Football Manager 2019

Bielsa has arrived at Atalanta, and the results are spectacular.



Was * outraged by this result, partially my fault for rotating a bit but we should have done better. Worst bit was we'd just tied the club record 18-game all comps unbeaten streak that had stood since the 90s, so we threw away the chance to break it.



Put out the A-team for the return leg on the off chance that they'd turn things around. Pinamonti had probably his best game in a Samp shirt thus far, absolutely lethal. Bologna managed to overturn a big first leg deficit themselves in their semi against Fiorentina. We'll enter the final as favourites and should get it done fairly comfortably, though will have to do it without Tonali due to his silly and completely unnecessary suspension. Probably my fault for not telling him to 'ease off' on a yellow.



Europa League has been fruitful and we're through to the quarters after dealing with some Ukranian outfit and then Spartak Moskva. Have drawn Milan which should be a cracking all-Italian double header. Final eight contains some really interesting teams with the two big Turkish giants, United and Liverpool who are the on paper favourites, and then the two Roman clubs and ourselves and Milan as a Serie A quartet.



League table has tightened up considerably of late, some silly draws creeping into our results. But we still find ourselves in a strong position, with only really away games against Roma and Napoli standing out from our run-in. Very nearly beat Juve after going 2-0 up early, but they salvaged a draw via a dubious peno and a spawny Ronaldo header late on. Really gutted as a win probably would have killed the title race off once and for all. But at least we didn't lose and further erode our lead.

 

My schedule is so * up rn.

Thu 30th Apr: Liv away
rest day
Sat 2nd May: Ata home
rest day
Mon 4th May: Cag away
two rest days
Thu 7th May: Liv home
rest day
Sat 9th May: Udi home
rest day
Mon 11th May: Fio away
rest day
Wed 13th May: Bol neutral
two rest days
Sat 16th May: Par home

18 days, 8 fixtures. * off. How on earth would this be sanctioned in real life? Answer, it wouldn't. SI need to sort their * out. Professional football clubs don't routinely play 2 games in 3 days. Let alone 3 games in 5 days. Let alone 4 in 7. Four * games in seven days. Five in nine. Let alone 8 in 18.

 

* has happened to player values btw since the patch? Dinamo players at >£20m!

 

FML



Normally I'd do a big post-season writeup, but I can't be bothered after that. Suffice to say, we lost 2-1 away to Liverpool and then drew 1-1 at home. They went on to beat Lazio 5-0 in the final. I rotated the * out of my lineup for the Coppa Italia final, because that's low priority compared to the scudetto race. Ended up drawing 2-2 so had to got through the slog of extra time and putting even more miles into the legs of those who did start. We lost the shootout. And the title, well. We revived our form late on to keep ourselves in the hunt, but it wasn't enough.

Juve's form from October onward was ridiculous, they've not lost a league game since the back end of September. Since they last lost they've gone 32 league games unbeaten, winning 25 of them. 82 points from a possible 96. Ultimately, we've not been able to compete with that.



Pinamonti was decent with 16 goals, but expecting more from him next season. Marin was outstanding with 15 goals and 11 assists, pretty decent considering his finishing is a mere 10.

Not quite sure what I'll end up doing in the window. Thinking of Alex Fernandez from Boca as an upgrade on Cornet. Want to sell Cornet but his value hasn't skyrocketed as it did in my Brentford save, so I don't anticipate making much more than 7m on him. Have a solid budget of 24.2m along with 357k of unspent wage budget. Was thinking of activating Pellegrini's release clause at Roma but I don't really see the need for it, as Jankto has done well along with Dominguez and I'm already trying to find a way to promote Riccardi to the first team in that advanced playmaker CM role. So There's no real need for Pellegrini. Considering an upgrade at second striker, want to see if Bayern are willing to flog Arp when he joins them though I suspect they won't be keen on dealing him so soon.

In reality we've massively exceeded expectations this season, though that's little consolation. We were predicted 8th, and ended up on the cusp of the scudetto. We'll come back stronger next time. Lazio should have done it last year, we should have done it this year, Juve won't get lucky a third time.

 

So Juve have reacted to their CL final loss (Man City the winners) by flogging their future away. Admittedly for decent money, but they've been strangely reticent to hit the market in a big way to replace what they've lost. It's currently deadline day and they've spent a grand total of 500k, bringing in a random Ligue 1 midfield regen and Tottenham's Marc Bartra on loan. Though they are trying to wrap up a last-minute deal for Mustafi, which is very meh.

As for sales, they let Bentancur go to Liverpool for 68m, sold Cancelo to Spurs for 51m, ditched Ramsey who barely played (4 league apps) and is now off to Porto for 8.75m, and gave Genoa a couple of bench scrubs in Orsolini and Favilli for a total of 9.25m. Rugani's contract was in it's final year so he was available at a cut-price rate, I tried to sign him for Samp but at first he wasn't even willing to negotiate as he wanted a bigger club. Man United eventually came in for him, I went in with a new bid and this time he was willing to take a look at our offer. But ultimately he snubbed us in favour of Conte's (lol) United, who snapped him up for 17.75m.

Their most spectacular sale was Dybala, Bayern absolutely smashed it with a massive 152m bid. Don't really blame them for taking that money... but I can't fathom why they've not spent any of it. 300m in sales and 9.5m in buys if they get the Mustafi deal over the line. Great news for us, though I suspect they'll go big in January. They were so desperate to replace Rugani that they stooped to making us a loan offer for John Souttar. Get *, cheeky *.

Inter have had a slightly more balanced window, though they have sold Icardi to United for 82m, which will surely come back to haunt them (speaking of which, regret selling Pinamonti to Samp now, lads?). But they've bought reasonably well, adding Bernat and Correa for about 82m, loaning in James Rodrigues and Bosmaning golden oldie David Silva. Spalletti left to take up the national team (I applied, didn't get it obvs) so they've rolled back the years and appointed Bobby Mancini to replace him.

Napoli sacked Wenger and replaced him with Jose Mouinho. His biggest signing of the window? 32 y/o Nemanja Matic from United for 21m, I * you not. Roma are still plugging away with the Monchi/De Francesco team, fairly quiet window though they sold Cengiz Under to Barca for 40m. Rino Gattuso still reigns at Milan, his position looked shaky back during season 1 but they've stuck with him and he delivered top 4 in season 2. He's added the likes of Ross Barkley on loan, along with Spurs' Sissoko, Arsenal's David Ospina and United's Marcos Llorente on permanent deals. No major departures, though last season they sold Suso and Paqueta and they've still not really replaced them with like-for-like quality. Maybe money issues, idk. Though they've just signed Fiorentina's Milenkovic, which should help their defence.
As for us, I entered the window with no thought of buying a winger, but ended up getting one anyway. My initial plan was to sell Cornet and promote Cortinovis. Had a 7.25m sale for Cornet lined up but I got greedy, killed the deal at the last minute and lined up a slightly better 7.5m sale to Frankfurt. But he only went and turned them down. Ended up having to loan him out to Ajax, hopefully his value climbs a bit.

So I was all set to continue with my plan to develop Cortinovis but I wavered a bit as his attributes were lacking, and he was basically in need of a nice loan spell and some proper starting minutes. Sent him to Perugia in the end as there was no interest from Serie A clubs. Loathe as I was to forfeit the chance of getting him to earn club-grown status, I've probably got all bases covered on that issue as I've currently got 9 players in the first team who will qualify in a year or two. Will still have to go into this year's CL with a reduced squad, as we've got just the 1 homegrown player at the moment. And that's the backup keeper, decided to loan Audero out to Lazio in order to have a HG player for the CL. Think that means I'll be able to submit a 22-man squad rather than a 21-man squad if I'd have kept Audero.

edit: Having checked the rules I may actually be ok, the Europa League requirement for U21 players to be exempt from registration is for them to have been at the club for three years, but it seems the CL requirement is merely two years. Big relief.

Anyway, back to our window. My scouts alerted me to Jeremy Doku, a player I'd not come across in previous FMs and wasn't aware of irl either. Precocious young Belgian winger/forward from Anderlecht, looks the business with tremendous technical skills: 16s for crossing, dribbling, finishing, first touch and technique. That's exceptional for a teenager. Also has decent 16 accel/15 pace. Once his mentals develop he's going to be a killer. Scored 14 goals in 24 league apps for Anderlecht, which is top notch ai form for a teen. He had a 19.25m release clause which is fair value, Juve matched it at the last minute but I didn't even have to bump up my offer by much, he turned them down and accepted my 47k/5 yr contract.



*drool*

I added three 'one for the future' type signings with no real intention of playing them in the short term. Cosimo Da Graca from Palermo for 4.6m, should develop into a nice Pinamonti backup in future. Boca's Alex Fernandez for 4.9m, don't strictly need him but he's my insurance policy in case Vignato does not develop as expected. And some random DM regen from Velez for 575k.

On the sales front I was able to shift Zapata for massive money. Atalanta decided against activating their 10m (iirc) buy option. Considered keeping him but put him out into the market and found a willing buyer in Newcastle, who stumped up a silly 47.5m + 10% of next sale. Total sales income including a couple of other deals was 57m, and the loan contingent will pull in 20m in fees.

In a move to make things as Italian as possible, I decided to switch out Junior Tavares for a new second-choice leftback. I was thinking about Kik Pierie but this particular iteration of him has rubbish natural fitness, so I decided against getting him. Had been eyeing up Tornio's Ivan Michelotti for some time and really liked the look of him. Got a deal lined up for 6.5m. Tavares headed out on loan to Sevilla as he's still got a few years left on his contract, so it doesn't makes sense to sell him until I've extracted a few years of loan army service and fees from him.

Decided I wanted to upgrade my second-choice DM slot, as last season I felt I was overplaying Tonali at times and we'd be significantly weakened in the event of him picking up an injury. Ronaldo Vieira, epic name aside, is a fairly average backup option who lacks outstanding attributes, and doesn't have much of a development ceiling. Loaned him out to Bologna. Was thinking of Sander Berge due to his tasty release clause, but he's not good enough defensively and is more CM than DM.

Did however head to my imaginatively named 'Italian Stallions' shortlist in order to jog my memory, and came across a glowing scouting report for Sassuolo's Manuel Locatelli, who packs a mean punch with 15 tackling but also possesses adequate vision and passing to get counter attacks started. He looks an excellent poor man's Tonali, and at 22 he's also one for the long-term.

Had a juicy 10m release clause for clubs in the Champions League (take note, Hank, though not sure if this is hard-coded into his move or the result of an ai extension), so was rather cheap as well.

I ended up adding Andrea Belotti to the mix to be my second striker, had a year left on his Torino contract so was available at a cut-price rate. As soon as Zapata was out the door I decided to upgrade my #9 stocks, as Kownacki and Inglese were inconsistent options last season and Pinamonti is still growing.

Belotti for 11m represents a nice, dependable, experienced senior striker who will shoulder a lot of the load that was previously weighing down Pinamonti. Can happily rotate the two as starters. Loaned Kownacki out to Tenerife, who gained promotion to La Liga. Decided not to keep Bobby Inglese around as despite being a cheap loan his role as third-choice striker is pretty much redundant now with the arrival of Da Graca, who will play in the U20 squad but can be called up to the first team in the event of any injury to Pinamonti/Belotti.

Made a couple of last minute regen additions, one a Perugia RW who I'm getting with a view to developing and flipping for profit, as I'm already bursting at the seams with wingers. The other a young Portuguese CB from Boavista, who looks to have a huge amount of potential. Was available for a 9k fee, which my board thinks is a little too much for some reason.



All in all a solid window for us, the Zapata fee was a nice unexpected bonus which allowed me the flexibility to substantially upgrade the squad whilst still having a bit of money left over (budget currently sits at 29.9m along with 430k of unspent wages). First team wages have been kept nice and tight despite the additions, currently sit 9th-highest in the league spending 32.8m p/a.



23-man squad for the season, dripping with talent. Don't anticipate adding to it in future, unless some crazily good player ends up on the market. But in the main I want to develop what we've got. Average age of 21.3 makes us the youngest team in the league by quite a distance.

 

So my CL group turned out to be one big awful disappointment.





Ended up in one of those horrible three-way ties that has to get split on head-to-head. Worst bit was probably the penultimate match against Bayern when we went 3-0 up in the first half, only for them to get one back before the break and score two via Fiete Arp of all people late on to salvage a draw. Celtic's stout defence kept us out in the final game at home, and they scored a winner via Silvan Hefti from a corner.

My next thought was, well, at least we'll drop into the Europa League and have a chance at properly competing for that. Next minute...





I've now resorted to consoling myself with the prospect of our likely truncated European campaign helping us to avoid any fixture pile-up in the league. Speaking of which...



Terrific three-pronged title fight developing, Roma have been the standout team of the first half of the season, though have had a couple of results go against them recently. Juve are Juve, trucking along, and despite a handful of frustrating draws we're largely doing well and are still undefeated. You can't really discount the Milanese clubs from getting into the mix, either, so it promises to be an exciting battle.

Best league results have been an early season home win over Juve, 2-1, a 0-2 away win over Milan, and a 4-0 home thrashing of Inter. Also have good away wins over Fiorentina and Lazio under our belt. Played Roma early on and ended up being a bit of a goalfest, finishing in a 3-3 stalemate.

 

Season 1

League Table
8 points in it even though I reached 100 points! Was shocked the zombies done so well, but the game is usually a walk in the park so this is interesting.



Cups
Disappointingly, Killie knocked us out of the League Cup at Rugby Park in the 2nd round (had to play a weak team just after Europe). We done better in the Scottish Cup, but to be knocked out by sevco on penalties in the semis was a kick in the stones.

2019 winners:
League Cup - St Johnstone
Scottish Cup - huns

Europe

As the screenie below shows, our European run was great. All the way to the quarters before a poor home defeat left us in the * against Porto:


2019 winners:
Champions League - Liverpool
Europa League - AC Milan

Transfers

Not a lot of activity coming into the club, but I set about trying to get rid of the deadwood. It's worth noting, the 1st transfer window was locked so I got less that expected for the likes of Boyata.



Here's how the 3 signings look now:






Staff Movements

A * of a lot busier when it comes to background staff though:


I promise this guy wasn't hired just for this name...



Other News

In terms of other SPL news that season, Aberdeen made it to the Europa League Group stages. They came 3rd but they actually did fairly well and held their own.

Hearts were rank rotten, and Mark Warburton has since replaced heedthebaw.

Hamilton and Dundee were relegated, with Ayr and Dundee Utd coming up instead.

Leigh Griffiths got player of the year but, for some reason, he's went up to legend status straight away. Bizarre!

Season 2

So, I'm mid-way through the second season, and here's how things are looking:



Better domestically, not as great in Europe - although my group was Juve, Porto and Galatasary (*spelling). Dropped silly points at home, drawing where I should have won, and paid for it.

Staff Movements



I've continued to try and build towards 5 star coaching, while ensuring I have as broad scouting knowledge as possible. Here's how they both look:





And you may have noticed, I managed to bag this legend:



Transfers

Been a lot busier this season too, as the screenie below shows!



I think Bryson was a panic buy, as I was looking short in midfield but him and Magennis have done okay as backups.

Here's how the rest look:



















Loving this guy's name in particular:


So my transfer spending pretty much balances out with what we've received. I'll probably look to sell Morgan and bring in Weah on a free transfer, and let Bryson retire and bring in Paddy Roberts on a free too.

I'll see how the lad from Athletico develops - I might send him out on loan next season and bring in someone like Ben Woodburn as cover.

The only other "weak" spots really are perhaps a better GK and a replacement for Ralston - who hasn't developed that well if I'm being honest.

Player Development

Speaking of which, here's how some of the lads have turned out:











Tactics

This is the main tactic I use (still trying to find out the best midfield combination):



For difficult away games, it's a counter/ cautious alternative.

Finances

Both bank balance and wage bill are fit and healthy...if anyone gives a *





Other News

So Gerrard got the Sheff Utd job, and is offski. Stevie Clarke got the hun job, so it'll be interesting to see how both sevco and Killie go the rest of the season, as they have appointed Tommy Wright.

They do have Marc McNulty on loan, who is doing really well.

The zombies though, confuse me. Barisic is their best player, on £30.5k a week, but they just spunked £7.5m on Steven Kingsley to be a back up LB? That's the only cash they spent last 2 seasons as well.

Also, their finance status is Rich and the likes of Morelos are on £35k a week. I'm hoping (in the game only, of course) dave king and co are pumping cash in - always welcome a bit of competition in the game!

Aberdeen haven't sold anyone but spent £5m and signed some decent players, such as Graeme Carey, so it'll be interesting watching their season.

That's pretty much it! A big update on how things are going but onwards and upwards!

Priority is to continue to invest in upgrading our facilities and looking for both an American and Australian feeder club for those cash monies $$$ and scout knowledge.

 

Phwoar.



Phwoar. After the disappointment of last year, this has been * satisfying. Title race was a close-run thing for the bulk of the run-in, Roma fell away first and then Juve collapsed right at the end. From memory they lost 3 and drew 1 of their last 4 league games. We effectively won the title with a win away at Atalanta, Juve drew against Udinese the next day which mathematically clinched it for us. A draw against Udinese is what derailed our own title challenge last season, in the midst of that fixture pile-up. So a bit of sweet, sweet irony there.



At one stage I thought we were on for an undefeated season. Our undefeated league run stretched to 42 games at its height, encompassing the back end of last season. But we slipped up away to Inter, losing 1-0 at the San Siro thanks to a * o.g. from our left back. Oh well, always nice to have an unaccomplished achievement to chase in future campaigns.

Despite my best efforts, we actually ended up going deep in both of the cups. And by going deep, I mean winning both of them. We've done a treble.

Man City were surprisingly easy to beat. Next up we drew Chelsea. Scraped through that, and then drew Dortmund. Quality of our opposiiton compared to last year's Europa run was just silly. Managed to beat BVB and then it was Pep's Spurs for the semi. 0-0 at home, then a 1-2 win away to clinch our place in the Glasgow final. Ended up playing Monaco, who had beat Besiktas in their semi. Two early goals put us in the driving seat, and we just about prevented them from staging a late fightback.



We also made amends for last year's embarrassing Coppa Italia final defeat. This time against more credible opposition. Captain Linetty made the most of a rare start, scoring his only two goals of the season. Good game to do it in, mind.



Not quite a clean sweep in the best XI, but we managed 9/11.



Plizzari, despite notching up a mammoth 25 clean sheets, didn't even make the top 3 of the individual goalkeeper award. Bit weird. Turning into a proper monster though, happy I opted for him rather than Audero.



Stats galore. Pinamonti was decent with 17 goals, though he's still yet to really explode. Scores some proper beauties, though. Belotti had a bizarre season, struggled to score from open play but was lethal from the penalty spot. Still going to give him another season though, despite my urge to replace him with Arp. But I'll probably put that on the back burner until Belotti hits 30 y/o.

Marin had a solid season and largely fended off Doku in terms of the LW starting spot. Though Doku did well with his minutes and will get better with more experience. Happy with Zaniolo's 8 goals, which is a massive number for a CM. And even Tonali managed to bag 4 from DM.

Hoping for a quiet summer, don't intend on making any big purchases. Players on the market aren't of any interest. Will sit on our money and just spruce up the facilities. Only player I'd really go after would be a Chiesa or a Barella, but they're basically out of reach due to being on fat contracts at Spurs and Milan respectively. I am scouting Romagnoli and Caldara, though, as possible CB upgrades. Varnier, too. Basically, long story short, I'll only spend big on a marquee Italian.




Lol.

 

Outlaw King, is it not hard to keep a hold of ajer and kt after the first season?

 

Nope. The core Scottish Celtic players (KT, McGregor, Forrest, MJ) will always back down from wanting a new transfer or contract as soon as you enter the chat thing with them.

The foreign lads are harder. Just need to play hard ball and they’ll give in eventually. Just be careful when it comes to contracts though cause they’ll always try and sneak in minimum fee release clauses!

 

Trying to get back into this game. Started a new game with us.



Signed Fredrick Norrestrand a future right back and back up to Toljan;



KT got injured straight away is out for 3-5 months. Luckily I had already brought in the perfect back up left back in Greg Taylor;


Wanted to get rid of Sinclair. So bought in Mathias Vargas as my left winger;



Got shot of Boyata and brought in Cuenca from Barca B. He will be back up initially for Ajer and Benkovic and then replace Benkovic in the summer;



Then brought in Skov to fight it out with Forrest for the right winger position;



Djerlek is one for the future and is the back up number 10;



I also made a schoolboy error and agreed this deal before realizing he wouldn't join until 2020;

 

Howd you manage that with boyata, only got 4.5 mill for the want away gimp

 

His value was £8 million and I offered him to clubs for that. West ham offered £4million plus add ons up to £8 million so i suggest £8 million upfront with the same add ons and they accepted it.

 

@Officer Doofy

 

How many loan deals are you aloud at once in the spfl, is it 4?

If so gonna cut Arzani short and get another, hes been *

 

Getting a new laptop this week and going to get tore in to this. Thinking Leeds, Villa, Lyon, Dortmund or Lepzig

 

Im not sure theres a limit. I might be wrong.

 

5 mate

 

Going to start a Leipzig save later who are the go to wonder kids ?

 

* it.

Bought it.

I'll be playing it.