Football Manager

[Lycan]

Anyone ever give wing-backs a go? I think I'm going to try moving to having WB's as part of my formations. Having a very hard time finding widemen, a very easy time finding midfielders, and have a stable of world-class CB's. Add an extra fantastic defender in the middle, use my WB's for crossing/flank control, and still maintain the few different attacking formations I've built my squad around...

Somehow got to the final of the Champions League with Udinese but got beaten by Man Utd on penalties, that little prick Ashley Young scoring the winner. So frustrating!

----------------------------------Handanovic-------------------------------------

------------------------Benatia-----------------Musacchio------------------------

----------Isla-----------------------Capoue-----------------------Armero---------

--------------------------Poli--------------------Asamoah------------------------

------------Torje-------------------------------------------------Yarmolenko-----

---------------------------------Leandro Damião----------------------------------

This formation has worked wonders for me. 3 Scudetto's in three years, a first Coppa Italia this year and a run to the Champions League final beating Porto, Real Madrid and club rivals Juventus in the semi final. Had a little bit of trouble replacing the outstanding Antonio Di Natalie this year with Leandro Damião struggling to adapt to life in Italy but Gabriel Torje and Andriy Yarmolenko have really picked up the slack with 17 goals a piece from either wing.

I went Udinese specifically to experiment with wing backs which I had never used before. I thought it'd lead to a leakier defence and more goals but the opposite has happened. I've had the best defence in the league for 2 seasons and most of my wins are 1-0 or 2-0 victories with my pacey wingers and overlapping wing backs catching teams out on the break.

...

 

[Wombat del combate]

I've got a similar problem in that I have not produced a player to bring through the ranks, relying more on brought-in talent. That said, I have some great prospects in the wings and feel that some could be making the move into the first team this season having cleared out some of the flotsam and jetsam (Jarvis and Mariga gone due to their age, some peripheral young players sold on too).

 

[Nando]

T3ch, I've had great success on previous versions with a narrow diamond 4-4-2 but with the fullbacks pushed up as wing backs.

 

[Stan Hullis]

Just restarted a Wolves game from ages ago.

Got a couple of good regens on there.

 

[t3ch]

...

Oh, right! I even remember reading that... I've got the memory of a gnat.

Have you tried without the wingers? Do your WB's get forward pretty often? The goal is to eliminate the winger/wide-midfield position altogether in my team and focus through the middle.

T3ch, I've had great success on previous versions with a narrow diamond 4-4-2 but with the fullbacks pushed up as wing backs.

I'll maintain a 442 formation of some kind since that's what my team is used to so I may have to give this a shot once I get the proper personnel. Pretty sure I've tried this before but I seemed to always get burnt.

 

[Lycan]

The only time I've tried without the wingers has been when I've had a player sent off and then I almost always win. 2 centre backs (ones as a stopper, one as cover), two attacking wing backs, a defensive mid and two central midfield players (one as a box-to-box player one as a ball winning mid/advanced playmaker depending on the opposition).

WB's get forward a lot and are involved in the majority of my attacking play, you can definitely tell the difference between an attacking full back and an attacking wing back.

That's the basis of my formation, as long as you've got players who have good physical stats in the WB/DMid position it should work.

 

[Del Woppio]

Worcester have had a phenomenal start to the season. It's January 3rd and we're P20 W17 D2 L1 F57 A6 in the league, and have won every cup game played to date. Annoyingly, Arsenal are only 3 points behind me!

 

[MARKakaJIM]

My fixture pile up has lead to some decline in performances at Solihull, having to make a fair few changes from one game to the next with only a couple days rest between.

My FA cup semi against United was a terrible game, nearly all the chances for both sides coming from set pieces or long range efforts, they got a scrappy winner in the last 5 minutes, couple days later and they hammered me in the league before Arsenal were just too strong for a few days after that. Morale took a bit of a knock as players were tired, form declined and key players were being left out because of fitness, up came the first leg of my Europa League semi, went 1-0 down to HSV but turned it round to 3-1, nice cushion for the away leg there, a win at Stoke and spirited defeat to Liverpool bought morale back up.

The trip to HSV soon ended that though, told the boys that the first leg lead was nice but the job wasn't finished yet, they all gained focus, then promptly lost 4-0 without having a shot on target, wankers, i barely had a touch of the ball all game, it was a pathetic surrender akin to watching Wolves last season.

Got about 5 league games left now, cant see me getting any higher but my games in hand should be enough for me to secure 6th place and another year of European football, i do get Europa League from 6th dont I? Made a healthy profit this season too, already got work going on with the youth facilities, hopefully some stadium work can follow without hampering my transfer budget too much.

 

[Nando]

Well somehow I managed to miss my boards decision to build a new stadium....

I've got no idea about the new capacity or how much it will cost!

 

[Pirate Jet]

Won the Sammarinese league with ease, now the real challenge begins - Libertas' first season in the Champions League. In which I'll need to play 17 games (amounts to over half a league season) to get to the final, which I'll never make in a million years.

Hoping to make it to the 3rd qualifying round before going out, which I think means I get a shot at the Europa League.

 

[Nando]

Barcelona poached Xavi from me to be their assistant manager and now the board won't let me have more than 6 coaches! I've got £345m in the bank Steve!

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Well I got a cool £13m for finishing 6th, that's more than I had in the bank at the start of the season, the board aren't up for a stadium expansion though. Apparently 18 sell outs from 19 league games doesn't indicate that the fanbase is there to justify doing so.

Hopefully I can do some good shopping in the coming summer,.not really any end of contract players worth picking up. I've got 4 loaner's going home that were around the first team and one player 2 players leaving for nothing, one saw some fair use but the other wasnt important. Plenty of squad places to fill, not got much in the reserves that's sellable either if I need more money. One of my star players is entering the final year of his contract though and I expect he'll want big money, might be time to sell.

 

[Del Woppio]

Why on earth would you leave one of star players' deals so long? I look at all mine in November, and make sure everybody I want to keep - or indeed is salable - has 2 1/2 years on at least. I've found players to be less demanding when it comes to contract negotiations if they've still got time left on their current deals.

 

[Nando]

I do all of mine 2 years in advance.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Why on earth would you leave one of star players' deals so long? I look at all mine in November, and make sure everybody I want to keep - or indeed is salable - has 2 1/2 years on at least. I've found players to be less demanding when it comes to contract negotiations if they've still got time left on their current deals.

All through the season from last summer he wanted to double his money from about £26k a week to over fifty, I'm not giving into those demands. No point pissing him off mid season or selling him when I couldn't attract a reasonable replacement so I let it be. Now I'm in a better position to attract a replacement and the team won't be unsettled mid-season I can be more pushy. If he doesn't like my offer I'll sell him, I've already got decent back-ups for the 2 positions I use him anyway so not the end of the world if I can't replace him outright amongst other strengthening. I should get £15m for him so that adds 50% to my transfer budget if the worst happens.

On a more positive note I'm getting an extra 9000 seats, about 50% current capacity, and the on going upgrade to the youth facilities has been made into a bigger project.

 

[t3ch]

I always renew the summer before they expire... Why renew 2 years before? Players generally want massive increases so I certainly don't see the point in speeding up the frequency of their raises. I always tell them to wait if they demand negotiations with time left on the contract.

The only time I'll renew sooner is if I've moved a player from backup status to the main team and they'll be rapidly improving... then I'll get them locked into a cheap long term deal while they're still crappy.

 

[Nando]

Because they never seem to demand any more when it's that far in advance, and it's realistic.....

I'm getting stung by my youngsters demanding increased salaries though, so the wage bill is on the rise again.

 

[t3ch]

Interesting... I'll give it a go and see what happens. Could be why my wage bill has skyrocketed in the past 2 seasons.

 

[Nando]

Plus, I have taken lessons from the Jez Moxey school of negotiating. If they want to take me for a fortune, they can piss off.

 

[Del Woppio]

I always renew the summer before they expire... Why renew 2 years before? Players generally want massive increases so I certainly don't see the point in speeding up the frequency of their raises. I always tell them to wait if they demand negotiations with time left on the contract.

If you don't manage to get them for what you think they're worth, you can sell them with 2 years plus on their deals, and so get a decent fee. If they play hardball in the final year you're putting an unnecessary timebomb in the way.