True Football Manager Story has moved!

Hello, everyone I am sad to announce that my time on blogger is over. I am, however delighted to tell you that my story will continue to publish at http://footballmanagerstory.com/, so if you want to continue to follow it, please check it out there. On that site you will also find three other superb FM story's so I strongly recommend it.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported me through the comments, in my relatively sort time blogging, and I hope you will continue to do so at the new site.

Cheers,
Laxeyman

League is Won but Champions League is Over

Hello Readers, over the last few weeks in FM, there has been a high and a low, almost at the same time. I will start with the high.
We have won the league again! Just take a look at the league table, it shows how clearly we were the best team this season. The league was wrapped up as early as the 24th March, with 6 games left. I am really glad of this as we had important matches coming up, so I wanted to rest players.

Now onto the low. It was of course, that we were dumped out of the Champions League by Real Madrid. Look at the screenshot for the 1st leg. My hopes weren't high for this game as we were missing Gerrard, Aquialni, Srna, Otamendi, Lucas, Downing, Aurelio and Gignac, due to a combination of inelegability, suspension and injury, meaning we had a very weakened team out. This weak team had to deal with players like Ronaldo, Alonso, Benzema, Higuain, Huntelaar, Diarra, Kaka and Vukinic, so it's no wonder we struggled.
Despite this, if you look at the match stats they were quite even, and I thought we probably deserved a draw. Unfortunately Benzema opened the scoring with a tap in, and then Ronaldo scored a penalty after Insua was penalised even though he won the ball.

In the 2nd leg though, I was hopeful that we could turn in a good performance, as we had a much stronger team and I set attacking tactics in the hope of getting at Real's dodgy defence. It sort of worked. Unfortunately, it meant the defence was more exposed to players like Ronaldo and Benzema, although once again I don't think we deserved to lose. Again looking at the match stats, the match was quite even and we probably deserved a draw (again). It was actually a pretty entertaining match and went like this:

-Benzema opens the scoring with a placed shot

-Mascherano levels it up with a stunner from 30 yards

-Benzema scores again after Ronaldo's cross deflects, wrong footing Reina and falling in Benzema's path, and he scores from a yard out

-Benayoun then taps the ball in after Torres nicks the ball from Casillas and sets him up

-Benzema completes his hat-trick with a tap at the far post

-Ronaldo finishes it off with a close range header

This means we can't fulfil our goal of conquering Europe, and we will have to give it another shot next season.

On a better note, we are through to the FA Cup Final (again) after beating Wolves 2-0 in the Semi - Final. This means that we will play Arsenal in a repeat of last seasons final. Hopefully history will repeat itself and we will do the double like last season.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

February 2012 and Champions League Thriller

Hello readers, sorry for the slightly longer than usual delay with the posting. However today is the day for this post, and I am pleased to say we have gone more games unbeaten. Take a look at our latest results. We got a good draw against Arsenal, which means we are all but guaranteed the title.
I am saying this because look how many points clear we are. A whopping 12 points, with only 8 games left! Another few wins will wrap up the league and we should almost definitely win it in the next 5 games. This is a good thing because I want to win it as early as possibly, so players can be rested for the crucial knockout Champions League games.

In the first Knockout round, as I said in a previous post, we were drawn against Lyon, a decent team, but a side I expected us to beat. The two legs were thrilling ties, although I am disappointed that we conceded so may goals after going in front.

You can see, we did that in the first game, conceding two very disappointing goals after we had taken a two goal lead. You can see from the match stats, that Lyon had more possession, but we had more attempts on goal, and looked more dangerous throughout the game. I was particularly pleased with the performance of Yossi Benayoun, who sliced open the Lyon defence a number of times and claimed both assists, and Fernando Torres, who terrorised their defence, with his pace, skill and great finish for his goal.

Despite conceding from a winning position, I still felt this was a decent result, because we had scored 2 very important away goals, and probably deserved to win the game. I felt with a strong defensive display, we should easily qualify for the next round.

Unfortunately, we didn't play well at the back in the 2nd leg, although I thought we were cruising through when Carragher scored from a corner, to double our lead, after Gerrard's penalty had given us the advantage. Then, as in the 1st game, Lopez scored to give Lyon some hope, and our defence couldn't cope, allowing Lopez to score again, and level the match and the tie.

As you can see from the match stats, Lyon had more of the ball, but again we had more shots, both on target and off target.

Lopez's two goals meant the tie was level and after that the game went very flat, with no chances at all, even in Extra Time. This meant the game went to penalties. As I chose my penalty takers I was confident we had better takers than them. I looked through their team before the shootout, and their highest attribute penalty taker was Lopez with 12 as his rating. I felt this was very poor, although Lyon surprised me by scoring 4 out of 5 penalties taken. The only miss was from Kim Kallstrom, who's weak penalty was saved by Reina. For us I was delighted that every penalty was scored, and I never had any doubt, that my players would miss. Obviously I was delighted we had come through, but I am slightly worried that we became so complacent after going ahead.

It means, though that we can still achieve our goal of Champions League glory, but we have drawn Real Madrid in the quarter final. This match will be very tight, I am sure, but the competition is definitely getting tougher.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Good Form and January Transfers

Hello Readers. I am pleased to say that our good form is continuing. Have a look at the league table. We sit a comfortable 9 points clear, which is mainly due to Arsenal's poor form of late. We are playing Arsenal next, and if we win we will be 12 points clear and the title would almost be ours.
Here are the latest set of fixtures from the beginning of December to the end of January. We only lost one game, and that was a dead rubber against Roma when we fielded a weakened team, and even then we didn't deserve to lose. Apart from that it has been an excellent couple of months and we are now unbeaten in 20 league games. As I have said before, the Champions League is the target this season, and after topping our group, we were drawn against Lyon. Lyon are a decent team but I fancy our chances of winning the tie.

These are the all the transfers for the season, but you can see we signed two players in January. They were Darijo Srna on a free, after his contract expired at Shaktar. He is a very useful player due to his versatility. He is a natural at DR, WBR and MR, and is accomplished at DL, WBL and ML. The one player sold was Albert Riera, to Barcelona. He was sold mainly due to his age (29), his declining pace and the good offer Barcelona put in. Downing was signed as a replacement for him and will be a backup for Silva on the Left.

Here are Srna's attributes. He has no real weakness, and is quite quick, skillful and is a decent tackler. He also has amazing crossing and delivery, and is a real danger from free kicks.

Downing was signed as a direct replacement for Riera, and his attributes are very similar, he is just younger and quicker. He is only a backup player, so is not a particularly interesting signing and is merely a decent player. Finally, I would like to mention Lauri Dalla Valle. He was out on loan at Stoke until Christmas, but came back just in time to play a few matches. We had an injury crises up front and he ended up playing against West Ham, Fulham and Man United. The crises came because Fabiano got an injury that kept him out for a month, Torres got an elbow injury, that sidelined him for 2 weeks. Gignac was still not fit, due to his broken ankle, although he has just come back now. To top it all of the 4th choice striker Vavilov was out for 6 weeks with Cruciate Ligament Damage.

All this meant Dalla Valle played up front on his own in 3 games, and he did well, scoring against Fulham and a beauty against West Ham from an impossible angle. He has really improved over the last year, and now is my bright hope for the future.

That's all for this post, thanks for reading. I will inform you of the Champions League and spring results soon.

Liverpool Tactics in FM 2010

Hello Readers, Happy New Year! Welcome to my first post of the year. This one is about the tactics I use with Liverpool on my FM 2010 game. I have two sets of tactics: Attacking tactics, that are used when I play weaker opposition and more defensive tactics, which are used against teams of equal or greater ability. Below is the attacking tactics that I use in most Premier League matches. The defensive tactics are usually used in Champions League Knockout matches against strong opposition. The attacking tactics are quite simply really, they are just 4-4-2 with Mascherano pushed back into a DMC position.


The player roles used in this tactic are: Reina- Goalkeeper-Defend, Johnson and Aurelio/Insua- Full Back- Support, Carragher and Otamendi- Central Defender- Defend. In midfield, Mascherano- Defensive Midfielder- Defend, Gerrard- Box to Box Midfielder- Support, David Silva and Alexis Sanchez/ Yossi Benayoun- Winger- Attack. Up front, Torres- Poacher- Attack, Luis Fabiano/ Gignac- Advanced Forward- Attack.
The main points of this Formation are MC, ML, MR, and two ST's go forward and attack during posession while the rest of the team defend. The combination up front of Poacher- Attack and Advanced Forward- Attack, seems to be working well because the striker are scoring alot of Goals.
The team instructions are below. It is a very attacking approach, with an attacking strategy and a fluid philosophy, meaning the emphasis is very much on scoring goals.

This is the more defensive tactic. There is only one change, as a Striker is taken out and a midfielder (Aquilani) is put in to bolster the midfield, and protect us more at the back. The player roles are all the same, with Aquilani having the settings- Deep Lying Playmaker- Support, so he is the playmaker and tries to create chances while Gerrard bombs on and links with Torres.

There is only one team setting changed: The attacking strategy is changed to a more conservative Standard approach, athough if we are away it is sometimes changed to Counter. This tactic is one of the reasons we have done so well against the 'big four' teams, and is one of the reasons why we concede so few goals against them.

That's all for this post, keep checking there will be another one soon. For now readers, play FM!