I always manage Liverpool, so I guess I'll chip in here.
Expectations: I opted for Champions League spot in the season expectations, but in retrospect I should have gone with Title Challenge as I won the first season fairly easily. This is probably one of the main reasons I can never get more than 4-6 years done in these saves, but it's still fun as Liverpool is the only team I support. Anyway.
First transfer window was mainly about rebuilding the squad. Get rid of some deadweight and get some real talent into the ranks. That meant getting rid of players without a future at the club, loaning out youngsters to free up extra wages, and replacing squad players with quality players and prospects.
Notable players sold:
Allen,
Borini,
Johnson,
Mignolet,
Skrtel,
Assaidi. Also got rid of
Jones and
Touré.
Notable players bought:
Verratti,
Tielemans,
Sven Bender,
Balanta,
Lucas Romero,
De Sciglio,
Quintero and
Szczesny.
Transfers I regret doing: Buying
Sirigu as I was able to snap up Szczesny right after who is much better imo. But I was able to sell Sirigu in Janurary for almost twice what I spent on him, so it wasn't all bad. Also,
Hachim Mastour, Alper Ademoglü and Josh Murphy don't seem to be developing as I had hoped, and although 2 of them were cheap I did spend £9m on Murphy that might prove to have been a bit much.
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Note that the De Sciglio transfer is listed as free, this was due to a beta bug where the instalments simply disappeared from the transfer fee. And since the whole transfer was in instalments, I ended up getting him for free. Didn't notice it until a while after, but to be honest it really helped financially so I CBA to load an old save
Several of these transfers were paid with instalments, so I'm gonna be noticing that in the monthly financial figures for a couple years.
Second transfer window (summer 2015):
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One transfer stands out here:
Paul Pogba for £80m. £40m upfront + £40m over 48 months. Didn't plan on this, but after he became unhappy because I enquired about him, saying he wanted to move to Liverpool and asking to leave, I knew I would be able to afford him.
Also splashed £21m on
Jonathan Silva, very promising left back to rotate with Moreno (and can also cover on right back). Hasn't quite developed as well as I hoped, but still a good player.
Munir became available for £14.25m after I missed out on him in the first window, so I had to get him. Great player, is already worth over £20m. Also signed
Papadopoulos as cover for CD and DM, although I didn't really need him. I'm in January 2016 now and he still hasn't played a single match for me, and I'm surprised he hasn't complained yet. Will be allowed to leave as soon as he starts moaning.
But, to afford Pogba and Silva, and also keeping the wage budget to a minimum, I let
Enrique,
Lallana,
Henderson and
Verratti go for a total of £100m. Had some real trouble offloading
Lucas, really just wanted to get rid of his £75k pw wages as he was not playing at all.
So, after some tweaking with the tactics, I ended up with this:
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Usually played with 2 MCs, but decided to pull one of them back to DM for a couple of reasons, mainly defensive but also simply for having some great DMs in the squad. Trying to rotate as much as I can, and have mostly been able to keep the players happy with a few exceptions: Moreno got his first Spain cap and has been moaning about a new contract ever since. I'm not budging and he still has 3.5 years left on his current one. Sterling just requested a new contract, but when I told him he'd get on at the end of the season he went all primadonna and demanded one right away. I'm not budging for him either.
Currently down to £1.6m pw wages, which is lowest of the top 6 clubs. Very pleased with that, but I know it will increase rapidly as contracts are up for renewal soon.
As for general thoughts on the Liverpool squad, it is good enough to challenge for a top spot without major changes like I did. But I would strongly suggest selling Johnson as he's on around £100k (if not £120k) pw, 29 years old, and possible to get a decent price as well. Touré is also expendable with his £70k pw, and you can replace Borini with Munir in the first season without losing any money on it. Apart from that, I'd look at the keeper position. Jones is far from good enough, and Mignolet won't cut it in the long run. Not necessarily a priority, but if you got the money I suggest you spend if the right replacement becomes available.
The last thing I'll mention might be the most important thing: The backroom staff. They're pretty much all useless. I terminated ALL contracts except ONE, which was Andy Renshaw (U18 Physio).
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Not sure how the training overview would've looked with the original staff - I didn't even bother to check, I just browsed through their stats - but it definitely wouldn't have looked as good as this:
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So all in all, if you're gonna play with Liverpool, I highly recommend considering the following things:
1. Offload deadweight and high earners not justifying their salaries.
2. FIND NEW STAFF!
