From Villans To Heroes

[rawket]

From Villans To Heroes
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The title is admittedly a little too flamboyant for my liking. Hope you guys don't mind the pun.
So I was inspired to start a thread detailing my playthrough with Aston Villa, which I support because I'm attracted to the sheer pain and disappointment stemming from the club's incompetent performances over the past few seasons. Okay, the reasons are actually slightly more complicated and incomprehensible, but we'll leave it as that for now.

I know this forum section is titled "Football Manager 2015 Stories", but I'm not really into the deep roleplaying style, so I'll just let you know right now that this is more a commentary about my failures than an actual "story". My sincere apologies. You'll also find this rather long-winded. My apologies again. I hope you'll resonate with my semi-serious playing attitude.

I'm not new to FM, but I'm certainly not experienced and I only really got into the whole tactics scene last year, though football tactics have thoroughly fascinated me for nearly a decade now. This time though I intend to do a serious playthrough - the past few times my games ended up with the file getting corrupted, me failing so badly I lost interest, or me resorting to cheats. (There, I said it!)

Not this time. Hopefully this thread will help me achieve the following goals:

• Actually put in effort. People are watching.
• Not cheat. Again, people are watching.
• De-stress through rants and self-deprecating commentary. Bonus if it entertains you.
• Get to know more FM players.
• Improve my understanding of tactics and how to do well in FM.

For this last point I would really need your help. I'm always eager to learn, if others are willing to teach. Teach the civilized way, that is. I quite detest nasty comments.



Note:
I started the Villa save before this thread, but lucky for me I have an obsessive compulsive saving disorder so I've reloaded some of the save files and play through them to get some screenshots. I'll admit it's not exactly 100% authentic this way, but I wasn't really willing to give up all that effort (just one month actually) to restart. I've stuck to the same "story" though and have replicated my actions to the best of my abilities. Even the mistakes.

Additionally, do note that this Villa game isn't exactly my first game on FM15, so I do have some prior scouting knowledge on certain key transfer targets. It's an extra unfair advantage in some sense. Not exactly realistic, yes. Although realism isn't exactly what I set out to do achieve...

 

[rawket]

Anyway, on to the game. So I set up my profile. I'm gonna go with Australian. Second nationality Belgian, so I can speak English, French, Dutch and German naturally. Throw in additional language skills in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish and I'm a multi-linguist.

I've usually played the lower leagues and get the team up to the premier league but this year I've decided to jump straight into the BPL. Great! I'm finally going to be facing those squads that I watch every weekend on my tv. This would be a wonderful opportunity to prove Villa can perform better than they're doing right now. And I could finally get into the "purge-young-wonderkids-at-the-start-of-the-game" thing after so long.

£5 million. So much for snapping up wonderkids. Well, it's realistic I guess. And anyway realistically Villa doesn't stand a chance at attracting any talents given the state we're in. At least I'm not under pressure to perform at Villa. I get to make mistakes (not that I want to), and learn to improve my game.

Okay, so maybe I am a teeny bit under pressure now. That was a really smart move there. I just made a huge mistake. But it's clicked and done now. I'm not about to restart the whole game save.(Yeah, I know I just started) On the bright side, I have £6.25 million to spend now. Better spend smart.

Great, now I have a squad to rebuild. I know the Villa squad beforehand (this isn't my first save on FM 15) so I get down to work quickly.

"I have here in my hand a list of 10... a list of names that were made known to the previous manager as being not worth keeping and who nevertheless are still playing in the first team at Aston Villa..."
Does anyone get the reference? No?
Never mind, this thread will be filled with failed jokes anyway.



So this is the list:

Shay Given
I don't see him featuring for me. His £52,000/w wages aren't worth it either.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £300k

Darren Bent
Fallen down the pecking order. 4th choice striker drawing £65,000/w? What? I'm so ready to just offload him for whatever I can get.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £2.5 million

Ciaran Clark
'Nuff said.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £2.1 million

Chris Herd
Another one.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £1.5 million

Enda Stevens
Won't make it here. Cissokho and Richardson have the left back position covered.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £1.1 million

Charles N'Zogbia
A little more complicated. Played him before, never really performed for me. He's best suited to AMC, but can provide cover on the wings. But I'm playing a 4-3-3 (no need for AMC) with one of the wingers as a second striker instead. I'm willing to fast track Grealish and he'll be ahead of N'Zogbia in the line up. Gabby can cover there, as can Cole and Richardson who probably won't be leaving since they just arrived. And N'Zogbia can bring in some useful cash if any club is willing to pay.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £7.5 million

Nathan Baker
Okay, I made a mistake with the potential rating. Viewed his report by Keane (whose Judging Potential is terrible) rather than Bryan Jones who has 18 in that stat. So I thought (wrongly) that he had maxed out his potential and was ready to offload him for a good few million. In retrospect I'd still have sold him though. He was 4th choice.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £6 million

Matt Lowton
Was hoping to offload him and pick up a better right back.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £5 million

Leandro Bacuna
Same, though his natural position is CM. Where he'll never get any game time. He is worth quite a bit too at 7.25 million.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £8.5 million

Joe Cole
Unlikely to leave. No harm trying I guess. He probably won't last half the season.
Listed & Offered to Clubs : £700k


Now to pray for offers.

-------------------

 

[SamPeters]

good luck with Villa mate!

 

[rawket]

Cheers mate, good luck with Brighton!

 

[city4lyf]

Do not get rid of Leandro Bacuna mate was an absolute beast for me in my first season and I just managed to scrape 4th place by one goal

 

[rawket]

Do not get rid of Leandro Bacuna mate was an absolute beast for me in my first season and I just managed to scrape 4th place by one goal

You'll be glad to know that no one could afford him, so I've had to keep hold of him. As with many of the others listed.
Will update soon regarding my transfers. Bacuna was always a half-hearted listing, but the issue now is that he's even further from a first team spot now than before, so not sure what to do with him. I foresee he'll be unhappy at his lack of playing time.

 

[city4lyf]

Haha well good luck anyway, they are a great club to manage but hope you get taken over. In my save I am just about to start the second season and still have Randy Lerner as chairman and despite the £50million I have got for getting champions league football he gave me £1million in transfer money

 

[rawket]

Haha well good luck anyway, they are a great club to manage but hope you get taken over. In my save I am just about to start the second season and still have Randy Lerner as chairman and despite the £50million I have got for getting champions league football he gave me £1million in transfer money

What injustice! How do you compete at that level with that little...

 

[rawket]

So tl;dr the last post, I pretty much just waltzed into Bodymoor Heath and ****** off half the first team by telling them I would really like for them to move on. All before I've even officially met the team to discuss about the upcoming season.

Speaking of which...

I blatantly lied that we should aim for a mid-table finish and that it's a realistic target. All despite having ingeniously told the board that we would aim for a Europa League spot so I could get £1.25 million more to spend just 5 minutes ago.

With the team talk out of the way, and half of the first team ready to be shipped out should offers come in, I got around to identifying my key transfer targets and putting in bids for them.

But before we do that, I'll just briefly cover the financial situation of the club.



Finances

For the uninitiated, Aston Villa has been poor in recent seasons. And not just on the pitch. Lerner made an effort to invest heavily in the club during O'Neil's tenure. We got close to continental qualification, but never made it. Despite Lerner having poured £200 million in if I recall correctly. In recent years he's implemented (very very) stringent financial constraints to prevent the club from overspending and trying to make the club self-sustainable.

Hence my £6.25 million budget. The club has set the % of transfer revenue made available at 50%. Which is kinda low. I put in a request to the board to increase it, which they obliged. 65% is somewhat more comfortable. Our general sponsorship deal runs out at the end of the year, so if the club is doing well maybe we can attract better sponsorship for more income. That aside, I'm glad the club continues to maintain the superb youth facilities and the state of the art training facilities. These will help attract players and ensure they grow to fulfill their potential.


Ok, so I'll move on to the transfers because honestly that previous paragraph bored even myself. To be fair, there's nothing interesting about this part either. You guys probably know every name on the list. Most uncreative, really.


First name on the list...

Kristoffer Ajer

With such a tight budget, who can resist snagging a 16 year old Scandinavian for peanuts? He'll be one of the future stars. In a very distant future though.
Transfer Bid: £1k


On to more cheap labour...
Pavel Savitskiy

Promising young winger who'll almost certainly never get a work permit. Put in a cheap bid that got accepted. But with 8 other clubs offering ~400k, I think I might have to up the bid.
Transfer Bid: £84k


Yes, I'm that cheap... And still cheap...
Humam Tariq

I don't think it's a great idea to bring to England someone who speaks Arabic. And only Arabic. But he's cheap, and has some potential to be a good AMC or left winger.
Transfer Bid: £60k initial, £500k over 48 months


Alper Ademoglu

Yet another AMC talent on the cheap.
Transfer Bid: £150k initial, £600k over 48 months


Ok, now the real spending begins...

Eder Alvarez Balanta

Villa has pretty average centre backs. Bar Vlaar. Okore's on his way back so that's a plus. But I have no faith in Clark, or even Baker. Should a good offer come in for Vlaar, I will quite certainly let him go as well. So Balanta will be a great addition and replacement if it comes to that. Solid strength, stamina, pace and acceleration for a centre back but even more impressive marking and tackling stats. If I can offload Baker for £6 million, it'll almost be like a swap.
Transfer Bid: £1.2 million initial, £3.8 million over 48 months


Lucas Romero

Would walk straight into any mid-table squad like Villa. If we're still a mid-table squad. He can cover every role in my 3 man midfield and is only 20. High mental stats and his determination would help him fit in at Villa comfortably. He's also very mobile for a DM.
Transfer Bid: £1.8 million initial, £5.75 million over 48 months


Gaston Gil Romero

Should that deal fail to materialise, there's his Argentine counterpart. And they're almost like-for-like. With the same last name.
Transfer Bid: £900k initial, £3.4 million over 48 months


Luka Jovic

I'm not short of strikers, but here's a cheap option for the very distant future.
Transfer Bid: £300k initial, £700k over 48 months


Ezequiel Ponce

This is a more expensive option, but he can turn out pretty good as well. Not a priority though.
Transfer Bid: £800k initial, £2.4 million over 48 months


Last but certainly not least...


Youri Tielemans

Ok this one's a gamble. Managed to bargain a pretty decent deal. If I can offload enough players I can nab this Belgian starlet for Villa. Otherwise, no matter.
Transfer Bid: £3 million initial, £9.75 million over 48 months

Now to continue praying for offers...

------------------

 

[SamPeters]

Some nice business done there mate!

 

[rawket]

Some nice business done there mate!

Well they're still bids so they're technically not 'done' yet. At least on this story thread.

I'll update with the transfer outcomes later. Didn't get everybody I wanted, but pretty decent overall.

 

[rawket]

So I'll just briefly cover how the transfers, both in and out, have been.

My bids were all accepted, except for Humam Tariq (OM decided they would offer £500k) and Savitskiy (£84k vs 8 other £400k bids, no chance!). So I put in new bids for the duo and... their clubs decided to turn douchey and decided they would take the opportunity to rob me. Like seriously. Savitskiy went from £84k to £300k upfront and £775k over 48 months. Tariq for £160k initial and £750k over 48 months. Douche! Paid them anyway.

Bids finally came in for my players... But only three. First was a £1.5 million bid for Bent by Burnley, which was a little off my initial offer. Was going to negotiate for £2 million, then it occurred to me that Burnley's budget was 2 million (or around there). They're pretty much the only club interested and I really do want to ditch that guy. Wouldn't want the bid to collapse due to lack of funds now. He requested to be paid £45,000/w up till his deal runs out in 2015 though. Not much less than his £62,500 wages. Thought it over for a long time, before accepting. I'm determined to ditch him and nothing's gonna stop me.

The second bid in was for Baker. Crystal Palace offered a non-negotiable £5 million (which was his value) but no additional clauses or anything. I was really looking to get more for him; he's not a bad player for the average BPL club. Accepted the bid anyway. It would really finance the Balanta transfer, and I don't know if there'll be any other club that would make an offer soon. Can't keep delaying transfers.

Last bid was for N'Zogbia by Crystal Palace again, a £6 million offer. But £1.8 million upfront and £4.2 over 48 months. What's with this game, no club pays more than what a player is worth. Accepted it anyway. I freed up some decent space on my wage budget (at least £100k), and have brought in some decent cash to finance some of the wonderkid deals.

With my cash, I closed deals on Balanta and Lucas Romero, my two priority targets. With that out of the way, I brought in Ajer, Ademoglu and Savitskiy. Luka Jovic would join us in 2016. As expected the Belarusian didn't secure a work permit. Another issue is that no one in the club (not even me, the multi-linguist) speaks Russian. He's really going to have to adapt quickly and blend in. I pretty much used up every last penny of my budget. My bid for Tielemans was finally rejected after countless delays, and the same goes for Ponce. I'm still delaying Tariq's and Gil Romero's deals, deceiving them that I have the cash to spend. I'm really hoping to clear some more players though.

So I've been on this save for a month (in-game) and no one has offered for Herd or Clark (Why?!). There was some interest in Bacuna, but no deal materialized. He still has some potential to improve, but as things stand, he's 6th choice in midfield and 3rd at right back (he's poor defensively). As things stand, no one's moving for any of my players. Though the window has yet to shut.



If you're reading this, do drop a comment to let me know what you think of my failure to sell Clark and Herd. I'm depressed.
Oh and about the incoming guys too.

 

[rawket]

Tactics

That poor choice of a lineup there... That's more or less my first XI.

As with most Villa saves, I'm employing a 4-3-3 counterattacking tactic. Except that I'm bringing Agbonlahor from Inside Forward to Deep Lying Forwardhat playing off Weimann. Somehow, even as an IF he felt too wide. Cissokho will look to fill that space on the left wing as a Complete Wing Back. Why the left? Between him and Hutton, he has better stamina to keep surging down the left, marginally better defensively (both are average though) and better at crossing. My only issue lies with his decision making which at 8 is slightly worrying.

Also, keeping the right wing option allows me to field Grealish, who starts the game at Championship standard but can steadily improve to Premier League level with a consistent run of games. Technically he's solid right now with good crossing, first touch, passing and technique. He's pace is a little on the low side but I'll look to boost that through training.

Weimann is upfront now as Benteke is out. He might get pushed out when the beast returns. Which is kinda sad. He brings real pace, off the ball movement, work rate and finishing. (Apparently he stayed back after trainings with Bent to work on finishing) Alternatively, he could push Gabby out if he performs well.

Delph has been displaced by Romero, who is technically superior in build up. But this is largely because I've picked Sanchez in DM where Romero would be. I'm still considering switching Sanchez for Delp, but we'll see how the midfield performs through the pre-season before making final decisions.

Cleverley has pinned down a role at left centre mid. With the vast space on the left wing (at least from the picture) I would really like for him to drift wide and supply crosses or through balls behind the defence, which he has pretty good stats for. Something like what Di Maria did at Real last season, filling the left wing void Ronaldo leaves when he cuts inside. Except Gabby is permanently inside.

Balanta is paired with Vlaar in the centre of defence. Both have good pace and are solid defenders. Jores Okore will offer backup when he returns. Which is soon. Senderos though will have to settle for a bit part role. I'm ignoring Clark.

Here are the team instructions.

Direct passing into space gets the ball over the opposition defence. At least that's what I think it produces. Usually I'm wrong. Do let me know in your replies if I got something wrong.

Low crosses for now because Weimann and Gabby aren't the best headers. Considering changing to whipped when Benteke returns, but I've never had much success with whipped. Somehow.

I'm getting the team to press higher, since we have pacey defenders who are defensively sound. Tight marking and playing narrower to compress the field and pressure the opposition. I hope narrower doesn't affect our crossing from the wings. But to be fair the formation wasn't exactly wing-centric to begin with.

Just a note, I've put the set closing down under specific player instructions. Reason is if set in team instructions the entire team closes down the opposition. Which is all good. But I don't like my central defenders getting pulled out by closing down.


So... We've played our first friendly. 8-0 against Hereford. Weimann netted a hat trick with his blistering pace. But it's Hereford. Not sure how much is down to my tactics. We weren't winning a lot of aerial challenges though, and that is slightly worrying.

We'll be going up against Cittadella and Inverness, before meeting Dortmund, and finishing pre-season with a Shrewsbury match. These are some terrible friendlies to judge the players on, seriously.

 

[rawket]

So after I got lucky against Hereford, the team romped to a 5-0 victory against Cittadella.

The next match against Inverness CT was tougher, but we managed a 2-0 win. Post-match report claims we hammered them but I'd like to think we got lucky. Finishing was terrible. 16 shots on target but only 2 hit the back of the net. Gave Delph a start but he was injured in the match and consequently had to sit out two weeks.

Then came the dreaded Dortmund match. To be honest, I really didn't feel we had a chance against the Germans. The difference in quality showed in the first half hour, leading us to concede two goals which we would never climb back from. The team's performance improved after the break and from the stats, we more or less matched up to Dortmund by the end of the match. Again, the finishing let us down.

I fined the underperformers and moved on to the next match against Shrewsbury. Would have been a clean sheet, but due to some poor marking they got a goal. Totally undeserved really. I'm pleased the team managed to effectively create chances and had 22 shots.

Before pre-season ended we had two more matches, since the club decided to take part in some friendly cup. Which we won, naturally. I swapped the positions of Gabby and Weimann, with Gabby now the AF. Then I gave the usual team talk except this time I told the strikers I expected quality finishing. Seems the added pressure gave them the motivation to score. Gabby managed an impressive 5 goals before I took him off.

To preserve my squad's fitness levels, I fielded a second string midfield and defence. I kept the 5-goal machine though and he netted yet another.

But really, I can't tell how I'll be doing against BPL sides from the results of these friendlies. Dortmund was too OP. The other teams are sub-standard. At least the morale is running high.


Next 5 Games:
[A] Crystal Palace
[H] Swansea
[A] Peterborough (Capital One Cup)
[H] Liverpool
[H] Tottenham
Target: 5 pts, Progress to next round of League Cup

 

[SamPeters]

Nice Pre-Season there mate! and good luck for the season and some nice signings that got confirmed lol!

 

[rawket]

Nice Pre-Season there mate! and good luck for the season and some nice signings that got confirmed lol!

Thanks! Grealish has been doing well as a first teamer so far. But Cole's injured himself (not unexpected) and will be out for a while. Will need to keep Grealish very fit. Bacuna has been quiet in that role and his crossing is sub par.

 

[rawket]

Quick transfer update:
Genk has amazingly offered to take Savitskiy on loan, where he can work towards obtaining a work permit. In other news, they also picked up Chris Herd for £1 million! Though I still can't sell off Clark. D:

I decided to overhaul the backroom staff, though in retrospect I really should've done it earlier when all the great coaches were still without contracts. Cost me a fair bit to end the contracts of some of the coaches at the club. Who are clearly not Premier League level. If their stats are any indication of their coaching abilities, this probably explains why Villa are so terrible irl.

I replaced Keane with Joe McLaughlin, who has much better judging stats among other things. Like his low wages. 10 times less than Keane.
I cleared out the first team staff, bringing in Adriano Bonaluti and Franco Tancredi as GK coaches.
Valter Vio and John Brierley join as fitness coaches. I signed Marcos Fernando as well but he insisted on being a coach instead of a fitness coach. The three of them take the strength and aerobic trainings and the workload is spread out pretty well.
Rene Meulensteen, David Platt, Sergio Zanetti and Paulo Cesar Batista Dos Santos (I think I got that right) form the rest of the coaching staff.

All this really means I've officially exhausted the club's finances and added to their debt.

 

[Average Joe]

Really good thread here mate. Will be a good challenge as Villa and I like the style you are working in, I never really bother reading all the fleshed out "story" bits in stories anyway haha

And I made VERY similar signings in my first year (at Man Utd though)

If it's not too late, see if Dino Halilovic is available (I got him free I think). I put him in games I thought were win-able for Utd and he was class as AMC, at 16 he got 10 goals and around 5 assists in 16ish appearances.

 

[rawket]

Time to cover my progress in the league and league cup so far. Plus some reflection.

I think I'm getting better at pre-match analysis. I'm scouting the opposition, checking out their tactics and where they're goals come from, where they leak them.

I can figure that out, though in all honesty I'm not very good at using the knowledge to my advantage. Aside from knowing where they score and concede from and thus setting up my side accordingly, I haven't really been taking advantage of info about their passing style for example. Not quite sure how. Any tips?

Anyway, moving on.

Crystal Palace 1-2 Aston Villa

I started my season with a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. We went behind early thanks to Zaha's skills. From then on it was us taking on the attacking mentality and really pinning Palace back. Agbonlahor eventually managed to score two in 10 minutes to put us back in the lead. Switched back to counter after since I was convinced we could hold on to the lead. And Palace were starting to push back.
I should have dealt with Zaha better though. I wasn't thinking very clearly lol. I had scouted Palace and identified him as the main threat on their right (my left). But for a moment I thought Zaha was like... not Zaha. So I didn't really shore up the left flank and if you see my tactics, it involves a CWB and Gabby playing narrower. Luckily I spotted it during the match and made changes, though not before conceding.

Aston Villa 2-0 Swansea

A pretty even home match which we managed to edge out a very resilient Swansea side with the help of a soft penalty. Romero converted from the spot and Weimann sealed the deal 20 minutes later.
I felt the strikers weren't posing a very big threat to the Swansea defence this game. Couldn't place my finger on the reason though. I tried to switch around the front three of Agbonlahor, Weimann and Grealish in case they were man-marked but yeah.
With that win, I've met my initial target of picking up at least 5 points from the first 4 league games.

Peterborough 1-3 Aston Villa

A good win in a match we dominated. Using a second string side. Could've kept a clean sheet but the defence messed up and Vlaar failed to hold off Somma. And Guzan ran off his line to idk close down the shot? He was easily beat.
Peterborough dealt some nasty tackles and a few players had to leave the field for treatment, but fortunately no injuries.

Aston Villa 2-1 Liverpool

Shots fired.

Anyway, I'd really have taken a draw. I was playing for a draw. The players though decided a draw wasn't enough. After Grealish scored his first goal early on from the near post after a deflected shot by Weimann, Lambert held off Vlaar and Balanta to net an equaliser. We continued to threaten Pool on the counter and for a period of time we were dominating them in their territory. Eventually a Romero shot was fumbled into their net by Mignolet. Whom I'm surprised they didn't replace with Valdes who's still a free agent iirc. I can't pay his ridiculous sign on fees cuz I'm broke, but Guzan has been good so far.
I'd say my unexpected victory was helped by my instructions for my players to go in hard on their wing backs. Johnson was taken off with an injury and replaced with the much less threatening Manquillo in the final minutes, helping to ease the pressure. As well as my astute tactical awareness.
Lol who am I kidding. Total fluke this match.

That pretty much wraps up the month of August. Do leave some tips on what to do for post-match analysis. (Which I'm currently not doing a lot of)
Would really appreciate any tips or advice. Cheers!

 

[Average Joe]

When I set a team out I sometimes look at what the opposition formation will be and adjust instructions for them. No wide players = exploit the flanks. Things along those lines