Liverpool FC

[gordson]

Have been playing Football Manager and all its predecessors for as long as I can remember, and have just bought FM14. I always start a Liverpool save, and was wondering if anyone has had a go at managing LFC, and if so, what problems/successes they have came across? Even before buying the game I wrecked my head thinking about what formation to play, an dhave read on the forums on here that Mignolet and Sturridge aren't that great?

Any info or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[mersk]

Always play with Liverpool myself as I'm a Liverpool fan and have been using FM as an escape from reality the past seasons...

This year I found it necessary to make big changes as early as possible. So the first transfer window I got rid of Mignolet, Sturridge, Suarez, Skrtel, Henderson, Enrique, Toure and brought in players like Balanta, Verratti, Hughes, Shaw, ter Stegen.

Mignolet is very underrated in the game, same with Sturridge. Suarez is good, but you'll be able to get a good fee for him to allow you more freedom on the transfer market to rebuild your squad. Enrique, Henderson and Skrtel can still perform for you, but personally I always buy young talents so I let them go. Toure is old and on fairly high wages.

As for formation, I'm going with a similar tactic to the one I used last year. 4-2-3-1, playing attacking minded possession football - which just happens to be exactly what the board wants. It could be a bit difficult to get your lone striker to score, I had problems with both Vela and Fierro but managed to sell them both for 30m and 17.5m respectively. I signed Timo Werner and Gabriel Barbosa, who are more equipped to play AF or CF, which helps a lot when using a lone striker on this game (at least for me). The most important thing in my opinion is having good IFs, and I'm currently using El Shaarawy and Lamela as first choices. The first couple of seasons I used Gaitan and Sterling, who also did pretty good jobs.

You could try a more defensive formation than me, as I conceded a fair amount of goals in the start - although I scored a lot more. But you'll probably still want to play possession football, and fairly attacking minded, if you want to befriend the board. So in my opinion it's important to make a good assessment of the squad in the start, make a plan of which areas you want to strengthen and with what type of players. Sign players that fit into your preferred tactic. And of course, take a look around the forum for bargain buys and general tips.

Good luck!

 

[Nelly6]

I'm nearing the end of my first season now, on course to finish 6th/7th. Playing a 433 that has seen me dominate nearly every game, but Suarez and Sturridge for some reason just cannot score. It's so frustrating having two of the top scorers in England in real life, yet somehow they are so underrated on this game. In fact, they both have 8 goals in real life in the league; but neither player even has 8 in all competitions on my save. And that's in April.

Mignolet too is underrated, so the amount of times I've bossed a game, made clear cut chance after clear cut chance, only to conceded a scrappy little goal is ridiculous.

 

[sharkyohyar]

i tried loads of people tactics and i never had a problem with sturridge scoreing

 

[chrisgrogan]

Yeah I finished second first season, awful last 10 games made me come nowhere of winning the league you should get Lewandowski costs about 20m because of his contract situation scored 36 goals in 42 games

 

[jemery22]

As a Liverpool fan I also play with Liverpool the majority of the time and have had allot of success in previous years. This years was no different as I won the league in my first season.

I didn't sell anyone is the first season just added to the squad with Shaqiri for 21M, Honda for 1.5M and Rodrigues from Castilla for 400k. The Formation I use most of the time is 4-2-3-1 with Suarez and Shaqiri as the inside forwards and Sturridge up front, I used it on last years so thought I would use it again this time around. As said above Sturridge is extremely underrated on the game and will find it difficult to score goals like he is at the moment (at least for me anyway) so it might be worth rotating him with Suarez and using Sterling as the LW inside forward when Sturridge isn't firing.

Sakho is an Absolute Beast and will make an awesome partnership with either Skrtel or Agger. you have 2 solid wing backs in Johnson and Enrique and have very good cover now we bought in Cissokho so should be OK in that area. So the only other position you may want to improve is another ball winning mid to help when Lucas is suspended or injured as Allen is not as defensive.

Hope this Helps.

 

[gordson]

Cheers gents that should help when I start my new game. Might wait until Raikans update on Saturday though, for a bit of realism to reflect Sturridge and Mignolet. Honestly normally takes me a couple of saves to get it right so the insight is much appreciated, i'll try and remember to update on here how I get on. Thanks again!