1-1 or 0-0, it's ridiculous, in my 20 years playing the game I've never been so stumped.

Well instinct would be to go even more attacking against the crap teams away but I'm usually a disaster tactically. Would probably keep things largely the same against the bigger ones, just smaller tweaks here and there.

Would maybe look at all things related to style of passing too. Work ball into box on or off, attacking width, tempo, take more risks on or off on individual instructions, passing length, cross aim etc. Start tweaking those sorts of things little by little and see if something works? Would go in both directions with those to try and see if there's something there, not just necessarily move towards more patience, more ball retention etc. although that style would be the first direction I'd probably move towards alongside yelling "get creative" more often. There might be a point where having less control in more chaotic matches could work to create more counters if they're sticking everyone behind the ball. Lure them out. Or you could even try lumping a few up to Tammy Abraham or Giroud if you generally don't, giving them something different to think about.

 

[Lay]

@Chipper reckon you should have sold your striker? £37m might have been enough to reinvest in the squad

 

[Chipper]

@Chipper reckon you should have sold your striker? £37m might have been enough to reinvest in the squad

Tricky one. If I sold him then I'd have likely just tried to buy another target man with the money anyway. Suppose I would have tried to add another player or two on top of that but that's where the bulk of the money would have gone.

Might well sell him this summer now anyway. The squad is good enough to get back up, we have better players than when we went up last time but I'm beginning to wonder if we'd only end up going down again if we continue to play this way in the long-term. Hard to say, it could just be that we just didn't have the money to buy better players. I like the tactic and it got us lots of promotions but I'm thinking more flexibility might be an idea now.

A lot my players can only play one way, I think that's what happens below the top class level of football anyway but I could be a little more open to change. A lot of target men can only play well as target men and not much else unless they're top class players so if I have them in the squad I have to go with a style that suits. Poachers seem a bit limited too although they appear to be alright as AFs at times. Maybe I should look at more rounded players instead of out and specialists which would give me more options to change things if they aren't going well.

Edit: Suppose what I'm saying is Troy Deeney can be an effective player if played a certain way, whereas Harry Kane can play a bit like Deeney if you ask him to and do a lot more besides that Deeney couldn't. Obviously Kane is on another level talent-wise but maybe I should look for more guys who can do a bit of everything so that I don't just have to play one particular style and can change mid-season or even mid-match if I need to.

 

[Chipper]

Did some tactic testing yesterday, not really playing.

Made a few tweaks on what I was using and what I saw as the way forward if I continue using the same one. Proceeded to load a new game with Crystal Palace, made sure those tactics would be used and went on holiday until the end of the season. Finished 10th, media prediction 12th.

I'm happy with that, think it shows that it was the players I had that got me relegated rather than anything tactical. I looked at Palace's squad in Genie Scout and they definitely have some better players than I did. Zaha is the obvious, but I think the key area was defence. You don't really think of Palace having great defenders but compared to what I had in the PL they were better.

Also booted in 3 other tactics to test in the same way that I found online:
Chrissy Ross 442 - Palace finished 9th
Dalic's Revenge - 15th
RDF's Kool Underdogs (balanced version) - 10th

So it holds up well enough against those and Chrissy Ross/RDF were ones I was considering moving to if I changed. Not going to bother now as I'd have to do a complete squad overhaul as a lot of the players I currently have simply don't fit those tactics well including the 2 players I have coming on a free.

 

[SilentWitness]

Haven't played this for a while but your Southport story has inspired me to do a save with York. Hope I can replicate a story like yours @Chipper . Enjoyed reading about your save.

 

[Chipper]

Haven't played this for a while but your Southport story has inspired me to do a save with York. Hope I can replicate a story like yours @Chipper . Enjoyed reading about your save.

Cheers mate , it's not often I'm an inspiration! Be sure to post updates, I'd be interested in hearing how you get on and I'm sure the others on the thread would be too.

 

[Lay]

I really enjoy reading people’s saves in here. I genuinely wondered for a few minutes if @Chipper should have sold his striker as if I’m a fan

 

[Chipper]

I really enjoy reading people’s saves in here. I genuinely wondered for a few minutes if @Chipper should have sold his striker as if I’m a fan

Well he's going to help us get back to the Premier League again, you just wait and see!

Pretty much done all transfer business for this season, we have a strong team for this division. More on that in a minute but first some good news, we'll staying at Turf Moor, Burnley's ground for now.

I wasn't sure that would be the case as we only hired it because you need a 12500 seater stadium to play in the Premier League as a minimum and there's no such restriction back in the Championship. In this division it's 5000 minimum capacity of which 2000 have to be seats so I thought we might go back to the old place. We'll get more money from staying at Burnley so I see that as a positive. The new stadium is being built too of course, so maybe the old place got knocked down and it's on the same site? I don't think the game ever made that clear.

Spoiler: Players Out

Elliot Offord - £4.5m - Aston Villa. Who is he? Exactly, I never him mentioned him before yet he's our biggest sale. We signed him last summer on a free after Liverpool released him. He's a young striker who spent last season with our Under 23s and definitely has talent although I couldn't see him ever quite nailing down a first team spot for us. He was just around as emergency backup last season and I was probably going to loan him out this when Villa came in for him. The original bid was £4.2m, I negotiated it up ever so slightly and was happy for the deal to happen. So was the player, he wanted the move. I might have been able to get a lot more for him but what's done is done.

Aaron Hickey - £725k - Aberdeen. Another who I managed not to mention before but played some first team football for us last season. Last summer we signed Christoph Alsfeld to be an option for us at left back and that this made our captain, Zonzamas Moreno a little worried about his place in the team. After I posted that Fortuna Dusseldorf came in with a £675k bid for Moreno, he wanted to go, and I sanctioned it. We then dipped into the free transfer market and plucked out Hickey. Hickey made 10(9) appearances for us last season, with most of his starts coming in the cups. Fast forward to this summer and Aberdeen came in for him. He was only ever really a stop-gap signing and the move suited everybody.

Bernard Acheampong - £225k - Exeter City. Our 2nd goalkeeper for the last 4 years who we signed after Arsenal had released him. He never really made any glaring errors for us from memory and would play in the cups mostly. He's off to League One to be a starter after we signed someone else to be backup.

Abdoulaye Sidibe - Free - Motherwell. 2nd choice on left wing for the past 3 seasons, Sidibe had expressed a desire to leave in the past and despite promising to sell him nobody came in for him at all last summer. During the course of last season he became more happy at the club and we could have extended his deal but chose not to. During his 3 years here Sidibe started 51 times and came off the bench another 51 times in all competitions, scoring 12 goals and making 15 assists.

End of Loan:
Ramon goes back to Barcelona, Tim Hackett to Man United.

Sold 4 minor players from the U23s for about £500k combined.

Spoiler: Players In

Jacques Keita - £1.5m - 1. FC Nurnberg - A bit of a bargain here, an Ivory Coast international, we signed him after meeting his minimum fee release clause and is instantly worth £4.6m. We had Ramon and Hackett on loan who were both right-backs last season, thought we'd try and sign someone this time. Keita fit the bill, he started 27 times in the Bundesliga last season where like us he got relegated. I think he's good for 2nd tier football.

Ivan Martinez - £125k - CA Osasuna - with 100 appearances in La Liga Martinez joins us a backup goalkeeper with a fair bit of experience at a high level behind him. He's not actually far off our #1 at all and if a good bid came in for Constentin Fromann, our first choice, then I might be tempted to take it and just play Martinez.

Bastian Tavernier - Free - Monaco - Already posted him up during last season after it was confirmed he'd be signing. The first wonderkid we've got out hands on that wasn't on loan. I expect big things from him in the Championship and want to see him tear defences apart with his pace.

Raffaelle Conservano - Free - Roma. Another really good looking freebie, here's hoping he smashes the goals in. It did or does leave us in a slight quandary as he's definitely going to be partnering Lucca, the big target man for the most part and we now have Diego Boza who was Championship top-scorer last time we were in the division and Mario Commisso who we signed last summer and slightly disappointed both vying to be Conservano's backup. Ideally I'd want to move one of the others on, tried to sell Commisso and got a bid of £6.25m from Brescia which is his market value however my board interfered and said they thought we could get more. I might well be carrying an extra player this season who are all high quality for this division so that's good but 3 into 1 spot doesn't really go.

Vincenzo Buono - Loan - Inter Milan. Vincenzo returns on loan for a second season where he'll mostly operate as a box to box midfielder. Last season in the Premier League he got 6 goals for us from midfield and scored an average rating of 7.00 which wasn't bad in a relegated side. Expecting him to do very well in the Championship.

These aren't signings as such but all now part of the first team squad. They were all free signings as young players about 5 seasons back and have now come through the ranks:
Rasmus Bergstrom - Swedish U21 international goalkeeper who has had loan moves at Solihulll Moors, AIK and Oldham (twice). He's going to be our third choice goalie but actually sitting on the bench most weeks. Martinez's arrival and Acheampong's departure as #2 keeper means we don't really have many payers trained in England anymore and you have to have 7 in your matchday squad in the Championship.

Patrick Jager - The reason we let Aaron Hickey go. I actually think he's going to start ahead of Alsfeld and really like the look of him at left back. Austrian U21 international with no loans behind him but I think he's ready to be chucked in there.

Noah Adlhoch - More of a natural CM but can also play at right back and that's where we'll use him. Will sit behind new-signing Keita in the pecking order in that position. Another Austrian U21 international, he's had loan moves at Blyth Spartans, Torquay United and Accrington Stanley.

 

[Snow]

Came back to the game during the free period in December and bought it last Steam sale to finish out my first FM season since 2016 I reckon (maybe 2017). Played as PSG just to get me into things.

My transfers in were Max Aarons, Bellingham and Drest for 63m total and I sold Bernat, Meunier, Kehrer, Choupo-Moting and Kurzawa (I know, full back troubles) for 55m so basically got rid of some deadwood and added some youth with Aarons going straight into the first team.

I won the league on 98 points without losing a match. and a 112-16 GD. Rotated a lot, 28 of my players got medals. Won both cups without much difficulty even though I played Lyon and Monaco in both competitions.
CL was obviously harder. Easy group with Atlético, Dynamo Kyiv and Genk where I got my first loss of the season vs Atlético away. Beat Leverkusen 7-2, Real 4-3 after losing the 1st leg away 3-1. City in the semis 2-2 on away goals. Really deserved to win the home game anyways. In the finals I changed tactic for the first time of the season because of their defensive wall and I beat them 2-0 which was a kind result to me. The only poor performer from both teams was Ronaldo which is probably why I won.

My prefered first 11 without rotating anyone was

Spoiler

Navas

Aarons (WB/A) - Marquinhos (CD/D) - T. Silva (BPD/D) - Diallo (WB/S)

Gana (HB/D)

Verratti (DLP/S)__________Paredes (MEZ/S)

Mbappé (IW/A)_______________________________Neymar (IW/S)

Cavani (DLF/A)

Diallo and Drest played about the same at left back. Sold Bernat in January because of a juicy offer and had Drest on loan as a backup so I just sealed the deal then but then he got injured and I had to make due with Diallo who crushed it. Herrera played a lot too, I settled on prefered Paredes late in the season. Di Maria got a 4 month injury so he managed about 20 games. He started out in the Paredes role. Kimpembe was really good and will probably take over T. Silva and spare me the CB purchase if I continue with the save. 17 year old Pembélé played over 20 matches, often pairing with Kimpembe when I was resting the other 2. Very happy with Sarabia off the bench but Icardi I never liked.

Icardi and Rico will finish their loans and Cavani will leave on free to join Real after a great season with me. He did not want to sign again so I need a striker for next season. Preferably a left back as well (headache to find good full backs). I'm happy with the rest as I've got good CM in the youth teams with Xavi Simons maybe getting a bigger role.

I'm open to try something new. Back when I played a lot I played all over Europe (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Greece etc) and in various lower leagues so I'm open to that kind of stuff if someone knows of a fun league that isn't dominated by the one team which seems to be a trend these days.

Spoiler: Random season stats

League:
Top goal scorers

• 24 - Cavani, golden boot from 17(5) games,
• 21 - Mbappé in 22 (4)
• 9 - Icard in 21 (8)
• 9 - Neymar in 24 (3)
• 7 - Sarabia in 17 (11)

Assists:

• 17 - Neymar, league record
• 13 - Sarabia
• 8 - Cavani
• 7 - Mbappé
• 6 - Di María in 12 (5)

Average rating:

• 7.91 - Cavani
• 7.74 - Mbappé
• 7.57 - Aarons in 19 (4)
• 7.57 - Marquinhos in 22 (4)
• 7.52 - Neymar

Mbappé with 9 player of match awards which is a league record. He's nuts in this game.

Champions League

Goals:
Mbappé with a 9 goal golden boot campaign. Cavani, Icardi and Neymar on 4

Average rating:

• 7.9 - Verratti
• 7.67 - Aarons, top assister with 6
• 7.51 - Neymar
• 7.49 - Paredes
• 7.48 - Mbappé

 

[Chipper]

So on transfer deadline day we did sell our goalkeeper Frommann to Middlesbrough for £6.25m rising to £8.25m. It was a bit weird as I had a made a promise not to sell him. What happened when I accepted the offer? Well it annoyed and made him 'consider his options' which sounds like it only made him want to leave.

Martinez who we brought in as back up/cup keeper is now #1 choice, Bergstrom who was going to be hanging around the squad as #3 and sitting on the bench to get the homegrown quota up in league games is now #2 and cup 'keeper.

Spoiler: Frommann

Cheap summer. Spent £1.8m, got £12.25m. Really like our chances of going back up with the squad we have and we have £82m in the bank. The plan is to splash as much cash as we can next summer should we win promotion.

 

[Chipper]

Halfway point of the season and we sit top. Only just but I'm feeling good about this. We had a bit of a ropey start, 24 points from the first 14 games but after a little tweak have really started firing and have won 8 and drawn 1 of the last 9 matches.

Spoiler

Carabao Cup was a little disappointing but Leicester are a PL side. Lost that match on penalties and also missed a penalty during the 90 minutes.

Looks like we'll be going out of the FA Cup early too with that draw. Will try not to but that's a tough ask.

Got 4 wanted players currently who had minimum fee release clauses activated when we went down that clubs really taking notice of now we're playing well. Going to try and tie those down to new contracts before the January window opens.

 

[Dancfc]

Well instinct would be to go even more attacking against the crap teams away but I'm usually a disaster tactically. Would probably keep things largely the same against the bigger ones, just smaller tweaks here and there.

Would maybe look at all things related to style of passing too. Work ball into box on or off, attacking width, tempo, take more risks on or off on individual instructions, passing length, cross aim etc. Start tweaking those sorts of things little by little and see if something works? Would go in both directions with those to try and see if there's something there, not just necessarily move towards more patience, more ball retention etc. although that style would be the first direction I'd probably move towards alongside yelling "get creative" more often. There might be a point where having less control in more chaotic matches could work to create more counters if they're sticking everyone behind the ball. Lure them out. Or you could even try lumping a few up to Tammy Abraham or Giroud if you generally don't, giving them something different to think about.

Thankyou for the post.

I've took a week off but when back on I'll aim for a bit more control in games and if that doesn't work go for 2 up top.

 

[Chipper]

Don't usually do much during the January window but we've been busy this time.

First of all our right winger Luis Carbonell got his ankle broken by dirty Burnley in our Boxing Day fixture and is out for the rest of the season. We considered recalling Eric Diethelm, a young lad we have on loan at Bristol Rovers as cover but instead made a loan move of our own for Jey Mohamed Rahmi from Borrussia Dortmund until the end of the season. He's class.

We then bought ourselves a young exciting winger/striker. We weren't exactly in the market for one but he became available and I see a big future for him. Moroccan international Hamza Alioui joins for £15.25m from Lazio and becomes our record signing.

England U21 midfielder Tony Fisher joins from Norwich until the end of the season.

Finally we've arranged the future transfer of Romulo, a Brazilian CM/DM with a Spanish passport from Montreal Impact. Romulo will join us in the summer for a fee of £2.7m.

Spoiler: In

Leaving us this January is Miguel Escobar in a record breaking sale for the club. The box to box midfielder joins Chinese side Tianjin TEDA for £32m after they met his minimum fee release clause. Escobar struggled to establish himself in 18 frustrating months at Southport. Although he undoubtedly has talent, a lot of it still untapped, we've taken Vincenzo Buono on loan from Inter Milan the past 2 seasons in a row and he has got much of the playing time Escobar desired. Escobar leaves after making 24 (12) appearances for us altogether. The club also made a huge profit on the deal as we only paid £1.1m for him. Tony Fisher, who we have just taken on loan is his like-for-like replacement within the squad for now.

Joining Escobar at Tianjin is Alberto Cerri in a deal worth £7.75m. The 31-year old gave us good service as back up target man to Lorenzo Lucca over the past 2.5 seasons. He was currently happy to be a fringe player, but the arrival Alioui and our summer dealings meant that we now had 6 strikers in the first team squad on the books and we only play 2 up front so something had to give. Diego Boza is out long-term as sadly he damaged his cruciate ligaments in early November but 5 fit strikers is still one too many for me.

Cerri was offered out for an unspecified amount with both Tianjin and Shenzen making bids of £7.75m, his market value. We rejected a couple of other offers for lower amounts. He was a useful option for us, scoring 23 goals in 52 (34) appearances and we're happy for him to go and earn more money and start more games in China. I liked him. His departure also means we might shift tactics a little here and there as Lucca is now the only target man at the club. We're not going to be playing big man/little man all of the time anymore.

Spoiler: out

 

[Chipper]

Thankyou for the post.

I've took a week off but when back on I'll aim for a bit more control in games and if that doesn't work go for 2 up top.

No problem, best of luck with it.

 

[Chipper]

Promoted but I wanted more, lost the last 2 matches. It was against good teams, Palace away (3-1) and Derby at home (1-0) but I can't help but label that as bottling it. Got a player sent off in each game, we lost our heads. Middlesbrough lost on the final day too so even a point would have been enough.

Main job done I suppose.

Spoiler: Season summary

 

[JB08]

Has anyone ever seen an AI transfer like this, Newcastle buying DCL for £100m? He scored 4 goals in 18 games.
They've been taken over in my save but this is so strange.

 

[Chipper]

Has anyone ever seen an AI transfer like this, Newcastle buying DCL for £100m? He scored 4 goals in 18 games.
They've been taken over in my save but this is so strange.

Stange player to splurge on, but when it comes to goals they're at a premium on my save. United ended up spending a similar amount on Martinelli after 3 seasons in my save and he hasn't done that much:

Here's Calvert-Lewin's career:

We're just past halfway in the 28/29 season. I make that 43 in 220 top flight appearances for Martinelli, 37 in 183 for DCL (ignoring his 2 seasons in the Championship). Martinelli is more creative but it's only that one season at Roma with a significant number of assists and he was hardly smashing it when United bought him.

Top scorers seem a bit low in the various leagues, 18-20 often winning the golden boot.

PL 19, 23, 20, 25, 18.19,17, 32, 19
La Liga 19, 24, 19, 21, 22, 19, 20, 22, 22
Serie A: 27, 20, 25, 18, 18, 19, 19, 19, 19

So in a world when 1 in 2 is often the best around, 4 in 18 might be a bit better than it is in real life but you'd still want want a more proven track record before spending 90-odd million!

 

[SilentWitness]

Has anyone ever seen an AI transfer like this, Newcastle buying DCL for £100m? He scored 4 goals in 18 games.
They've been taken over in my save but this is so strange.

City bought Hudson-Odoi on my game for 200m and then played him about 15 times.

 

[Lay]

Those sort of transfers always bug me. Happened over the years. It’s especially worse when said players goes to say PSG for £130m, never plays, leaves for about £20m and then after recapturing form he goes back to PSG for millions where once again..he doesn’t play

 

[Chipper]

Eurgh, I don't get this marking at all, not sure if there's a "try to actually mark players" button I'm missing?

They've not tried to get back into position here at all for Liverpool's free kick. Entire midfield wrong side of Liverpool's, left back needs to be tucked in like my right back is instead of being on the touchline, huge gap between the cbs with neither of them even attempting to pick up the lone striker.

Liverpool played a short free kick, 1-2 with the taker, who then pinged a long ball right up the middle for a one-on-one chance and easy goal.

Edit: Haha!