Football Manager 2010 SG talk

[Twinkletoes89]

He may well have been crap this season but its one season and he is still pretty young. Considering he was cheap, is on pretty low wages and if we sold him we'd not make anything substantial out of it, I think he is worth persevering with a bit longer.

I also think he has likely been shoehorned into a set of instructions which may well have not been suitable for him and hence the poor performances.

Again, I think we really should consider targeted investments. I think that given the squad we have now (plus the german guy you have just found), we are strongest through the middle and that a narrow counter attacking formation will serve us much better while we find our feet in the premiership.

We could attack in the Championship because our squad was one of the best (like Wimbledon in the BSP) and could get away with it. In the Premiership, the majority of teams will be stronger than ours on the whole and so we should look to keep it tight in the majority of the games, only moving to something more attacking when we are up against a similar level team.

Therefore we spend our money on a few players of real quality to suit our formation than using our money buying 2 or 3 wingers we may end up not using.

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm actually going to stop up a bit early, because it turns out that the transfer window opens up on the 9th of June and not the 1st of July.

It gives us an extra month in which to look around for players.

In the news I signed Hildebrandt, for £45k per week and with 2 release clauses £25m for higher division (not gonna happen for a good while) and £17 for relegations (possible). Considering we got him on a free those two are more than reasonable. I gave him the wages because a) big clubs were interested and b) he's that good.

Mark Frost on the other hand is making noises to move, and requested a transfer only to rescind it the next day. The official reason is that he wants to play in a higher division (I really do hate that loophole where no-one recognises your true status until league turn-over day, as in real life this would not be a problem).

We got £5 million in sponsorship money to tide us over until the big buck come in in July, but unfortunately both training upgrades were cancelled due to "lack of funds".

Final upload on the way, failed the first time

Edit 2 read the rest of the news and it shows me that Matty Alcock had a match highest earner clause. Make sure that no player is given this clause in future as it is really a stupid one to be giving out. In this case the problem wasn't us but a previous regime as the contract was signed in 2012, just watch out for it.

Final edit: the save.

[Dantski]

£17 for relegations

[Brian Shanahan]

I meant £17,000,000, just forgot the million sign. D'oh!

[Dantski]

I hope you didn't forget when offering him the contract :neenernee

[Brian Shanahan]

I hope you didn't forget when offering him the contract :neenernee

don't worry i did.

Of course not! I'm stupid but not that bad....




[SIZE="1"]I hope[/SIZE]

[Katon]

Sat down and did my own run through the squad, deliberately ignoring Brian's comments (and any other comments from people who've actually seen these guys in action) so that we can hopefully get some conversation going. My read:

GK: Probably set. Andresen's a perfectly good starter, and the other two will do for cover, though Allsop's wages are higher than I'd like on a third-string keeper (and that's before the 40% promotion pay rise kicks in) – we really should try to get rid of him, we can get that kind of kid-with-potential on a free at half the wages or else sign someone > Andresen for roughly equal.

LB: We want a signing here, preferably a new starter. Beveridge is a nice backup, but borderline as a Premiership starter, and there's nobody else in the squad who we want playing there at all – Frost's a starter elsewhere, Phillips is right-footed and prefers being a right-back, and Esposito's another candidate for the axe if we want squad space (bad mental attributes, our assistant thinks he's having to adapt to the squad's personality, and his technical/physical stats aren't brilliant enough to make up for it).

RB: Currently set. Phillips if we want to be able to attack, McCarthy if we just want to defend, and a couple midfielders who can fill in in a pinch.

CB: Potential target. Frost's great. Barak's good enough to start at the moment, but he's not got that much margin for error before his physical attributes become an issue, even with his ridiculous mental side – at 32, I wouldn't count on him for any more than next season, so it's worth keeping an eye out for a replacement now. Molina, ditto but with worse technical/mental attributes. McCarthy and Beveridge can help provide cover when they're not playing fullback; Kopacka and especially Albano were disasters last time QPR were in the Premiership and should not be allowed near any significant playing time. If we can find a Premiership-quality player who figures to stay that way past next season, that would be a very good idea, but this isn't quite as much a disaster as left-back.

LM: Meh. Maier's fairly good – pace, dribbling, and crossing ability are always nice even if they don't come attached to any physical or defensive presence. Ross is completely average and everyone else who plays here is a central midfielder as well.

RM: Something needs to change. Who was our predecessor here? Judging from the club history, it was the now-retired David Chapple. Thank you, Mr. Chapple, for giving us the opportunity to pay Matty Alcock 45k/week. Alcock's not bad, but I prefer players who have some killer skill to people who're just slightly above-average at everything. Alcock's attributes of 15+ are acceleration (nice), heading (on a winger with jumping 6?) and corners (now the heading's even less useful). He's good enough to play in the Premiership, but his wages and transfer value are above what I'd pay for him. Past him we have nobody who should play this position for us next year.

CM: Ooh, we signed Asgeirsson too! He, Hildebrandt, Van den Bosch, and Joao Silva are all good enough to help out next year. After those four . . . well, we've got a lot of bodies, so there's no need to sign someone just to take up space (like there is at LB or RM), but there's no-one here I'd feel massively guilty about blocking if we see an neat target. No particular need to sign anyone if we're planning to play 4-4-2 with wingers, but we need more depth if we want the diamond.

ST: At least one signing needed, probably two. Jose's good for one starting spot, and Stegeman's ready to get experience as cover as long as we're not trying to win any headers. The rest should all go – apart from maybe Kevin Allen as a backup target man/AM.

To summarize:
- we need a left-back and a striker or two whatever we wind up doing with our midfield
- if we want to play a flat 4-4-2, we need another right midfielder to compete with Alcock [fake edit: and, as Brian points out, better LM cover than Ross would not go amiss]
- if we want to play the narrow diamond, we need more quality CMs
- We'll need a CB replacement for Barak in the next year or two, so we might as well start looking now
- after that, it's just a matter of where can we get the best players for cheap; there's really nowhere that a signing would be completely pointless

Possible targets: (I only scanned the expiring contracts and transfer-listed players; I'll go back and look at people who aren't for sale once we have a clearer picture of what we want going forward)

Admir Gorocan, GK, Bologna. Available on a free, was willing to take ~19k/wk with a lot of bonuses thrown in (so about where Alsop'll probably wind up once his promotion clause has been taken into account). Would start for us; he's as good as Andresen on the ground, more composed, and much stronger in the air. Petr Dostal (Frankfurt) is a slightly weaker keeper, though still with a good case to start with growth potential and the same wage demands.

Gary Hancock, DC/RL, West Ham. Transfer listed. Big, strong, and technically very good, low work rate. 3.5 million gets to the negotiating table, but he wants top-earner-level money (which I wasn't able to offer because we didn't have room) and Man U are also after him, so I doubt he's actually possible; still, take a look and see if we can get it to work.

Timmy Murphy, DM/RB, Southampton. Very pacy, good-but-not-great mental stats (strong suits work rate and anticipation), can't outjump a flea, not a great personality fit for our current squad (jovial), would need passing and tackling training before being ready to play in the Prem but has enough potential to be worth long-term effort. Available for 3m (his contract's expiring), ~11k/wk

Timothee Anne, CM, Caen. I cancelled the “watch him in three matches” scouting mission and went with a quick report so I could see his attributes; if we wind up playing the diamond, he'd be a good pick for CM, probably costing ~2.5 million and 20k/wk wages.

Coen Timosela, ST, Sporting. Technically superb striker who can also play wide on either flank and has requested a transfer from Sporting. Would cost a bloody fortune, and he's a support striker/trequartista waiting to happen rather than a target man, but he's the best transfer-listed striker out there.


Of these five, I think we should definitely have a shot at Hancock, even if it's unlikely to work; the rest I would like given infinite budget space, but I'm not necessarily sold they're the best use of finite resources. West Ham also have a lot of the squad that got them relegated last year up for sale; Hancock's the only must-buy of the bunch, but there are decent players at CM and LB too.

[Brian Shanahan]

Nice summary (especially as it closely tallies with mine) Katon. Just a few points Alcock got the £45k pw because of his match highest earner clause, I'd actually suggest selling him or negotiating a new contract on that alone. When I had to give Hildebrandt £45k himself then Alcock got the extra.

Asgerison I bought in January and he was unavailable due to playing for 2 other clubs (I'd have looked at that except for there were clubs sniffing and I didn't want to lose out).

Frost is yo-yoing a lot demanding transfers and then requesting to stay. He's also got a very low (£6.5m) release clause for his talent, so we need to sign him a new one when we finally clock over to next season.

We have a Nigerian Defensive Midfielder, Eric Anyanwu, out on loan at the moment, who's the bees knees (IMO) but has no work permit. Somebody signed him that way (probably the previous boss) but the problem is that no-one thought to loan him out for the EU nationality so we'll be waiting 2 1/2 seasons yet on him. If we could loan him to France for 2 years it'd be quicker (but not much). Looking at him again he could easily be retrained as a full back.

Barak is actually better in the middle than at CB, not that he is a bad CB.

As regards goalies, O'Connor is a lot steadier than Andresen. In my two periods in charge, Andresen made quite a few schoolboy errors. He is the better goalie no doubt but he's got a touch of the Grobelaars.

[Katon]

Nice summary (especially as it closely tallies with mine) Katon. Just a few points Alcock got the £45k pw because of his match highest earner clause, I'd actually suggest selling him or negotiating a new contract on that alone. When I had to give Hildebrandt £45k himself then Alcock got the extra.

Yes, I got that - which is why I was venting about the manager who gave him that clause.

Frost is yo-yoing a lot demanding transfers and then requesting to stay. He's also got a very low (£6.5m) release clause for his talent, so we need to sign him a new one when we finally clock over to next season.

. . . right, I'd missed that he actually had a release clause for that fee. Definitely needs fixing.

We have a Nigerian Defensive Midfielder, Eric Anyanwu, out on loan at the moment, who's the bees knees (IMO) but has no work permit. Somebody signed him that way (probably the previous boss) but the problem is that no-one thought to loan him out for the EU nationality so we'll be waiting 2 1/2 seasons yet on him. If we could loan him to France for 2 years it'd be quicker (but not much). Looking at him again he could easily be retrained as a full back.

Oh, my, yes, I'll take that at age 20. Pity Nigeria are so good; from a weaker country, he might have a shot at reaching the 75%-of-national-team-matches standard for a work permit. You're also right that he'd make a great right-back, although unfortunately he's too one-footed to play on the other side. Still, he's not contributing anything to the team next year.

Barak is actually better in the middle than at CB, not that he is a bad CB.

Yeah, mediocre physical stats and scary game-reading abilities do probably work better as an anchorman. On the other hand, robbing CB to pay CM seems kind of counter-productive given the rest of our squad. Given Hildebrand, we should only be playing Barak as a DM/CM regularly if we have more than two midfielders (so the narrow diamond, or maybe a 4-5-1? Jose's not as physical as I'd like for a lone striker, but that would suit the CMs and Meier).

As regards goalies, O'Connor is a lot steadier than Andresen. In my two periods in charge, Andresen made quite a few schoolboy errors. He is the better goalie no doubt but he's got a touch of the Grobelaars.

Ah. Ouch. (Looking at him more closely . . . composure 5, eccentricity 14, that would do it).

In that case, I'm going to actively push for Gorican, since upgrading a starting slot for <20k/wk wages and no transfer fee is an opportunity we shouldn't be passing up. We can make up for the wages by shifting Allsop, Esposito, Albano, Bardsen, Long . . . (all on >10k, none of whom we want playing for us in the Prem).

Experimenting, we can get Gorican for 18.75k/wk and Anne for 19.75k/wk by more or less going along with what they want for clauses (and by promising Anne he'll be a key player, both so we can offer that level of wages and so that he'll pick us over bigger clubs offering a lesser role). I'd do both those deals if we decide to try narrow diamond or 4-5-1, but skip Anne if we're going for flat 4-4-2. Either way, we need to decide before advancing the game, since there'll be an auction on for Anne soon.

[Brian Shanahan]

Oh, my, yes, I'll take that at age 20. Pity Nigeria are so good; from a weaker country, he might have a shot at reaching the 75%-of-national-team-matches standard for a work permit. You're also right that he'd make a great right-back, although unfortunately he's too one-footed to play on the other side. Still, he's not contributing anything to the team next year.

From a weaker nation he'd have no chance of getting it. Remember the country has to average in the top 70 in the world rankings as well as the 75% of games.

Frankly he's more in a catch-22 situation here. If he were playing for us he'd be getting international caps, but he can't play for us until he gets enough caps.

As regards formations I prefer the 4-4-2 myself, it gives us more options attacking, and while narrow formations are still a bit stronger, I don't think they are overpowered this year like they were previously, Mr. Hough's tactics are not as effective for one. Where we'll have a huge advantage is in talking to the press, currying favour amongst the players and geeing them up. In last years version I took a Betis that were worse in most places than this QPR team (only had Kadlec and N'Koulou better than what I have here, and quite a few worse), and got them 5th. I got hammered quite a few times but was able to beat most of those below me, and spring a few suprises. One season playing tight on the finances and with a good run will really kick-start a good run with the team.