Cash strapped Birmingham City.

Annnndd if you could give me any team talk tips id be very grateful , no matter what i say its always seems to lose focus or angry
 
I'm not too sure about team talks mate, just make sure you don't slate them every single game and tell them they've been unlucky every other game that they lose so that they build confidence and start trusting you more. Also, do team meetings and tell them that they have the quality to turn the results around (only if you have lost like 3 or 4 in a row though else they won't listen). That's usually what I do and I'm at the end of January now and I have most of the team listening to me every game. Keep it simple as well, just use, "Aggressive" and "Passionate" team talks because for me they seem to have the most effect. And also, before EVERY single game, go on to the "Calm" team talk and tell them to enjoy themselves out there - It's always the bottom line in the "Calm" section. :)
I've got a long video now, didn't realise how much I rambled. It's just over 12 minutes long, so I'd understand if no one wanted to listen to my voice for like 12 minutes so I'll be putting a detailed episode overview followed by the video at the bottom JUST in case by the slight off-chance anyone loves my voice ;)
 
Season 1 - August 31st - February 2nd.

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I know it's a HUGE jump, August to February, but I was just flying through the months and I didn't fancy having to stop, record, render and upload a new episode every 10 minutes, so i thought I'd wait until the end of January to do a video. The video will be at the bottom of the page for anyone who wants to watch instead of read, but I'd advise reading as it was a long video (over 12 mins). But anyway:

It started out pretty grim. With my games in September being LLWWD and the second loss being 5-0 away to Wolverhampton, it didn't look like I was going to be getting any wins against the big teams.

October came around with a very surprising LWWWW, the loss being Burnley away and a storming 4-1 away win against Middlesbrough.

On to November, and the good form continued, DDDWWL, with the loss being 2-0 away at Cardiff, and with them being one of the title contenders, I wasn't too downhearted as I did pick up a big point away at Leeds, when for the whole game, I was completely dominated.

The good form came to an end in December as I picked up a measly 8 points from a possible 21 in the following month, WLDDLWL. However, one of the wins was away at Bolton, which was a big game to win. On the downside, one of the losses was 5-4 thriller away at Blackpool. After taking a 4-1 lead by the 63rd minute, I thought I had it in the bag and switched to a counter-attacking style of play and it cost me as Blackpool completely undone the defence and banged in 4 goals, the final one was a penalty in the 87th from non other than former Birmingham fan-favourite, Kevin Phillips.

January proved tough, picking up just 1 point from a possible 12 and one game in the FA Cup against Bolton in which I played my entire youth team, with the exception of Ibánez. The game ended as a 6-3 loss, but I saw it as a positive game as the team played exceptionally well against an almost full-strength Bolton side. Surprisingly now though, we're sitting in a mightily high 11th position - given our terrible form over the past 2 months, and we're also out of both cups, so now it's time to focus on the league and see if we can ****** a play-off place.

January was a big month in terms of transfer activity:

Ins:
- Cristiano Zanetti (Free Agent)
- Simon Davies (On loan from Fulham)
- Ricardo Gardner (Free Agent)
- Dean Whitehead (On Loan from Stoke for 16k per month)
- Jack Bartham (On loan from Tottenham)
- Stephen Purches (On loan from Bournemouth)
- Mehdi Abeid (On loan from Newcastle)

Outs:
- Colin Doyle (To West Brom for £500,000)
- Jonathan Spector (To Nottingham Forest for £2,100,000)
- Mitch Hancox (Contract Expired)
- David Lucas (On loan at Accrington)
- Marlon King (On loan at Watford)
- Morgaro Gomis (To Valenciennes for £350,000 & £950,000 over 24 months)

The best player over the last 4 months had to be Curtis Davies. He picked up the Championship player of the month in November and at this stage, also has the highest average rating in the entire league, which is amazing seeing as the team has let in 42 goals in 30 games.

In my opinion though, the worst point out of this whole season was Nathan Redmond's injury and he was out for a whopping 8-9 months. It is sure to stun his growth a bit, and I might have to loan him out to a league 1 club for a few months after he returns to see how well he plays after his injury. He isn't due back for another 6 months, so hopefully I will be able to get him in for a few games to see how he plays, though hopefully, he will come back stronger.

I've realised that having such a long time without an update was a huge mistake as I haven't been able to remember a lot of things that have happened and I continuously find myself scrolling back up to type in something else that happened in one of the months. I'm completely going to stick to 1 month updates as I'll be able to stick in a lot more detail into the updates. Thanks to those who take the time to read all of this or watch this video!

[video=youtube;WNTUrk7eGZc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNTUrk7eGZc&feature=plcp[/video]

 
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Things are looking poor. There was a message through from a paper article saying that if I don't get a win against Middlesbrough in the next match, then I could be facing the sack, so I've gone straight to the board and asked for more time due to it being my first time in management and that they should allow me more time to grow - which they agreed to, but how much more time, I don't know. What I do know is, is that I need to start winning games! Thinning out due to injuries which isn't helping!
 
(Season 1) February 2nd - March 2nd
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I don't know what's going on with my team to be honest. One minute no-one can beat us, and the next, we can't beat anyone. I'm hoping I will keep my job at the end of the season because I'm going to have a serious overhaul on the team, and hopefully with the new owners, we will have some money to spend to get some squad depth. I want to start playing one of my youth players who has a 3 and a half star ability too. I'm hoping next season will be better as promotion now is out of the question and now it's all about getting those 3 or 4 wins to guarantee survival.
Also, for those who actually watch the videos (although I don't think there is any) I apologize for the mic quality as the mic I was using has gone back to my brother. I'm buying a pair of Turtle Beach Z11's on Monday, so I'm hoping they'll be here by next Friday. If you want though, if you really can't stand the mic quality, until then I can just write up the story on here, and then go back to just doing quick overviews on the forum and then a very slightly more in-depth update on the videos?
Also (this isn't FM related), for those who play Minecraft I'll be starting up a cliché Minecraft series too, nothing out of the ordinary, just a let's play of Minecraft that'll probably upload quite regularly as well as FM.
Thanks guys and I really can't ask enough but those likes can really help me out, it takes 2 seconds to do. :)

*Edit* - Never mind. I just deleted the video because the black borders were back and I'd realised that I had messed about with the settings before rendering this video to see if there were any better render settings and when rendering this, I forgot to use my normal settings. I'll just stick to typing updates until I can get the new mic some time next week.

Okay so February was better than the last month so that was a positive I guess, with a form of LLDW. The second loss of the month was a disgraceful game against Blackburn where it ended 6-2. One of their player scored an early own goal, and our only player to score was Akwasi Asante who came off the bench in the 74th minute. Our win however, was a very impressive home win against Middlesbrough where it ended 2-0. The visitors only had 4 shots in the whole game, compared to our 23 shots and 63% possession.
We had 2 big injuries this month with Fahey expected to be out for a month, and Paul Robinson expected to be out for 2 weeks.
Player of the month goes to Fahey who picked up an astonishing 7.8 in the 6-2 loss to Blackburn, and a 7.3 in the win against Middlesbrough.

Next month's fixtures:
Huddersfield Town - Away
Peterbrough United - Away
Barnsley - Away
Leeds United - Home
Ipswich Town - Home
 
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MARCH 2ND - MARCH 31ST​


Not a bad month in all fairness, it has been a lot better than previous months for sure, with a run of WWWLL.
This month's defending has been absolutely top notch! Even though we did win 3 games in a row, our attacking play does need to be improved as the striker isn't scoring much, which needs to start happening, though, I think it's just a case of needing a better striker, as we haven't really got a good Championship goalscorer in the team after selling Zigic and King earlier in the season. But on with the games.

HUDDERSFIELD 4-2 WIN - Good performance but defending could have been a lot better. Rooney scored a second
half hat-trick and had a blinder which was very nice to see as he hasn't been scoring in recent games.


PETERBROUGH 2-1 WIN - Defending was outstanding, mainly Davies and Caldwell who have built up an amazing partnership together at the back - work just needs to be done on the full backs to improve all-round defending because if the full backs played like Davies and Caldwell usually do, then we would almost never concede a goal. Something needs to be done about the attacking though, the team needs some experience when it comes to attacking.


BARNSLEY 1-0 WIN - Defending was yet again outstanding and attacking was pathetic. I'm 100% going to look in to signing a cheap good striker in the summer, hopefully someone who has been released from a top tier club, if not, then I might look in to a loan deal.


LEEDS 0-1 LOSS - Yet again another brilliant defensive display and the poor attacking which meant we kept losing possession put too much pressure on the defence and eventually the defence finally caved-in in the 81st minute, which was completely expected after Leeds had the Lions' share of possession.


IPSWICH 0-1 LOSS - Decent all round team performance, was maybe a little unlucky as we did control the game for the huge majority of the game. The attacking football was better this game than in previous weeks but still, someone should have scored a goal from the 15 chances that the team had in the game.

The new Youth Candidates came in, and for once I was given some pretty decent players. They won't be good enough to fit into my first team should I get promoted in the next season or two, but for the Championship, they will turn out as good players.

The injuries weren't as bad in other weeks either with the only main injuries being Curtis Davies for 2 weeks and Wade Elliot for 3 months. On a good note though, Keith Fahey was back, so he will be put straight in to the starting line up once he has his fitness back from playing reserves football.





Final games of the season are;
Nottingham Forest - Home
Bristol City - Away
Cardiff City - Home
Crystal Palace -Away
Bolton Wanderers - Home
Sheffield Wednesday - Home
Millwall - Away
 
I've been following, though I haven't commented because I didn't get anything to say.
 
Okay! Well I appreciate that a lot! :)
I'll be doing the final update of the season later, though the mic quality will probably be quite poor :(
 
Season 2 Pre-Season
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Just like to begin saying sorry to the guys who watch the video - the mic quality is really poor but I've ordered a new mic and it's on its way so should be here hopefully by Friday!
I really feel like that this year we have a real chance of being promoted. Thanks to the new owner of the club we have had a huge chunk of money given to us and I feel as if I've done well with it. I have a tonne leftover just in case anyone get's injured again for like 9 months like Redmond did last season but I think I have all positions well covered. Davies and Caldwell partnered up again at the back like last season, though I've brought in two new full backs to help out at the back, as last season, my full backs did next to nothing and we're playing really poor.
I also have a new striker, who I thought would be excellent, but I guess due to his age, my assistant manager doesn't think so and only gave him a 2 star recommendation, but until he starts performing poorly, he will be my first choice. Redmond and Burke will be on the wings again this year as my first choice, and as for the 3 in the middle, there has been a few changes! I hope I don't jinx myself when I say that I think I'm in for a chance of promotion, but I'm only targeted for mid-table again, so I won't get my hopes up.

Video Link: FM13 | Birmingham City | Season 2 | Ep 1 - Start of a new season - YouTube
 
(Season 2) Preseason - September 3rd
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Rocky start to the new campaign picking up just 1 win in our first 4 league games. On the upper hand though, the losses were to fairly decent sides and the win was against Leeds away, so it's not all doom and gloom... yet.
Made it to the League Cup 2nd round and played Chesterfield and lost - this prompted a change in the midfield, bringing in 4 new players and changing the most central midfielder to a central attacking midfielder to spread the play up a bit more and open up the middle for a more attacking approach to the game rather than depending on my lone striker to score every game.

If this form in the league carries on though I can really see myself getting sacked as with the current form will only leave me with roughly 34 points by the end of the season - which won't be enough to survive relegation, let alone achieve my target of a mid-table finish.

Like I always ask, it would be great if you could quickly just leave a like on the video as it can help so much!

It would also be good if you leave a comment on the video and tell me how the audio sounds, whether it's too loud or quiet whether the audio quality is actually any good? Thanks guys! :)

Video Link: FM13 | Birmingham City | Season 2 | Ep 2 - Changing the formation - YouTube
 
(Season 2) September 3rd - September 29th

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The month started off promising with a 5-1 away win at Stevenage and a 2-2 away draw at Millwall. That turned a little sour though as in the next game we suffered a 3-1 home loss to Huddersfield followed by an away loss to Crystal Palace. However, the Palace game was good, we were easily the better team and deserved to come away with something, but we just couldn't find a way of putting the ball in the net. I think I ended up having something like 25 shots altogether compared to their 3 or 4. Faris Haroun scored the only goal in that game, but unfortunately for us it was an own goal. Only one of two players disappointed me in the Palace game. Hogan Emphraim seems to be jelling well with the team and I won't be surprised if he turns in to one of the teams most vital players come the end of the season.
Redmond just isn't fitting in well for some reason, so I'm looking to loan him out somewhere but no one wants to take him on, not even anyone in Division 1. If this form continues throughout the season, we will finish on roughly 45 points, which should be enough to survive, but it wont be enough to meet the boards expectations - and if this form does continue I can see myself being sacked before January.

Leaving a like on the video, even if you don't watch it, will be hugely appreciated!

Video Link: FM13 | Birmingham City | Season 2 | Ep 3 - YouTube
 
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