Playing with United, and we became all conquering in the first season, doing the treble. Won the league with a record of 35 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss. Osimhen scored 48 goals across all comps.
Selling players is the biggest improvement in this version. I was able to dump Maguire, Lindelof, Dalot, AWB, Antony, Sancho and McTominay for big fees in the first season and then sign a bunch of players by spreading the fees over future installments.
Dragusin and Lukeba at CB and Rb (IFB) have been superb, as has Maatsrn at LB rotating with Shaw. Developed young players. Mount, Bruno, Mainoo and Eriksen in midfield has been awesome, plus a couple of wonder kids developing really well. Signed Olise for the RW, and Kvara for the LW. Tactics are working a treat. Destroying everyone.
Second season I sold Varane, Casemiro and Bruno for huge fees to Saudi. Bruno went for 150m alone. Got another 50m for Casemiro, 30m for Varane, Newcastle bid 62m for Shaw, which I couldn’t turn down, and I sold Hannibal for 21m. My initial transfer budget for the second season was 150m, but after adjusting wages down (they gave me 5.4m p/week to spend), I got that up to 200m plus sales which need up with over half a billion to spend. At that point I was able to sign Bellingham for 240m, 60m of which is addons, Wirtz for 90m, and Tchouameni for 74m. So plus Mount, Mainoo, Eriksen and some wonder kids, my midfield is stacked.
The best part of the game so far has been experimenting with some really fun new systems using the IFB and a Libero. We are playing like 1970 Brasil.
My fixture list for the second season had me play City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham in the first 6 league games, plus a midweek super cup tie against Liverpool again. Beat them 4-3 in the super cup, but then tweaked my system using the data hub information to understand the positions my libero was taking up, and then beat City 3-0, Liverpool 3-0, Tottenham 2-0, and Chelsea 4-0.
Across all four games I averaged 62% possession, and only conceded a total of 5 shots on target (1.25 per game). Defensively this tactic is monstrous. Offensively, combing two wide players as Wingers (att) with the instruction to cut inside, and two Mezzalas (one att and one Sup) in midfield with a move into channels instruction, is proving devastating. I set the Mezzalas to “mark tighter”, so they don’t abandon all defensive responsibility, and it works well. My dm is a regista, so he steps up more. This is important because my LB as an IWB and my CB as Libero, both step into DM during build up.
The key to United is shifting out some of the high earners, like Martial, Sancho etc., for decent fees. It frees you up so much to sign players. Now, even with Bellingham, Tchouameni and Wirtz, I’m only the 4th highest payroll in the league (4.5m). City are spending a million a week more than me. Liverpool and Chelsea spending 5.2 and 5.3 respectively. After the treble, pretty much everyone wants to sign for me, and by using addons well and future installments, I was able to add players like Antonio Silva, Diomande, Guehi, Paqueta and Olise as pure squad depth. And they are all awesome, meaning we rotate constantly and keep players fresh without dropping a level. Mount as a BBM, in the first season, has been unrealistically superb.