Football Manager 2015

[Adam Easy Wishes]

After winning the treble, two seasons in a row with Aberdeen - and with offers on the table from Chelsea and Bayern Munich - I decided to pack the game in and start a brand new game as Blackburn.

After a dodgy pre-season while the players get used to my now trademark 4-4-2 diamond, I'm top-ish (top three, all on similar points) after about eleven games. Building for the future, I signed some young Scottish players (Jason Cummings, Harry Souttar, Greg Kiltie), and a heap of guys on loan. Souttar and Kiltie aren't quite ready, but Cummings is getting plenty of game time.

 

In for a long season, I think...

[Moose]

32 minutes ago, Adam Easy Wishes said:

After winning the treble, two seasons in a row with Aberdeen - and with offers on the table from Chelsea and Bayern Munich - I decided to pack the game in and start a brand new game as Blackburn.

After a dodgy pre-season while the players get used to my now trademark 4-4-2 diamond, I'm top-ish (top three, all on similar points) after about eleven games. Building for the future, I signed some young Scottish players (Jason Cummings, Harry Souttar, Greg Kiltie), and a heap of guys on loan. Souttar and Kiltie aren't quite ready, but Cummings is getting plenty of game time.

 

In for a long season, I think...

The Treble as in both domestic cups and the title?  Jeezo!  How many seasons in did you get?  

I often start a Blackburn game and its been interesting to play as them over the past couple of seasons as they’re in the shit financially.  I got promoted from the Championship through the playoffs in my first season, after coming 6^th, which basically eradicated most of their debt.  I then went on to the Premier League for a further 4 seasons.  In my 3^rd season they got taken over by a billionaire who invested stupid amounts of money in the club.  My league form wasn’t great - I came something like 14^th, 10^th, 8^th, 8^th – but in my fourth season I won the fucking Champion’s League (beating Real Madrid 3-1 in the final!). 

I find this game much harder overall, but I couldn’t help thinking my Champion’s League triumph was a bit scripted.  I mean, I had ok players, but they weren’t performing, outside of the Champion’s League.  While possibly being my greatest FM triumph to date it was a bit weird.

Do you find it a lot harder than before?

[Adam Easy Wishes]

Yeah, both domestic cups and the title. I've won the League Cup five seasons in a row or something. Got to 2025 I think? Had a bunch of ridiculous regens and sold a heap on for profit. Things turned sour between me and Stewart Milne after he sold my star striker off behind my back on the last day of the transfer window (£10.75m rising to a possible £16m), but in the whole time it took from one press of 'Continue' to the next he'd done the deal and the window had closed. Which meant I couldn't recall any of my out-on-loan strikers.

In my final league campaign I won with about eight games spare. Still haven't managed to do anything much in Europe, though, annoyingly.

[Lemonade]

1 hour ago, Moose said:

The Treble as in both domestic cups and the title?  Jeezo!  How many seasons in did you get?  

I often start a Blackburn game and its been interesting to play as them over the past couple of seasons as they’re in the shit financially.  I got promoted from the Championship through the playoffs in my first season, after coming 6^th, which basically eradicated most of their debt.  I then went on to the Premier League for a further 4 seasons.  In my 3^rd season they got taken over by a billionaire who invested stupid amounts of money in the club.  My league form wasn’t great - I came something like 14^th, 10^th, 8^th, 8^th – but in my fourth season I won the fucking Champion’s League (beating Real Madrid 3-1 in the final!). 

 

I find this game much harder overall, but I couldn’t help thinking my Champion’s League triumph was a bit scripted.  I mean, I had ok players, but they weren’t performing, outside of the Champion’s League.  While possibly being my greatest FM triumph to date it was a bit weird.

 

Do you find it a lot harder than before?

 

I won the World Cup with Scotland in an earlier game. 2010 I think. Still my proudest moment. 

I am finding this game much harder. A lot of emphasis on morale / confidence too. If you go on a poor run its really hard to get out of it. After my triumphant 10th place in my first season in the Premiership as Sheffield Wednesday and signing some really quality in the summer I'm in real danger of being relegated again in my second. 

Edited June 28, 2016 by Lemonade

[Adam Easy Wishes]

I should say - yes I'm finding it a lot harder than previous versions.

My one piece of tactical advice is if it's not working, change it early. Like...if you lose an early goal, change your formation immediately.

[Soda Jerk]

Started a Bristol Rovers game a couple of weeks ago. My new local team. 'Mon the Gas! Boyhood club etc

Finished 10th in the first season, which was decent as I was tipped to go down. Non-stop success after that. Won League 2. Won League 1. Got 2nd and auto-promotion in the Championship. About to give this Premier League business a bash. A 34yr old Fernando Llorente dragged my through the Championship. 40 goals in 44 games. He's pretty decrepit now though. Surprised he hasn't retired. He can barely run. He just stands and laughs at a through-ball. But put it to feet and it's a goal.

 

Playing a flat 4-4-2, aggressive counter attacking, bombing down the wings, ultra direct. Still the most fun way of playing IMO.

[Soda Jerk]

Premier League transfer window closed, and this is what I'm lining up with, with my usual 2 players for each position 22 man squad. I've gone a bit Leeds United and paid for players with money I don't have yet, but will earn in the future with the crazy Premier League TV money. Small fee up front. Big future instalments. I just have to avoid getting relegated, or this club is getting flushed.

Got Llorente for free last season after he left Sevilla. Assombalonga is the epitome of a Championship player. Forest got promoted and sold him to Wednesday. Wednesday got promoted and sold him to me. His attributes are a bit ropey, but he's a goal machine. I'm going to give him a chance. 

Gomez, Oxford and Rashford on loan. Got the excellent JWP  and also Van Dijk for super cheap thanks to relegation clauses. Somehow Southampton went down. Rav Morrison was a free agent for a year. Nobody wanted that little shit. I took him under my wing and he took the piss in the Championship. Now he's going to kick the bollocks off the Premier League.

Gunning for top 8 and a cup.

[Adam Easy Wishes]

Nice work, can I please see your mentalities and team/player instructions?

[Soda Jerk]

I finished 7th with Brizzle Rovers and won the league cup. Mission accomplished. Wasn't intending on leaving, but I got offered the Inter job and saw they had a pretty cool looking squad. I took my same tactic with me, though I made a couple of tweaks in central midfield due to having better and more technical players

This is almost exactly what I used before, but instead of just having two basic CMs, I now use a playmaker and a box to box as Thiago and Kondogbia are very good technical players:

Here's my team instructions, though I'm still working on fullbacks overlapping or my wingers whipping it in from deep with this team (normally I go with early crosses). I've not quite got the full backs I want, as they're both primarily pure defenders, and very good ones, but they're not as effective as I'd like going forward.

 

I only give additional individual instructions to the goalkeeper for quick distribution and to the 4 midfielders to tackle hard and close down. Everything else is standard to the player roles.

So far it is a little inconsistent in Serie A. I just hammered Sampdoria away 6-0. Crushed them. Only conceded two shots at goal and only one on target. Then I go and limp to a 2-1 loss at home to Sassuolo. I think it will be better with the full backs who can contribute to the attack, but I also need to have an alternate tactic for teams that sit back and slow the tempo down, which doesn't seem to happen in England. Everyone there plays 4-2-3-1/4-4-2 and attacks.

[Eupraxia]

I bought Football Manager 2016 a few weeks back. I hadn't played Football Manager since the 2013 version, so I wondered if the transition would be troublesome. I started with West Ham, and so far I have played 22 games and sit top of the EPL, losing just once on the opening day of the season 0-1 at home to Liverpool. I have devised a very dominant 3-3-2-2, which has two wing backs and a regista in front of the three centre-backs; two centre-minds; two up top (okay, fine, it's effectively a 3-5-2, should you be a purist). My inspiration was primarily Conte's Juventus, but also a bit of Wales during Euro 2016.

I'm new to the whole screenshot saving, hosting, and posting thing. So once I have clued myself up on all that, and finished the first season, I will post screenshots of league table, formation, team instructions, and individual player instructions. If there's any other screenshots you want to see, I will endeavour to post them. It's going to be a big post!

[Adam Easy Wishes]

On 7/10/2016 at 0:40 AM, Eupraxia said:

I'm new to the whole screenshot saving, hosting, and posting thing. So once I have clued myself up on all that, and finished the first season, I will post screenshots of league table, formation, team instructions, and individual player instructions. If there's any other screenshots you want to see, I will endeavour to post them. It's going to be a big post!

I wanna see everything.

I have just won the Championship with Blackburn Rovers, eight points clear and that's after having the league sewn up early and playing weak/young teams in the final four games of the season.

Basically using my now famous 'diamond' formation (famous in my house anyway - though I can't say Natalie knows what I'm talking about, she sure as hell knows about my 'diamond'). I signed a heap of players on loan - Mats Moller-Daelhi from Freiburg, Samba Diakite from QPR, Harrison Reed from Southampton, Jesse Lingard, Guillermo Varela and Marcus Rashford from senior affiliate Man Utd; Ivan Bolado on a free transfer and three young Scots I know to turn out reasonably well in Jason Cummings, Greg Kiltie and Harry Souttar. At the earliest possible opportunity I sent Danny Graham back to Sunderland, and signed Tony Watt and Jordi Gomes on permanent deals.

That gave me pretty good squad depth and - playing a possession game - I basically dominated the league from the outset. Wing backs are key in this formation and Adam Henley and Tommy Spurr although both limited in ability have been brilliant. The whole back five actually were excellent, with the Hanley/Duffy partnership probably low-Premier League quality.

Jason Cummings is, frankly, amazing and scored a bucketload.

 

Now it's time to tool up for the Premier League. Having already sold Ben Marshall (Swansea, £1.5m) and Craig Conway (somewhere, £975k), both of whom are primarily wingers and don't really fit into the system, and with the uplift in cash for the Premier League, I have been given an initial budget of just shy of £20m.

Goalkeeper, defensive midfielder and deep-lying striker/target man are my key targets, but will also need a replacement for the outgoing loanees (unless I can get them back, certainly will make moves for Lingard and Reed, who was the Championship Young Player of the Year).

Have signed Asmir Begovic, Cheikhou Kouyate and Erik Pieters (although Tommy Spurr was good he's just not quite at the right level - same goes for Ivan Bolado whose contract was left to expire).

TIME TO AWAKE THE SLEEPING GIANT. Yeah. That and make sure that the players 'gel' whilst having an actual life that isn't being a virtual football manager on a computer game lol.

[Moose]

1 hour ago, Adam Easy Wishes said:

I wanna see everything.

I have just won the Championship with Blackburn Rovers, eight points clear and that's after having the league sewn up early and playing weak/young teams in the final four games of the season.

Basically using my now famous 'diamond' formation (famous in my house anyway - though I can't say Natalie knows what I'm talking about, she sure as hell knows about my 'diamond'). I signed a heap of players on loan - Mats Moller-Daelhi from Freiburg, Samba Diakite from QPR, Harrison Reed from Southampton, Jesse Lingard, Guillermo Varela and Marcus Rashford from senior affiliate Man Utd; Ivan Bolado on a free transfer and three young Scots I know to turn out reasonably well in Jason Cummings, Greg Kiltie and Harry Souttar. At the earliest possible opportunity I sent Danny Graham back to Sunderland, and signed Tony Watt and Jordi Gomes on permanent deals.

That gave me pretty good squad depth and - playing a possession game - I basically dominated the league from the outset. Wing backs are key in this formation and Adam Henley and Tommy Spurr although both limited in ability have been brilliant. The whole back five actually were excellent, with the Hanley/Duffy partnership probably low-Premier League quality.

Jason Cummings is, frankly, amazing and scored a bucketload.

 

Now it's time to tool up for the Premier League. Having already sold Ben Marshall (Swansea, £1.5m) and Craig Conway (somewhere, £975k), both of whom are primarily wingers and don't really fit into the system, and with the uplift in cash for the Premier League, I have been given an initial budget of just shy of £20m.

Goalkeeper, defensive midfielder and deep-lying striker/target man are my key targets, but will also need a replacement for the outgoing loanees (unless I can get them back, certainly will make moves for Lingard and Reed, who was the Championship Young Player of the Year).

Have signed Asmir Begovic, Cheikhou Kouyate and Erik Pieters (although Tommy Spurr was good he's just not quite at the right level - same goes for Ivan Bolado whose contract was left to expire).

TIME TO AWAKE THE SLEEPING GIANT. Yeah. That and make sure that the players 'gel' whilst having an actual life that isn't being a virtual football manager on a computer game lol.

My current game started at Blackburn.  I also came first in the Championship in my first season, but my key players were Ben Marshall and Craig Conway!  Marshall continued to tear shit up in the prem for a good few seasons too.

I, too, signed Asmir Begovic in my first season in the prem.  I also got Fabian Delph and Lewis Cook - who made my central midfield pretty colossal.  

We got bought over by a 'rich billionaire' in between my 3rd and 4th season who gave me a transfer budget of >£100m.  I'd be interested to see if the same happens for you; I'm not sure how it works.  

[Adam Easy Wishes]

2 minutes ago, Moose said:

My current game started at Blackburn.  I also came first in the Championship in my first season, but my key players were Ben Marshall and Craig Conway!  Marshall continued to tear shit up in the prem for a good few seasons too.

I, too, signed Asmir Begovic in my first season in the prem.  I also got Fabian Delph and Lewis Cook - who made my central midfield pretty colossal.  

We got bought over by a 'rich billionaire' in between my 3rd and 4th season who gave me a transfer budget of >£100m.  I'd be interested to see if the same happens for you; I'm not sure how it works.  

I'll hold out for a few seasons and see what happens then. Marshall was really poor for me in 'the hole' (it's a SS role in my system), in retrospect I should've accepted the ~£5m bids I had for him at the start of the season.

[Lemonade]

In my Sheffield Wednesday game I signed Asimir Begovic in my second season in the Prem. Jesse Lingard has been my top signing though. Smashing them in from the left wing, supported by Diego Contento at LWB. Jack Wilshere and Adam Lallana have disappointed slightly. I'm really struggling for goals and haven't got the best out of Romelu Lukaku at all. I'm about 30 games in and went on a decent run which hauled me up to about 10th at one point, but I'm on a honking run of 6 without a win again and am sitting 14th. Thankfully my run-in is pretty kind, if I can pick up a win or two at the start of it and get the morale up I should be fine. I was aiming for top half as well. I've spent a lot of this season chopping and changing formations to counter opposition, as I've been on such a poor run I'm trying to nick wins instead of dominating. It's been moderately succesful when I've done it, I've mostly settled on a 4-2-3-1 with two DMs and an AMC. Tactics have depended on the opposition but it's either been crosses from the left, or through balls into a Complete Forward.

[Adam Easy Wishes]

Have you tried Lukaku as a target man on attack duty?

I haven't had much experience of using Lukaku, but Adam Rooney absolutely bossed it for me in my Aberdeen game - seems to be a reasonably successful role for a loan striker.

[Lemonade]

1 hour ago, Adam Easy Wishes said:

Have you tried Lukaku as a target man on attack duty?

I haven't had much experience of using Lukaku, but Adam Rooney absolutely bossed it for me in my Aberdeen game - seems to be a reasonably successful role for a loan striker.

I had him as a target man for the first half of the season with my wingers pinging crosses in to him  but he was pretty anonymous. He does a lot better with balls to feet, especially balls he can run on to because he's pretty pacey. 

[Soda Jerk]

I lost 3 Champions League finals in a row with Inter. I even did a dirty cheat and I rage-quit the 3rd CL final and played it again, and still lost. I don't normally do that, but 3 back to back CL final defeats was hard to take, especially as the third one was to LIVERPOOL managed by the the re-hired Brendan Rodgers! Not cool.

Started a South America save, as I've not done one for a few years. Took over Rosario Central. I have no idea how the Argentinian league works, as they change the format all the time IRL. All I know is there is 30 teams in the Primera Division. Thirty!

Totally bossing it so far with this mental formation

Two standard CBs, and super-defensive full back who doesn't go forward. A defensive midfielder and a 'regista' just ahead, with a complete wing back on the right who has the whole right wing to himself. A roaming playmaker just ahead of the DMs, and a fairly balanced winger on the left. An advanced playmaker in the hole and to the left, and an advanced forward up top and to the right. I don't normally do possession tactics, but this is pure ball-hogging. Lots of playmakers, with the only real pace coming from the right wing back and the centre forward. It is effective, as I'm rarely conceding more than 1 shot on target a game.

[Adam Easy Wishes]

I'm looking for some insight on a counter attacking tactic to help me stay in the Premier League with Blackburn (about to secure promotion again after flopping in my first season up there).

I made the error of not changing my style (dominating possession-based diamond with flying wing backs), and I got rinsed. Then I tried to tweak and everything went to shit. So now I need a tactic set for going into pre-season so that I'm cool.

Anyone had much success with a counter attacking style? I figure I need wingers, keep the full backs solid and probably have two DMs. How do I make sure my striker doesn't become isolated?

Edited August 4, 2016 by Adam Easy Wishes

[Moose]

Yes, I've had huge success with a counter attacking 4141.  Its my go to tactic when results aren't going my way.  Relies on an energetic striker, masses of pace on the wing and a good mover of the ball in centre mid.  

Its incredibly simple:

GK-d

FB-s CD-d CD-d FB-s

A-d

W-s BBM-s CM-s W-s

DF - s/d

Counter mentality and balanced philosophy.  Literally no instructions, although I instruct full backs to sit wider and my forward to hold the ball up.

You'll have all 11 players in defense, letting your opponent have possession and trying to play between the lines.  Its incredibly difficult for them to do so.  You'll often see one of your back 5 make an interception or tackle and pass the ball to the CM-s, who will wait for the wings and centre midfield partner to get forward a bit.  He then has 4 options in front of him, or can play it back to either full back who are usually in space.  You have Shelvey?  He'll probably be good at this if you train him to not play 'Hollywood' passes.  

It kept me up in my first Premier League season with Blackburn and then let me build a solid premier league stint before I left. As I got better players, I gradually became more expansive until I was ready to set out and control possession.  This works with fairly ordinary players, in my experience.  

You do need pace on the wings though (I'm talking >16).  Pace in BBM can't hurt either.  

 

[Adam Easy Wishes]

Nice one, thanks - where do your goals come from?

[Moose]

No-one will be particularly prolific.  You'll draw 0-0 a lot but get a few 2-0/1-0.  Most goals from open play will come from the striker though, who'll make late runs into the box, closely followed by the wingers and BBM.  You won't concede often, I can promise that.  Tnh, If you get a good set piece taker and good headers of the ball, that'll help heaps.

[Moose]

You will get the odd 4-0 victory against Man City though, which always feels good.  

[Moose]

What I've found, also, is to persist with it.  Even if you're 1-0 down at half time, keep the faith.  

[Soda Jerk]

My Inter tactics above is totally disgusting counter attacking football, with loads of fouls to boot. I love kicking the other team off the pitch.

4-4-2 is spot on for an Atletico/Leicester approach, with no interest in maintaining possession. Just getting the ball from front to back in 3 or 4 passes, and scoring. Goals come almost entirely from centre forwards, and a few from elsewhere on set pieces.

[Gypsum_Fantastic]

Can you guys post up some screenshots of your set pieces set up, I score far to few and seem to concede as well. My 442 is also lacking.