Football Manager 2011: van helsing's newest legacy

Salutations folks!
Another year has come upon us, and to celebrate it, van helsing wil begin his FM journey again. FM08 was the last game I played of this franchise and I left FM09 because I dont always buy the games yearly. I purchased Championship Manager 2010 because it had better reviews from people who I generally like their opinions about, however I found the game too overwhelming and over-coming. So for 2011, returning back to FM2011!!!

So, firstly the introduction!
The Barclays English Premiership (EPL) has been in exsistance since 1992. Over that span, Manchester United have 11 titles, a complete dominance and only 4 teams in total have won it. Chelsea, Blackburn and Arsenal are the three others, it's a 20 team (38 games) home and away fixtures. The season starts in July/August and finishes around April.
The team with the highest points tally after 38 is the league champion. The winner is automatically placed into the group stage of the UEFA Champions League (UCL) whilst 2nd, 3rd and 4th all have shots at qualifying for the group stage.

The first game of the year is always the FA Community Shield, where the winner of the league will play against the winner of The FA Cup, an annual competition that is played during the year. The first half of the year, the Carling Cup is played and this league cup is typically played in by the youngsters.

The Team:
London Rovers F.C.
Completely fictional, if there is any real club then there is no relation. I go into the FM-Editor and take out the bottom team in the EPL and replace them, I treat it like a takeover of a new owner and re-shuffles the team, fires everyone (players, staff and board members) and absolute re-haul. The trick is to survive the first year with minimal reputation and ability to bring in the players and to grow from it.

History:
FM2008 - The first years.
In FM08, I was lucky to win the EPL title in year 1 which brought in a lot of young talent via a lot of mid-season scouting. By year 5, only 4 players who were in the original 2008 squad remained (John Terry, Fernando Torres, Xabi Alonso and Rafael van der Vaart).

A string of titles followed, including 2x UCL titles and a quartet of Community Shields with 2 FA and 1 Carling Cup trophies also. The Rovers were known as one of the best disciplined squads and of 6 EPL seasons, had 5 years where the team was first in yellow cards (first = least cards received as a team) and rarely was a red card ever given in my squads.

History is history, today is FM11!
Where I'm going to start this time is in June (good 2 months before the first EPL game) with no squad members and no staff. With a set value of 10% of each clubs income being my base case to spend on players. The style of play im going to impliment won't differ too much from FM08, playing a 4-5-1 style with slightly improved tactics. The lynch-pin of the squad is still the defensive triange with the Defensive Midfielder (DM) and the 2 Central Defenders (CB).

Next Post:
- Setting up the game
- Database
- Team Information

Playing FM11 for the first time can be daunting, the GUI isn't the greatest to new players (download the FM2007 skin for FM11, It's the best skin they ever did in my opinion)



That screen allows you to choose what nations are going to be involved. Depends on how in-depth you want to be. I select every nation because that's how I roll. Also check the "Computer Performance" star rating, dont make a 1 star game on a 2 star computer beacuse it wont be pleasant!



The second screen is the real problematic one, you can select every country on the first screen, but this screen determines how much punishment your CPU takes. I wouldnt go above the leagues you dont want in. Don't have Chilean league selected if you dont want to manage in it. Select "view-only" and you get the league matches, results and players but without the painful loading of every staff movement etc in that nation. It doesnt limit your chances at a national job. The FM08 Croatian job I had, I didn't have Croatia selected as playable LEAGUES! yet I was the national coach.

Database
This is probably going to be hardest thing ever, you can choose the default database (which is enough for 90% of users) or you can either download one from any of the good websites (I might name later since theres few dozen really good ones). Or like me, ability to edit one yourself. I named the databse Chill Gaming DB3.072 as I made 72 significant changes. Obviously too many to list currently but the big few were using real league names (such as Barclays English Premier League rather than English Premier Division) I assume this is done due to licencing dramas and the changing isnt very difficult either.

There isnt many database guides to changing things, so before changing a DB yourself make a backup! I learnt the hard way several times about backups with DBs lol. Lost probably 70-80 hours of work due to one small screw up in my coding.

Next Post:
- Team Information (I Delayed this to give it a proper intro)
- Team data / stats / records (like a summary of the coming pages!)

reserved this post spot, ill update this over the next day.
meanwhile, you're free to post!
i do have the aussie a-league loaded so i can give scores from those games if people wish etc.

----------(removing above after post completion)---------------

[where ill put the banner for my team - sit tight, photoshop isnt my strong suit]



This is the first page in creating the club, the first line is the Unique DB ID. This is randomly generated, so I can't change this part.
The next parts pretty easy to pick up. The club is known as London Rovers Football Club, London Rovers F.C. for short.

Nicknamed Rovers, this goes back to LMA Manager days for me, as I use to love playing with random clubs. They use to give £80,000,000 to buy anyone and build from there. FM2008, Rovers saw immediate success but I was using a lot of young, talented players (I am still so very bitter at Cesc Fabregas being bought in 2009 that I use to always drill Real Madrid as hard as I could every time we played and from now on, I always make a 100/100 hated rival!)

The club was established in 2007, and plays profesionnaly. Morale is 20 since everyone at the club is overjoyed to be with a new club. The 5250 (10,000 is max) reputation deals with the clubs ability to attract new players. Manchester United and Real Madrid are over 9000! (Cue bad jokes) whilst 5250 is what Blackpool the team I replaced, that is also the lowest of the 20 EPL teams which makes it slightly more realistic (rather than having 10,000 and buy anyone I want).



The second picture is the Stadium, Wembley is located in London and is the home ground of the Rovers. The Highbury stadium is where the Reserves, Youth squads will play and in case Wembley isnt avaliable, its a backup stadium. These stadiums arn't occupied by any team so there isn't a conflict of stadiums this way.

15s for the training facilities and youth guides are just standards and my effort into improving or neglecting this, will change this figure in game accordingly.



Theres many tabs for finance as running large teams involves gigantic sums of money. £500 million pounds if the money avaliable with £150 million for transfers (for some 30-35 players in all likelihood) and £2 million in wages annually.

Season tickets are 30£ each and 513 is 19 home games with 10% off for season ticket holders. 33,000 season tickets are avaliable in the first year.



This next page is where all the income comes from. The Kit sponsor is Nike (You cant name them buy still, Im working on the uniforms currently) and every 5 years, a fixed value of £75,000,000 will be paid until I manually go in and change it myself. There's major stadium sponsors that fund different amounts at separate times, and a TV Deal to have a London Rovers TV cable channel (a lot of larger european clubs have these too just google MUTV!) and the pink alternative strips are also paid for by the Breast Cancer Awareness fund annually and the pink strips are going to be worn at home FA Cup games. (explained later)



This page is pretty simple, changed the competition to the EPL to make a 20th team.



To make it fair in this part (other than putting 20s everywhere) I took the 13 parts and together gave me 260 points if all were 20, and gave myself 195 points to spend so an average of 15.
My primary formation has always been a 4-5-1 with a focus on winger attacking plays and a striker up top who can stretch the back line to give my wingers the room to move. A 4-5-1 is just a 4-3-3 but more defensive minded however the 4-3-3 is roughly the same style but the 3 midfields have to control the traffic in the middle.

Next Post:
- Part 2 of Team Information

reserved for the stats of london :p

including previous players, records, transfers of each year etc etc...

London Rovers Staff


Assistant Manager Julio Tous
Has great Player ability and potential figues. He is the main scout for my own team so high numbers in these will help me asses my teams performance each year. Motivating is 19 (20 is max) and if I need help with half-time talks or need him to talk to a specific player he has the ability to do more good than bad.
Tous was a F.C. Barcelona physio in 2005, since then, hes been off the radar but an assistant of his caliber was very rare, and instantly I tossed £15,000 a year at him to be my #2.

Under18s Manager Johan Neeskens
An ex-player who spent several years at AFC Ajax and F.C. Barcelona before moving to New York in 1978 but after winning the UEFA Champions League with AFC Ajax in 1973. His experience and leadership will help guide the youth into becoming superstars. The U18s coach is the 2nd most important person behind the Assistant Manager, in FM08, I home grew many young 15-17 year olds into stars such as Stefan Makolli or Renato Silva and Vebjorn Tajet!

Head Scout Roberto Bettega
Even in FM08 he was the best non-club affiliated scout in the game (in the stats I look for) with a 20 in Player Ability and 18 in Potential, Roberto can smell talent from a country away. He has great scouting knowledge of Italy and England where he will spend most of his time in England scouting my next opposition and giving me pointers of where to attack their weakness. £11,000 a week is probably under paying him when you think about what he's doing for me.

Head Physiotherapist Dr. Charlotte Cowie
Tottenham's physio for 3 years, it's important to have a professional physio in any club. Also a local lass, born in London and posesses over 30 years of experience. She will look over the first-team injuries as well as supervising the Reserves physio Marco Rota and the U18s physio Marco Frigerio.

You can probably notice a trend here, a lot of Italians and Dutch coaches. It's not unusual for Managers to have people they bring with them to new club(s) and in most cases they all travel as packs. I guess you can say the reason I was hired was being from the same nation as the Chairman (I made the Chairman a Ukranian for this purpose) and the Coaching staff are mostly ex-international players. Seaman was the English Goalkeeper, Stanic was the Croatian keeper with Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink being ex-Dutch stars who in FM07, I was the national team coach (hence why in FM08 I had so many Dutch players in the beginning such as van Persie, Sneijder, van der Vaart etc.)

Very Nice Explaining of FM2011, Actually makes some sence now

And

Van, DL a Media Enconder or Recording Software, or just Fraps it
Go to youtube, Sign up
Record some TUTS and/or make a video dairy of FM2011
Im Sure Youtube Would Love this cheese

Madness wrote:

Very Nice Explaining of FM2011, Actually makes some sence now

And

Van, DL a Media Enconder or Recording Software, or just Fraps it
Go to youtube, Sign up
Record some TUTS and/or make a video dairy of FM2011
Im Sure Youtube Would Love this cheese

I guess since theres this new video capture thingy in FM2011 I can trial with that, but I'm not sure that a tutorial would be great since theres so much content to cover. Highlights and Goals for sure, but when it comes to training/tactics/scouting, its so personal what people do. I know people who go out and buy the "wunderkids" and im not particually like that, I'd take a guy who fits my system any day over someone 200 (200 is like perfect rating) skilled and doesn't fit my system.
Thanks for coming along and reading, hope you get some enjoyment from it as I get a lot from playing it lol.

Prediction of 15th!?!
That makes me mad, they under-estimate my abilities. 15th is barely above the drop! Anyways, predictions are usually off, FM08 it had me around 3rd to 5th and most years I was above this. Anyways I have the predictions the game has and after the season we'll see how accurate they really are!

Pos.
1	Chelsea
2	Manchester United
3	Manchester City
4	Arsenal
5	Liverpool
6	Tottenham
7	Aston Villa
8	Everton
9	Blackburn
10	Birmingham City
11	Fulham
12	Sunderland
13	Stoke City
14	Bolton
15	London Rovers
16	West Ham United
17	Wigan Athletic
18	Wolverhampton
19	Newcastle United
20	West Brom

There are also incoming transfers! Due the opening day of the transfer market (July 1st); and since I started in 1st June, I have a month to setup my staff, the training, scouting some reserves guys and setup some friendlies as the schedule for the EPL season is also known and the start is not very forgiving for a newly formed club.

TRANSFERS!



As anyone who read the FM08 thread, you'll notice I retain the services of a few players such as my club vice-captain Rafael van der Vaart. Darijo Srna who was in the national squad (Croatia) that I was ahead of. Fabrice Muamba makes another appearance, I also had small stints with Tiago Gomes, Joe Lewis and Gary Cahill being in the squad briefly.

The style of system I will play is similar but better than FM08. Another 4-5-1/4-3-3 hybrid with deep defense who excell in cutting off plays and launching quick counter-attacks down the flanks to my wide men. There might be a few more signings I try to make to strengthen the squad, Gareth Bale for left winger to partner van der Vaart on the right. Getting a stronger centre-midfielder and trying to get Bastian Schweinsteiger from Bayern Munich.

Shortlist:

Per Mertesacker, 25 Year Old German Centre Back, £5,750,000 value from Werder Bremen
Philippe Mexes, 28 Year Old French Centre Back, £6,250,000 value from AS Roma
Branislav Ivanovic, 26 Year Old Serbian Full Back, £6,000,000 value from Chelsea
Valon Behrami, 25 Year Old Swiss Full Back, £3,900,000 value from West Ham United

Arturo Vidal, 23 Year Old Chilean Defensive Midfielder, £4,000,000 value from Bayer Leverkusen
Miguel Veloso, 24 Year Old Portuguese Defensive Midfielder, £6,250,000 value from Genoa

Bastian Schweinsteiger, 25 Year Old German Midfielder, £10,500,000 value from Bayern Munich
Yoann Gourcuff, 23 Year Old French Midfielder, £10,500,000 value from Lyon

Toni Kroos, 20 Year Old German Attacking Midfielder, £5,500,000 value from Bayern Munich
Ivan Rakitic, 22 Year Old Croatian Attacking Midfielder, £2,900,000 value from FC Schalke '04
Zoran Tosic, 23 Year Old Serbian Attacking Midfielder, £3,100,000 value from CSKA Moscow


There also clubs that list players "Transfered Listed" which means they want to try and sell these guys, typically there arn't very many good players here (most are good for backups or the create depth in a squad) and sometimes there is a good player of too:

Roque Santa Cruz, 28 Year Old Paraguaian Striker from Manchester City. Asking £2,500,000.
Park Ji-Sung, 29 Year Old South Korean Attacking Midfielder from Manchester United. Asking £4,600,000

The major difference from a transfer listed and just going out and buying a guy is mostly price. Clubs who transfer list a player just want quick cash and might ask for less than their value, the buying anyone has you subject to paying top dollar for a player and almost always, they will ask between 100 and 150% of the value. Such example is Simon Kjaer, only values at £5,000,000 but he was bought for £21,000,000 but this is because of his age, his skill/value and his value to the club. This is what made Cristiano Ronaldo cost 100 million Euros to leave Manchester United.
When I get some scouting reports back and start pushing for a signing, I'll show some screenshots!

This is the formation. A 4-5-1, Running a Counter-style of formation.

What is a 4-5-1?
Essentially, it dictates how the shape looks. 4 Defenders (typically 2 Centre Backs and Full Backs) along with 5 Midfielders and a lone striker.

Why use a 4-5-1?
Theres 2 very big reasons, firstly the way your squad it set up. If you lack 2 good strikers or you have a world-class defensive midfielder or attacking player who can play the "Free Role" then you should use a 4-5-1 to take advantage of this. A 4-5-1 is also a somewhat defensive tactic against a team with 2 great strikers.

Secondly, its how you want to play the game, in FM08 we all saw Xabi Alonso run the show and without Xabi around I struggled to control the game. There 2 main variations of a 4-5-1 is a Defensive Midfielder (such as my formation) or where a normal 4-4-1-1 where the first 1 is in fact a "Free Role" player and tends to flow where they like. Wayne Rooney plays this role great at Manchester United as Berbatov plays as the top striker.

Isnt 2 strikers better than 1?
In terms of numbers yes, but in terms of teamwork and play there is very subtle differences. A lone striker has to keep the defense pushed up and must be able to move the ball around as well as the defense. His wingers are the main source of support, as the wide plays will attempt to cut inside the full-back and slip a pass behind the centre-backs and create space.

How do I utilize the 4-5-1?
Simply putting it, I let the opposition come up the field, then use my fast defenders to close down and take the ball and spring a fast counter-attack against my opponent. I can also then once in the lead, use my Defensive Midfielder to hold the ball and dictate tempo (an amazing quality if in the right DMs hands! Such as Xabi Alonso) which will frustrate the opposition. This lets me win the transition game, and when the other team plays a counter to my counter, I also have that extra defensive midfielder staying deep to keep my ability to get burn by the counter minimalised.

Lastly, if you are playing FM2011 yourself and you wanted to see my "Team Instructions" here they are:

Every year, your board will expect certain things from your squad, obviously being Manchester United you are expected to win some trophies. London have much lower (thankfully) expectations, I chose avoid relegation because you want to under-promise and over-deliver. Typically, unless you are going to buy a lot of players (which can be more harmful than helpful) then it's wise to keep transfers down and make sure you manage the wage bill wisely. Even in FM08, I didn't promise a league title ever, I always promised "Continental qualification" which is basically Top5 finish.

I chose "Avoid Relegation" which is lol, because if I get some of the targets I posted above, espically Mexes, Mertsacker or Schweinsteiger then it will be an awesome season providing they all get along.

And speaking of managing.. here's my profile in-game!



Financial Control: How well I can control the wage bill, turn a profit whilst staying competitive.

Squad Discipline: How well a manager controls his squad, if players misbehave, get reckless bookings and how you respond to it.

Loyalty to Players: How loyal you are to a player in regards to their performance (I will bench someone whose playing really badly for a week)

Tacitcal Consistency: How consistent you are with tactics (such as running a 4-5-1 all the time)

Domestic Player Bias: How often you buy players from within your own league (stupidly it doesnt differentiate between non-english players in an english league!)

Hands On Approach: How active you are with contracts, transfers, media, players etc.

Media Handling: (NEW IN FM11!) I assume how well you handle the questions in the interviews (one is coming up soon)