FM 2006 - Season 2031/32

After the despair of losing the Champions Cup of last season, you may recall that I made some big changes to the squad during the off season. As any manager can tell you, its easy to manage during the good times - the real test of mettle comes when things aren't going well. Could I lead my Liverpool side to new glory? It's times like this that the best managers show what they are made of!

Liverpool - Charity Shield and the early season

We began the season playing Middlesbrough in the Charity Shield. We only just managed to win the Charity Shield thanks in large part to the sale of Galli to Middlesbrough. As I mentioned before, the plonker managed to race clear of my defenders only to blast the ball over the bar. Twat.

At first, I was a little bit worried. In the early season games, it was clear that my team was struggling to score goals again. Was my plan to play Mills and Blake in attack a bad idea or was it simply my new team taking time to adjust to playing with each other? I will be honest and admit that the doubts started to creep slowly in. However, after a couple of games, my team managed to find their form and we really started to play extremely good attacking football - thanks in large part to Carlos Sanchez (more on him below).

The English cup treble

In fact, our team did so well that we easily won the Premiership, the League Cup and the FA Cup! A clean sweep of the English compo's!

Below, you can see the final league table. As you can see, we walked the Premiership again. However, the big difference from last year is that we scored 114 goals - a far cry from the pitiful 89 that we scored last year.



Interestingly enough, despite our trouble scoring last year, we actually had 92 points at the end of last year which is 1 more than the 91 points I picked up this year. The main reason for this is that, although I scored more goals this year, I also leaked a lot of goals as well. I guess its true what they say - defense does win championships (at least, thats what they say in the NFL).

Champions Cup

However, the real test for this year would be the Champions Cup. With Liverpool being knocked out in the quarter finals last year by an Italian team, you can understand that I was more than a little worried when we only managed a draw in the first leg of the final 16 this year (also against an Italian team). Clearly, last year's pitiful showing against Italian opposition was wearing on my players minds as well as on my own.

In the end, we only barely managed to scrape through that tie. However, winning that tough tie really gave my players new hope and they managed to go on to even greater heights. In the following tie aganst AS Roma, we absolutely mauled them 4-0 at Anfield. However, this would turn out to be only the beginning. In the return leg at Roma, we gave them a masterclass in football.



The demolition of Roma put the fear of Liverpool into every other team and we managed to walk the rest of the Champions Cup campaign. Although we never managed to duplicate the results of the Roma tie (unsurprisingly), no other team came even close to beating us after that. In fact, even the loss of Fernandez and Oliveira (due to suspensions) in the final didn't stop us from winning it easily.

And so the Liverpool manager showed why he is the most highly paid manager in the World (GBP110,000 per week!) by winning everything that he could possibly win in 2031/32.

Oh - one more thing. Just to show how completely we owned the Champions Cup, the next screenshot shows the Champions Cup dream team for 2031/32.



When you look at that screen, just bear in mind that Van Dijk is my GK and I normally play Thorpe as LM with Sanchez up front.

Can you see my smirk?
>:)

Liverpool Squad

As usual, some screenshots of my squad at the end of the year.




The biggest surprise will probably be Sanchez. You will recall that I tried to sell him off at the end of last year but failed due to his outrageous wage demands hence I ultimately decided to keep him as a backup striker.

Turns out this was probably the best decision of the off season. Imagine my surprise when, after I played him in a couple of games, he started to bang in goals like Geralt bangs pros (obscure gaming references ftw!). After seeing him play so well, I moved him back up the pecking order above Mills. Naturally, with him playing so well, other clubs started to take notice and I started to get some more transfer bids for him. In the end, I agreed a deal to sell him at the end of the season for just under GBP6M. Considering he will be another year older by then, I really think that was a superb piece of wheelin' and dealin' by yours truly.

Oliveira and Coelho both slotted into the team easily as well which is gratifying. Very often, for new players, they have a couple of games where they struggle to perform before they get used to the Liverpool way. However, both Oliveira and Coelho came in and did well from the start.

In Oliveira's case, I was extremely lucky this was the case as Julien Karlen really struggled at the start of the year. To be fair, Karlen is 33 and I suspected that this was one year too much for him. This was why I promoted Darren Barber to the first team. Barber is actually a wonderkid striker that I signed in 2029/30. Although a natural striker, he is also good enough to play on the wing and I was planning on playing him some more this year anyway. In the end, by conserving Karlen and playing him in less games, he was able to stay fresh and up his game again.

A new name you will see in the squad is Gary Powell, the 18 year old DC. Powell is a product of the Liverpool youth academy and has been doing well in the U18s and reserves for the last couple of years. During the season, Baines had a patch of bad form and I had to play Powell for a couple of games. Powell stepped in and did a fantastic job.

Having said that, I had a real moment of doubt for the Champions Cup final. Fernandez picked up a yellow card in the semi final and had to miss the final because of it. Who would I play in his place? The experienced, but possibly out of form (he had started to play well in the reserves again), Baines or the inexperienced, but in form, Powell? In the end, I decided to keep faith with Powell and he repaid me with another great performance in the final. Having said that, based on his stats so far, I have real doubts about whether he will be good enough to be a first choice DC in the future.

One last thing before I stop. You will notice that John Farrell is no longer around. John Farrell started the year extremely well. He was tackling well, passing well and scoring goals with ease. As you can expect, this attracted the attention of a lot of clubs and several teams came in with attractive transfer offers in the January transfer window. Although my AssMan said that he had the potential to develop into a future star, I decided to sell him off.

Ultimately, Farrell was signed as a fourth string MC. I wanted to develop Sadler and Rogers who were also identified as future stars. In addition to that, Mike Patterson (another potential future superstar) had been doing a marvelous job in the U18s. In the end, I had a surplus of MC talent and felt it was better to accept the inflated transfer offers which I was receiving.

Next up - the off season

Wow - this post is huge and I haven't even gotten to the off season yet. Which is why I will sign off here and save the off season for a smaller post next week (besides, I can only upload 5 images in one post)!

Fifa 10

Just a very quick post this weekend as I'm feeling lazy. If you've been keeping an eye on either my X360 blog or my gamercard, you would know that I have been playing Fifa 10.

The last time I bought a footie game was Fifa 07 and after a hiatus of three years, I figured it was time to check out the progress of EA's premier footie simulation. And I have to say, the difference between Fifa 10 and Fifa 07 is incredible. I'm not going to do a review of the game but I do have to say that EA have done a really good job. With Fifa 10, it really does feel like watching a real footie game at times.

What makes the Fifa games stand out in recent years has been the ball physics. Unlike older footie games, the ball in Fifa does not stick to your feet. This can give rise to some great situations where the ball is bouncing around as several different players are all sticking out their feet and trying to get a tackle in. It also allows for some really lucky rebounds where my shot has been blocked but the ball dropped right in front of my second onrushing striker allowing him to easily blast the ball over the crossbar.

Yeah - unfortunately, I still haven't quite gotten the hang of the game yet as I have trouble scoring even in one-on-one situations. Still, so far, the results have all been very realistic in that games are often decided by 1 to 2 goals.

I also haven't gone online yet as I want to get a bit more practice in before opening myself up to global ridicule as I get hammered 10-0 by teenage kids with acne problems.
:)

FM2006 - Getting ready for 2031/32

Well, the off-season in 2031 has been completed and enough has happened that it warrants an update in itself.

Brazil
During the off-season in 2031, my Brazil side played in the Copa America. Which we promptly managed to win. Below you can see the reaction of the Brazil FA and fans. Although the Copa America only counts as a minor International trophy, it is still good to win something on the international stage - particularly considering the doubts I have over whether my Brazil squad is really World Class or not.




However, just as important as actually winning the competition was seeing how well my side played. In the below screenshot, you can see the average ratings of the squad over the competition. Pretty impressive.

The screenshot below shows the matches we played on the way to winning the Copa America. Overall, I was very happy with the fact that we won every game and only leaked 3 goals. The only possible fly in the ointment is that we never really came up against any world class teams during the competition. The toughest match we had was against Chile in the Final where we really struggled to break them down.

Liverpool
And below is a screenshot of my new look Liverpool side taken just before the start of the season.


Yes - in a supremely funny twist of fate, Andy Rogers is injured. You may recall that last year, I signed Andy Rogers and John Farrell together. The idea was that John Farrell would be my fourth MC while Andy Rogers would get some development time. Things didn't quite work out that way when Farrell picked up an injury during the off-season and I had to play Rogers straight away. Well, after seeing how well Rogers played and deciding to push him into the first team, he promptly gets injured in the off-season which means that Farrell will be starting the season instead. Yeesh!

As promised, I sold Danielle Galli to Middlesbrough and managed to get GBP12.5M for him. Which is a pretty good deal as this was his market value at the time of sale. All in all, it was a good decision to sell him. I came up against Middlesbrough in the Charity Shield and at one point, Galli managed to beat the offside trap and raced clear of all my defenders. However, instead of scoring, the plonker blasted the ball over the bar. I couldn't help but think, "and that is why I sold ya".

I replaced Galli with Oliveira. If the name is familiar, its because Oliveira is in my Brazil squad. In fact, it was his good performances for Brazil which gave me the confidence to buy him. I paid GBP25M for him but I do have high hopes for him in the coming season. I also intend to let Darren Barber get some playing time on the right wing when the occassion permits. Barber is a wonderkid I signed in 2029/30 and has been doing really well in the U18 squad.

Another new name you will see is Coelho. He is an AM L and was brought in to replace Michael Bennett. Bennett was a player who showed a lot of promise as a youngster. Unfortunately, that promise never really materialised despite a couple of seasons in the premiership and so I sold him off to Tottenham for GBP4.9M and replaced him with Coelho who I bought for GBP10.75M plus John Simpson (a decent U21 DC).

You will also note that Sanchez is still around. Literally a day after the season ended, his value dropped to GBP6M which annoyed me in that I was hoping to get GBP10M for him. In any event, I offered him to other clubs for GBP6M. At that price, a couple of other clubs made bids for him. Unfortunately, nobody was able to agree a contract with him. I suspect the greedy twat was asking for GBP80,000 a week which nobody was willing to pay. Ah well, he can be a backup striker for next season.

With the scoring issues I had last year, you may be surprised to find that I didn't add to my strike force. My hope is that Ross Mills will be able to spearhead my attack together with John Blake (Blake is a funny player in that he doesn't score a ton of goals but he does get involved in loads of attacks and passes - kinda like the modern day Rooney). I was very impressed with the number of goals that Mills scored last year and I'm hoping he is now ready to be my first choice striker.

In any event, with Coelho and Carter on the left wing, I can always play Paul Thorpe in attack if Mills bottles it. Although Thorpe has always played as a midfielder for me, he actually plays as a striker in the England team so he should be able to step into the striker role relatively easily. The only other new purchases were potential future stars who went straight into the under 18 team. I signed Mike Patterson (MC) from Watford for GBP375k (fee decided by tribunal) and Michael Parsons (DL) from Tottenham for GBP13M (ouchie!).

And with that, the new season begins!