Just back from the folks house so going to kick into Football Manager for the eve.
Iāve loaded a saved game from where Iād managed for Roma for 5 years. I won one Serie A title and 1 Italian Super Cup in 4 and a half seasons, 2 Italian manager of the year awards also. I finished 3rd, 2nd, 1st and 3rd in my first four seasons but was sacked in January after a bad run of results had left me 11th in the table, we had made it to the CL last 16 though.
Anyway, I stayed out of work until the end of the season and have just been appointed Real Madrid manager ahead of the 2025/26 season.
Looking forward to this new adventure.
Itās FM2020 btw.
Was thinking of getting FM22 myself. Iād imagine the Newcastle save would be tremendous fun initially. I thoroughly enjoyed Wigan and Birmingham saves back in the day when they were in the Europa League but Championship sides (FM14 and 12 I think).
Did you win any European honours with Roma?
No European honours. Itās a save I havenāt played in a year Iād say but I think I would have been consistently in the last 16 CL, might have made one SF appearance but no further.
Would you play every game or do the odd sim with the preset tactical approach?
Iād play every competitive game.
I primarily employed a 4-2-3-1 high press at Roma but Iāve decided Iām going a different route at Madrid.
Iāll go with a 3-4-3 with the three attackers operating centrally and a possession based game. I plan to build the team around a 35 year old Eden Hazard who will operate as a deep lying forward.
I sometimes go on holidays for the pre-season games. Always takes a while for the tactics to bed in. I find the more recent FMās are much easier. FM14 on PC/laptop was very challenging.
Iād be shipping him out straight away at that age.
I saw a near post corner kick routine in an Athletic article that had Joe Gomez and Eric Garcia racking up the goals for my 2028/29 Liverpool team.
Ac Milan are Savage fun on football 2020. Any Italian team are really,
Itās a cut throat league though, never far from the chop.
First big signing confirmed.
Ansu Fati joins from my former club Roma for a fee of Ā£70m rising to Ā£94m.
You can sign tonali and Bellingham on the cheap early days and they turn into world class players.
I signed Tonali in FM17 for Southampton. Didnāt play long enough to realise just how good he would become.
Tonali was my back up DM. Some Bojan wonderkid turned out better than him.
Ok brief update guys.
Transfer window has closed, first three games of the season have been played. Been a very rocky start.
In addition to Fati I have signed Ivanusec from Chelsea for Ā£25.5m (Croatian central midfielder, 26), Leon Baily from Man Utd (Ā£18.25m, 27) and Jorginho (loan deal from Roma, 33). All 3 were on the transfer list at their respective clubs.
I had Sevilla away up first on the opening day, we were overplayed and lost 1-0 to a later goal but deserved to lose. Sociedad were up next at home, 2-2 draw - frustratingly pegged back after taking the lead twice - looking brittle at the back all game. Osasuna were up next at home and we got a comfortbale 2-0 win.
My front 3 of Sterling Stengs Hazard has been slow to fire but looked good the last time around. Three players who will take a while to learn the system as they are really wide attackers by trade. I have Stengs playing as advanced forward at the centre of the three and Hazard and Sterling as deep lying forwards. Stengs has netted in the last two games so hopefully can fire us on, will need more for Hazard and Sterling in the coming weeks, young Fati is waiting in the wings for his chance too.
I do have a few elders statesmen in my squad in the likes of Varane (32) Kroos (35) Sterling (30) Jorginho (33) Naby Keita (30) Bruno Fernandes (30) so itās trying to facilitate 2/3 of these with legs around them. I have a lot of square holes in round pegs at the minute - Iām trying to play a possession based game so my wide players are generally going to central midfielders. I plan to make Jorginho a starter in there, I had agreed a bosman with him just before I was sacked with Roma and the new Roma manager didnāt rate him as he was transfer listed before he played a game.
This was my team last time around against Osasuna.
As you can see thereās a lot of players who will take time to adjust. I dropped Varane after the Sociedad game and put in Joe Gomez.
Martin is a 19 year old youth academy graduate who Iāve decided to put a lot of faith in this season.
International break coming up now so I might play another couple of games before calling it a night.
Iām going to go at this tactically ideology with the fanaticism of a zero Covider so it may end up costing me my job and leave my managerial reputation in tatters but so be it.
Through to the second international break now, trail Barcelona by 7 points at the top but up to 4th.
Two wins in the CL group stage where I put the B team out. We had a difficult run of domestic fixtures.
A disappointing 0-0 draw way to Zaragoza in the first game back from the international break, followed by a shaky 1-0 win at home to Lyon, we played Barca next at the Bernabeu and an injury time Sterling strike grabbed a 1-1 draw that we didnāt really deserve. After that our form had an upturn, a 2-1 away win against Villarreal and a 3-2 home win against Atletico were gained after some minor tactical tweaks. We beat POAK 5-1 away in the CL (again with the fringe players) and then overturned Levante 3-1 away with Fernandes grabbing two.
Team is still more or less lined out in the same shape as above. Sterling is now injured so Fati has came into the team and the two forwards either side of Stengs are now playing with a false nine deployment. More emphasis has been on the outside players of each line playing wider and Iāve instructed the front three to dribble more and take more shots on.
The wide men like Fernandes and Grimaldo have really began to ship in with some assists and goals now and we are looking much more an attacking threat though leaky at the back. Another international break now so hopefully our momentum isnāt interrupted.
You should test Barcaās mettle with offers for Pedri. Not sure if the game engine recognises Gavi as a superstar yet?
Iāve taken Sunderland into the EPL. Was making progress with a brilliant young striker I got from AZ. United, Juve and Chelsea hit his minimum fee release clause. Ā£90m, gone. A gut punch.