Hello everyone, welcome back to my Liverpool and England story! After a good start in August we needed to rack up the points to open up a lead at the top of the table. Before any Liverpool games though, we had two World Cup qualifiers to play.
The first of these was against minnows San Marino, and I expected us to secure a big win. Aaron Lennon put us ahead in the 16th minute with a placed shot and it was one way traffic all game. Peter Crouch scored a header in the 23rd minute and Ashley Young scored just a minute later with a nice finish after a good move. Crouch scored his second 9 minutes later with a powerful shot, and Gerrard made it five with a long range effort. Crouch completed his hat trick with a tap in after good work from Rooney.
After that good win we had a much more difficult game, away at group leaders Switzerland. We got off to a great start when Rooney hammered in for a record breaking 50th England goal. He is now the all time leading scorer for England and, with at least another six years to play, he could get up to around 75. I was pleased and hoped we could perform solidly in defence to secure the win, but in the 24th minute Alex Geijo skipped past Terry and fired in. The match continued quite evenly, we slightly edged it in terms of shots, but we couldn’t break through and the match drifted to a draw.
After that it was back to Liverpool for a difficult home game against Arsenal. We were missing Darijo Srna, David Silva and Steven Gerrard who were all injured on international duty. The match wasn’t a very good one and I thought it was going to end 0-0, but in the 81st minute Sanchez popped up to fire in at the back post. Unfortunately we became complacent and just 3 minutes later Curtis Davies headed in from a corner to share the points. I wasn’t too disappointed because we were missing key players, and had they been playing we probably would have won.
Next up for us was the first Champions League group game, against Olympiakos. We were away, but I still expected us to pick up all three points. Our performance was better than I could have imagined, however and we demolished the Greeks. Gerrard, back from injury, put us ahead with a powerful shot, Torres doubled the lead after half time with a header, before Gerrard grabbed his second with a cool finish. Gignac got in on the act with a bullet header and Torres completed the scoring with a good finish after a nice move. I was pleased with the win and once again we looked very good going forward.
The next game for us was the Carling Cup third round game, where we travel to Hull. I fielded a very young team against the Championship outfit, and was rewarded in the second minute when Martin Galvan placed in a shot after a fine ball from Niklas Danielsson. Danielsson scored the second from Vavilov’s pass, before Vavilov got in on the act with a good finish, for his first goal. Just four minutes later he grabbed his second, he beat the keeper to a long ball and fired into the open net. Jimmy Martindale scored a free kick and Vavilov completed his hat trick with a brilliant goal, beating two defenders and scoring past the keeper. I was delighted with the performance of my youngsters, it seems like the club has a really bright future with some of these wonderkids.
The final game of the month, and we were back to the Premier League, this time facing Burnley, away. Burnley are a good team and have become a solid Premier Division team. With the dangerous Jay Rodriguez up front (if it wasn’t for injury he’d probably have been in the England team in the recent games) and Andrew Driver in midfield I was expecting a tough game. Sure enough, Burnley went ahead in the 16th minute, Chris McCann smashed in from 25 yards. The match was even though, and we got a deserved equaliser before half time, Gerrard tucked home a penalty after Bikey had fouled Gignac in the area. Just after half time we went ahead, Gignac was again fouled in the box, and again Gerrard punished Burnley. We held on, Jay Rodriguez came closest for Burnley, he hit the post from 20 yards, but we secured the victory.
That win pushed us up to second in the league, one point behind Man United but with a game in hand.
Unfortunately we have been unlucky with injuries this month, which is probably the reason why we didn’t beat Arsenal. After the Burnley game Alexis Sanchez got injured and will out for 3 weeks, adding to injuries for Glen Johnson and Darijo Srna.
Next month the schedule looks tougher, we have six games to play including two games against Man Utd, in the Carling Cup and the Premier League.
I am going away tomorrow, skiing in France for a week and my laptop won’t be going with me. This means I will be away from FM for a week, so obviously there will be no posts from me. I just thought I’d tell you so you know why I won’t be posting, and don’t worry I will be back soon!
That’s all for now folks, thanks for reading.
Lye
19 февраля, 2010 at 16:32
Hi Laxeyman, first of all well done for yet another month. The fixture against Man Utd will be crucial though its still early. Hope you have a good result against them. Secondly enjoy your holiday and have a great time.
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 17:02
Thanks Lye, the Man Utd game will be tough I’m sure. A win would really help us, but a loss would be pretty bad.
Kevin Mayo
19 февраля, 2010 at 19:16
Hi Laxeyman
Good month there for you. Enjoy the skiing. Hopefully there is more snow in France than in Canada right now for you to enjoy yourself.
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 19:22
Thanks Kevin. I was in Canada last year and the snow was very good, it’s just unlucky this year, especially with the Winter Olympics there.
Bilal Ahmad
19 февраля, 2010 at 19:24
Great month again! Playing good with England however you were unlucky against Switzerland. I agree with Lye the game against United will be very tough.
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 19:26
Thanks Bilal, we (England) are playing well, but sometimes we struggle to break teams down.
Johnny Karp
19 февраля, 2010 at 21:07
From what I’ve seen so far you’re hammering most teams without mercy, that must be nice to watch. Have fun in France!
Sears
19 февраля, 2010 at 21:07
Lads,i’v major problems on fm10 and i need them fixed.Please help me im only 15 and don’t know nothing about computer’s..1st problem: EDITOR! anytime i do a transfer and save it,i go into the game and the transfered player doesn’t come up on the team i transfered him to. Any solutions?is it a bug or what? 2nd problem: DOWNLOADING PATCHES! i’v the 2nd patch downloaded,but i don’t know what to do with it after i’v downloded it?.3rd problem:DOWNLOADING LOGO’S! i’v the kits succesfully downloaded and there in the game.Sadly i can’t say the same about logo’s,facepack’s and skin’s. Anytime i download logo’s they do not let me extract them to another file beacause it say’s ‘unable to create the file’? what do i do? aalso,the skins are succesfully downloaded, and i’v ticked off ‘use skin cache’ and ticked on ‘always reload skin on confirm’,skins are succesfully put into skin or graphics folder but anytime i try set one in prefences they don’t come up? Also it won’t allow me to download patch 1,is it to late? Please i really want to fix these problem’s!
Dan Monksfield
19 февраля, 2010 at 21:21
Amazing month there Laxeyman! You are ripping teams to shreds, lots of goals and hard any goals conceded, can it get any better :D
Beat Man Utd and keep up the current form in the other matches and you will sit with a nice lead at the top of the league. Good luck with the matches next month!
Matthew
19 февраля, 2010 at 21:27
To sears
Your first problem is that when you make a change and save it as a new database you have to start a new game and use that database to use the changes. This is the same with the patches. To use the new patch you must start a new game. Sorry but I can’t help you with your last problem but I hope this helps.
Great story Laxeyman. Keep it up.
Martin
19 февраля, 2010 at 21:51
Sears, I’m 14! :P
Can’t Really Help With Problems Though.
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:09
Sears, don’t worry I’m only 14 as well. About the skins. When you’ve extracted them and open the folder, is there a sub folder called the same name as the skin? If so then you just need to copy the sub folder, not the whole thing. I hope that helps, I had the same problem. Once you’ve downloaded the patch, open it up and click update. It should then update some files and the patch should be installed.
Sears
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:18
Laxeyman,not sure what to extracht them to?
Sears
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:21
And also,cannot update patch because it says ‘no files to update’?
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:24
Sears, I use a program called WinRAR, you can download it, it’s free. Then right click on the file and select extract files (with WinRAR) and it should work.
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:26
Sears, about the patch, is the file the proper one? Is it about 500-800 MB? Sometimes you get a file that’s about 20KB but that’s the only thing I can think if, I’ve never heard of that problem before.
Sears
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:41
Laxeyman,currently trying to download WinRAR,two types have come up:WinRAR Jr.theme version or WinRAR Orbital theme version.Which one do i choose?also,what do i copy sub folder to?
Laxeyman
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:46
Sears, I don’t know about the WinRAR, I suggest you download both, just in case. And copy the sub folder to graphics in Documents-Sports Interactive-Football Manager 2010.
Sears
19 февраля, 2010 at 22:49
Laxeyman, its ok i give up.actully been at for over 2 weeks now. I will wait till one of my neighbourss come down from Dublin because he’s very good with computer’s so hopefully he will be able to fix my problems. Thank you for your help though.