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Hello everybody and welcome to a very bad idea. What is football manager 2021? Football Manager 2021 is decried by some as a spreadsheet simulator, praised by others as a spreadsheet simulator, but, when you strip out all the bullshit, it is just a spreadsheet simulator. What do you actually do in it, though? You uh, you manage the football. More specifically you take charge of a club or national team and attempt to have success with them you manage tactics, player transfers, the locker room and pretty much everything that comes with being a football manager short of taking bribes. Who will you be managing? .png) Darlington are a club perhaps most famous for the Reynolds Arena debacle, wherein their owner George Reynolds built a 25k-seater stadium for a football club in a town of 100,000 people surrounded by towns that have much more successful and popular football clubs. Oh and then George Reynolds got done for a number of tax fraud and money laundering charges, before declaring bankruptcy. Darlington then became the basket case club of the English leagues, going into administration several times despite heroic performances on the pitch time and time again. They were a parade of new owners and all of them failed, eventually it just became too much, there were no more saviours left. The Reynolds Arena had finally claimed its quarry, it killed Darlington football club. But they didn't stay dead, Darlington 1883 were set up as a phoenix club and although they weren't the old Darlington they were a football club for the people of Darlington, after a number of promotions and years passing eventually Darlington 1883 were given the right to be Darlington proper and that brings us to now, we can finally give Darlington something to cheer about. What is the goal for this LP? Much like George Reynolds I have a three step plan. 1. Promotion to the premier league 2. Build a new stadium 3. Win the champions league. Once those goals are complete, we'll figure out what to do with this thing.
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Oct 11, 2021 14:36
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| # ? May 9, 2024 13:27 |
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Chapter 1 Part 1 There is a light that never goes out Chapter 1 Part 2 Runaways Chapter 1 Part 3 Set piece battle. Chapter 1 Part 4 Reinforcements Chapter 1 Part 5 Kirkham and Wesham Chapter 1 Part 6 Ten Chapter 1 Part 7 Juggernaut Chapter 1 Part 8 Wake me up when November ends Chapter 1 Part 9 Golden Chapter 1 Part 10 Shaken Chapter 1 Part 11 Tight Chapter 1 Part 12 Return Chapter 1 Part 13 Showdown Chapter 1 Part 14 A taste so sweet. Chapter 1 Part 15 Victory Lap Chapter 1 Part 16 Final? Chapter 1 Part 17 Sabermetric. Chapter 2 Part 1 Gabbiadini Chapter 2 Part 2 Inconsistency Chapter 2 Part 3 Run Chapter 2 Part 4 Running. Chapter 2 Part 5 Chaos Chapter 2 Part 6 Justice Chapter 2 Part 7 Magic Chapter 2 Part 8 Believe Chapter 2 Part 9 Like Mike Chapter 2 Part 10 The Run In Chapter 2 Part 11 Endings and new beginnings. Chapter 2 Part 12 Professionalism Chapter 3 Part 1 I didn't hear no bell Chapter 3 Part 2 You only get ONE point? Chapter 3 Part 3 Hopium? Chapter 3 Part 4 Pog Chapter 3 Part 5 Land of contrasts Chapter 3 Part 6 In the mud. Chapter 3 Part 7 Pain, agony even Chapter 3 Part 8 AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Chapter 3 Part 9 Pissing it away Chapter 4 Part 1 Freshness. Chapter 4 Part 2 End of an era Chapter 4 Part 3 Joe Lumley Chapter 4 Part 4 Damned Shame. Chapter 4 Part 5 Hometown Chapter 4 Part 6 Draw Chapter 4 Part 7 Bigger Chapter 4 Part 9 Tony Khan Chapter 4 Part 10 The death of hope Chapter 4 Part 11 Divine Intervention Chapter 4 Part 12 Mania. Chapter 5 Part 1 New faces, old enemies Chapter 5 Part 2 Reality check Chapter 5 Part 3 Unreality check Chapter 5 Part 4 Complete Chapter 5 Part 5 A Hat Full Chapter 5 Part 6 Perfection Chapter 5 Part 7 Historical Chapter 6 Part 1 Fresh start. Chapter 6 Part 2 Gone over? Chapter 6 Part 3 Bigger Chapter 6 Part 4 Can he? Chapter 6 Part 5 Doom Chapter 6 Part 6 Redemption Chapter 6 Part 7 Decisive Day Chapter 7 Part 1 Housekeeping Chapter 7 Part 2 House Blown Down Chapter 7 Part 3 Snookered Chapter 7 Part 4 Picture. Chapter 7 Part 5 Magic Chapter 7 Part 6 Golden Chapter 7 Part 7 Tactical Masterclass Chapter 7 Part 8 Tactical Masterclass 2 Chapter 7 Part 9 Historical Chapter 7 Part 10 Marbella Chapter 8 Part 1 Growing Chapter 8 Part 2 Sick day Chapter 8 Part 3 Bilbao To Burnley Chapter 8 Part 4 The religious situation of Motherwell Chapter 8 Part 5 MASSIVE Chapter 8 Part 6 Cursed Chapter 8 Part 7 Typical Darlington Chapter 8 Part 8 Deja vu Chapter 8 Part 9 Old foes Chapter 8 Part 10 El Liquidico Chapter 8 Part 11 A small town in europe Chapter 9 Part 1 A big departure Chapter 9 Part 2 Germany Chapter 9 Part 3 Little bastard Chapter 9 Part 4 Istanbul Chapter 9 Part 5 Barcelona Chapter 9 Part 6 Leaders Chapter 9 Part 7 Unstoppable Chapter 9 Part 8 The Entertainers Chapter 9 Part 9 The Wobble Chapter 9 Part 10 Manchester United Chapter 10 Part 1 Endsieg Chapter 10 Part 2 A new world? Chapter 10 Part 3 The end of the anarchy Chapter 10 Part 4 Back in the USSR Chapter 10 Part 5 The End ItohRespectArmy fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2021 14:36
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Going to complain loudly whenever we don't play a libero
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Oct 11, 2021 14:38
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Obliterati posted:Going to complain loudly whenever we don't play a libero the schism of this thread will be pro and anti libero exclusively.
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Oct 11, 2021 14:43
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There must always be... a footy manager LP... Let's go, Darlington, let's go!
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Oct 11, 2021 15:13
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I crave more football manager, and this thread shall sate it.
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Oct 11, 2021 15:16
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Obliterati posted:Going to complain loudly whenever we don't play a libero Get this heathen out of the thread!
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Oct 11, 2021 16:22
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11th of June. Undisclosed Location. "I feel like I'm dreaming" Mikhail Tukhachevsky said as he is found guilty and sentenced to death by a military tribunal. That was until The Orb appeared.  TUKACHEVSKY YOU HAVE ONE FINAL MISSION The orb buzzed. "Hel? I am I going to hel?" Tukhachevsky asked. No, somewhere much worse. You are going to...Darlington.   This is the main screen of the game, basically you get news and decisions to make here and then you go into the submenu's on the left to go into deeper detail, usually I'll just be taking the articles from here and showing them when appropriate.  My first stop is always at the team report menu, where we can see what we have to work with player wise.  I almost always play a 4-3-3 if I get the choice, for the unaware, formations in football work as follows, discard the goalkeeper because every team has one and then you list the number of defenders, midfielders and attackers. The most common formation at this tier of football is the 4-4-2 flat, which has 4 defenders, 2 central midfielders and two wide midfielders and then two strikers. So if we play a 4-3-3 we discard one striker for one midfielder essentially, which can make a big difference. The star ratings shown should be taken with a grain of salt, they are based off of our own squad strength and at this low a level anyone with some exceptional traits will look like a world-beater, regardless of what the stars have to say. Looking at our lineup, we'll be strong on the attack but we may struggle to not concede goals on the regular. Our midfield isn't up to snuff and only one side of our defense will be worth anything. Not to mention the keeper being extremely poor.  You'll see a lot of players like Johnny here at this level of play. Plenty of potential but just not really good enough at anything to start. Goalkeeper isn't really a position you can be weak at and expect to succeed and Tukhachevsky demands instant success. So first order of business, bring in a starter between the sticks and give young Johnny here some time in the cups to see if he can make something of himself. Our arguable star players are both 36 years old. Nicky Hunt and Tony McMahon could both easily be playing in the league above but are down here with us   The reason besides their age is a simple one really. They're both very slow and any pacey striker that runs into the channels will have a whale of a time against them. We can't afford to replace them though, so it'll be a problem to solve next season. Our midfielders are a mediocre bunch so I won't waste much time on them, I doubt I'll mention them unless they do something terrible or amazing. Let's get to the good stuff.  Our least exciting front man is Campbell here but he's decently quick and he works very hard so he'll probably end up creating goals by running around alot, rather than a bit of magic. Everybody loves a player like Campbell though.  Sousa here will probably be our main playmaker, he has that little bit of quality you need and can hit a decent cross, not slow either.  Charman here is the real shining star, he can do pretty much everything a striker needs to and if we can get him firing he'll be a very valuable asset, he's also very strong for this level so he should be able to hold up the ball when things are looking rough. Despite those positives we're going to need to put some serious work in to get this squad into shape for a promotion push.  The bookies think we have should be a solid playoffs team but those things are a complete lottery  Our budget is very limited so we're probably going to be offering players semi professional contracts mostly, these contracts won't take from the wage budget since they only get paid if they play. Our scouting team is very limited so I'm offering pretty much anyone who has ever kicked a ball professionally a trial to try and find some gems. We're not just signing to improve either, at a certain point we just need bodies who can run around.  Our squad is pretty paper thin at the moment and if you're wondering about youth...   Those greyed out players basically symbolise getting a random guy off the street, they have no strengths and no ability to speak of.  Already we've been rejected by all these players, thankfully the rest accepted the trials. Next up we have to face another grim reality of being Darlington.  Darlington are not a fully professional club and so we have very few training sessions to get our point across, tactics wise and even less for stuff like team bonding and cohesion exercises which are incredibly important in recent editions of FM  Dynamics are basically a measure of your locker room situation, if it's good things will generally go well and if it's bad vice versa. We don't have much influence over this at a normal club but at a semi professional club it's going to be even harder to put together strong bonds. I've just advanced up to our first press conference and on account of Tukhachevsky not speaking English and also being from the 1940's, we'll be delegating all this stuff to our beloved rear end Man  Next up is we're having an inter squad friendly, first 11 vs second 11, luckily my trialists will be playing for both teams so we'll get to see if anyone stands out.  I've got alot of work to do...
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Oct 11, 2021 17:05
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glad to see a healthy yellow card count in the first vs. second team friendly. also lmao @ the first team getting shut out. regardless, I believe in the red napoleon.
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Oct 11, 2021 17:45
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Especially one from Nicky Hunt, who likes arguing with officials.
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Oct 11, 2021 18:39
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My sadness at Maki Itoh losing can only be soothed by the joy of this LP 
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Oct 11, 2021 18:50
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Big coup for Darlington to sign Billy Gunn
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Oct 11, 2021 18:54
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Rarity posted:Big coup for Darlington to sign Billy Gunn
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Oct 11, 2021 21:30
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frankenfreak posted:That's not what rear end Man means here. oh gently caress that's what that post was referring to. I can't believe Oblit successfully normalized rear end Man to me.
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Oct 11, 2021 21:32
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frankenfreak posted:That's not what rear end Man means here. 
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Oct 11, 2021 21:40
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 I now fully expect ItohRespectArmy to edit any Darlington rear end Man into Billy Gunn just to spite all of us.
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Oct 11, 2021 22:31
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this should be fun - always enjoy these LPs
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Oct 11, 2021 23:09
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Double pivot, three CBs, and wingbacks or GTFO.
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Oct 12, 2021 02:23
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Sit back deep (so the opposition can't overrun our slow defenders) and punt the ball to Charman as Big Sam intended.
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Oct 12, 2021 02:44
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if we're calling comedy formations, import the Verdant Special.
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Oct 12, 2021 04:05
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Campbell is our hard runner? Then I propose the chant: He’s here He’s there He’s loving everywhere Adam Caaaaaaampbell Adam Caaaaaaampbell TitusGroen fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Oct 12, 2021 |
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Oct 12, 2021 05:05
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TitusGroen posted:Campbell is our hard runner? Then I propose the chant: 
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Oct 12, 2021 11:00
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After that crushing defeat to... ourselves I've decided to really go all in on overhauling the squad, I'm talking offering trials to everyone Even former Take That stars get a shot to make it onto the Darlington roster. Our first batch of trials are about to depart and this lad is the pick of the lot  Even though we can't see the full extent of his stats some things are certain he can do pretty much everything we need him to and even more importantly he's very fast for a defender at this level, this way we can partner him up with Nicky Hunt to cover some of his weaknesses. Being left footed is also a very underrated asset for one of your centrebacks to have.   Nevermind that then.  This lad is worse in pretty much every single metric than Curry but he's still pretty fast and way better than what we have.  We really are going to churn through every single player in England until we find some decent players though, one of the things I forgot to mention is that due to Tukhachevsky being Russian, he actually has no knowledge of english football meaning that most players stats end up looking like this.  Which does make things slightly harder but we'll make do. Some more trials are finishing and I think we've just found a gem of a player  This lad may not seem impressive at first because of his technical skills but what I always look at in this league is physical skills and my god this man can run around alot. Not to mention he has one of the best personalities in the game, this guy could easily be a key player for us this season.  Oh for fu- Clearly I need to stop posting centre back profiles here until they accept a bloody contract.  Ah England Trial day, the feast for lower league clubs. For the unaware this is a scheme by the FA for released youth team players to get a chance to show their stuff and get a contract for lower league clubs, it's a win win for everyone. But hopefully for us.  Huh, we actually lost a player. It's a good thing he wasn't very good and he was out of contract too but it is surprising.   But we do have some good news  We won! 5-0!  oh and we won again 4-1 It looks like our tactics of "kick it over the top and have charman score" seem to finally be clicking. I signed a few non contract backup signings and played some friendlies but I think this one merits talking about  Not much to say about this game as we dominated but just couldn't finish consistently enough but the most important thing is the team we're playing. You see Gretna 2008 are the phoenix club of Gretna FC who died in the early 2000's after their owner got extremely ill and was no longer able to financially support the club, they went into administration, he'd spent a fortune getting them into the SPL from the lower leagues and it was often you'd see Gretna scoring 7 or 8 goals on soccer Saturday as they flew through the leagues. Gretna won't be the last phoenix club we run into in our journey. The leagues are littered with them.
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Oct 12, 2021 12:31
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Norton, more like Boreton Lancaster, more like Lamecaster Gretna 2008, more like Gretna two thousand and late
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Oct 12, 2021 13:27
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Rarity posted:Norton, more like Boreton
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Oct 12, 2021 13:43
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Luke Charman doo-doo doo-doo-doo Luke Charman doo-doo doo-doo-doo
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Oct 12, 2021 14:40
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Gonna need to sub off that Work Rate 14/Stamina 8 guy around 60 minutes. Did we get anything from Trial Day?
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Oct 12, 2021 14:42
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habeasdorkus posted:
There's a left footed centre back/defensive midfielder who I've taken on trial to get a closer look at but otherwise it was a pretty poor crop of players.
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Oct 12, 2021 14:53
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why doesn't every team just kick it for the fast guy
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Oct 13, 2021 06:41
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:why doesn't every team just kick it for the fast guy it turns out at higher levels of play teams can have more than one fast guy I know, it's bullshit
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Oct 13, 2021 06:54
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:it turns out at higher levels of play teams can have more than one fast guy There should be a rule against this
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Oct 13, 2021 07:01
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:why doesn't every team just kick it for the fast guy been asking this
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Oct 13, 2021 07:08
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:why doesn't every team just kick it for the fast guy Sometimes the fast guy is a bit of a prick.
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Oct 13, 2021 10:41
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Sometimes there is a fast guy, but he can't kick into the net.
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Oct 13, 2021 11:36
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Tiger Crazy posted:Sometimes there is a fast guy, but he can't kick into the net.
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Oct 13, 2021 12:21
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 despite our best efforts (Tony McMahon) excluded, Stockport just had a bit too much quality for us in this one but it's a friendly, so it's mostly about fitness.  the choices for captain are pretty obvious, these two old bastards will do the job.  apparently the uk just left the EU? this game is so unrealistic sometimes... In reality though this sucks pretty hard for us. Right now our squad is almost entirely UK based so it's not an issue but I'm sure we'll get owned by it much, much later.  this my friends is what you would call, desperation, these trials are really not finding much quality anymore, so I'm just going to try and use up my 6 loan slots and hope for the best.  Our first ever competitive fixture versus a team even lower in the divisions than us, Bamber Bridge are a northern premier league side, so we should dispatch them fairly easily but it'll be a good chance to build some cohesion in a competitive environment.  we're playing a 4-3-3 gegenpress, some of the player roles might seem odd but I do pretty intensive player instructions to try and get what I actually want from these players. For example Nicky Hunt as a BPD may seem weird until you remember he has Tries Long Range passes and if I instruct him to hold position as a BPD he'll probably just spray the ball around from defence, pretty cool stuff. The wing backs though are just because I don't rate fullbacks at all in this version of FM, so there is some gamesman ship going on. Enough of me babbling on though, it's time for football.  Best described as an incredibly frustrating game where we dominated the game and carved them open seemingly at will only for Bamber Bridge to score with their first shot of the game 75 minutes in, if we had lost I'd have blamed poor finishing but in extra time Charman earned his payslip by scoring the winner from a free kick. Hunt won match of the match for his dominant performance all over the pitch including his goal but don't underestimate Tony McMahon who was constantly putting dangerous crosses into the area. The biggest positive we can take from the game is our team is willing to run themselves to death because they did it for 120 minutes, which is how we managed 60% possession.  There's still a lot of fa cup rounds until we even start facing professional teams but facing another Nothern Premier league team will be good for morale when the game comes up. Our first league game of the season will be versus Blyth Spartans, which will be a little bit of a derby. It probably helps that we have about half a dozen ex Blyth players including their legendary striker Dan Maguire, who warms our brench. Same lineup as last game, here's hoping we get off to a good start.  Despite being at home Blyth opted to play this formation, in one of the most embarrassing acts of cowardice ive ever seen in football manager.  It didn't do them any good, seeing as Tukhachevsky studied set piece battle closely as Storey got a brace from a corner and a free kick, which brings us up to 3 centre back goals in 2 games, terrifying. Charman got a goal too from Campbell nicking the ball off a corner and playing him in which is always good to see. And, We're top of the league! I've also signed this lad for 500 quid  He's not in a position of need or particularly impressive but I wanted a decent backup winger and maybe if he gets a lot of minutes we can sell him for a decent profit, who knows?  Another team versus weaker opposition for us as we host Kettering. I'm going to take a risk this match and keep the same line up, I'm basically trying to grind out cohesion so we can go on a insane run and run away with the league but we could end up in an injury crisis, so we'll see if the gamble pays off.  I should just start playing Alex Storey upfront at this rate as he scores another goal from a Tony McMahon free kick, followed by Charman taking the ball into the channel and laying a lovely ball into the d for Wheatley to smash it into the top corner from 25 yards out. Kettering nicked a goal back from a break away on a corner but Saltmer was too easily beaten at his near post for me. Wheatley almost scored another screamer when the ball was headed to him on the edge of the box at a corner but he only hit the bar, thankfully it fell to Sean Reid who had an easy tap in. Not really sure /why/ we're doing so well on set pieces, I do have some fairly simple ones set up but it's possible Tony McMahon is simply too good at them for this level of play, since we usually have 3-4 good chances a game from corners and free kicks alone. Still, despite our lack of success in the transfer window we're doing the business so far. We can't ask for much more than this can we?
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Oct 13, 2021 13:13
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Oct 13, 2021 13:19
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Next step is clear Itoh, go strikerless.
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Oct 13, 2021 13:54
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ItohRespectArmy posted:we're playing a 4-3-3 gegenpress It's gonna be two months tops before we're back to þe olde 4-4-2. e:  I've honestly never seen that formation from the AI in any of the thousands of hours I put into FM18, 14, and 12. It's beautiful. e2: Also, I do recall having decent set piece routines and people who are pretty good at corners/free kicks can get you a lot of goals in the lower leagues. And throw ins, I remember an old fullback with 19 in long throws and the team scored like half a dozen times directly off throw ins. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 15:19
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karmicknight posted:Next step is clear Itoh, go strikerless. Itoh cannot handle the raw power of the strikerless.
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Oct 13, 2021 15:23
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