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]

Season 5 wrapped up!

Eredivisie

As well as city rivals Feyenoord, Ajax has re-emerged as a force in Dutch football after a slow 18 months, and they pushed us until the last few games. After a few poor results, we went to NEC and won 8-0 to confirm the league title before the last day. Ajax is looking very dangerous again and have made some good signings in January, so fully expect a big challenge next year.

Our strikers never really came back into form. Our top scorer in the league, Osimhen, only getting 12 goals, despite some very easy teams to play against near the bottom. It's worrying, and something we need to look at in the summer.

Brewster, who scored 25 goals after arriving on loan last January to take his tally to 96 goals for the club, only got 6 in the league and 15 overall all season.

Dutch Cup

We ever so nearly went out to Ajax in the semi-final stage. They were better than us at this stage of the season, but Ferran Torres squeezed in what turned out to be the only goal of the game, setting up a final against Vitesse.

The final came only 3 days after a punishing game in the Europa, so we rotated as much as we could to keep things fresh. The result was a tense affair, finishing 0-0, before my player of the season Oxlade-Chamberlain blasted in a loose ball in extra time. An OG five minutes later killed off the game before penalties.

Our third Dutch Cup in a row. I wish I could say it was a formality, but there are still several teams that can beat us on a given day. So delighted to win it again.

Europa League

The board, disappointed at our CL exit, asked that we made the semi-finals here, so this competition became our priority in the second half of the season. We scraped past Everton and got drawn against Tottenham in the last 16.

We won 2-0 in London, our best performance of the season up to that stage. Brewster with what would be his last contribution to the European campaign for the season. We drew 1-1 at home and got given Shakhtar in the quarter-final.

We had beaten more or less the same lineup last year in the CL, but it was a tight game, and it proved to be again. We came away with a 1-1 draw in Ukraine. Bizarrely, our DMC, Valverde got a hat trick for a 3-0 win at home in what was his only European goals of the season.

Onto the semi-final, and by this stage, we were resting our entire eleven in the league as things finish early in Holland before the playoffs. We were drawn against Atletico Madrid.

With a rested eleven, we turned it on and absolutely destroyed them in the away leg, winning 5-1. I completely changed the corner routine two weeks before and it paid dividends here with two headed goals from Ayala, our best defender. No contribution from our strikers once again.

I didn't want to take any risks so fielded a full team in the home leg and we won 2-0. Full of confidence going into the final against a very strong Napoli side.

Again, the new corner routine paid dividends, Ayala putting us 1-0 up, but Napoli came back strong and equalised and was bossing the game.

Something I had done before the game was to give out new contracts before the tie to boost morale, and it was one of those two contract signees, Ferran Torres, who smashed home in the second half. We held out, and after the disappointment of our group stage exit, we won the Europa League to complete an unlikely treble.

Summer Plans

Our new stadium has been announced, a 31,000 seater, The Excelsior Stadium will take three years to build against a loan of 63 million. 32 million will be covered by stadium sponsorship.

The bank is empty now, and our wage bill is high, so the era of big loan signings might be done. We will need to sell any players on the fringes to build up our bank balance.

Oxlade-Chamberlain, who was phenomenal for us, will only come back if it's a loan. 30 million for a 30-year-old wouldn't make sense. Valverde, the other I would like to bring back, is far too expensive and I will be looking at a long time scouted target to replace him.

Ayala, our 5 star CB, wants to go to Chelsea, who are aggressively pursuing him and have almost met his release clause of 71 million. Negligence on my part not to have remembered it, and there is no one available who is close to being as good. So that's an issue.

The biggest issue, however, is the strikers. Kean and Brewster, after being phenomenal and instrumental in a Champions League win, were awful this season. 18 and 15 goals respectively, and most of those came against poor sides. Osimhen wasn't much better. Do I keep them together and try to recapture the magic? Or do I accept that I have brought them in permanently and somehow made them worse?

It's a big summer with a lot of changeovers. We have to come back with a lower wage bill and a younger, fresher side, and still compete at the top of the league and in Europe.

Martial and Jean Pyerre come in on free transfers, which can go some way to reshaping the squad. This could take a while...

 

[Tom]

Another great season Fraser, congratulations!

71m is quite a lot for a CB, but they can be difficult and expensive to replace yeah especially if you initially had time to let them grow to that level. What sort of money are you potentially looking at with Kean and Brewster?

 

[Micro Dave]

I've played another 2 seasons since this last update...

On deadline day Roma met the release clause of Martin Calderon so off he went to pick up a lovely £140k a week. Thankfully I didn't actually need to replace him as I had another loanee who was magnificent. Managed to finish 12th with no danger of relegation. Calderon barely played for Roma which was staggering. Was transfer listed by request so was able to get him back on loan a year after leaving paying 40% of the wages and an option to buy for £19 million. Was also taken over by a consortium, was a really weird one as nothing changed at all no investment or anything like that. A magnificent run of form after the winter break (3 defeats out of 21) managed to get a 6th place finish thanks to a collapse from AC Milan.

Now after about 10 months since the last takeover I'm getting all sorts of messages about another on coming along. Not sure if my transfers are related to this as there is no actual bid but I delayed a transfer for a right wing-back to try and get rid of a back up first before confirming. It's been about 3 weeks since it was delayed and I've not been able to get the deal over the line. It better happen soon as I'm a week away from the season with only one option to play in that position.

 

[Franco Pinion]

Now after about 10 months since the last takeover I'm getting all sorts of messages about another on coming along. Not sure if my transfers are related to this as there is no actual bid but I delayed a transfer for a right wing-back to try and get rid of a back up first before confirming. It's been about 3 weeks since it was delayed and I've not been able to get the deal over the line. It better happen soon as I'm a week away from the season with only one option to play in that position.

If your board are in takeover talks you're automatically put in an embargo. Can find it in the "Club - General" section, under "Board status".

Happened to me 2 days before deadline day, the day after I'd sold about 4 players and the morning before the 4 replacements were to be confirmed. The embargo came in at 9 in the morning, cancelled all my deals, and was then lifted later the same day

 

[David76]

Stuck with my 4-4-2 formation for now after contemplating a change. I may still change it in the summer but it totally depends on who is out there to sign.

Target men have gone a little out of fashion these days and that is reflected in-game. I kind of like that in one way as it's a bit of challenge to find the perfect signing if using one but if I did switch up it might be easier moving forward. Would prefer to stick to this way of doing things as I like how it's a bit old school too on top of the challenge of finding the right TM but will switch if I feel we need to.

We didn't sign anyone in January and actually sold players. It was two of those youngsters we picked up on free transfers a while back in the save. Got 3.9M for Petar Dimitrov that the board accepted on my behalf (I would have taken it too), and £1m rising to £2.8m that we'll probably never see for Stefan Bornemann. I looked at potential future Bosmans but no deal. Offered 3 contracts and they all chose other clubs.

Spoiler: PLAYERS OUT

View attachment 395 View attachment 396

So now I'm feeling quite wealthy for a club of our stature even though our wage bill increased a small amount with contract renewals. There's a solidarity payment to come from the PL at the end of the season too. I believe it's close to £5m and that will be handy as well. Mind you, it can only be a matter of time before there is a major investment in the stadium and I don't know how that will impact things. We are on 100% sell-outs and our lowest attendance of the season is the same as our highest. If we go up something has to happen as PL minimum is 10k and it's very likely to even if we don't.

Spoiler: MONEY/ATTENDANCE

View attachment 398 View attachment 397

On the pitch, the most important stuff, there's not long to go in the season now and we're still 4th. With a great run there's still a chance of automatic promotion but it's looking like playoffs. 3 games ago we lost 1-0 away Middlesbrough in an even game. That was a proper 6-pointer as if it was us who got the narrow win we'd now be in 2nd. About 9 games back we lost a similar match 2-1 at home to Reading. These could be costly. Rachidi has reverted to type, he hasn't scored in his last 10 appearances and got his last goal at the end of December. It's now mid-March. Had to play him often as Boza, my other poacher keeps getting little injures and also missed some time with the flu. Still hanging in there though and I'm very happy with the season no matter what happens from this point on.

Spoiler: LEAGUE TABLE

View attachment 399