Hello folks, sorry for the long interruption, I had a lot of work to do and I had very little time for my favorite game, Football Manager 2009. In the last episode of the story you shared the joy that I felt after achieving promotion from the Coca-Cola Championship to the Premier League. It was an unique moment for our players, our board and our fans, everybody was ecstatic. Maybe everybody except me. I was worried because the club’s financial situation was still pretty poor, and I doubted that we could survive in the Premiership with the current squad. The board was optimistic though, the decided to invest into expanding the stadium.
Our chairman came to the rescue, he injected a large amount of money to keep the club afloat.
The month of June ended, and so did my worries. We received the Premier League TV rights money, the largest sum our treasury has ever seen.
Our board expected us to fight bravely against relegation, I told them we could do it. They offered me the largest transfer budget I ever had, 19.5 million euro!
Due to our promotion to the Premier League we had to cancel our link with our parent club, Manchester United. Another big European club was interested into forming a link with our club: Juventus Torino. I also persuaded the board into making a link with Polish club Korona Kielce, which would allow us to send players that don’t have a work permit on loan until they’ll be able to gain Polish citizenship (three years). I already had my eyes on a few Australian youngsters…
The bookmakers were not very optimistic: they gave us 2001 to 1 odds to win the title. The media prediction? Obviously, 20th out of 20 teams.
With all that money available I began working on the transfers. I sold most of my players because I felt they didn’t have what it takes to survive in the Premiership and I bought a lot of new players, some of them experienced, many of them young promising players. The fact is that there were no players left from my first Chester squad, the one that gained promotion from League Two to League One. The last of the mohicans, James Chester, was sold to Derby for 950 K.
I bought 21 players, almost an entire squad. The most expensive and maybe the most promising is 19 year old regen centre back from Uruguay, Esteban Martinez. I bought him from San Lorenzo for 4.6 million euro and I was thrilled that he signed with us because he had offers from all over Europe. I think that he will be one of the best defenders in Europe in only a few years.
Another important signing for me was strong defensive midfielder Drissa Diakité from Mali, with French citizenship. I signed him for free from Nice and I hoped that he will be an essential player in our midfield.
And last but not least, I had to get a fast striker that could maybe take advantage of our conter attack opportunities. With little money left I chose to sign former Aston Villa player Luke Moore. I bought him from Dundee United for 325 K hoping that he will finally show his talent at the age of 26. He was a promising youngster a few years ago and I felt that he didn’t show his real strength until now.
That’s about it. The Premier League season is about to begin with high hopes for us and maybe with the fear that we can’t cope with our illustrious opponents. I’ll try to give some courage to my lads, I’m sure that we can avaid relegation and build a bright future for our club. What do you say, can we make it?
Lucky
6 февраля, 2009 at 02:12
may i ask why my strikers always do not score goals and my best penalty taker keep missing penalty. and my team is weird. they can win man u 3-0 one day and lose to a lower club 2-0 the next day. help pls
JohnnyKarp
6 февраля, 2009 at 02:27
Hey Lucky. Maybe you can give us more details, like the team you have, the tactics, who’s your penalty taker and how high is his penalty taking attribute, stuff like that. Losing to lower clubs can happen to any team, but if you have a top team it shouldn’t happen too often. Anyway, come back with details and maybe we can sort it out.
Lucky
6 февраля, 2009 at 03:32
i am currently using aston villa i think i in my 5th season. my penalty taker is gareth barry andh is taking skill is 16. i use 4 4 2 tatics with a slow tempo and short passing style but i put my striker as forward run always . wad confuse me is that when my strikers are true on goal, they only score in like once in six tries mostly off targets. r this detail enuf?
JohnnyKarp
6 февраля, 2009 at 03:43
Lucky, your penalty taker should score at least 4 out of 5 kicks I think. If he misses more than one out of five it’s pretty strange. What patch are you using? About your strikers missing, that happens a lot to me too, even with strikers that have high finishing. From what I’ve seen the best for these situations are the strikers that try to go round the keeper or pass the pall into the net, but I might be wrong. Maybe you should try to tweak the tactic to match the opponent you’re facing, the same tactic might now work the same against Arsenal and Shrewsbury.
Lucky
6 февраля, 2009 at 03:46
my penalty taker miss 3 out of 5 penalty not sure why maybe my luck was down. also one more thing. more than half of my squad are under 23. is that why my team is not performing that well
JohnnyKarp
6 февраля, 2009 at 05:05
Maybe he was low on morale or something. And about that young squad of yours, that same thing happened to me with young players, so you should be patient.
MAR
7 июня, 2010 at 22:13
one question regarding signings:
in fm 2010 many times i offer to a layer almos double than he is asking in wage,goals,games,wage raise,relegation release and so on………and he ends up signing for other teams.
i used to play the 2003 version and now i´m into the 2010,in the 2003 if i offer more than asked to a player most of the times he ended up choosing my offer,even if my team was samller than the others offreing to sign him……
Johnny Karp
8 июня, 2010 at 04:36
I don’t think that’s a rule but I noticed it too, sometimes players reject wealthy offers for no obvious reason. That happens in real life sometimes too so it didn’t bother me too much in the game.