Football Manager 2020 PC Gaming

[David76]

Currently managing Southport in my game.

I'm ready to tackle the National League, spent the past few days navigating the summer window. It was a lot of work. Signed one player I had on loan last season and apart from him, there's 21 new players. 6 loans, 15 free transfers.

Put together a fairly nice squad. Last season Genie Scout reckoned I had the strongest team in my division and we won it, this time 2nd so we should be in contention again. Board wants mid-table and that should be easy enough.

 

[Fraser]

A long hard summer is over, but I think we have fared pretty well. Still reliant on loans for quality in the first team, but we have the 22 man squad I wanted.

Out

A few squad players I have lost confidence in brought in 5 million, but the big one was Armini, the legend! PSG came in with a bid, and he was ready to kick off. Negotiated it to £35 million plus a sell-on clause and he is gone. A bit sad because I saw him as my captain for this save, but it puts £20 million in the coffers and allowed us to build the squad. Kovar, out GK, also left.

In

On the last few days of their loans, I managed to renew Brewster, Matondo and Nmecha (for only 1k a month!), which is a massive boost. The others left, but managed to bring in Empadu, Vinagre and Troy Parrott, who isn't the best fit, but was the best we could get in.

We used the Armini transfer cash to sign Kounde as his replacement from Sevilla, as well as Luca Connell for good cover in midfield and Toljan from Dortmund for cover at full-back. We also upgraded our keeper, after missing out on Henderson, Villar and Ramsdale, we finally ended up with Bodart from Standard as our new number one!

Starting Eleven

Bodart
Passlack
Kounde
Adarabioyo
Vinagre
Kenneh
Motondo
Nmecha
Morilla
Brewster
Kean

Subs

Empadu, Toljan, Akkaynak, Connell, Jones, Arezo, Parrott amongst others...

Still reliant on loans, but a much fuller squad. We will be looking to add an LB, RW, CM and CF of our own for the first team.

Morilla wants to stay, but Kenneh is unhappy that we rejected a bid from Spurs, so with two weeks to run of the window, that's the biggest story left to run.

 

[Dylan]

Fraser Pretty nice team that, what season you in now?

 

[David76]

20 in games into the Championship season and we sit in a competitive 4th. Very pleased with that. If we make the playoffs I'd be delighted and we still could even come top 2 yet.

Spoiler: League and Squad

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Stuck up some squad stats sorted by goals. Rachidi continuing to fire them in although I did put Boza back in the last 2 games and he got his first 4 goals for the club in them. Rachidi's form isn't too hot on the ratings for the last 5 but that's just a coincedence, put Boza back in more because he was getting concerned about his playing time having not started a game since he got injured and Rachidi started scoring lots. I do find it a little hard to rotate strikers, CMs too, they don't seem to get as tired or injured as often as FBs, CBs and wide players in my tactical set up.

The big veteran target man Eaves is still getting his head on a few things and everyone is chipping in nicely. I did change the corner routine for this season as I thought the central defenders were scoring too many for it to be realistic but it hasn't really stopped and I'm now glad it hasn't.

Hackett is an absolute assist machine, he's on a lot of our set pieces and takes long throw-ins from his side of the pitch. A couple of Eaves' goals came that way.

In early December now and I'll be doing my usual scour of potential Bosman signings on January 1st, don't usually do any other business at that time but will have a look.

I did get my board to agree to go up a youth level, building on that won't start until next summer. Think that means I'll finally be able to enter the U18/23 leagues instead of just playing friendlies but I'm not completely sure.

Will play Leeds away in the FA Cup 3rd round, quite tricky.

And for a bit of fun, some salary details:

Spoiler: Wage Bill

 

[Micro Dave]

Been playing an Italian league save.

After taking a day to make my mind up, I decided to stay at my current club, Palermo. I got my scouts to get a team report on Parma and the rebuilding job was pretty much the same as I would need to be doing when we got promoted. I can pretty much do no wrong in the current job so thought it was the right decision to stay.

After that, we managed to secure promotion, as well as winning the title, with a record points total for Serie B.

The biggest issue with Serie B is you aren't allowed to offer contracts with wages over £5k a week. I've already lost a couple of targets who were out of contract due to this. My main target now is to get my star centre mid signed up on a better deal. He has a minimum release clause of £22 million and Juventus are sniffing about. Really want to get to the reset date and offer him whatever he wants and hope they don't bid before this happens.

 

[Dylan]

Been playing an Italian league save.

I've got an Italian league save going as well

Third season as Fiorentina as we prepared to take on the Champions League.

We managed to beat Spurs 7-1 at home (lol) and Barcelona 3-0. I lost the away fixtures in both - but a solid win at home and a draw in Russia saw us through to the last 16.

Spoiler: Champions League - Group

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We faced off against PSG and a deserved 1-1 draw at the Artemio Franchi. Mbappe scored early but Cutrone pegged them back immediately. We scored our second away goal early in the second half thanks again to Cutrone, PSG equalised later in he half, but that was enough to take us to the quarter finals where we faced...

Manchester United. The team who knocked us out of the Europe League at the same stage last year. We took a 2-1 win to Old Trafford but sadly that wasn't enough as the Europa League winners (and eventual Champions League finalists) beat us 2-0. Better results than last time but we were knocked out.

Thankfully we won the league at a canter haha.

Spoiler: Serie A

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Didn't expect that whatsoever. We somehow managed to pull ahead of the pack and were 14 points clear by the time we were knocked out. I really don't understand how we managed to lose just the one game, a shitty 2-0 loss away to Torino. We played an enthralling 4-3 away win to Juventus which was the first win away to the bitter rivals. I have a really young squad so I'm surprised at how well they managed to cope.

Spoiler: Fiorentina Squad

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A few of those are new signings. I brought in Timothe Laurent from Liege for £23m, I think he's the regen Kompany, and Dominguez for £21m, who was the POTY for the league last year at Bologna (who have lost all 6 of their best players). Carles Alena and Salcedo came in for free. Florschutz got relegated with Stuttgart and cost me £2.1m. My plan is to bring in Alphonse Davies for free in the summer and I think my squad is pretty much complete!

 

[Micro Dave]

I've got an Italian league save going as well

Some effort keeping Chiesa for this long.

 

[Fraser]

Fraser Pretty nice team that, what season you in now?

This is starting season 3, so it's been great progress. Champions Leage qualification gave a massive boost to what could be brought in and selling Armini was the right move I think!

I always say I go with the 22 man squad but I know there are players I won't use!

 

[Dylan]

This is starting season 3, so it's been great progress. Champions Leage qualification gave a massive boost to what could be brought in and selling Armini was the right move I think!

I always say I go with the 22 man squad but I know there are players I won't use!

Impressive stuff.

 

[David76]

Anyone know what "How we can be left behind by [INSERT CLUB]" means on the social feed? Seen 2 or 3 times now and I can't say I get it.

Spoiler: LEFT BEHIND

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Guess would be that they think Luton Town are making better signings than us.

Don't know why all things considered but is that it?

This player is only supposed to be a prospect for the U23s. He was a free agent Canadian with a Spanish passport that we agreed a deal on ages ago but he couldn't sign officially until his 18th Birthday. He's been with us a long time but sort of a trial period until his contract started officially just now.

Luton hasn't signed anyone for ages anyway as it's Christmas Day in the game, this lad's birthday, so the transfer window has been shut for months anyway. Looking at it Luton did sign someone on Transfer on deadline day over 4 1/2 months ago for £3.6m, so I think they're comparing it to that?

 

[Tom]

Anyone know what "How we can be left behind by [INSERT CLUB]" means on the social feed? Seen 2 or 3 times now and I can't say I get it.

Who knows? It's social media, the game is just replicating the sort of rubbish that fans post.