Now this is a hipster save. In fact I don’t think it gets anymore hipster than that.Halfway through the first season with Lokomotive Leipzig, and my shameless lower league 'run around a lot and kick people' tactics are proving fairly effective considering we were predicted 17th:
Managed to get Bernard in on loan from United, and having a covering centre half with a bit of pace has allowed us to play a high line without it being complete suicide. The other standout has been Dan N'Lundulu from Southampton who's a very well rounded forward for the level.
Gaming Football Manager 2021 (FM21)
- Thread starter FC Ronaldo
- Start date
I think it's something to do with match engine and how it helps certain style of football. No matter how good City players are rated, they struggle as it's very hard to recreate Pep style of football, whereas Gegenpress was overpowered.
I checked ManUtd player stats, didn't find any player who was overrated by huge margin, maybe McTominay is the only one who is slightly overrated and Williams is by a huge margin.
Ref probably got a nice sum from a Qatar account and he didn't even have the grace to at least award a dodgy pen or send someone off for breathing; he just gave a goal when he felt like it.Just found the most ridiculous bug in my Lille game. PSG scored a phantom goal from nowhere. One minute the score is 1-0 to me and the next it just changes to 1-1. Watched back on full match and they didn't even have possession when it happned.
I've not played enough of this years one yet so he might not be as good, but in FM20 Mejbri is your answer to deputise for Bruno. Barring the odd inexplicable red card, he had higher ratings than Bruno almost from the start.
Aye, he developed lovely for me in FM20. I have him out on loan this season, otherwise he would have been promoted to the first team after Bruno's injury.
I feel like the attributes capture the strengths and weaknesses of players, but they are an idealized version of them. Like AWB is a very good tackler in reality, but he has TWENTY tackling stat in the game, the all time great already... Mc Tominay is a good workhorse, so he has elite mental attributes. The only players with FT, Technique, Passing, Vision, Decisions and Off the Ball better than Mata are David Silva and Messi. Even Phil Jones has like elite Tackling, Heading and positioning. Matic has a random 19 Balance among faded physical stats, Luke Shaw has 15 tackling, 14 Marking, 14 Positioning, 14 Concentration - that would make a lot of CBs proud.
Compare that to Bayern's stats.
It's not just United though. Different clubs and countries applying different scales has been a thing for a while. For example Italians always have the best back room staffers and Lukaku is an absolute Monster in the game, Haaland - who has a somewhat similar player profile in real life - is a bit of a joke in comparison.
Finished first season with exactly same set of trophies. Match engine is much better in terms of reactions to tweaking. Enjoyed being able to see the difference between IW and IF roles when switching. Roles are executed as described.
This made a game lot easier. AWB is the beast, put him on man marking and hard tackling and he will destroy anyone. Mane, Hazard, Sterling and Mbappe ratings against AWB were below 6 every time.
Telles is devastating weapon, but a I’m using Shaw in big games. He is a monster too.
Usually English club players are overrated if you compare them to German club. IMO German club researchers are hard to please, whereas Italian and English club researchers are very generous.
The attributes you posted, they shouldn't be taken in isolation btw for the game. Jones is useless as his concentration, composure is shit. That means he isn't good CB at all, same with Bailly, Lindelof, Rojo. That's why I said they are not overpowered. McT isn't a good midfielder with low passing, composure, decision making stats.
Some of the stats are overrated (I agree with that and I always said that's the case with English clubs especially) but some of the key attributes are rated low, which means these players won't have higher CA.
Mata and Matic with such low physical attributes are not good enough players. Also Balance as per their definition is how well they stay on the feet both on and off the ball, 19 is without doubt too high but he really has good balance.
Shaw is overrated too as he has right mix of attributes except vision. IMO Shaw, Brandon Willians, McT are overrated for sure (even though McT has key stats low for his position)
Lukaku has 20 for balance, must be one of the biggest joke. Looks like Inter researcher is a huge fan, he was rated very poorly when he was at ManUtd even after 28 goal season. His finishing was dropped to 15. Now Inter guy gave him 20 for balance, 18 for work rate, 14 first touch, 14 composure, decision. He is one of the best complete strikers in the game,
I have already mentioned this, Bayern ratings are a joke. Very poor job, especially Davies profile.
Btw I'm not disagreeing with your post completely, just that the attributes should be considered alongside other key attributes.
How I see ManUtd team
GK - GK with too many weakness
FB - Rated highly than in real life. .
CBs - Maguire is good, other CBs are poor with so many weakness.
CM - Pogba - poor decision making, concentration, very poor defensive stats.
Other Midfielders like Matic, Fred, McT - Decent stats in few but poor key attributes like Physical for Matic, Mental for other 2.
Attackers - Rated fairly.
IMO most of the ManUtd players have clear weakness in key attributes. Bruno, Rashford, Martial are very few of the players who dont have weakness for the positions they play. Excluded Telles as he was rated by Porto researcher.
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Well yes, bigger picture players like Mata, Matic or the CBs with low concentration won't perform well. I brought that up mainly to illustrate a point about some researchers being more generous, like you said yourself. Though I'm not sure if these lopsided profiles always balance themselves out. Like AWB and McT have such terrific defensive stats, I wouldn't be surprised if you could be quite successful if you used them in specialist roles to enable other players to be more attacking (e.g. Pogba and Bruno).
Yeah, end of the day it's all about balance in the team. McT can be paired alongside Pogba and Bruno but deeper player lacking composure is not the one you want to rely on.
Players like Brandon Williams are way too overrated btw, he is way too good compared to his actual level, same with Shaw.
Researchers being too generous is true, that's true for all PL clubs (and Serie A clubs), especially when it comes to few popular players.
Kovacic has 16 vision and 12 finishing, he barely scores, assists or create chances.
Aurier is proper complete wingback with no weakness.
Ndombele has very good defensive stats which is a shame considering all the issues that was highlighted last season.
TAA has great defensive stats when it's very well known that he isn't good defender.
Firmino is rated very highly as a midfielder, to compensate how shit he is as a striker. 15 passing, 13 marking, 14 tackling, 14 positioning is a ridiculous set of stats and he is nowhere near good enough.
Joe Gomez is elite defender and has 0 weakness.
There are many more too, on the other hand researchers are too scared to make massive changes, for example Grealish is way too underrated.
How to do they manage to make the UI more cluttered year after year? Just looking at conversation screens and the dressing room screens gives me a headache.
That is 100% the case.
Also agree with the majority of our players attributes too. Obviously is they are out by 1/2 then it's not too much of a big deal.
Can we all just take a moment too discuss why Dean Henderson has 15 for eccentricity? Is he really that much of a loose cannon?
There are always some really odd ones. In my FM20 save De Gea has 15 in freekicks. In real life his distribution isn't great, and has anyone ever seen him kick any stationary ball other than goal kicks? Yet he gets a 15.
Finished 3rd with Everton in my first season.
Start of next season...
In: Aarons (RB), Tete (RW), Boyce-Clarke (GK), Szoboszlai (CM), Alvarado (LW) - I recommend Alvarado in the first two seasons for anyone at a budget club. He has a low release clause and good stats.
Out: Tosun, Coleman, Sigurdsson, Keane, Bernard, Walcott, Bolasie.
Nobody will take Delph or Mina which is annoying.
For some reason they've made Godfrey an absolute animal. He's one of the best CBs i've ever had.
Start of next season...
In: Aarons (RB), Tete (RW), Boyce-Clarke (GK), Szoboszlai (CM), Alvarado (LW) - I recommend Alvarado in the first two seasons for anyone at a budget club. He has a low release clause and good stats.
Out: Tosun, Coleman, Sigurdsson, Keane, Bernard, Walcott, Bolasie.
Nobody will take Delph or Mina which is annoying.
For some reason they've made Godfrey an absolute animal. He's one of the best CBs i've ever had.
If playing as shit teams with a bit of novelty value makes me a hipster, I've never been anything but a hipster on FM.
Good signings. Particularly Szoboszlai. He's such a beast in game and in real life.
Yep, I tried to get Luis from Benfica first but the work permit didn’t go through. Managed to get Szoboszlai for only 20m which was half the price so pleased about that! Was either him or Antonio from Shakhtar.
He signed for Burnley in my United save
I've come to realise starting as a renowned(?,continental or whatever it was) manager with like 19 in motivation might be easy mode. Won the title and the CL in my first season with United. Just picked the standard vertical tiki-taka 4-3-3 dm wide tactics, didn't tweak anything and just went. Was fun though, basically all season City, Liverpool and me were within a couple of points. Some fun final games where I had to keep winning. West Brom almost fecked me but Cavani with two goals in the last five munites basically gave me the title.
Starting new season and the transfer list looks weird. I think something's happening at Chelsea - Werner, Kante, Kovacic, Jorginho, Loftus Cheek all on there. Neymar for 35m. Bale for 0. Draxler, James Rodriguez.
I've already bought (and according to the board overpaid) for Sancho. Got Haaland and Valverde too and Sold Pogba to Real.
Kind of tempted to completely feck the squad balance and get Neymar in there for lols. Or Bale. Maybe even both.
Starting new season and the transfer list looks weird. I think something's happening at Chelsea - Werner, Kante, Kovacic, Jorginho, Loftus Cheek all on there. Neymar for 35m. Bale for 0. Draxler, James Rodriguez.
I've already bought (and according to the board overpaid) for Sancho. Got Haaland and Valverde too and Sold Pogba to Real.
Kind of tempted to completely feck the squad balance and get Neymar in there for lols. Or Bale. Maybe even both.
Ratings are always a bit of a sore point for me. They gave Papiss Cisse 20 for finishing on a previous FM. What I notice is that the Bundesliga scouts tend to give a lot of the players less technical ability. I haven't seen FM21 but previous FM's a few strikers have 9 for finishing but have great mentals.
Yeah it does make things way easier starting with the coaching badges and previous experience. Think it's supposed to be that way as if you go in as a total amateur none of the players will respect you and you will have less ability to motivate them and convince them.
Beta keeps crashing on my 2011 MacBook 
Eccentricity is GK attribute that is set by researcher. Free kick taking for GK is set randomly at the start of the game if I'm not wrong.
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To give myself some motivation for a second season, I bought Ronaldo. I have never managed him before so should be a bit of fun to see him playing with Greenwood et al.
On the topic of Greenwood, he got 24 goals in 24 games in the Premier League in my first season. A hattrick in the CL semi final at Anfield when we were 2-0 down on aggregate. He’s definitely a little overpowered in my experience so far.
Anyone else had that bug in the second season of the PL where AI teams can’t register players for about a month and are forced to play a youth team.
I didn’t realise I had and beat Everton 10-0
Started getting a bit suspicious after the 4th goal went in in the 20th minute and investigated their team a bit more.
Don’t want to end the save but feel a bit guilty that I basically got gifted 3 wins. One of them away at Liverpool!
I didn’t realise I had and beat Everton 10-0
Started getting a bit suspicious after the 4th goal went in in the 20th minute and investigated their team a bit more.
Don’t want to end the save but feel a bit guilty that I basically got gifted 3 wins. One of them away at Liverpool!
Liverpool are ridiculous in it. They best City 6-2 at the Etihad in my save last night.
I've been playing a practice game to get used to the new features before I start my usual network game with a mate next week. Was just messing about and ended up resigning in protest at the board refusing to sign Camavinga - only for them to complete the signing to spite me after I'd gone!
Really enjoying this - I haven't bought an updated version of FM for the last 2 years. I've decided to try my have at Deportivo de La Coruña as they are a big club that are currently waaaaaay down in the lower Spanish leagues. It's been great fun.
Oh I do the same, but usually in England with a selectable team. I can only aspire to pick a newly in game promoted third division German side. You’ve set the bar high.If playing as shit teams with a bit of novelty value makes me a hipster, I've never been anything but a hipster on FM.
The post brexit rules are quite restrictive in terms of Work Permits. Making it a challenge in the transfer window.
Yeah, they can be a massive pain in the arse especially if you like getting South American wonderkids.
Have they made the squad building AI even worse this year?
Seems odd but it is a beta of course...
Have they made the squad building AI even worse this year?
How much did they buy Mbappe and Salah for? And who did they sell?
Have they made the squad building AI even worse this year?
I've seen more unrealistic windows in the past, where RM or Pool spent upwards of 400m and City were spending 300m odd consistently for 3 seasons
They bought Mbappe for €112m (up to €200m) and Salah for €86m (up to €139m), their net spent is sort of moderate by the game's standards. It's more about who they bought and what they didn't buy. Like Casemiro, an ageing Kroos and the rather mediocre Pepe are the only CMs left in their squad and one is playing as CB. The squad doesn't have a single LB, so Carvajal - their only RB - is playing there and an ageing Ramos - whose legs are gone - has to play RB. They have spent close to €700m on attackers, including those €315m on three no9s, while they sold their defenders and CMs to pay for it and only brought in Pepe and Javi Martinez on a free to replace them.
Not sure what the problem is, this sounds like Real Madrid.
Anyone ever seen a VAR decision result in a goal? Seems a waste of time if it just always disallows it.
I remember last FM where City spent 500m in one window including 200m on Hudson-Odoi and then only played him for about 20 games in a 60 game season so that Madrid window doesn't seem that bizarre in comparison to me. Despite the good tweaks they make each year there will always be daft things like that happening.
This is the best FM I've played since FM12. Loving it so far.