the_eristic

To be fair to him, McCleish probably didn't tell him to look for the next Bergkamp or any of those tricky, unpredictable "technical" or "creative" players, likely just told him to look for experience and hard work on the cheap. We all saw how Eck handled technically skilled players at Blues (say, Hleb and, holy crap, remember De Ridder? "I said to Danny a while back that I felt if we were more of a passing team, I may think about him more." :shock: ), can't say I'm surprised we ended up with a grafter. Also, we don't know who might've actually been scouted and/or suggested by Numan, we just know who Rinus McMichels chose.

"Ivica Micic would be extremely interseted in joining our club." *make offer, offer accepted, permission to talk terms with player* "My client currently isn't interested in talking to your club." F*ck this game. *rescout, player responds well to comments, etc, rebid, accepted* "My client is no longer interested in signing for your club after the previous breakdown in talks." Doublef*ck this game.

Gunter, you say?

Busy window, let quitea few go, looking to ship 3-4 more, and brought in: (from GIF Sundsvall) Mike Valente Robert Gonzalez Norberto Diego Oliveira Guilherme Mattis Juan Agudelo James Ekwueme + Wallace (5* PA right back from Fluminense) Henrique Miranda (biggest money at ~3m, but I had no dedicated 1st team left back, and he's already paying back the investment!) Giulio Donati (free from Inter) Paco Alcacer (wonderkid released from Valencia's youth setup due to a relatively minor injury, on big wages but playing great so far and should be able to get huge money if he doesn't work out) Hany Saleh (free) Viktor Claesson (has 3 in 3 from central midfield already) Charles Brou (youth) Now just looking for a couple good backups for defense and midfield and/or cheap youth quality with the rest of my budget.

Feeling a bit dirty, the window is about to open and I've already lined up deals for five of my old club's players, and might go back for a couple more. Record with SCF is 7W 2L 2D, losses coming early in my tenure when the side's morale was shocking. We raced up from relegation candidates in 14th to a solid 8th place finish with a run of 6 straight wins to close out the season. Got some high earners leaving on frees (unfortunately, I took over too late to try to get any money for them, and new contracts for most would prove gross financial mismanagement), so I've got about 6M + percentage of sales to try to rebuild. Wages are going to be a big challenge, as I can't offer good enough deals to quality backup/rotation candidates (even worse, agents' fees) to build real depth. Guess I'll have to revisit my youth free agent scattergun approach.

Well, after all that complaining, turns out I'm the Judas. Got offered a midtable Bundesliga job at Freiburg and couldn't turn it down. Despite the massive progress at Sundsvall, the limitations on coaching and poor facilities were starting to take their toll. Board would't upgrade anything for me, and you can't hire any great staff for 200/wk. However, I have left them in a brilliant financial position with a big squad full of the best players in the leauge (aside from the ones I'll be poaching) and having won it all domestically (the cups twice) immediately following promotion, and had a great European run (went out in the knockouts to HSV) with CL coming up, so they can't be too angry, right?

Digging the away. Home is just ok for me.

All my key players have become proper tits overnight, four or five whining for moves to bigger clubs, even though we won the league and cup, topped our group in Europa League and are into the knockouts, and have CL football next season. I could understand if genuinely better (or richer) clubs were calling, but the only clubs in for them are from the Belgian second division, Norwegian league and such. I did manage to move one of my whining GKs on (to a rival fortunately/unfortunately) for 1M euro. Add that to the ~100k I made loaning him out, that's a great return on a free transfer in this league. Signed a couple potential wonderkids, a Serbian central defender and a Czech striker for about 1M between them, desperately need a couple homegrown players but the good ones have already moved or are only interested in foreign clubs if they haven't. *Almost* had Viktor Claesson for 775k, but he opted for some midtable Danish team for 100 bucks more than I'd offered. Wish we could see the contract offers on the table so we could adjust accordingly and battle for signatures. Sick of this "Another team is interested, give us infinite moneys" tactic from the agents, only for the player to sign for the other (often lower rep) team for around the same as you'd be willing to pay.

Holy feckballs, I just beat Schalke 5-4 on pens! Scraped a 1-1 in the first leg away (they had 23 shors to my 6), set up the most defensive tactics I've ever attempted for the home leg, 1-1 again but managed to get Jermaine Jones and Benedikt Howedes sent off in extra time and held on as they chucked on all their remaining attackers. Everyone buried their pens perfectly, then Uchida stepped up to make it 5-5, but hit it straight at my keeper! €1.26M for making the group stage plus gates and tv money adds up to huge, huge cash for GIF Sundsvall! New owner will probably decide we've done well enough and keep it all, though.

It was written in stone the instant I had the thought, so seems the modus operandi of this game. I've drawn Schalke in the final qualifying round, so I suppose it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Left one of my two senior LBs out of my European squad to make room for an extra midfielder, and two of my HG youth inclusions could cover in an emergency. Naturally, my starter picks up a knock in the first match, out 4-6 weeks. Feck.

"Norberto looks like he isn't used to closing down this much. Norberto looks like he's used to being asked to close down more." Thanks, assistant manager.

Little over halfway through the season, on top of the Swedish Premier Div, 14 W 2 D 0 L, about to name my squad for the Europa League (qualified for the playoff round via winning the Swedish Cup), if we can make the group stage, we'll make enough cash to buy the Swedish League for two or three years. Kinda ticked the board off in spite of all the success, though, by applying for the vacant Villa job. QPR, Leicester and a few others have come in for me, but I turned them down. After all the change I've implemented at Sundsvall, I'm only moving if it's Villa (which, obviously, is the dream job) or another massive club who will let me do my thing. I've discovered a bit of a scam to get quality youth (as my board isn't much help), but youth contracts in Sweden are literally 5-8 euro/wk, so I've found that I can take on dozens of U21 free agents as trialists, have a look at them, release the chaff (and the occasional greedy punk) and sign 25-30 kids at a time for less than the weekly wage of a backup, so now my U19 and reserve squads are stacked with a load of 250k+ valued, 3.5-4.5* potential players. Coming from my "academy", they'll be willing to take super-cheap pro contracts when the time comes, and, as a bonus, they're all eligible for homegrown status if they stay for a couple years, so they'll be even more valuable inside the leagues. Need to pick up a couple more dedicated youth coaches, though. Acquiring good staff is much more of a challenge than acquiring good players so far! Back to the first team, I'm having trouble juggling keepers, as even the ones that signed as "rotation" players keep whining if they don't start every single game. I told a couple I'd loan them out, but when offers came in, the players kept rejecting them, then bitched at me for not keeping my promise and letting them go! Amazingly, I loaned one out to Sevilla, who activated his buyout clause at the end, but he turned them down for not offering him enough cash. Greedy tit. How do you keep players happy in a position that isn't conducive to rotation? I have two that are about tied for first choice, use them against different styles of play, but the young ones doing the complaining aren't quite ready to displace the seniors. Should I just flip them?

Hoping something, anything concrete will come out about The Last Guardian.

Should be brilliant to watch! Can't wait.

Walked the league, 29 W 1 D 0 L, 72 F 12 A. Lone draw was to the team in 2nd after already winning the league and with a cup semi midweek, so while annoying, it was acceptable. Won the Swedish Cup, knocking out AIK on pens in the semi and smashing the side that finished 2nd in the top division 4-1 in the final, which qualified us for the Europa League. Made us a couple million is sponsorships and prize money, but the media predicts we'll be lucky to stay up (though if we can keep most of our starting 11, we should have no trouble securing a midtable finish, as it's a fairly poor league), so the board will only give me 187k funds + 11k/wk extra wages, so while I can afford the wages for few above average squaddies, I don't have the muscle to grab anyone genuinely good, especially not homegrown, which clubs like to jack WAY the hell up. 675k for 20-yr-old valued at 80k with a year left on his contract and such. Actually kinda hoping one of the bigger sides sniffing around my stars activates a mfrc, which will bring in massive cash for reinvestment.

Alternative suggestion? Brocktoon.

Michael Laudrup is probably my favorite player, ever. Martin Laursen is probably my favorite modern Villa player. Laudrup x Laursen = Squee^2

Lulz, I just opened this thread to post exactly the same thing. But srsly, GTFO. :x

One of my young players has handed in a transfer request due to lack of games, which would be understandable had he not been injured for two months after his last start and still three days away from full training! Jackass.

Anybody know the best way to negotiate with the board? I can't talk them into anything, even though we're running away with the league, our finances are solid, and everybody is pleased with my management.

Go to Training via your team's drop-down menu, find the Players tab at the bottom, click the Schedule menu for a player, Rest will be at the top of the options. You can also set training intensity and specific workload on the Training tab of an individual player.

Seem to have things sorted now, though still need a player or two for depth. Won my first four of the season straight, and have bossed my home games: 10 goals in 2, 1 against. Robertinho has 6 already! Just have to keep them all happy. My 6'5" target man option, CA Kotchoni, has been given leave of absence three times conecutively due to his inability to settle, and finally had to be transfer listed, so I've been digging as hard as I can with my €45/wk part time scouts to find a good replacement, preferably homegrown. Wish I'd noticed Sweden's HG rule before I signed so many South Americans and the like as key players!

Wages have been the main issue, though. I'm sure he'll be more likely to shop from the continent, where even the most modest PL wage will often represent a substantial raise.

Argh, thought my DM problem had been solved, but no. Malmo came in with a 625k bid for a highly promising 20-yr-old left winger in my squad (valued at 330k). I don't use wingers at all, so I was thrilled, but rather than sell him outright, I spotted a quality 21-yr-old DM valued at 335k in their side as backup, so I hit them with 250k + their player, and after weeks of waiting, they accepted. Day later the "offer contract" box pops up for the DM, click it, and "My client currently is not interested in negotiations with your club". Wtf is this?! How can a team trade me a player if the player won't even talk to me? The terms of his current contract would be easily matched, if not bettered, as he'd be first team for me. Properly annoyed now, as I've got less than a week to try to renegotiate something and get somebody in.