Luton Town - Are they easy to play as, or am I doing well?

[Mattyron]

Hi, first time poster here.

Up until a couple of days ago, I had always played FM as Ipswich Town, the team I support. When I got FM11 I found it far too difficult to play as Ipswich - the squad was simply too low on numbers (thanks to a certain useless Mr.Keane IRL) and the budget not big enough to build up a deep squad.. and I didn't have the patience to build over several seasons.

For this reason, I've spent about 6 months not playing FM, and now have started a game as Luton Town. I picked Luton simply because Ipswich signed one of their best players in real life, so I knew they'd have him - Andy Drury

When I picked Luton Town, I almost changed my mind straight away when I saw that the board and media expected Luton to finish 1st - I didn't want to spend a season at Luton, then finish 3rd or 4th, not win the play-offs and get sacked.

So far, I'm up to October 2010, so there's still a long way to go, but I'm 1st in the league - Played 13, Won 10, Drawn 3, Lost 0. Scored 29, conceded 6 - Goal difference of +23. 33 points, 4 points clear of Bath, who are second.

The top scorer in the league is my player - a player I signed on a free - Benedict Akwuegbu - with 10 goals. He's 35 years old,on £750 a week with good all-round ability for a striker, especially good technically and in the air.

I play 4-4-2 (4-2-4) with attacking wingers, full-backs with licence to go forward, big & strong central defenders and a deep lying forward and target man up top.

Loan signings I've made include;

• Jacob Walcott (Theo's cousin), Attacking Mid / Striker on loan from Reading - he's great on the wing
• Scott Malone on loan from Wolves - great young left-back/left mid
• Danny Joyce on loan from Reading - Great young central midfielder, makes important tackles and passes
• Jordan Chappell on loan from Sheff Utd - A useful back-up central midfielder

Any way, I was wondering really - although I did pretty badly with Ipswich - a club with better players and a much higher budget (Luton Town's budget is actually £0!) - Am I doing well with Luton? As I said, 1st place is expected by the board and media, but I'm pretty pleased with my unbeaten run so far and the +23 goal difference.

Maybe Luton are just easy to play as in the BSP?

Would be good to hear the thoughts of others

 

[W4FC B3N]

Personally, I think any team is easy to manage if you get the tactics spot on, you have obviously hit a sweet spot with the signing(s) you have made and tactics you are using. Any unbeaten run in any league, be it the BSP with Luton or the EPL with Manchester United is particularly impressive. Well done, young Padowan!

 

[Mattyron]

Thanks Although I just lost my unbeaten record to Wrexham, 2-1 defeat at home

 

[BenditoLFC]

With the expections i think you're doing as well as you can do. You'll get the real test once you've gained promotion. I started unemployed and it took me a seaons n a half to get my first job offer at Stevenage Difficulties i've found is that for the January transfer window and start of the next seasons transfer window i've had £0 budget as well. Managed to come 5th in my first half season but lost first playoff game, in the run up to the next season all i could get was free agents and loans which meant i've lost a lot of games so far with the team not gelling quickly enough :[ with such poor finances i'm finding it hard now to keep my good players as there is no movement on the wage budget as well as it being impossible to bring any new, better players in. So i think given time you'll have this problem as well. enjoy it while you can

 

[Mattyron]

With the expections i think you're doing as well as you can do. You'll get the real test once you've gained promotion. I started unemployed and it took me a seaons n a half to get my first job offer at Stevenage Difficulties i've found is that for the January transfer window and start of the next seasons transfer window i've had £0 budget as well. Managed to come 5th in my first half season but lost first playoff game, in the run up to the next season all i could get was free agents and loans which meant i've lost a lot of games so far with the team not gelling quickly enough :[ with such poor finances i'm finding it hard now to keep my good players as there is no movement on the wage budget as well as it being impossible to bring any new, better players in. So i think given time you'll have this problem as well. enjoy it while you can

Yeah I've been thinking that if I do get promoted, League 2 could be tougher than it maybe should be, with the board continuing to tighten the purse strings. Having said that, it looks to me that in the lower leagues like League 2 downwards, decent free agents can be picked up. I'll try and organise my squad and wages in the next january window to look to free up some wages and maybe get one or two more free players in who are ready for the step up to League 1.

 

[noobito]

Lower league in FM 11 is alot easier than previous FM's, Purely based on the quality of players that are willing to join lower league teams in this verison, In previous versions the reunion players were solid but were BSP standard at best with maybe 2 or 3 being of league 2 standard, You could'nt get any better players though, Although getting players on loan in the BSN/BSS was ALOT easier than it is in FM11.

Now i'm playing in the BSN with Guiseley, Newly promoted to the league so you would expect little to no interest from players yet i've got a defence of league 2 standard, Three of them are league 1 standard, A midfield of the same quality, My strikeforce is BSP quality but thats only due to strikers demanding higher wages than any other players so i'm not breaking the bank on players i just dont need.

Getting out of the BSN/BSS and even BSP in FM 11 should never be a challange regardless of which team you pick, League 2 might prove alittle more challanging but you will beable to get better quality on loan and theres still high quality for free, Depending on the leagues you have loaded ofcourse you could probably build a team good enough for the next league every season until you reach the championship, That league is always going to prove a challange to get out of but a league 1 quality team in league 2 is possible, As is a championship quality team in league 1, Good luck getting a premiership quality team in the championship though.

 

[Mattyron]

Lower league in FM 11 is alot easier than previous FM's, Purely based on the quality of players that are willing to join lower league teams in this verison, In previous versions the reunion players were solid but were BSP standard at best with maybe 2 or 3 being of league 2 standard, You could'nt get any better players though, Although getting players on loan in the BSN/BSS was ALOT easier than it is in FM11.

Now i'm playing in the BSN with Guiseley, Newly promoted to the league so you would expect little to no interest from players yet i've got a defence of league 2 standard, Three of them are league 1 standard, A midfield of the same quality, My strikeforce is BSP quality but thats only due to strikers demanding higher wages than any other players so i'm not breaking the bank on players i just dont need.

Getting out of the BSN/BSS and even BSP in FM 11 should never be a challange regardless of which team you pick, League 2 might prove alittle more challanging but you will beable to get better quality on loan and theres still high quality for free, Depending on the leagues you have loaded ofcourse you could probably build a team good enough for the next league every season until you reach the championship, That league is always going to prove a challange to get out of but a league 1 quality team in league 2 is possible, As is a championship quality team in league 1, Good luck getting a premiership quality team in the championship though.

My aim when I played as Ipswich was to get them into the Premier League and into Europe ASAP. I think I'd be very, very happy with getting Luton into League 1 as mid-table / play-off contenders and then build from there.

You're right about getting Premier League quality in the Championship - it's pretty **** difficult.

I think my Luton side at the moment are generally League 2 quality, with 2 or 3 League 1 standard players.

I'm still top of the table toward the end of November, 1 point clear of Rushden who have been on an incredible run of 7 wins in a row! Not looking forward to playing them. I'm 5 points clear of Mansfield who are in 3rd, I beat them a couple of matches ago.

 

[noobito]

I know what you mean, I took Guiseley to the BSN title, Won every home game, Only lost once in the league and drew 4 games, Scored 100 goals and finished on 109 points, Was quite suprised at the quality you can pick up for such a poor league really.

Now i'm in the BSP and pretty much use the exact same team, Added a few new strikers and a GK but other than that its the same bunch of players and after the first month i'm currently in 2nd, Luton are top but only by 2 points so its not a massive task to get out of this league.

The biggest problem i've found is keeping your head above water in terms of finances, Luton are ok though they get like 7000 fans per game, Guiseley just about break 1000 depending on the game, Balancing the books is hard and i guess heading into league 2 that is where a team like Luton will have a massive edge, More fans, More money, Better quality of player, League 1 is a fair target for sure, Championship too but surviving there will be the challange for a season or two.

 

[swetterman]

I completely agree, in some respects this seemed too easy but it does toughen up the longer you go. I play as Wimbledon and when starting the game I was just hoping to get to the playoffs but ended up winning the league. I got two loan players from league1 sides and one from a lower tier Prem team reserve (the guy was pretty young, maybe that is why).

In League2 I initially targeted mid-table but January had me hanging around in the upper playoff spots. Because of this I grabbed a guy or two in the transfer window and as they were signing my main players for their spots got hurt so they just slotted in a kept the run going.

Both seasons had extensive Cup runs and some unbeaten streaks. Cups brought TV when I played in later rounds and both that and the streaks (beat lower competition and tied a lot with teams at the top of the table) filled the stands to +95% capacity so that brought in match day income.

I did stay under budget with the wages and midway through the second season a stadium expansion was started. On the last day of the season I tied Orient to make the 3rd promotion spot so I moved on to League1.

League1 has been where things have slowed down considerably. Injuries and better competition have meant less wins, more ties and more loses than ever before. We are playing at QPR while the stadium is being expanded so there are more butts in the seats and TV and match day income. But the easy days seem gone. I am stuck by not having enough resources to do much quickly so I am having to be more patient and develop youngsters more than bring in good experience. Even the loan market has dried up.

Based on all this with some teams, you can move quickly up the leagues and it is up the player to screw it up. This draws you on as a player initially and the success makes you want to persevere although you may get stuck in a league for a few years with enough to stay but not enough to move up more. I suppose this is realistic enough and is eventually more satisfying than getting Ebbsfleet to win the Champions league after 6 seasons.

So as things have slowed down I have had to spend more time on training, lineups, scouting, coaching and other aspects of the game rather than just sit back and take in the wins. All in an effort to keep things moving in the right direction overall.