Jamie's FM Story [currently managing - West Brom]

[jamielong951]

Season started - June 09 England
Current Team - West Brom (Coca-Cola Championship - Having just been relegated from premier division).
Media Prediction - 4th (Board wants promotion as minimum - seems fair)

Leagues Loaded - England (All), France (CFA & up), Italy (Serie C2 & up), N.Ireland (2nd Division & up), Scotland (3rd Division & up), Spain (2nd Division & up), Wales (Welsh Premier only).

Total Players - Around 40K
​

Hello everybody,

Ive read a few different 'stories' on this website and received lots of help quickly when I needed it most - So I thought I would give something back to the forum, my story!

I can't promise you it will be the most interesting, or well-written story but I will do my best to post regular updates so that the people who want to track my management career, can.

FM Background - You may be wondering about my Football Manager background. I started out playing championship manager 08, moving onto FM2009, and now FM2010 (only just started properly). I have never really got 'stuck-in' to footie management games before, buts that's going to change. As for football real world, suprisingly I don't really support a football team (other than england - whose matches I watch!). I like FM2010 for the football, but I enjoy the management and tactics side of the game the most.

Game Details - My game will be automatically saved every day. Im not one to re-load the saved game if I make a bad choice as I feel this equals cheating, so im sure you will be able to read about many mistakes I make, but hopefully there will be more positives lol!

I am starting out as manager of West Brom (who are in the coca-cola championship as I start), having just been relegated from the premier division. The boards main requirement is that I get promoted in my first season, so I have quite a challenge playing against the likes of Newcastle, Middlesbrough & Sheffield (to name a few).

Below are screenshots of my current team and tactics, transfers, and fixtures (league table).

I have got tamas on loan, and have purchased Lazovic (for 1.4 mil). The other players were already at the club but had to sort out contracts and sell a couple as everybody seemed to be on a first team contact status, so this resulted in unhappy players. All of my subs you see on there are on backup contracts and happy

My Captain is Olsson. Vice-Captain is Dorrans.

As you can see im doing well in the coca-cola championship at the moment. I have won all 5 matches ive played this season, and as a result I am at the top of the league. My success so far (touch wood) is down to the quality players I feel I have at the club.

The players that stand out the most are; Luke Moore, Lazovic, Dorrans, Tamas and Brunt. Of course my goalkeeper Scott Carson is doing really well.

I have won all of my matches played since I took over (13 matches), including all off-season friendlies, 2 league cup matches, and 5 coca-cola championship matches. I hope this continues, but ive probably jinxed myself - ah well you will see the results soon.

I was also unhappy with the current staff situation when I joined the club, so decided to review all staff and bin/replace those useless ones. I did a major overhaul, and binned 2 coaches, and 1 scout. I hired 2 first team coaches, a youth coach, and 3 scouts.

My 2 first team coaches (Downes & Klug) where actually meant to be signed on a 'coach' contact (with Appleton as FT coach) but for some reason I signed them as first team, so thats where they are staying for now. As I autosave daily and dont re-load games it was abit annoying but its a lesson learnt.

Quick Finances rundown:

Jonathan Greening joins Fulham in July 2010 for 2.5 million
I have loaned out (both for 3 months) Chris Wood to Napoli, and Dwayne Samuels to Rotherham. The motive behind this was to gain them some more experience, and to get them match fit (as they werent ready for the season).

I get match reports from a scout for both players for the duration of there loans. I have had good reports for Wood, and alright reports for samuels. However samuels feels he is too good to be loaned out despite only being 18 and worth £18K. Wheres Wood is 20 odd, and worth £1.7 million and enjoys being on loan - I bet you can tell who my fav is!

My clubs bank balance is £8.9 million, and I am £2 million under my wage budget and have a remaining transfer budget of around £3 million. Having sorted out all my players and not requiring any additional members to the club i am more than happy.



That is all for now, and an update will follow shortly. Thanks for reading.
In-Game Date: 3rd September 2009 (Season 1).


Post Summary:

• Currently in September, having played the first 5 matches of coca-cola championship, and 2 league cup matches.
• Have won all 13 matches ive played.
• Signed Lazovic (proving to be brilliant)
• Sacked and hired Staff team
• Finances well under control
• Board satisfied with management.

 

[stigen]

good read and good luck to you may follow this

...and I am £2 million under my wage budget...

£2M thats a lot:O

and about your poll, wont vote yet as it is maybe to early in my opinion, but so far great

 

[jamielong951]

Thanks stigen I enjoy managing smaller teams with less money for wages/transfers etc, it makes it all the more fun. Aslong as there is some potential to progress im happy!

Ive added abit more detail into the first post, and I will post updates every so often!

 

[TheVillan]

Hey man, nice read, I am also doing a WBA story, I'll probabley follow yours

 

[jamielong951]

Thanks alot mate. Im going to have a read through yours, as you never know, what works for you might work in my team too!

 

[TheVillan]

Thanks alot mate. Im going to have a read through yours, as you never know, what works for you might work in my team too!

Awesome! How wierd we both signed Slory and neither of us saw it :S

 

[jamielong951]

Yeah. Although Slory was already at the club when I took over (he had just been signed). Hes not doing that good for me to be honest at the moment. His avg. rating is 6.6, whilst nearly all of my other first team players are nearly 7, or 7 & up. Also in 13 matches hes only scored 1 goal, so thats not good considering hes my striker. I often play simon *** instead of him and hes doing really well.

How is he performing for you?

 

[TheVillan]

He's playing terrible, I don't usually play him. I usually play 4-1-3-2 but I still can't seem to score seeing as Koren, Miller, Moore, Folan, Meite, Kakuta are all injured.. "/ I need a striker but my team is doing well rubbish. It's annoying me.

 

[jamielong951]

Thats too bad. Sounds like your having some bad luck with injuries.

Well after 10 hours of competitive football he has finally scored I am thinking about whether to use Moore and *** as strikers for the first team lineup, but I will see if he improves now.

You should look into Danko Lazovic. I managed to sign him for £1.4 million and in his first match playing for me as an attacking midfielder (just 2 days after signing) he scored 3 goals. He has been injured for the past week or so but is nearly healthy again and im confident he'll be a big success.

Hope you get some good results in the future.

 

[TheVillan]

Yeah, September was a poor month for me, that will soon be up but all my players should come back in October and my parent club Chelsea are loaning me a few of they're players and I don't even have to page the wage budget.

Can't wait for you're next update mate. I'll be tracking this.

Also, do you have MSN, we can talk on there without spamming you're Thread.