well this is my first post on this whole forum, i've lurked on the forum for a while but finally decided to sign up and share my FM experiences. I've played the Football Manager series since about 2006 (TCM before that!) and had some pretty memorable saved files on those, but normally the majority of games i start never last 5 minutes so on FM2010 I decided to try something different.
The feature most players see as the most vital part of Football Manager are the transfers, so I am simply giving myself the challenge of playing with a team and buying NO players at all. I want to see my current squad and youth academy to give me all the players I need and see how well or badly I do. I won't even be buying any 16/17 year old regens/players for my youth squad... just see what regens I get and roll with it. I will be spending my hard earned money on staff/coaches though, but not players.
I decided to pick a club that I have a change of doing this longterm with, so I chose Aston Villa (the club I actually support
), as they have excellent training facilites and a decent youth academy. I'd like this story to be as informal as possible and I won't just be posting screenshots of all my matches, signings (lack of), tables etc. My updates probably won't be too long, but more like a detailed chat about how my game is going and a few pics thrown in along the way
----
So after being given the reigns of the club by Randy Lerner and his American friends, I opted to take the pressure off myself a little by going for a season expectation of a midtable finish. I think I had around £3m transfer budget which got increased to £12m pretty early on. But as I won't be signing any players, I wasn't to bothered about budgets. My main priority was making sure my current squad of players were ready for the new season and handing out contract extensions to a few players such as Marlon Harewood and Wilfred Bouma who only had 1 year remaining.I also took any players of the transfer list immediately as I was keen to keep the whole squad as no additions would be forthcoming. There was one player who left permanently, with young Northern Irish striker, Adam McGurk leaving the club for Scunthorpe at £120k as I don't think I would ever have used him. There were also more loan movements out of the club, with young players being sent around the Championship to gain a bit of first team football hopefully;
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1340/10tran.png
After that the next thing on my agenda was to make some changes to the coaching staff. Ex-player Mark Delaney, Ben Petty and Rafa Gonzalez had their contracts as youth coaches terminated by mutual consent and a quick raid (which took me until Ocotber to get round to) of Manchester United saw me appoint Brian McClair and Paul McGuinness as coaches, aswell as bringing in Stewart Houston as a scout from Arsenal for a combined compensation fee of around £950k. I edited the training schedules for the senior and youth players (a tweak of Tugs training), and was ready to start my first season, starting with two friendles against Oxford and Blackpool, before beginning Premierleague campaign at home to Liverpool.
http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/489/staffs.png
There are some young players who will become squad players in the first team this season, with local boys Nathan Delfouneso and Marc Albrighton ready to make the step up. I've already got a bit into this game so I can't give much detail about the opening of the game, but nevermind - can get straight to the actual football! Any questions/comments are most welcome if this post doesn't make much sense to you all!
The feature most players see as the most vital part of Football Manager are the transfers, so I am simply giving myself the challenge of playing with a team and buying NO players at all. I want to see my current squad and youth academy to give me all the players I need and see how well or badly I do. I won't even be buying any 16/17 year old regens/players for my youth squad... just see what regens I get and roll with it. I will be spending my hard earned money on staff/coaches though, but not players.
I decided to pick a club that I have a change of doing this longterm with, so I chose Aston Villa (the club I actually support
), as they have excellent training facilites and a decent youth academy. I'd like this story to be as informal as possible and I won't just be posting screenshots of all my matches, signings (lack of), tables etc. My updates probably won't be too long, but more like a detailed chat about how my game is going and a few pics thrown in along the way ----
ASTON VILLA 09/10
So after being given the reigns of the club by Randy Lerner and his American friends, I opted to take the pressure off myself a little by going for a season expectation of a midtable finish. I think I had around £3m transfer budget which got increased to £12m pretty early on. But as I won't be signing any players, I wasn't to bothered about budgets. My main priority was making sure my current squad of players were ready for the new season and handing out contract extensions to a few players such as Marlon Harewood and Wilfred Bouma who only had 1 year remaining.I also took any players of the transfer list immediately as I was keen to keep the whole squad as no additions would be forthcoming. There was one player who left permanently, with young Northern Irish striker, Adam McGurk leaving the club for Scunthorpe at £120k as I don't think I would ever have used him. There were also more loan movements out of the club, with young players being sent around the Championship to gain a bit of first team football hopefully;
After that the next thing on my agenda was to make some changes to the coaching staff. Ex-player Mark Delaney, Ben Petty and Rafa Gonzalez had their contracts as youth coaches terminated by mutual consent and a quick raid (which took me until Ocotber to get round to) of Manchester United saw me appoint Brian McClair and Paul McGuinness as coaches, aswell as bringing in Stewart Houston as a scout from Arsenal for a combined compensation fee of around £950k. I edited the training schedules for the senior and youth players (a tweak of Tugs training), and was ready to start my first season, starting with two friendles against Oxford and Blackpool, before beginning Premierleague campaign at home to Liverpool.
There are some young players who will become squad players in the first team this season, with local boys Nathan Delfouneso and Marc Albrighton ready to make the step up. I've already got a bit into this game so I can't give much detail about the opening of the game, but nevermind - can get straight to the actual football! Any questions/comments are most welcome if this post doesn't make much sense to you all!