Football Manager 2019

Just seen this in my save.

Thank * it's just a game.

 

Well, was still playing my FM18 Celtic save and sure enough, the same * happened to me in 2021 where all my players values dropped overnight by more than half.
Tierney went from 19.5 million to 8 million. Barco from 21 also to 8 I think. Not one player is worth over 10 atm.
I took over at Man City after that happened, but am not enjoying that as much. It ruined the game for me.

Can anyone tell me if they fixed this in FM19?

 

Looking forward to seeing how Christie is in the patch. I play him as a CM roaming playmarker, and he’s so much better than at CAM (Gen-press formation). Stats are still brutal though but always gets good ratings!

 

Ended up taking the England job, will resign straight after the World Cup as I've no interest in slogging away at it for 6 years to get 2026 in.

Had a few goes at upgrading the midfield. Thought about Sander Berge as he's just signed a new contract with a tasty 17.75m release clause, but I'm not fully convinced by him. His attributes aren't particularly weighted towards defence nor attack, he's basically a big physical lump who can pass tidily enough. Future bench target perhaps but I don't think he's an immediate upgrade. Had a bid for Brescia's Tonali accepted, much better than Berge defensively. Unfortunately Zidane's United were in for him as well, and that's only ever going to go one way...

Unless we hand him an over-the-top contract. Swiftly did that, whole bunch of bonuses. Also made him the highest paid player at the club on 110k, though then remembered that I'd given Pickford a match highest earner clause so he got a modest 10k bump to keep parity. Pricey deal at 39m all up, though only paying 14m up front with the rest in an installment at the start of next season. And when you compare it to Man City forking out 78m for Bournemouth's Lewis Cook, it looks like a bargain.

Pleased to beat United to such a solid young player, he'll share the DLP-D side of the pivot with Ajer. Did briefly consider Bayern's transfer-listed Goretzka when it looked like I might get beaten to the punch on Tonali, has a 40m price tag but could have reduced that to 26.5m + 10m in loan fees. But I didn't want to risk handing over that much for a rental and end up with Bayern unlisting him and him not wanting to sign.

Did have a cheeky stab at seeing how much he'd want if I was to sign him straight away, offered him comparable terms to what he's on at Bayern and his agent came back demanding 170k! Even with a year on loan and me growing to be favoured personnel, I don't see those demands coming down a great deal. Cataldi will continue as B2B backup but I'm starting to scout McKennie as a possible replacement for the Jan window. McLeod has been relegated to 5th-choice and didn't put up a great average last season, decided to loan him out to Swansea to get 2m in fees and his wages off of the books as he won't see much game time here. Last year of his contract but I'll look to extend it as he could bring in a bit of a fee one day (no one's biting now, unfortunately).

Managed to get Odriozola over the line but had to go much higher on the contract than I'd have liked. Were it not for BVB I'd be paying the lad about 60k, had to go up to 84k to fend them off along with a whole raft of bonuses. Worth it though, his pace will be lethal.

Mbappe has arrived in England, biggest transfer of the summer window at 170m to Man City. Though they did have to balance the books by selling Jesus to Real for 104m.

Settled on Samp to be my post-Jan update save. Will be fun to see if I can replicate the irl form of Quags.

First game of the season is in the books, and what a game. We're missing a whole bunch of players at the Olympics, 4 in total but all are regular starters: Majer, Marin, Arp and Pierie. Those absences coupled with me not wanting to start Trincao and Tonali due to their recent arrival/not being up to speed with the tactics left me fielding a decidedly 2nd-choice lineup in the main. Game was Everton away, so pre-match discussion was naturally centered on Pickford's return to Goodison for his first competitive game in between the sticks for Brentford.

My decision to hold back Trincao on the bench and start the more tactically integrated Paddy Roberts bore fruit in spectacular fashion, as he fired us ahead via a 25-yd scorching free kick. This was just after the half and with the game in the balance, and RLC not having much of an impact at #10, I decided that it was time to shut up shop a bit by switching to a 4-3-3 and introducing Tonali at DM. 12 minutes later and Tonali gives away a silly pen for a bit of shirt-pulling in the box. Pickford fails to stop the resulting spot kick, and the game is all square at 1-1. Queue me shifting back to the 4-2-3-1, dragging Ajer off in order to put Judgy on at #10 and also bringing Trincao on in place of the tiring Pjaca on the left wing.

Went into full attack mode, the breakthrough came in the 2nd minute of extra time with Toure bursting down the right and cutting the ball back to the edge of the box for Paddy Roberts to notch up his brace. Shifted back to the defensive 4-3-3 but we ended up scoring again regardless, this time Paddy Roberts assisting Trincao in the 5th minute of extra time to seal the result.



Two maiden goalscorers, a hard-fought away win, can't ask for much more than that. Next up: Man City at home for the first ever competitive match at the Brentford Community Stadium..



Pretty happy with the state of the squad at the moment, more than adequate for a top 8 finish I reckon. Only real weakness is probably the lack of a starting caliber B2B behind Gagliardini, Cataldi is a reasonable squad player but nothing special. Other than that, though, we look in good shape. Wings are brimming with talent now, have two stellar right backs, a raft of good center half options. Also forgot to mention I signed Markovic from Partizan, have him out on loan to our sister club in Denmark but I'm fairly sure Serbia join the EU at some point so he won't be spending too long over there getting a Work Permit. Unless perhaps Britain leaves before Serbia joins... but I'm sure he'll start racking up Serbia caps soon regardless.

edit: Get. In.

Krzysztof 'goalwhacker' Piateck. Ignore the Varane getting sent off bit, we smashed them.

 

Anyone?

 

Haven’t noticed it dude

 

Not too sure mate, here are the values of the AI Celtic squads from a couple of my saves, if that helps.



That's from December 2020.



That's from January 2023.

 

Thanks. It looks alright than. Wouldn't want to ruin another 700+ hour save. (Yeah, I always play this very slow. )

 

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop...LEN5PWJRNVNkAaWjr6xtLTgehfbBI7M_ZpeU5tqO35CJw

Lads the 2003/2004 season the stats are copied from the championship manager around then.

 

Toure: 'I want to move to Man United to play in the Champions League.'
Me: Negotiates 27m fee with United
Me: Bids for BVB's transfer-listed 17.5m Passlack and gets him to agree a contract
Inbox, 1 week later: 'Toure snubs Man Uniited.'

 

First bit of silverware of the save, nice to get something in the cabinet. Also the first major, or minor, cup in the club's history. First major cup final as well, putting the pain of three final defeats in the various guises of the Checkatrade trophy firmly behind us.

In the FA Cup we've got Birmingham away next, but the following round has already been drawn and we've annoyingly got the prospect of Man City away looming. So I don't fancy our chances of completing the domestic cup double. Got past Trabzonspor in the Europa League and have a tasty double header against Ajax coming up.



I like the synchronicity of the two goals coming from my Italian midfield pivot. They rarely score individually, so both notching goals in the same match, a cup final no less, is pretty special (Tonali also claimed MOTM honours, completing 96 passes). Arp's goal was of less importance because the contest was long finished at that point, but always nice to see him scoring regardless. Has had a bit of a lean season compared to last in the league but I think he'll come on strong down the stretch. Had Barca submit a bid for him on deadline day, but I counteroffered with an askking price of 93m to make them sod off, which they did. He didn't even kick up a fuss over it, which was nice.




Window ended up being decent, with Lenglet, Morilla and Winks all signed. RLC departed to Betis, whilst Konsa and Cataldi were loaned out to free up space. Lenglet has slotted in really nicely, solid defensively and already picking out a couple of assists with his passing range. Gives me a few defensive headaches going forward, though, re-applied for a WP for Markovic which was successful, so he'll be back in the summer to take up a place in the squad. I've then got to choose two to keep from Mepham, Souttar and Fry, all of whom are decent long-term young cornerstones. Keeping a 5th-choice centre half on the books is largely an exercise in wasting money. Even if someone gets injured I've already got Ajer as natural CB cover. So a pure 5th/6th choice CB would be the very definition of a redundant wage drain.

I may ditch Mepham to reflect his IRL departure from the club. But I sort of want to hold on to him as I like maintaining a link to the players who were at the club from the start of the save. There's little to separate Souttar and Fry, but Fry has the advantage of trained-in-England status. Mepham also has trained-in-England status, depending on how the numbers stack up it might end up being Souttar drawing the short straw for the sake of registration requirements.

The Passlack thing not happening is probably for the best, Toure is really solid defensively. Schalke came in for him randomly on deadline day with a lowball offer, rejected it and Toure then asked for an explanation. But rather than talking to him directly I got club captain Alan Judge to sort it out, which he did, so the unhappiness over wanting the United move which he randomly rejected is now gone.

 

Where’s this update!!!!?????

 

Solid league campaign. Last season we conceded 53 goals whilst scoring 73, this time around we've tightened up considerably with Pickford between the posts, conceding just 25, though our goals tally has also come down a tad as we only only scored 58 times. Won PL Manager of the Year honours for the second season on the bounce.



Fulham, Millwall and QPR have all earned promotion, so the London mini-league is expanding to 8 clubs in spite of Palace's relegation. By my rough calculations 40% of the league will be composed of London clubs. 14 of our 38 league games, roughly 36.8% of our schedule, will be London derbies.

Arsene Wenger has made a triumphant return to Premier League management. After being sacked by BVB he's pitched up at Liverpool to replace Jurgen Klopp, who got his P45 after a second successive non-top 4 finish. Everton's Frank Lampard is being heavily linked to take up Wenger's old BVB job.

Europa League was really fun. Dispatched Trapzonspor with ease, rolled out the first-choice XI for the next round and defeated Ajax 3-0 across two legs. Mauled Sociedad in the quarters, winning 4-1 away and backing it up with a 3-0 home win. Semi opponent was Leverkusen, a formidable side still boasting Brandt and Havertz. Lost 3-1 in the away leg, thought we were dead and buried. My starting #10 Majer had been out injured for a few weeks so I'd been playing my alternate 4-3-3 counter formation. Had been getting some solid results so stuck with it for the away leg, hoping to keep the scoreline close and bring it back to the BCS with a fighting chance. Had to go back to the 4-2-3-1 and just go full throttle for the return leg. We ended up winning 2-0 to advance on away goals, was * nervous in the final stages as I was convinced they'd score right at the death.

We wound up getting Bela Guttmann Curse victims Benfica for the Rotterdam final. Was wary of them as they've got some decent players, but the alternative was Liverpool so on the whole I was happy enough. Turned out to be a romp.



Getting harder and harder to justify not going for Goretzka. After requesting to be de-listed in about February he's now back on the transfer list, this time for the pathetically low amount of 8.75m at the moment. Bearing in mind the asking price was 40m when I first noticed him being up for sale. Ultimately I'm still not sure if I can justify the wage outlay, even though he'd be an immediate upgrade on Winks to share minutes with Gags at the B2B position. But I need to keep Winks around for HG purposes now that Brexit is upon us, and paying him 39k to sit around getting barely any minutes as 5th-choice CM doesn't seem sensible. Although Goretzka's wage demands seemed to have dropped quite a bit if my scouts are to be believed. And Wolves are sniffing around him now, so if I do want him I'll have to be bold and make a decision.



Arp was the leading all comps scorer with 23. Really pleased with the contributions from Pjaca and Roberts, solid numbers for second-choice wingers.

I'm a bit baffled by the massive drop-off Piateck has experienced (10 league goals in 11 apps last season, 6 in 26 this season), though I guess I should have seen it coming after experiencing similar in my Koln save. I brought in Morilla to be a #10 replacement, when I first scouted him I got a report saying he was a natural as either a #10 or a #9, and had 100% role suitability for three different AM roles. Turned out when he arrived he in fact didn't have a strong suitability for any of the AM roles, he was merely competent at a few of them. He did however have natural suitability for the advanced forward role.

Given that it seems impossible to train players up and grow their role suitability on this year's FM (it only ever seems to go backwards, Gagliardini started out with natural B2B suitability but that randomly dropped to accomplished despite being set to B2B training and never playing any other roles), I'm starting to think I may just have to switch gears and install Morilla as my second striker, then going on to sell Pateck in order to raise funds for a #10. I've not qualms about getting rid of Piateck as I don't see his form coming back. Just a case of hoping that there is an interested club out there willing to at least match his value.

Not sure who to target as a #10, like the idea of Foden who's done very well on loan at Wolves, but I can't see City being interested in letting him go cheaply. Scout estimate is 63-70m, so that's probably a non-starter.
Our top 4 spot was sealed with a game to go after Liverpool lost away at Leicester. The Chairman then set the budgets for next season at 1.52m wages (currently spending 1.37m), and 50.8m for transfers. Fairly decent, though currently only have 30% of revenue available so will need to bump that up before selling anyone.

Doing a bit of future proofing by tying down some of my key players to longer contracts. Didn't like the amount of interest Arp was attracting so very happy to tie him down to a 2-year extension. Also have Marin extending by three years, could have waited a bit longer as he's on an insanely low 8.75k a week but his wage demands are reasonable at the moment so I'll save more in the long run having him tied down for three years on 27k. Do it in December and he's probably commanding a higher salary, and there's always the risk of him threatening to Bosman. Tonali was already contracted thru 2025 but I managed to get him to agree to a new deal that runs until 2026, bumped down some of his bonuses in the process and also got rid of a release clause.

 

Wouldn't expect it till later next week.

Annoying (not their fault) as my mojo for getting in to a new save has creeped back up the last couple days and I know the update is around the corner as well.

On to my previously started AC save for now, await to start a new Celtic save with the update.

 

Roll up, roll up to the Great Brentford Firesale! You want strikers? We've got em. Mercurial Croatian 10s afraid of big matches? You bet. Overperforming wingers who we'll probably regret selling? Absolutely. Bargains here, there and everywhere.

Decided to rip up the system, ditching the 4-2-3-1 in favour of a 4-1-2-3 DM. My initial plan was to keep rolling with the same formation and bring in Havertz as an upgrade at #10. Had second thoughts due to his low determination and a couple of other lacklustre attributes. I couldn't settle on any other #10s that I really wanted, so it was time to scrap the position entirely and move to a midfield 3.

This would mean selling Majer, who despite being a solid player is rather inconsistent, tends to get injured and doesn't enjoy big matches. Napoli coming in with a huge 62m bid helped push my decision making process along. The formation switch benefits Tonali, who did well at CM but is a natural DM, so should hopefully thrive there with Ajer backing him up.

I envisioned the pivot consisting of an advanced playmaker, BVB's Frenkie de Jong being my primary target, alongside the B2B slot. Was initially planning on Goretzka to be my new B2B backup, with Winks deputising for De Jong, but I stumbled across Benfica's Gedson Fernandes who looked a more impressive player, and is also a lot younger with more of an upside. Cost a fair bit more (39m) but I decided to go in that direction.

Spurs decided to get in the race for De Jong, which massively messed up my window. I kept having to up my contract offer in an attempt to get De Jong to choose us. But the deadline kept creeping closer and closer. In the end he opted for us, but wouldn't make his mind up until deadline day. The work permit process takes 24 hours, meaning that the paperwork was impossible to get over the line in time. The upside to this is that Dortmund were still willing to accept an identical offer to my initial one the very next day (40m up front, 27m in two 12-monthly installments). And with Spurs no longer in the race, I'm able to negotiate a far smaller contract with De Jong as there's no competition. But the obvious downside is I'm a man short in midfield for 6 months. Oh well, we'll make do and mend. Did a cheeky reload to try and trigger an earlier decision but it's impossible, he won't make his mind up until the morning of deadline day and the permit application never takes less than a full day. Harry Winks has suddenly found himself in line for a lot more minutes.

Piatek was on the cutting room floor with the formation switch making Morilla my new primary Arp backup. Bournemouth came in with an impressive 41.5m offer, which was more than adequate. Millwall have a bit of cash to splash around and they were willing to part with 19m to sign Ollie Watkins. Will always fondly remember the 6 months at the start of the save when he single-handedly tore Championship defences apart.

One of my character flaws is a propensity to hold grudges. Despite liking Almamy Toure as a player he was still in my bad books over the January United non-move farrago. I'd been eyeing up Aaron Wan-Bissaka for ages, and Palace's relegation opened the door for a move with him requesting a transfer. Chelsea also bid for him but we were his preferred destination, I think due to my previous interest in him, perhaps a press conference compliment or two and also presumably me giving him his England debut. He did come back at the last minute asking for a slight tweak to our offer, but I was all too happy to oblige. Cost 18.75m all up with a portion of the fee being an installment next year. Flogged Toure to Benfica for 28.5m. AWB is also about 12k cheaper as far as wages are concerned.

Pjaca has been a smashing signing since arriving as a Juve cast-off. Frequently popping up with big goals, small goals, assists. But he's middle-aged, injury prone, and I'm keen to snag Jadon Sancho before any of the other English title contenders make a move for him. So out the door he goes. I was initially going to sell him to China for 31m as I was struggling to drum up interest elsewhere. But by the time the sale was ready to go through Everton were flush with cash having sold their own Croatian LW Vlasic to Leverkusen for big money. Killed the China deal and Everton came in with a 41.5m offer. Sancho was horribly expensive as BVB wouldn't accept a penny less than his 71m release clause.

Keeping Judge around as a mascot of sorts. New contract combines his role with an under 18s coaching gig. Will give him a run in the cups. Taking the armband away from him though as he won't get the game time to justify it. Mepham promoted to captain and Pickford takes the vice mantle.

Total sales ended up being 218m, also flogged several randoms who I'd been loaning out. Have a small loan army now but will still be making a reasonable 11m from it. Total spend was 130m, though De Jong arrives in Jan for 67m.



So yeah. Squad is decent, just imagine De Jong in place of Ampadu. Loaned in Ampadu as we'd be a man short otherwise. Unless you want to consider Judge part of the 6-man midfield unit, which... I don't. Loaned Markovic to Valencia, couldn't bring myself to sell Souttar just yet. They've got better facilities than us so he should develop quite well, by my reckoning he'll be a clear third-choice for minutes there.

Buo is a solid regen I pinched from Rosenborg. Tying him down as club-trained rather than loaning him out. Already had him training with the seniors when he was in the U18s.

Good results so far. Frustrating 0-0 away to West Brom but bounced back with a 1-0 win over United, my first against Zidane, and a 2-0 win over Spurs. Beat Real 2-1 in the Super Cup, Sancho bagging a brace from the bench to rescue us. Back to league action with a 1-4 away win at Bournemouth. CL draw was brutal despite being EL-winner 1st seeds: PSG, Milan, PSV.

 

3minutes in to injury time, then 3minutes after the start of second season?

 

From your experience's whos the best wonderkids that turn on the best? particularly the strikers.

 

Probabaly. Didn't pay too much attention. Just don't see that often.

 

What a surprise. Think I played them every first season in all past 6 or 7 editions of FM.