West Ham - It's Hammering Time!

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Billy Bryant

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Hello good people. I have finally got my full version working, no more classic. Unfortunately my attempt at loading my local team's league with a custom database has resulted in failure. So hopefully at some point they will randomly end up in a playable league, at which time I will save my game in a separate place for future use before continuing with this game assuming it's still popular.

West Ham have always been a soft spot of mine, in my household I support Man Utd, my dad supports Liverpool and my sisters boyfriend/now fiancee supports West Ham. Since his arrival I think me and my dad both pay more attention to West Ham news and results and team status etc, mainly for a bit of banter but i've also been to a few West Ham games Home and Away. Since Man Utd is no challenge to play as really and I have no real attachment to any other side who would pose more of a challenge, I figured I would give it a go. Hopefully you guys enjoy it. As long as the game doesn't corrupt or break or anything else of the sort, this WILL be a long term save, my first of the 2014 version.

I am already just about out of Pre-Season, so my first update will come shortly, including an introduction.

My short term goals (next couple of seasons) will be to make a half respectable team and finish top half of the table consistently, if not higher. My long term goals will be to dominate the league and europe and become the richest club in the world through the buying and selling of players. Also getting a good son into the team would be nice and a new stadium would be nice at some point.

Current Season:
Season 1 - In Progress - Starts on Page 1

I've seen this in a few stories i've read and I think it's a good idea but I forgot to add it so i'm just editing it in here haha.
 
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So... I seem to have lost my initial screenshots of my welcoming to the club and transfer budgets etc, which I would haved liked to include but ah well. First up I had no transfer budget for a top half finish (I chose for some extra wages) which was rather disheartening and once I had checked out the squad things seemed ridiculously bad. I set out making a first team squad and working out who I considered deadwood in positions I was actually able to get replacements for. So... yeah, prepare yourselves.

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Now I know this seems excessive but the youth were not of a standard to get into my squad now, so where I plan to be where they could get into it would leave them useless and I wanted to get rid of as much wage usage as I could. Plus this way I would know all the youth in my team in future and know they were good rather than just clutter. This may seem an odd way of doing things but I wanted to just overhaul everything and save money where I could.

That said, there were three major outgoings there imo that I want to express my thoughts on. Morrison: I don't use an attacking midfielder and needed funds. Sold him on with a 50% addon. Noble: For one of my incoming players I couldn't free up funds, tried everything else and getting rid of Nolan who i'll talk about next, but it wasn't working. The new guy is better (imo) and in Nobles position and I got a 50% addon on him. Nolan: My squad is looking a bit thin and also weak in a couple of places and Nolan was on 50k a week, is 31 and was on the subs bench with my tactic/current players. Loaning him out with an option to buy at 1m. This means I can just bolster my squad with 2-4 half decent free agents/loans hopefully without losing a position on my first team.

So now my intake of signings:
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I am very happy with these three signings, Trasch i've had on my FMC game with Barcelona and he has been amazing for me. I have faith in him, well worth what I paid. 100k a week was a little steep but I saw him at 6m given some haggling when I enquired, and just couldn't help myself, especially as I had 200k spare in wages at the time. Ofc budget adjust for the transfer when I bought him left 20k a week wages, along with a board request giving me 20k more a week wages. This left me nothing to bring in Honda when I noticed he was transfer listed, hence why I had to sell Noble. Forster is a nice affordable goalkeeper who is relatively young, just what I needed. He'll do for a while, he might not be the best out there but he is good enough. Especially considering the quality of those he replaced.

The problem I haven't addressed is strikers. I have Modibo Maiga and that's about it. I play with a 4-4-2 so that's a bit of an issue. Here's my Tactics and my ideal first team (including injuries) with the bench that are currently healthy from the players who failed to sell. For anyone wondering, I never plan to use Andy Caroll. I don't use a target man and he doesn't suit the roles I do use very well. Plus I don't like him.

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I use a tactic I found on here a while back, and basically plug and play. It's worked ok so far when i've been teams that are really good. I don't know how this will work, but i'll play around with it a bit as I need to.

As you can see I still need to bolster the squad a bit for rotation. Definitely need a couple of strikers.

I didn't just renovate the team either but I sent my staff to the slaughterhouse too, some stayed but the majority left and I also brought in some new positions as well as replacements for those that left.

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I obviously want to work on training but noone else will come to me, so this is a good start for now and a big improvement to what I had before.

So my pre-season so far:
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Slough being my home side, figured giving them some cash would maybe help them? xD

Got some decent money from these, OM being an ok game. Pretty happy with them. Boreham Wood should just help fitness. First game against Man City is tough. Drew Swindon Away in the cup.

OK guys thanks for sticking through this, I know it was a big post, it took ages to make, but I think that's everything. Future updates should literally just be that, updates. Fixture results mainly, maybe the odd transfer or injury. Also not going to need to do as big a culling and replacing next summer so I wouldn't worry about having to read through anything this long again.

Any advice or comments post below. Feel free to just wish me luck so I know people are paying attention... and here's to a successful career taking West Ham straight to the top!
 
Hi there, liking the story so far, recently started my own however struggling to get the screenshots bigger than thumbnails how did you do yours?
 
Thanks a lot haha. Well I struggled with that too at first. Just go into advanced view and double click on the images, it gives you the option of image size there. Good luck with your story!
 
Better 4* defence coach (and tactics) and free and low wages batista dos santos
 
Liking this story, will definitely follow!

I'm a Spurs fan but a friend of mine supports West Ham, so I have grown a little closer to them now :p
 
Ok so August Update:

I brought in Leigh Griffiths on loan. Not a great striker for this league, and basically my first choice :S January will have me buying in a striker for sure! Until then i'll have to make do with what I have. Also loaned in a nice left back 31 years old, will join the first team, not looking to keep him on at that age though. Finally loaned in Glen Whelan from stoke too, replaces Nolan with similarish stats, a lot less wages and younger. Probably won't look to keep him on but is a great bench player. Also loaned out some youngsters. So not much happening, but I think I got enough in. Strikers are really my only area for concern.

Fixtures:
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So Boreham Wood was a disaster, 2-0 up and conceeded 2 goals to a small team, not happy.

Man City was ok, I didn't expect to win. I know we had home advantage but it was 2-1 until the 86th minute. 70 minutes I went attacking, 80 minutes I went overload. The point was more important to me than goal difference. It didn't work but the team played well.

Sunderland was a tough game, solid defensive work and a goal from a set piece I believe.

Swindon was a standard game against a smaller team with essentially my first team because of my lack of depth.

The biggest triumph was beating Arsenal 3-1. The reporter at the beginning of the match seemed to think I could do it and Arsenal not done well in their premiership games. Still I wasn't sure I could do it. They benched Walcott and put Sanogo up front and played Flamini in midfield but otherwise it was a strong squad. We played well but in truth got very lucky. With 2 penalties, a goal from a defensive error and the striker that gave them the lead being taken off with an injury soon after. Proof below.

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League Table:
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7th place in the table. Not bad at all, especially considering of our 3 games, we played Man City and Arsenal. Top 10 is the hope for the season, so far so good.

Confidence:
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We made some profit this month, beat Arsenal and lie 7th in the table but the board are only satisfied. I guess it's still early but come on.

Next months fixtures are a lot better for us but that also brings in high expectations. Got to win the easy games! Thanks for reading this far! Hope you are enjoying my story.
 
Hey guys sorry for the slow update. September below. Hopefully you shouldn't have to wait as long in future until my uni starts up again (in a week or so) I just got distracted by Skyrim :P
 
September
Fixtures:
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Beat Cardiff away but it was a close game. Good game for Maiga helped a lot.

Lost away to Hull, it hurt a bit since we outplayed them and the reporters said we should be winning that. It's funny, the reporters seem to think we're this super team but the odds before games suggest otherwise.

Beat Wigan at home. Petric made his full return from injury and Leigh Griffiths is cup tied for the league cup so it was good timing. Also scored the winning penalty and assisted Maiga's goal. Good performance.

Drew at home to Southampton. I don't know what to think about that. On the one hand it wasn't a lose but on the other hand we had Home advantage and Southampton are a bottom half team atm.

4 games: 2 W, 1D, 1L. Not disastrous but we had a relatively weak opposition. These are the points that are important to pick up.

Table:
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8th in the table, 3 points from 10th which is our minimum aim. Obviously anything could happen at this stage but looking good so far.

Board Confidence:

Not gonna put a picture up, same as last month essentially, still a little upset at Noble leaving and still a bit happy at beating Arsenal.

I really need some strikers in. Maiga is just about cutting it, but should be a rotation player. Petric could make the first team perhaps but he is 32. Leigh Griffiths is a league one player currently, maybe championship quality. Yet here he is, first team for a Premiership side. I'm sure it's doing wonders for his career but it doesn't make me feel any better.
 
nice to see a west ham story, i mostly play with the hammers (cause I'm a fan), but to lazy to run a story. I've played to main saves with them. A traditional similar to the one you have now and an academy challenge.

The first very similar to what you've done. My transfer OUT very similar, except I kept Collison, becomes a great player and works well with noble in the midfield. I also sold O'Brien and Vaz Te. Transfer IN I opted for cheaper listed players, available on loan, and youngsters.

With this save I managed to win the league second season. I'll post the 2nd season transfers and the final team. Also used a 4-4-2. with few team instructions, and standard & balanced.

The West Ham save actually becomes more difficult as your reputation grows, and I always find the second half of the season more difficult.
 
Ah awesome! glad i'm not alone on getting rid of the majority then. Yea I did think about keeping collison, but I figured he would be as good as noble one day and 1. I have noble now. 2. noble's not good enough.

Well done winning with that team though, looks good but not quite a premiership winning team. Would expect a top 5 with that team personally, and then make a couple of transfers to win it the next season. Anything can happen in football though and even more so in football manager.

I will be looking to focus on youth a lot more once I have my team sorted.
 
yeah your right neither noble or collison is great, and that team is not the best, but there is a lot of players around and you can turn west ham into a top 7 team quite quickly. It did help that I only competed in the EPL and no other comp.

Yip youths the way to go. My other save is an academy challenge, can share a few pics if your interested. Dann Pots, Moncur etc a few years on. Finished 17th, 15th, 8th without any signings. After 3 seasons a combination of 1) getting rid of all the deadwood and high earning players 2) you finish paying the large debts, 1.5Mil per month 3) not signing any players and 4) the move to Olympic stadium which only costs 2Mil/year rent, you all of a sudden have massive transfer budget :) i decided to save the academy challenge and started using the transfer market :)

Maybe one tip when going for youth remember to renew Tony Carr's contract on a regular basis or he'll decide to retire, even though he is still young and maybe still have two years under contract. Produced some amazing regens under him. Can share pics if our interested.

Ill stop invading your story and look fwd to your next posts!
 
Hey guys, decided to do two months and a double update. Sorry about the time between updates. I'm not playing as much as I expected. I am liking the save though, so this will probably speed up.

Fixtures:
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3 losses. to everton, united and tottenham is not bad imo. The draw to West Brom could have been avoided but a 90+1 equaliser was better than the loss it would've been. All in all a good couple of month. Topped off by wins against Newcastle and Chelsea.

Mind Games from Mourinho, calling one of my players the weak link. I replied that we all had a good laugh about that in the dressing room and that he must be losing it. Then we won. He now dislikes me.

League Table:
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9th just about, a bit surprising considering my results but I guess i'm where I need to be so it's all good.

Nothing else has happened really other that Fraser Forster asking for a higher training intensity and developing well each month. Also, moved Downing onto the first team in place of Jarvis, as I felt Downing would do better in a Wide Midfielder role, and is more accustomed to the right side of the pitch.

Petric and Maiga have made a nice little partnership as of late. Still looking for a striker in Jan but it's not as urgent anymore.
 
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