Football Manager 2010

Football Manager 2010 was recently cut to half price during one of Steam's big sales. Being such a big fan of the sigames developed footie management series, I naturally fell for the bait and upgraded my old FM06 to FM10. I'm still early in the season so its hard to give any real conclusions on this game but from what I've seen so far, its incredible how much has changed.

Anyway, being a Liverpool fan, I obviously chose Liverpool as my club and, despite a few dodgy results, I'm doing okay so far. Anyway, below is a brief analysis of Liverpool as at the start of FM2010.

Finances
The first thing I want to mention is the financial situation. In real life, Liverpool is currently riddled with debt and, despite comments to the contrary from the owners, there has been very little net transfer spending from the club in the last few seasons.

Unfortunately, this appears to have been modeled in the game as well. I started off with debt of around GBP240 million and monthly interest payments of GBP2.5 million. More importantly, my transfer kitty is a measly GBP6 million (probably due to the club having acquired several players over the summer before I joined).

Squad
You can see my starting squad from the screenshot below. Again, in copying real life, Agger, Skrtel, Aurelio and Aquilani started the game injured (although Aurelio is back on light training by the time the season is ready to start). One big difference from real life is that I start the season with Maxi Rodriguez which is a good thing as he is easily the best right winger in the squad.



It won't be any surprise to learn that key players in the squad are Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano, Carragher (although he is valued quite low due to his age), Glen Johnson and Reina. Based on his value, Aquilani looks like he could be an important player once he returns from injury.

My biggest concern is with squad depth. My first team is pretty good (not great) but I'm just not convinced that I have decent cover. In particular, I'm worried about who is going to score goals if Torres isn't in the team. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to judge my squads readiness during the off season as we only had friendlies against second rate opposition.

With a transfer kitty of only GBP6 million, I likely won't be able to buy any new players to shore up my squad. Instead, I intend to spend that GBP6 million on young players in the hope that they can join my first team in a couple of years (assuming I haven't been sacked!).

Tactics
In general, I will probably play a straight up 4-4-2 as my main formation. This is the main tactic which I used in FM2006 with so much success. The key difference though is that my squad in FM2006 was comprised of world class players in every position and I will need to change the way I play until I can replicate this in FM2010.

To help act as a bridge between my strikers and my midfield, Kuyt will be set to "Deep Lying Forward" so that he will drop back to pick up the ball. In addition, Gerrard will be set to "Advanced Playmaker" and told to shoot often as he has a long shot stat of 18.
:)

Unfortunately, my wingers can't cross the ball to save themselves. The best crosser I have is Riera with a crossing score of 15. Every other winger is in the 12-13 range so I'm going to have to ask them to limit their crosses and focus on cutting inside before passing the ball into the box. Probably not a huge deal as I don't have a traditional target man (with good jumping and heading stats) in the final third anyway.


One big worry is that my defenders are worryingly slow. The fastest defender I have is Glen Johnson with pace of 15 and acceleration of 15. My fastest central defender is Agger with pace of 14 and acceleration of 12. To combat this, I'm going to have to play a deep defensive line with my 2 CBs set to "Limited Defender" otherwise a simple ball over the top is going to split my defence wide open. With Reina set to play as a "Sweeper Keeper", this should limit the number of chances that the opposition will get although I may also have to limit Johnson to defensive duties on occasion if the opposing team has a fast striker.

Some alternative tactics which I may use depending on the situation are detailed below.


I primarily intend to use this formation if I believe I am going to struggle in the match or if I'm trying to protect the lead. As you can see, both Mascherano and Lucas have been set with defensive duties. Their role will be to get the ball and then lay it off to someone else (possibly Gerrard). With only 1 striker, scoring could well be a problem so I will probably only start with this formation if Torres is fit.


The good old 4-4-2 diamond. I will probably use this when I am playing against weaker teams who will likely sit back and defend. Having Gerrard that far upfront will help to create chances for my strikers. It also allows me to safely restrict Kuyt to a "Poacher" role so he can focus on scoring goals. Both of the full backs have been set as "Wing Backs" and told to get forward and attack. Meanwhile, having Mascherano set as an "Anchor Man" will help deal with any counter-attacks.


This formation will primarily be used on narrow pitches where my wingers wouldn't have sufficient space to do their thing. This formation may also be useful against teams which I would be expected to beat but which are still good enough to be a threat against me. In this formation, both Mascherano and Lucas are set as "Ball Winning Midfielder" to help deal with attacks. Meanwhile, Johnson and Insua are set as "Wing Backs" to help provide a little width in my attack. The key concern with this tactic is whether having one striker will be enough to score goals so, as with above, I may only use it if Torres is fit to start.