Gaming Football Manager 2021 (FM21)

Can't quite nail a team down at United. 1st season won the PL, 2nd season finished 3rd and won the UCL. Half way through the 3rd season and I'm struggling to hold on to 3th, defence is leaking goals for fun despite me bringing in De Ligt and Theo Hernandez.

Strikers are still banging them in for fun with Martial and Greenwood both over 20 goals for the season at the halfway mark.

Considering changing formation but I've built the squad for this specific tactic and feel like it would be a bit of a nightmare to now change
 
P-Nut said:
Can't quite nail a team down at United. 1st season won the PL, 2nd season finished 3rd and won the UCL. Half way through the 3rd season and I'm struggling to hold on to 3th, defence is leaking goals for fun despite me bringing in De Ligt and Theo Hernandez.

Strikers are still banging them in for fun with Martial and Greenwood both over 20 goals for the season at the halfway mark.

Considering changing formation but I've built the squad for this specific tactic and feel like it would be a bit of a nightmare to now change
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It might just be a case of tinkering with little things in your tactic rather than needing to change the whole formation.
 
Got bored doing usual big team save and started doing Salford save this time around.
Currently in 2nd season in League One. In 31rd January, 4 hours before transfer window closed, i got offer for my right back from RB Leipzig, i reject it but they comeback 2 hour later with much better offer, i was gonna reject it when i realised Peter Lim(owner) accepted it without my consent.
I was livid as it was very late at the last day of transfer window without proper replacement. It was very hard to find a decent RB this game for cheap and i just lost one. Feeling dejected for awhile though, after that Peter Lim announced he gonna retired at the end of the season, goodness me he totally screw me up before he gone the leecher.
 
sebsheep said:
It might just be a case of tinkering with little things in your tactic rather than needing to change the whole formation.
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Yeah I've considered that, but it's the inverted wing backs that are tough to get in and I've finally signed two 17 year old for ridiculous sums to nail down those spots in a few seasons.
 
fecking hell. Got to the CL final again with Feyenoord and lost again. This time to Dortmund, who have not only kept Sancho/Reyna/Bellingham/Haaland but have added Camavinga, Richarlison, Tah, Agelino, and Kang, all for 40+ million. Haaland had 5 goals in the 5-3 final (on 5 shots).

My team was anchored by:
- Hannibal, who is on his second season on loan, who did his best Bruno impression (22G, 21A)
- Moukoko, who I got on a free as BD did not offer him a contract (36G)
- and a central partnership of Senesi (already there and a beast) and Mingueza (on a free from Barca)

On to next year. No idea how I am going to replace Hannibal in CM as I am guessing there is no way Utd are going to let him go on loan. He is a top 10 CM in the world at this point (thanks to me....).

Edit: The Dec 31st 6-month contract renewal period has been a gold mine. Besides the 2 above I have also picked up Nico Williams and Cesar Gelabert who have been absolute stars for me.
 
Moukoko always seems to go on a free to PSG in all my saves. I don’t even bother trying to offer him a contract anymore. He will rot there too.

I find it hard finding a good defensive midfielder, third season in and they’re either way overpriced or average
 
P-Nut said:
Yeah I've considered that, but it's the inverted wing backs that are tough to get in and I've finally signed two 17 year old for ridiculous sums to nail down those spots in a few seasons.
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Unless you're constantly being caught out wide on the counter then you should be fine to keep them, I think they just position themselves normally when defending.
 
WI_Red said:
fecking hell. Got to the CL final again with Feyenoord and lost again. This time to Dortmund, who have not only kept Sancho/Reyna/Bellingham/Haaland but have added Camavinga, Richarlison, Tah, Agelino, and Kang, all for 40+ million. Haaland had 5 goals in the 5-3 final (on 5 shots).
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That's a pretty rough ride.
 
P-Nut said:
Yeah I've considered that, but it's the inverted wing backs that are tough to get in and I've finally signed two 17 year old for ridiculous sums to nail down those spots in a few seasons.
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I got on really well in last years version with inverted FB and defensive wingers, playing a 4-1-3-2 with a CM on attack in the middle.

Lots of goals and FB seemed to do their job packing out midfield and keeping up the pressure.
 
Ali Dia said:
Sorry I just buy it these days. You can’t go too far wrong with Fm. It’s good value for money. If you got a friends steam details you could probably play it offline like that.
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Thank you man!
 
4 CLs, 5 PL titles, 2 trebles and 1 domestic double in 5 seasons. Currently sitting top of the league in January 2026 with 6 goals conceded in 21 matches. I also managed to get 190 million pounds for Camavinga - my personal record sale in FM. Perfect save.
 
ThinkTank@Cafe said:
4 CLs, 5 PL titles, 2 trebles and 1 domestic double in 5 seasons. Currently sitting top of the league in January 2026 with 6 goals conceded in 21 matches. I also managed to get 190 million pounds for Camavinga - my personal record sale in FM. Perfect save.
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How are you not bored? Whenever the game starts to get remotely easy I can’t help but start a new save.
 
JB08 said:
How are you not bored? Whenever the game starts to get remotely easy I can’t help but start a new save.
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I am the same,

My current save has just turned into a whitewash, every game is a sure fire win and I am so bored. I have even started playing some of my youth team to try and even the games up a little!
I've said it before in this thread, but this game to me feels like the easiest version of FM ever,
 
It sounds like some people could do with trying to recreate the W-M formation!

You can make the game a bit harder for yourself tbf.
 
The finances make it ridiculous. I’m in the Slovenian league and my transfer budget went from £350k in year one to £5 million in year two. And that was without qualifying for Europe in season one. There is just no possible way that the league is financed like that for the winners.

I managed to get to the Europa groups in season two and Champions League groups in season three. My budget in season four is £18 million...Maribor got in the Champions League proper a few years back and you don’t see them having £18 million transfer budgets.
 
Champ said:
I am the same,

My current save has just turned into a whitewash, every game is a sure fire win and I am so bored. I have even started playing some of my youth team to try and even the games up a little!
I've said it before in this thread, but this game to me feels like the easiest version of FM ever,
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Definitely. I feel in particular it’s way too easy to play attacking football and score goals and like @Dan_F pointed out money comes too easy.

In my second season with Cardiff in the Prem I came 7th. Back in old FMs it would take at least four seasons to start making the top 7 with average championship clubs.
Beating teams like Arsenal and Chelsea 5-0 and 4-0 at home. It’s always way too easy to go on long unbeaten home runs. Ended up scoring 69 goals. By January I was bored and forced myself to conclude the season and then quit.

Wouldn’t be so bad if the game wasn’t filled with minor bugs too.
 
Leroy The Red said:
Definitely. I feel in particular it’s way too easy to play attacking football and score goals and like @Dan_F pointed out money comes too easy.

In my second season with Cardiff in the Prem I came 7th. Back in old FMs it would take at least four seasons to start making the top 7 with average championship clubs.
Beating teams like Arsenal and Chelsea 5-0 and 4-0 at home. It’s always way too easy to go on long unbeaten home runs. Ended up scoring 69 goals. By January I was bored and forced myself to conclude the season and then quit.

Wouldn’t be so bad if the game wasn’t filled with minor bugs too.
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Yeah, I massively agree,

I had a similar situation with my Bournemouth save, got them to the premiership, within three seasons had won the FA cup, Europa League and League cup, then won three premiership's on the bounce. All without spending a huge amount.

Certainly seems to be an issue with attacking tactics and I have found that Gegen press and setting your players to shoot on sight is massively effective, you may concede goals but you will most definitely score more than you concede.
 
Think this is the only FM where I don’t change my tactics for away or difficult games. I use my own tactics so it isn’t anything OP.
 
Lay said:
Think this is the only FM where I don’t change my tactics for away or difficult games. I use my own tactics so it isn’t anything OP.
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Same. I beat Napoli 2-1 with a Slovenian team. Away. With my attacking, pressing tactics.
 
I keep having crap players automatically added to my shortlist. Anyone know how to prevent this?

I've got it set as 'When scouting a player - Shortlist NEVER'.
 
Solius said:
I keep having crap players automatically added to my shortlist. Anyone know how to prevent this?

I've got it set as 'When scouting a player - Shortlist NEVER'.
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Are you asking their agent anything?
 
Solius said:
Nope. The reports are just coming up in my feed cause the Scouts are being set by the Chief Scout.
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I've found this version quite buggy so it might just be that.

On multiple occasions I've had the opportunity to deal with an opposition player asking to be subbed off because of injury. Clicked "Ignore" once to see what happened and the poor fecker played 80 minutes on one leg.
 
Champ said:
Yeah, I massively agree,

I had a similar situation with my Bournemouth save, got them to the premiership, within three seasons had won the FA cup, Europa League and League cup, then won three premiership's on the bounce. All without spending a huge amount.

Certainly seems to be an issue with attacking tactics and I have found that Gegen press and setting your players to shoot on sight is massively effective, you may concede goals but you will most definitely score more than you concede.
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This is it basically. Set the corners to near post and have badiashille or some other massive defender knocking them in. He hits double figures in the league every season on near post headers for me. 5-2-1-2 formation away to the big clubs and your gegenpress 4-3-3 at home and just play 4-3-3 all the time when you have top players. If you start scouting the best players from the start nearly half of them will be available on a free within a few years. Get bargain South American players and pay the bulk of the fee in instalments over the following season. It’s really really easy once you get into the PL to get European football and then you’re set. Once you win the first CL it’s over really.
 
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In big games do you guys play the player in form or the player who has better stats? My reserve striker took over from an injured Alcacar and did well. I’m not sure who to start against Real Madrid
 
Lay said:
In big games do you guys play the player in form or the player who has better stats? My reserve striker took over from an injured Alcacar and did well. I’m not sure who to start against Real Madrid
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I’d value match Fitness most of all. It they aren’t fully fit they nearly always need to come off early in the second half anyway. I’d play the match fit guy and then bring on the recovering player for the last 20 mins if needed.
 
Lay said:
In big games do you guys play the player in form or the player who has better stats? My reserve striker took over from an injured Alcacar and did well. I’m not sure who to start against Real Madrid
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Depends on the difference in form and quality really.
 
Ali Dia said:
This is it basically. Set the corners to near post and have badiashille or some other massive defender knocking them in. He hits double figures in the league every season on near post headers for me. 5-2-1-2 formation away to the big clubs and your gegenpress 4-3-3 at home and just play 4-3-3 all the time when you have top players. If you start scouting the best players from the start nearly half of them will be available on a free within a few years. Get bargain South American players and pay the bulk of the fee in instalments over the following season. It’s really really easy once you get into the PL to get European football and then you’re set. Once you win the first CL it’s over really.
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That's where you have to decide how you want to play the game. I don't use set piece routines that produce crazy results and rarely even have the taker on anything other that 'mixed'. I don't think I've ever even touched the in built games tactics. England has always been one of the easiest countries to squad build in as well.
 
Had a very good 2nd full season with Leon, won the opening league stage, the Mexican Champions trophy, the Campeones Cup and.... The NACL! That's 4/5 now. Left at the end of the season and had a few months waiting for jobs to come up, Napoli popped up in November, currently sitting 14th after 12 games so I applied and got the job. The squad is a bit all over the place and really lacking central midfielders. They also love a freebie, currently have 35 year olds Harry Maguire and Paulo Dybala as well as 33 year old Angel Correa and a 32 Asensio. Maguire has 7 Acceleration and 9 Pace :lol:

 


:lol: My keeper (guy has 14 for decisions, it might actually be missing the minus sign though) sees the opposition player run into that position, he then turns and rolls the ball to him for him to just kick it into the goal. There is a joke about match fixing in Italy floating around somewhere...
 
So my created team are now in the Premier League. The board is expanding the stadium to 46k so I'm playing my home games at St. Mary's.

Only thing is Bournemouth have moved into my stadium and are playing there until the expansion is completed :lol: Could I have just not carried on playing there?
 
Solius said:
I keep having crap players automatically added to my shortlist. Anyone know how to prevent this?

I've got it set as 'When scouting a player - Shortlist NEVER'.
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Do you import old shortlists from different saves?

because if you add regens to your shortlist save it and then in a new save import that shortlist the regens with that same personal id get added.
 
Leroy The Red said:
Do you import old shortlists from different saves?

because if you add regens to your shortlist save it and then in a new save import that shortlist the regens with that same personal id get added.
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I think I worked it out. I had it to always update reports on shortlisted players but I forgot I'd filtered by 'Only interested in transfer' so there were players on shortlist I didn't realise were on it.
 
Solius said:
So my created team are now in the Premier League. The board is expanding the stadium to 46k so I'm playing my home games at St. Mary's.

Only thing is Bournemouth have moved into my stadium and are playing there until the expansion is completed :lol: Could I have just not carried on playing there?
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It's football manager, if it make sense then the game won't want to do it.
 
Napoli's finances are a complete mess. 34 million in debt, 2nd highest wage bill in the league and we have players on over a 100k a week who are below average.
In the middle of trying to shift some of the deadwood I accidentally loaned out our best back up midfielder as well. :lol:
 
5 years into my save and got excited to try and manage the US in a home soil world cup. I figured that the last 5 years would have produced 1 or 2 stars to join pulisic/reyna/adama/mussah/etc. Nope. The newgen system for the US is completely broken. I took a look with Genie Scout and they top newgen, over 5 years, has a PA of 150, with the next highest at 134. Every other main team in CONCACAF has better newgens. As an experiment I used the editor and changed the newgen score for the US to 180 (for reference, Brazil is like 162). After 4 years of simming the top newgen has a PA of 147. I think the MLS newgen system is a steaming pile. Really took the fun out of this save.
 
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