True Football Manager

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If you are seeking Football Manager 2010 wonderkids then I advise you to take a look at the best list of FM 2010 young talents in the web.

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Having reviewed potential stars for positions of Goalkeeper (GK), Central Defender (DC) and Central Attacking Midfielder (AMC) I decided to investigate situation about young left backs. As a result I found out that there are not so many young player who can become future stars:

Wonderkid defenders

Marcelo

 

Certain wonderkid who can play for any club in the world and be very successful. Has brilliant fitness and technical attributes. He is able to beat any opponent on a flank by means of his fast and agile technics.  Possesses vey high values of Flair, Anticipation, Off The Ball and First Touch for player of left back role.

The only disadvantage is that Marcelo belongs to Real Madrid and costs $9.75M. So buying him is really hard!

Gareth Bale

Well-known wonderkid from Wales playing for Tottenham (sorry for wrong photo in the profile - this is made by some of numerous FM facepacks installed at my laptop).

He is more balanced than Marcelo, better performs as team worker, better plays at set pieces. High values of Determination, Composure, Concentration tell us that Bale is very determined guy at his seriously young age of 17 years. 17 years and all his current attribute values, surely, allow to train him in a world superstar and legend player in future!!! Moreover,  he doesn't have real weaknesses and can be bought easier than Marcelo! Must buy!

Armand Traore

 

Another 17 years old youngster from Barclay's Premier League - this time from Arsenal. He has also much time to develop in a world star player as Gareth Bale. And I had already possibility to check his abilities to be trained. Here in the training report you can see progress of Armand Traore for the first half of the season. This guy is really cool due to his great pace and ability to shoot from distance with power. He was the main left back in my Arsenal and pushed back Gael Clichy to substitution bench.

Young talents

Other left backs who are potential stars are reviewed using somewhat shorter approach. Just don't want to make this post very long :)

Name	Club	Age	Price	Strengths	Weaknesses
Emiliano Insua	Liverpool	18	$4.1M	- Very determined - High speed - High work rate	- Average positioning
Fabio	Man United	16	$4.9M	- Good pace - Has a lot of time for training	- A lot of low-valued attributes - Weak marking
Guilherme	Almeria (SPA)	19	$2.6M	- Easy to bought - High pace - Tricky technics - High Work Rate	- Average marking
Omar Esparza	Chivas (MEX)	19	$2.3M	- Can play as DMC/MC - Strong physics - Fairly determined - Great long shots	- Average positioning
Andrew Taylor	Middlesbrough	20	$7.25M	- Very determined - Good team worker - Good passing and tackling
Urby Emmanuelson	Ajax (HOL)	21	$6M	- Fabulous technics - Good speed - Fairly loyal - Good team worker	- Average tackling
Filipe	Deportivo (SPA)	21	$6.25M	- Determined - Good pace - All attribute values are rather good	- Average tackling and marking
Joe Mattock	Leicester	17	$1.3M	- Cheap and prospective - Young, has time to develop - Determined - Athletic	- Poor mental abilities

Finally I finished updating the design of this blog. Hope you will like it :-) Comments are always welcome!

Hey, all my readers! I have a good news! Southampton became the new club that I will be managing. They accepted my suggestion and I was glad to be invited to such well-known club. I never managed it before in the previous versions of Football or Championship Manager.

It will be rather tough challenge for me because Southampton board has Premier League promotion ambitions:

 

And the current situation in the Coca-Cola Championship is:

You see my new club is on the 9th place (and this was enough for sacking the previous manager of Southampton). The rules of this league say that two top teams win promotion to Premier Division. And teams placed 3rd-6th qualify for Playoff rounds having very difficult and nervous battle for only one last promotion place. My Southampton is far from the 2nd placed Sheffield United on 12 points and just 4 points from the 6th place. So I think it will be a very interesting challenge because now I do not have time to tune the tactics. I should set up new effective tactics very quickly for gaining at least the 6th place. At last I do not want to be sacked again! :)

In the end of the previous post I informed you that there is possibility to be sacked if my new tactics will not give necessary results. Actually it didn't give, and :

I have been playing Championship Manager/Football Manager series for more than 12 years. It's a pity to be sacked because last this happened in even CM 2003/2004... But there was no chance after many unsuccessful matches in which Wigan needed one more goal very often:

So the Premier League standing after my last match with Manchester City was really sad. Sad for me, sad for board... And their patience ran out totally.

So now I'm seeking for a new club to manage because I do not want to restart the game. By the way, there is new FM 2008 screen for job seeking manager without club:

You see I applied for Reading, but they rejected. It seems Premier League clubs doesn't want me due to average reputation (National)... 

After the weak start I changed tactics of Wigan totally. 4-4-1-1 was replaced on 5-2-1-2 with two fullbacks covering the whole flanks. Then I began to tune new tactics scheme trying different individual settings and different players on positions (I will describe my new tactics in one of the next post). As a result I'm glad with the performance of my at the moment. In October and November we had row of the following matches in the Premier League:

There is only one annoying match with Portsmouth where we could do nothing to resist with dignity. The performance in the other games was very keen. Though in half of matches we suffered a lack of class for gaining a needed result. For example, Arsenal - Wigan after the first half - 1:2 and than 4:2 in the end. By the way it was very principal match for me (as for the former manager of Arsenal) :)

Another example of game lost on class is Bolton - Wigan. We could win there but again got a ball in the net on the last minutes. Lack of concentration? May be... We'll see... Anyway you can believe that playing style of the current Wigan looks very well! Nevertheless our place in the Premier League table is a bit sad:

But having already played games with grand clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester I'm sure we will get good pack of points on the weaker opponents in upcoming fixtures. If I don't get those points I will be sacked as manager of Wigan:

You see the board confidence is of poor opinion about Wigan's progress in the competitions. And I understand them, especially recalling that I set official goal to achieve middle table position during the first season. So now I'm really playing with fire :)

Starting as Wigan manager I suspected that it would be hard to make a good start in the first row of matches. And this is it what I've got:

Only 3 victories and 1 draw in 10 matches.

My current problem (linked with such poor statistics) is finding the tactics that will be suitable for the team. Almost all these matches I've been playing 4-4-1-1 formation with Whole Pitch pressing. And performance of the team was rather good - I liked playing style. But there was very poor realization of goal moments. And after all I decided to develop more successive tactics having more than one forward. At the current period I'm working on this question.

Returning to the results of Wigan in August and September I would say that the most negative game was with Burnley which is certainly weaker but managed to overcame my team with 2:3 score. And this happened tragically during the last minutes of the match. My boys lost concentration :( There were goals on 87th and 90th minutes:

Statistics of players look in the following way:

38 years old Luis Cristaldo is really unexpected to be the first in the list. I advice you to buy him in your club. He will help during the first season you even if you play managing Machester United or Real Madrid! Currently he is the best our midfielder having wonderful form.

The most impressive defender is Emmerson Boyce. Many tackles (3.84 per game) and interceptions. Rather good in the air.

Our main forward Kikin Fonseca does not impress with his performance. He plays weakly every second match (though scores in every first :) ).

Review of all Wigan players can be read from here.

New Wigan footballers bought during the first transfer window are described in the previous post.

After the previous post where I had reviewed the players of my Wigan I decided that the teams needs to be strengthened by footballers of more high quality. Therefore I spent a lot of money on different transfers (12) - more than any other Premier League club:

My starting transfer money amount was rather high for such modest football club - $25M. We bought 11 players spending $23M and took 1 player on loan also:

There are very different types of transferred players, I would say:

1. Young prospective : Nacer Barazite, Kevin Monnet-Paquet, Rence van der Wal, Oussama Assaidi, Antony Di Lallo, Joe Mattock - all of at most 19 years old.
2. Old good Bolivian cheap guys: Ivan Castillo, Luis Cristaldo, Oscar Sanchez - all are of at least 36 years old, but have rather good attribute values.
3. The most important transfers: Kikin Fonseca, Julio Caceres, Alessandro Parisi, Carlton Cole (loaned).

I will not describe all new players of Wigan. Just want to say some words about the best of them.

Kikin Fonseca

 

SC. 27 years. Forward of national team of Mexico.

He is very tough and fighting type of forward having value 20 on 5 attributes: Aggresssion, Bravery, Determination, Natural Fitness, Work Rate (you don't see Work Rate on the picture because I have wide-screen laptop with 1280x800 screen resolution). He is intended to be the leading forward of my team.

Julio Caceres

DC. 28 years. Plays stably for national team of Paraguay.

Commanding centre-back. Very brave. The coach indicates that he regards Caceres to be a player who relishes the big matches.

Kevin Monnet-Paquet

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FC. 19 years.

The most expensive transfer of all made during the window - $6.25M. But after the first matches fans are not happy with this fast and determined forward. And I agree with them. He score only 1 goal taking part in 6 matches.

Nacer Barazite

AMC. 17 years. Former Arsenal young star.

Nacer was bought for $800K from U18 Arsenal team what I think to be very good deal for my club. I wanted also to buy Rhys Murphy and Henry Langsbury but they do not want to play for Wigan at all. Barazite is very balanced, determined and creative midfielder. Can be trained becoming forward. He has high potential to become a wonderkid!

Joe Mattock

D/WB/AML. 17 years.

Young winger from Leicester. Fairly determined. Has very good potential to become very valuable player in the future.

The first step when you take a team as its manager is analysis of the team's squad. I'm going to do this with Wigan players now.

Goalkeepers

There is no competition for a place in the first team. Kris Kirkland is certainly the most strong keeper of Wigan. Former Liverpool player has high values of Reflexes, Jumping, One On Ones, Handling, Positioning attributes. Rather young for goalkeeper - only 26 years old. Giant height - 199 cm. The only suspicious thing is his weakness in coach report: "Kirkland is a player who may be fairly susceptible to injuries". It seems I should think about other first team goalkeeper if I have enough money.

Defenders

The most high valued and, as far as I believe, strongest defender is Titus Bramble.

He seems to be rather fast and reliable central defender who has stable good characteristics important for DC.

Another good and somewhat versatile guy in defence is Emmerson Boyce. He can play either DC or DR. Has strong fitness attributes and good defending ones. First team footballer, certainly.

Young Andreas Granqvist (22 years old)  is pure central defender  having great Determination and Jumping. All other important attribute values are high apart from Pace and Acceleration (both equal 10).

Fitz Hall is an average central back in my opinion. This is because of his Positioning=10 and Marking=12. What's interesting he is rather versatile and can play right defender, DMC and even FC (!). I think this guy can be good substitution.

There is another defender who is very strong - Mario Melchiot. And seems he is even better than Titus Bramble. Ex-Chelsea player is fairly determined right back with high Tackling and Strength. Gets forward whenever possible. In the coach report he is rated by 5 stars.

The closest concurrent of Mario Melchiot will be Ryan Taylor. And Taylor is not only right back, he is D\WB\M R. His best skills are Stamina and Corners. And what is good - Ryan is only 22 years old and can be trained into impressive winger, I believe.

Salomon Olembe from Cameroon is a guy who will play on the left flank of defence or midfield. But I'm not excited about his attributes: they are rather poor. Though he has good Pace and plays well both legs.

Andy Webster is Scottish central defender who is already on loan at Rangers. He is rather versatile player whose highest skills are mental.

Midfielders

I will start review of half-backs from Paul Scharner because he can play either MC, DMC or DC. When it's necessary Paul can close the right flank. He is strong Austrian guy with 191 cm of height and all fairly good attributes (where the most high: Determination and Aggression - 16). Important team member, I'm sure.

Denny Landzaat. MRC. His peak of fame happened few years before in AZ and Holland national team. At the moment he looks experienced, loyal and team-working midfielder.

Michael Brown - pure central midfielder (the best of all midfielders). Known for being Tottenham footballer earlier. Bought from Fulham.

He is exceptionally good team player and consistent performer. Brave, aggressive guy with brilliant Stamina, Natural Fitness, Determination, Work Rate. Can be leader of the Latics.

There is also highly skillfull in technics Jason Koumas - one of leaders of Wales national team. He costs $10M being the most valued footballer of Wigan. Can play both legs, dribbles very well (I've already checked this in 2 friendly games) but, surely, selfish player with TeamWork = 8.

Experienced Josip Skoko has 50 caps for Australia, good Long Shots and Influence, ability to play in any part of midfield (MRLC). Nothing more that impressed me about him.

There is also cool AMRC guy loaned  fromVillarreal - Antonio Valencia. Fast dribbler with Tackling = 17 (!). This is great loan deal and I consider him to be leading winger of the team (of course, if I will choose tactics with wingers).

Cheap Rachid Bouaouzan (AMRL) has wonderful Pace, Acceleration, Dribbling and low mental abilities. But considered fairly inconsistent performer by one of my coaches.

Kevin Kilbane. AML winger with 80 caps for national team of Ireland. Passing, Crossing, Off The Ball, Concentration, Work Rate and Strength are all 16-17. The only thing I don't like about him is low speed: Pace=11, Acceleration=9. The winger must possess high speed, I believe. Do not know what I will do with Kilbane taking into account this.

Forwards

Forwards is the most weak part of Wigan. There I can select Emile Heskey as the best one:

Tough guy with good Heading who can be Target Man for the team. Should play very fine together with the team: Teamwork=19 and Work Rate=18. Has many caps for England, former star of Leicester and has somewhat controversial years spent in Liverpool.

Julius Aghahowa. Former Shakhtar striker. Scored 14 goals for Nigeria. He has fine Acceleration, Balance and Aggression. Good physics.  Other skills are rather average for forward.

And the last one is Antoine Sibierski. AMC/FC. 32 years old. Good team-worker who can win headers due to high Heading, Jumping, Strength and height.

The main thing I do not like about all my strikers is their low Finishing. They all have it not better than 13!

Totals

The total of squad analysis - there are a lot of rather average players who are considered very weak for such teams as Arsenal, Manchester United or Liverpool. If I want to gain more than survival during the first season, I should work on the transfer market getting more useful players for Wigan. And, of course, opened question is tactics choice!

Dear readers, I have two news of very different kind. The good news is that I bought rather powerful HP laptop with Core2Duo (T7250, 2GHz) processor. The model is HP Compaq 6710b if anyone is interested. It’s really fast and allows playing Football Manager 2008 faster than on the old one (Toshiba with Celeron M).

The bad news happened a bit earlier than good. The problem is in that I lost all the data on the hard drive of my old laptop together including FM 2008 and saves of my game as Arsenal manager. My first feelings were really terrible. And it’s just because it would be much easier if I had never been blogging about my game. So many youngsters were bought and developed during the first season… In the end especially I was interested in guys from Arsenal academy like Rhys Murphy and Henry Langsbury... They were terrific and led U18 team to the first place in U18 group with large advantage by points – 16. Murphy had more scored goals than played games! But unfortunately the hard drive has died with all of my future plans on making star team of young talents and plans on the second season when we should gain title of Premier League and get our first English Cups or even European Cup.

Nevertheless, there is nothing more left than install Football Manager 2008 and start a new game. Then I began thinking over the question: “What championship and team should I select for the new game?”. The answer is:

• Championship : English Premier League (because it’s the most interesting championship in the world, and because most of my readers are from United Kingdom);


• Team : Wigan

I understand the choice of the team must also be explained. Well, this time I decided to take one of the weakest team intended to fight for avoiding of relegation from Premier League. There had been diversity of variants like Sunderland, Birmingham City, Fulham, Derby but I chose Wigan using Media Prediction parameter of FM 2008. Media prediction for Wigan is getting 20th place. So they are considered the most weak football club in Premier League, and I’m going to lead it the success!

Talking about the totals of the whole first season I would like to select three best players of the team. In my humble opinion they are William Gallas, Francesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie. These guys performed better than others and their performance had the highest influence on the team results.

William Gallas

He is a king of defence, certainly! At the start of the season I thought that younger Kolo Toure is a little bit better than Gallas in the centre of defence. But Gallas overcame his main partner performing very good and almost without mistakes. He is quick (what is rare) central back who anticipated ball in many different dangerous situations. William Gallas had been doing important headers very often and also managed to score few goals from the corners using his head. Very successful vice-captain of the Gunners!

Francesc Fabregas

Team-leader, playmaker and merely bright head. During some matches I used ‘Playmaker’ setting with Fabregas being set on this role to cope with an opponent. And in the most cases this tactical trick was really lucky and successful. Cesc Fabregas could dribble over any defender, give very quick and accurate pass unexpected for opponents, score goal from free kick. And after all I think him to be the best and most prospective playmaker in the world because he is only 20.

Robin Van Persie

Thinking about third most valuable footballer of Arsenal during the 1st season I was choosing between Robin Van Persie and Emma Adebayor. Adebayor was fantastic in the first half of the season. But after Cup of African Nations he could not perform well and has been in average form till the end. So Van Persie was more stable forward scoring goals regularly. His strongest sides were flamboyant technics and dribbling, mental agility allowing to perform action that is surprise for opponents, very often accurate one-on-one goals. And at all he is very tricky player, I must notice!

In the end of Crisis in Arsenal post I mentioned that I had been signed as new manager of Senegal. Their manager was sacked after failure on Cup of African Nations, and my reputation was enough to be signed as new one.

For my first nation team in Football Manager 2008 I have chosen the following tactics

Download this tactics here.

First results using this tactics - two 3:0 victories against very simple opponents Swaziland and Tanzania. I use some interesting approaches in this tactics:

• Intelligent sweeper
• Fast dribbling forwards
• Direct passing
• Closing down over whole pitch by forwards and midfielders