FM2011 - The dMw Championship

[Benny]

Ok gents, here's the rules;

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You have until 30th November to do what you can with these guys. Good bank balance, ok club and more importantly no debt to speak of.

Post your stories, images, progress, sneaky transfers, abject failures here and let's seperate the Rafa's from the Redknapps on the 30th.

If it goes well, we'll do it again with a more long term run, but remember it's all well and good playing on your own in the dark, but unless you start posting your tales of woe there's no point in playing



Current Contenders
Benny.....11/2
Dewey....evens

Who else is in?

[Zootoxin]

I'm in!! Just need to get the game!

[Benny]

The season is off with a bang, then a whimper. After unveiling the charismatic new manager QPR went on a run of fine victories in the pre season.

I dabbled in the transfer market, but more with bolstering the squad than anything big. I've promised the board a challenge for promotion and that's what they'll get. A really big challenge for me to be anywhere near it.

1st day of the season saw me on the wrong end of a 5-2 hammering from Portsmouth. Knowing better than to chop and change and cause more instability, I stuck with it with some very minor changes...the next two results were 2-1 and 1-0 losses. Which I was 'happy' with as we played a good match and were unlucky. We weren't as open as we had been.

Then the turning point on a rain soaked night in Sheffield. 4-1, woohoo!!! is what I would have been saying if we hadn't been on the wrong end of it.

Back to the drawing board, the fans are restless, the board is pledging their support...uh oh.

[Benny]

The fickle world keeps turning
A solid home win over Derby and a well earned 0-0 at Doncaster and we're back on the wagon. Looking tighter at the back. Derry is upset I've taken his captaincy off him, but Rowlands is looking good.

Tommy Smith is the star, playing off Hulse and using Taarabt as an AMC seems to reaping rewards.

[Dewey]

In the beginning...
 
My Football Manager 2011 season kicked off on Friday night.
 
QPR who? Hmm don't know anything about them so the first thing was to become acquainted with the squad. On paper at least the squad seemed to be quite balanced with some decent players - Rowlands, Hulse, Tommy Smith and Paddy Kenny being the stand out players.
 
After agreeing to challenge for the division (to get extra funds), the next thing was to either build a tactic around my star players or decide on a tactic and see which players I needed to bring in. I decided on the latter method as QPR doesn't seem overflowing with Messi-esque quality.
 
QPR's favoured tactic is 4-4-1-1 which becomes immediately evident when you see how many AMC players they have and a general shortage of good quality strikers (Hulse and Smith really being the only decent ones).
 
However I have an aversion to this tactic and think a 4-4-2 gives you a good foundation to build from - though I've also created my favoured 4-3-1-2 in the hope that this would prove more difficult to break down for those tougher games.
 
I transfer listed and sold about 9 players and bought several new players in (overall only spending about 50k of my budget - which I still have around Ã,£250/300k left). Hmm I should really spend that shouldn't I?
 
I also bought in 4 loan signings. I'll post my transfer dealings after I've finished my first season.
 
Basically I thought I'd improved on all areas - defence, midfield and attack
.
I then mutually terminated most if not all of my staff and bought in better ones. Unfortunately when dealing with a smallish club such as this you invariably end up being limited to just 3 or 4 coaches which means your training stats never stray much beyond 3 stars on all disciplines though I have managed to get 4.5 stars on strength and aerobics - so they should at least be able to run around a lot!
 
I swapped captaincy to one of my new signings which annoyed the hell out of one of my defenders - Clint - but as he was a rubbish captain with just 9 influence I didn't much care for his bleatings and told him whose boss - he exited the meeting quickly muttering about being transfer listed - I didn't pay much notice...
 
God I'm brilliant at this game...
 
After then going through setting up individual instructions including one of my new signings being set as ball-winning midfielder to add a bit of bite and combatitive steely edge to our game - I hit the next button and proceeded to the friendly matches. We won all of them apart from one where for no reason I could fathom we got stuffed 2-0 by Hamilton Academics(!).
 
Swallowing this strategic placebo - and hoping this was just a one off, we proceeded into the season on a cautious high. But to be honest with you I still wasn't sure who what was my strongest team - particularly in midfield - where I was forced to play some of my players out of position.
 
Hulse was injured to start with but I had my new target man paired with my new fast attacker - so with a click on the continue button my QPR managerial career began...
 
The first few games I did ok, lost some, won some, drew some.... then something magical happened.
 
I started winning!
 
We reached the dizzy heights of 3rd in the league table.
 
God I'm a great Manager this is easy I thought as I went on a little run.
 
Hard choices
 
Then reality bites (hard) and I began losing... hmmm.
 
It wasn't a surprise if i'm honest. Even when I was winning a nagging doubt in my mind plagued my decisions -
 
'Dewey me old china - your winging it aren't you? You don't know who your best squad is do you? Admit it.'
 
Damn it I'm right - I don't. (is it normal to talk to yourself in the third person?) And I was now getting found out. Bugger.
 
My squads morale and league position was taking a nose dive like a Quantas A380 without an oil filler cap.
 
I needed to do something quick. I need to be honest with myself. I needed to take a pragmatic view of my squad.
 
Right then, who was playing consistenly well?
 
First I needed to stop convincing myself that my new signings with mega stats would eventually start playing well and instead bring in the consistent players whose stats looked like a binary program but did the business on the pitch.
 
I needed to make some hard choices. So I did.
 
Out came some of the flair players and in case some steele and determination. There was no point having creative players if I was consistently letting in a goal in the first 15 mins of most of my games.
 
I needed to look at why on corners and set pieces I seemed to without fail gift the opposition a goal with my defence being as Porus as an ancient ruler of Puru.
 
Just how easy is it to ping in goals from 30 yards anyway?
 
However one thing I have noticed about Fm2011 (which seems to be a fault) is the number of longshots that are scored ie in just about every game.
 
Heres the scenario.
 
I score a goal created from months of work on the practice pitch - deftly put together like an Arsenal lite - only to have it blown into the weeds by anyone with a trusty boot whose prepared to leather the ball from 30 yards out - Goal. Goaal. Goaaal! Bum!
 
So if you can't beat them....ok so if the games slightly broken I need to take advantage of it - a quick look through my players and anyone with a decent longshot is given permission to 'fire at will''.
 
Next I need to stop leaking goals on set pieces. Simple move the bigger guys with excellent heading/jumping to the near post. Done.
 
Finally pick the team from those players who are consistently producing the goods. Check.
 
Football. Evolved. One baby step-at-a-time
 
Ok I didn't get a dramatic turnaround and it wasn't instantenous but something was changing. My game was evolving. I was starting to leak fewer goals. I was hanging onto games by a goal.
 
Slowly but surely I was turning defeats into draws and becoming harder to beat. Morale was on the rise and I went on a run of 6 games unbeaten.
 
Its now Christmas. QPR are 4th in the league and my subs bench is home to a bunch of stat heavy prima-donnas and inconsistent wannabes who watch while the guys on the pitch graft and grind out results.
 
So my board are happy I'm over-achieving and I'm thinking a play-off place will be a reality come the end of the season. Nottingham Forest are flying high 12 points clear followed by Burnley (I think).
 
I'll post my league table on thursday and then update again at the end of the season.
Apologies for the thesis on how to under achieve at FM.

[TeaLeaf]

Great read Dewey - I'm keen to hear the next instalment!  (sent you a PM too on this topic)

[Zootoxin]

Great read Dewey - I'm keen to hear the next instalment!  (sent you a PM too on this topic)

Agreed

I got the game setup last night and have played 1 friendly. I will do a post when I am ten games in.

[Benny]

There's a reason you're evens Dewey, great write up....(almost a front pager methinks )

[Penfold]

Yes indeed - blog it !

[Dewey]

Its already blogged amigos! Tealeaf advised me yesterday

[RizZy]

I have a question, as I've not got round to getting the game yet, if I start the demo as QPR then it should be the same thing as you lot pretty much yes? + it'll gimme a chance to see if I bother to buy the game or not.

[Dewey]

Hi Rizzy, unfortunatley I dont' think you'll have access to the players we have as you don't have the option in the demo (I don't think) to choose which leagues/countries you want. If you like FM series you'll love this one - I had my pc connected to my HD TV last night and it was like watching MOTD but with my team - awsome - get it bought ya tight wad and come and join the fun
 
Also though you can continue to play a demo game with your newly bought game - the patch will be applied but you won't get the new data updates - you'd have to restart your game.

[Dewey]

January 2011 - The Super Hoops strike fear into the opposition...
 
FM 2011 - its a social game..
 
So I was playing my QPR game and remembered when I was setting up my first game mention of social media links within the game. After playing my last game against Milwall last night I thought lets give it a try. So basically in the game you can upload your match highlights or best goal etc directly to Youtube as long as you have an account.
 
So here is the highlights of last nights game vs Milwall - how cool is this?
 
[video=youtube;_6-XhPtzMBk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6-XhPtzMBk[/video]
 
I only played 3 games last night, its January 2011 - wemanaged to win all 3. We are on something of a role and have moved up to the dizzy heights of 3rd in the Championship.
 
No more long shots...
 
The long-shot goals that were pouring in and have now seemed to stop - which is odd as I haven't made any tactical changes to stop them - the only thing I thought was that as we are now winning my teams morale including my Goal Keeper Paddy Kenny is now very good or excellent - I wonder if when his morale was low the opposition managers instructed their players to shoot from distance more? If they did - that is awsome - I don't have any other explanation for why its stopped.
 
Managing the budget
 
I'm still trying to offload several players who are forcing the club into financial ruin, currently we are sinking into debt at a rate of a million a month - I've offered the players to other clubs and I'm getting no interest - my board don't seem concerned.
 
The Road-Runner Principle
 
I've only used Rob Hulse for a few matches, instead I've gone for pace (throughout my team where possible) - I have a choice of 3 pacey Forwards and also my two first choice wingers are also quick and skillful. The wingers repeatedly beat the opposition and whipping in crosses which is causing carnage, own goals and making goal-scoring opportunities for us. Even my right back/winger has pace of 17 and is so quick he can lose the ball in their half and still put in a challenge before they have chance to cross the ball.
 
I'm still using a mix of a ball-winning midfielder in a supporting role and an attack minded central midfielder. Fortuantely I've managed to sign a CM player who is comfortable using both feet which makes a huge amount of difference as the opposition can't force him onto his weaker foot as he doesn't have one

[Zootoxin]

I'm still using a mix of a ball-winning midfielder in a supporting role and an attack minded central midfielder. Fortuantely I've managed to sign a CM player who is comfortable using both feet which makes a huge amount of difference as the opposition can't force him onto his weaker foot as he doesn't have one

Rafa Benitez in the making?

This you tube thing is awesome!! I can see this thread getting very interesting indeed.

I have just finished pre-season which went well had a fantastic game against benfica which ended 2-2 after they snatched a 91st minute equaliser!
But, I am in dire straits! Paddy Kenny no1 GK is injured for 6 months I am now in a desperate hunt for a keeper before the season kicks off arrrrgh

[TeaLeaf]

Published Dewey's post to article as it has a nice video in it too!  Nice one Dewey, you now have front page kudos! :worship: