True Football Manager 2011 / 2010

Football Manager 2011 first news

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:09:00 +0000

Hello my dear readers!

Finally I am back from my August vacations and has already continued managing Leeds with a great pleasure. So be prepared for Leeds story post quite soon. When I had switched on my notebook just right after coming back home the most tempting thing for me was reading the first news regarding Football Manager 2011. And there are some actually… Let’s start to analyze them.

First of all I hope many of you have already seen the official Football Manager 2011 announcement by Miles Jacobson (SI Games director):

It’s really interesting and worth watching. By the way a textual version of first FM 2011 news and comments of fan community can be read here:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/221267-Football-Manager-2011-official-announcement

Now let’s make a short review of announced features.

Dynamic league reputation

It’s very awaited feature by many fans for a long period. It allows changing reputation of a league by any team due to successful or unsuccessful performance on a continental level. If league gets higher reputation it provides an opportunity for its clubs to attract better and better players. It’s really great if you like to manage Belgian, Irish, Ukrainian (for example) clubs and want to have a chance to buy world-class players. And it should realistic feature actually.

Changes in training system

Every player gets an individual training focus in 14 areas you will be able to choose.

Moreover, SI Games added a match preparation stage where you can train you team in specific tactics and workload before a concrete game.

Better board, players and media interaction

Well, the screenshot above is pretty interesting. We will be able to ask board to build or buy new stadium in Football Manager 2011. Miles Jacobson says also that there will be other new interactions options with board and bunch of new private conversations with players.

News and inbox

Dividing news and inbox into 2 different areas in previous version of Football Manager was a mistake. It’s confessed by Miles. I almost don’t read news – only inbox. So as far as I understood, another approach will work in FM 2011:

- inbox and news are grouped together again

- news subscription is improved much allowing to tune your news fluently

Football agents and new contract options

Football Manager become more and more realistic adding agents to the game. Yes, football agents represent players in the real life. Therefore it’s really nice to see this new feature in the game.

Additionally Miles promised some new contract options being available during negotiations. Among them new clauses that you can see on the screenshot below:

Match engine

Match engine is probably the most important part of Football Manager. New features for 3D pitch view are:

- night matches

- more goal celebrations

- floodlights

- more than 100 new animations for players

Hope they will fix “magnetic hands” bug for goalkeepers in FM 2010 too.

Release date

Miles Jacobson promised to make the release before Christmas – but it’s too blurry estimation for us. Let’s just wait. There is also unofficial date – late October. It’s hard to believe this kind of rumours so it’s necessary to wait for an official information.

My opinion: Because of low news amount it seems like we will have Football Manager 2011 later than in previous year.

My vacations till September

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:30:00 +0000

Hello, my dear readers!

Today is the day when I am going on leave. Ye, it’s time to have some rest from my job, Internet, computers… It means there will no be posts in this blog till September because I’m not taking my notebook to the trip. Actually the point is in that I need 3 weeks to travel through west and south of Ukraine. Just look at my route:

- Kamenets-Podolskiy

- Chernovtsy

- Karpathian Mountains

- Lvov

- Black Sea

- Askania Nova

- Herson

- Odessa

After all I will return to Kiev and continue playing Football Manager 2010 and writing to this blog. Most likely you will know first news about Football Manager 2011 that moment (earlier than me). So it will be some kind of surprise for me after home arrival. I suppose the first post after the trip will be regarding all missed Football Manager 2011 announcements.

Don’t be bored without me, play FM 2010!

Leeds. Bad season #7 start

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 06:33:00 +0000

Ye, bad start this time. Unfortunately change of goalkeeper and defence renewal influenced my squad harmony much…

Leeds results in tournaments

First of all let’s look at the Premier League table after 12 fixtures played:

4 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses – this is what my Leeds managed to gain. The reason of such poor performance is 3 new players in defence + new goalkeeper. Additionally all my forwards started to fail goal moments more often for some reason… So I don’t even know what I can analyze here. Everything is simple. New Leeds players need time to blend into the squad and learn playing together well. So now let’s just look at played matches:

We see here the start was awesome – Chelsea lost Community Shield conceding two goals made by Gignac (as scorer) and Marquihnos (as assister).

Euro Super Cup was gave up to Juventus. We didn’t have chances because of higher class of Italian team. They are simply better and the best club in Football Manager 2010 now.

If you look again at the list of played Leeds matches and filter only losses using eyes you’ll see that my team lost all games apart from 0:2 from Arsenal in goal. I think this fact confirms player collaboration problems in the squad.

Unfortunately we got out of League Cup: Tottenham is very tough this season, seems like they are going to win the title…

Regarding our attempt of ‘Europa League winner’ status protection I can say that it’s OK for now:

The group is not that hard for us, of course. I think Leeds will take the 1st position.

Players: new and old ones

Traditionally Leeds squad for you:

New players cause 2 serious problems.

Goalkeeper problem

Julio Cesar was considered a main goalkeeper who should perform better than Vincent Eneyama. But, but, but… It appeared a big mistake. You see he played 10 matches and has 6.76 average rating. This is because the 36 years old Brazilian made around 5 stupid errors! Guys, I didn’t expect it could happen. If we look at his attributes’ values we will see the only serious weakness – speed (Pace=5 and Acceleration=6). So we can make a conclusion: speed is important for goalkeeper in Football Manager 2010.

Silviu Lung replaced Julio Cesar in the first squad… Fortunately his performance is much better! Certainly I like this Romanian already.

Defence renewal problem

New defenders - Javi Garcia, Pablo Sanchez and Sergiy Kryvtsov – have been trying to blend into the squad since the season start. For now they are not synchronized at all, they don’t play well together with Mevlut Sahin (other my main squad defender this season). Too many conceded goals. I have some thoughts regarding every new defender in the team:

- Javi Garcia failed his start completely. I am not even sure now if he can be a good defender for our team at all. May be I will use Javi Garcia in the centre of the midfield.

- Pablo Sanchez settled down feeling of contradiction in my mind. Several times he made great tackles, important headers and scored goals. On the other hand Pablo managed to make 3 bad mistakes that resulted in 1 straight conceded goal and 2 penalties (both goals). Anyway I think he’ll be a great defender in year or half of year.

- The most confident adaptation process is shown by Sergiy Kryvtsov. He made rare errors and this is great. What I like most of all - Kryvtsov is the new king in air winning all headers one by one. He may become equivalent replace for Hangeland.

And my main total conclusion - obviously Leeds defence needs time.

Poor attack at the start

Here is the fact of weak attack by all our main forwards Marquinhos, Gignac and Anichebe. They all scored 9 goals together… How do you think could it be caused by new 4 players behind them in the pitch? I hope, the answer is yes. Though it’s too early to make any conclusions.

Adolphe Teicou

Adolphe Teicou is the only old footballer in Leeds who has been playing since the first season in League 1! And he is the first squad player!

Interesting that attributes’ values of Teicou are mostly lower than Mbia, Delph or Vidal have. But his rating is better now, his performance is more efficient. Even in the national team of Cameroon: Mbia is on substitution bench, Teicou – in the first squad. He is the real working horse of Leeds.

Fabregas, Pato, Balotelli, Alexis Sanchez and others

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:19:00 +0000

Today is the day of my traditional answer on your requests regarding different Football Manager 2010 players. This time here are many star names among footballers you asked. Also I would like to remind: all screen shots are taken from my Leeds story game (season #7 – 2015/2016).

Cesc Fabregas

Bojan

Mario Balotelli

Pato

Alexis Sanchez

Gregory Van der Wiel

Iker Muniain

Lorenzo Crisetig

Yohan Mollo

Håvard Nordtveit

David Ospina

Romelu Lukaku

Bernardo

Alex Witsel

Mesut Ozil

Federico Macheda

Neymar

Sergio Canales

Marco Enzio Fossati

Danny Graham

____________

In the end I propose you to view this very funny video called ‘Best celebration ever in football’:

Season #7 expectations and transfers

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 08:24:00 +0000

I am glad to announce season #7 start in my Leeds story. The last one was successful in all cups (Euro Cup, FA Cup + final of League cup) and failed title challenge target in Premier League. This time I decided to claim the same season expectations:

$72M is twice higher than previous year money. I think it’s result of high income due to victory in Europa League. It would be great to repeat this success winning Euro Cup again! And sure Premier League title challenge is our first priority now. But let’s take a look at the opinion of bookmaker bureau “Sky Bet”:

Well, they forecast that we will finish Premier League at the 7th position again! The same Media Prediction says:

I am going to prove all sceptics that tactical approach can overcome squad strength of Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal. Go Leeds!!!

Players out

All transfers below are very simple. I’ve just sold underperforming players + Enyeama:

Though Vincent Enyeama wasn’t sold – just leased him to Roma. “What’s the reason?” – you would ask me. The main reason is that I signed for free good old Julio Cesar who has somewhat better characteristics currently in my game. Another smaller cause is several quite stupid mistakes made by Nigerian keeper in the last season.

Players in

This how I spent $65M:

My main intention during this transfer window was buying good central defenders. Seems like I coped with this task getting Kryvtsov, Javi Garcia and Pablo Sanchez. These and all other players apart from young talented regen Berend Doesburg will play in the first team. Let’s look at them in detail.

Julio Cesar

There’s no need to introduce one of the best goalkeepers in the real life. Hope he will do a great job for my team in spite of his old age. Notice Julio Cesar demanded really high salary - $140K – becoming the most paid Leeds player.

By the way I recall I had already used him once when I was managing Inter! I bet you don’t read my short Inter story in Football Manager 2007 just because it was long ago:

My story with Football Manager 2007: Lazio/Inter, the 4th season

Arturo Vidal

It was a lucky strike to convince Arturo Vidal in joining Leeds United. He is quick, intelligent central midfielder with high technique and tackling skills. Probably he is even one of the best central midfielder in the game! Arturo Vidal will perform side by side with Fabian Delph as a ball winning halfback.

Pablo Sanchez

Star signings of Julio Cesar and Arturo Vidal were not the most important squad changes just because I decided to renew Leeds defence completely. $27M were paid for Pablo Sanchez – new star central defender of Argentine national team. I want to single out Concentration and Determination values of this wonderkid. It seems he has all chances to become a world star in 2-3 years. Wonderful guy in short!

Javi Garcia

Experienced high-quality footballer who can perform as central defender and central midfielder. Versatility is of course a good thing but I intend using him at the defence area. Great mental skills multiplied by physical strength and decent technical skills should make Javi Garcia solid Leeds first squad player.

By the way those who read my Hull story in Football Manager 2009 should remember Javi Garcia as one of the best team players in the last season:

- Hull. Before the start of the last season…

- Hull. First half of season #7

- Hull story is finished. The season of 3 finals!

Sergiy Kryvtsov

It’s known that I have a weakness to Ukrainian footballers just because I am Ukrainian manager. Now welcome Sergiy Kryvtsov in Leeds – the third new central defender in this transfer window. He is not so intelligent and technically developed as Pablo Sanchez and Javi Garcia. Though he is the best in air having very high values of Strength, Jumping and Heading.

Jonjo Shelvey

Shelvey is an English talent. He will be used from substitution bench in my team covering Marco Verratti position when it’s necessary. He will compete with Jadson who start loosing his attributes’ values due to age.

Silviu Lung

This goalie could be first squad player if Leeds wouldn’t get Julio Cesar. But I had an opportunity to sign him for free and it was too tempting actually. So now I had solid backup goalie.

Berend Doesburg

Prospective young central midfielder. If he trains well we will see this guy in Leeds main squad certainly.

Just thoughts

I think it was targeted and concrete transfer campaign from me. 3 new central defender + Arturo Vidal + Julio Cesar – the guys how should change change starting eleven much.

Interesting fact that three Leeds players can be found in my Football Manager 2010 wonderkids list:

- Silviu Lung (GK)

- Sergiy Kryvtsov (DC)

- Jonjo Shelvey (MC)

So what do you think regarding Leeds transfers this season?

Marco Verratti

In the end I want to share one screen shot. Some of you asked to show Marco Verratti’s preferred moves and positions – here it is:

Leagues and cups in my game, season #6

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:24:00 +0000

It’s going to be a post with results of different tournaments in season #6 (2014-2015) today. It should contain some entertaining and even useful information. So I’m starting.

Champions League

Juventus overcame every team encountered on his path. They are simply the best my game now. Just look at the Champions League Dream Team:

7 players from Juventus – it’s amazing! By the way Diego is a leader of the team.

Europa League

It’s just another chance to boast for me Though here you can see how Manchester City managed to get out of the tournament loosing to Salzburg. Or sudden loose of Atletico Madrid in the semi final.

Seria A table

Juventus is the best again. Genoa became one of the main competitors for Italian title during last years. This team plays in Champions League every year. You may also see Lazio and Fiorentina below the 10th position…

Primera table

Real Madrid is only at the 5th position and will miss Champions League.

Bundesleague table

Leverkusen is certainly the strongest German club now. Meanwhile Bayern Munich has lost its grand status in my game. Every player of their team interested to be transferred to Leeds!

Championship

Welcome back Birmingham, Watford and Middlesbrough who deserved their return to Premier League in very tight fight between 7 teams!

First Leeds trophies: Euro Cup and FA Cup

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:14:00 +0000

It was certainly the most complicated season ever in Football Manager 2010 because of tight challenge by my Leeds in all tournaments this year. We got to the finals of League Cup, FA Cup and Europa Cup! And two last cups were won!

Leeds success in 2 tournaments

Europa League

Drum roll…

Though it wasn’t too hard to win it. At least the final was easy game due to average squad strength of Standard:

Marco Verratti and Lautaro Acosta made that game scoring and assisting each other. So the final was easy, though I wouldn’t say the same about previous stages:

1/4 Leeds – Tottenham 2:0, 1:1

1/2 Leeds – CSKA Moscow 2:1, 1:1

Tottenham is always a problem for me. It’s one of the best English clubs now in the game. CSKA Moscow is simply the best Russian team that won the championship 4 times:

So I cannot say that it was just a lucky strike to win Europa League. These two teams were really strong and made me sweat…

FA Cup

“Damned Aston Villa, damned Aston Villa!” – I had been saying to myself since the 70th minute of FA Cup final. I had lost almost all hopes on victory and hung my head in the very end of the game… But then fabulous Marco Verratti made a through pass to Marquinhos who was accurate enough to score a goal on the 90th minute! Late equalizer! The extra time was played under Leeds dictation. I beat my opponent tactically in it:

As you see Verrati made another assist and scored goal with a smart diving header from 14 meters. Here are the player stats of Leeds:

Premier League

The only tournament failed by Leeds is Premier League. We started at the 7th position after first 10 fixtures and finished the season there. And it’s when I claimed ‘Title challenge’ expectations before the season.

There were another portion of what I call “stupid matches”. It’s when your team has an absolute advantage but don’t able to win a match. Among such games are:

Burnley – Leeds 3:2

Leeds – Portsmouth 1:2

Finally the most of squad and board are disappointed with the 7th position in the league. Though totally they are satisfied because of success in Euro League, FA Cup and League Cup (don’t forget Leeds got to the final):

Cool thing is club’s profit of $32.49M this year. Hope it will influence on amount of transfer money that will be given by board to me next season.

Players

I would like to start talk about Leeds from praising Leeds leader Marco Verratti.

Marco Verratti

This year he became English Players’ Player of the Year:

He had already become World Class footballer. Just look at his attributes, they are amazing:

You can compare these attribute values with those he had in previous seasons using this link: http://www.truefootballmanager.com/2010/03/too-many-draws-in-premier-league.html

Marco fulfils his potential during trainings developing his attributes’ values more and more. It results in excellent performance during season:

His this season’s 19 assists became a new Leeds record:

Leeds squad

At first traditional Leeds squad screen shot from me:

What do we see in it?

- Gignac is the best Leeds goal scorer again with 29 balls. Though he became older - 30 years. But I am pretty sure Gignac will show high level in the next season.

- Other forwards Marquihnos and Anichebe played very well scoring truly vital goals on the last minutes. I am happy with these classy strikers.

- Central midfielders Teicou and Mbia were enough destructive at their positions. Though Teicou is a backup player now because I used newcomer Fabian Delph instead. Delph is not so good in ball tackling but much more efficient as goal assister making creative passes. This season was quite decent for him. Hope to see some progress from his side in the next one.

- Zoran Tosic and Lautaro Acosta. Other Leeds newcomers. I have contrary feelings regarding performance of these 2 guys. Tosic had started the season marvellously but was below average in the end. Acosta had been rather poor winger at the start but adapted himself and showed great performance during last matches (including decisive finals).

- Lee Wallace and Clement Grenier are the worst players of the team and will be sold. The same decision is taken regarding Howson because he cannot even face substitution bench competition now.

- Our goalie Vincent Enyeama produced good performance making a lot of important saves. From the other hand he did several mistakes during the season that influenced amount of taken points in Premier League. I will think over goalkeeper position, maybe it’s time to find a new more stable guy for it.

- The most problematic area is defence that cause bad Leeds result in Premier League. Mevlut Sahin is Leeds newbie who gets better and better every month. Though he is young and makes mistakes as other defenders. Others are weaker. Addison is more central midfielder than defender. Prieto, Johnson and Hangeland are too old already. Their attributes fell much. Look at Brede Hangeland:

Look to the attribute values of Leeds captain I understand that next season will be started with totally new defence. Waiting for transfer window impatiently…

Benfica, Watford, QPR, Blackpool in FM 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 05:08:00 +0000

Let’s continue series of posts where I satisfy your requests regarding different clubs and player in my Leeds story game. As you guessed from post title the matter is going to be about the clubs today. By the way all underlying screen shots are made in May, 2015 (season 6).

Benfica

Italy squad

Juventus makes the basis of Italian national team.

Watford

They are at the 2nd position in the Championship. So my Leeds will meet Watford in the next PL season:

Blackpool

7th position in League 1 – this is Blackpool’s achievement of the season #6.

Yeovil Town

Yeovil Town has just relegated to League 2 from 22th position.

Bradford City

QPR

They are only 16th in the Championship this year.

Plymouth Argyle

Plymouth Argyle took the 4th position in League 1 and got to the playoff round. Having semi final matches with Southend.

________________

Adding Italy squad to this post I start think of their failure at World Cup 2010… They were lacking efficient performance from attack certainly. Performance like Roberto Baggio could produce:

Loosing hopes for Top 4…

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 06:38:00 +0000

Dear readers, another Leeds story post has been prepared for you. It’s a little bit sad one due to unredeemed promises of title challenge. This season we appeared to fail our target in Premier League.

Leeds matches and results

Here is Premier League table where you can find Leeds at the 9th position:

Well, of course we have 2 additional matches to play taking into comparison amount of played fixtures by the most teams. Nevertheless I don’t think there is a good chance to get to the 4th position. Just Europa League place again .

Let’s try to figure out why the result doesn’t correspond to seasons expectations. First of all take a look at last series of matches:

It doesn’t look bad actually. So many games were won. There are only 2 losses and 2 draws in Premier League matches:

- Leeds – Man Utd 1:1. It was almost equal game. We had slight advantage but Red Devils defence didn’t allow us to make it fulfilled.

- Aston Villa – Leeds 3:1. My mistake in tactical approach: I should choose Counter Attack strategy instead of Control.

- Leeds – Newcastle 0:2. Absolutely stupid game that crossed out my hopes on Top 4 place. I put the corresponding screen shot below.

- Man City – Leeds 0:0. It was a good away game against the strongest English team (PL winners in 2012, 2013 and runners up in 2014).

The match against Newcastle must be won. But unfortunately it happened so that two important first team players leaved Leeds for their national teams: Vincent Eneyama and Stephane Mbia. Marco Verratti was missing the game due to excess of yellow cards. As a result we were are not efficient in attack and conceded 2 stupid goals that are conscience of young GK Areola and mistakes of defenders.

League Cup final

Story of Leeds in League Cup didn’t turn out a fairy tale. We beat Manchester United and Tottenham, Chelsea and Wolves in this tournament overcoming ruthless draw. The last step wasn’t successful. Unfortunately Arsenal outclassed Leeds in the final:

And I can’t even say we had chances. We were simply outclassed. Probably I made some tactical mistakes, don’t know…

Europa League

We had no problems with neither Dinamo Moscow nor Feyenoord in Europa League. Both our opponents had weaker squads so the results are logical. Leeds went through to the quarter final where threatening Tottenham awaits us. They are very strong this season competing with Manchester City for PL title…

Players

Regarding Leeds players here is the squad sorted by Average Rating:

Don’t be surprised much by Roger Johnson at the 1st position in the list. He’s a backup player who earned his rating in FA Cup and Europa League matches mostly. Andre-Pierre Gignac is not so great scorer as in the last season (remember he got European Golden Boot?). Though other forwards – Marquihnos and Anichebe - pulled their performances up.

Most of squad have ‘Slt’ sign – they think that club is underachieving…

Victor Anichebe

I am happy having such kind of striker in my team. He is quite quick with very good finishing skills. Victor’s absolutely important feature is his ability to win headers. It differs him much from other 3 forwards in my team. 14 goals in 11(16) matches – it’s a pretty surprising efficiency from Victor Anichebe as for me.

English Footballer of the Year

In the end I want you to look at the screen where names of English Footballer of the Year award are shown:

2 Leeds players – Verratti and Tosic - are pretending on the award.

______________________

Finally just to entertain you: Maradona versus Ronaldinho video.

My new FM 2010 tactics

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:22:00 +0000

Perhaps you read the post about Leeds United tactics earlier and could even use it in your game… Now as I promised I’m sharing my second FM 2010 tactics used successfully for national team of Northern Ireland in my game.

Georgia – Northern Ireland 0:2
Northern Ireland – Denmark 2:0
Northern Ireland – Portugal 1:1 (with one red card for my player on the 72th minute)

All these results where achieved with current FM 2010 tactics which you can download using the following link:

Download FM 2010 tactics

Team instructions

5 defenders and 3 central midfielders should prompt you the tactics is oriented at playing through the pitch middle. That’s what Focus Passing instruction is set to. I want you also to pay attention at Rigid Philsophy and Disciplined Creative Freedom. These two instructions mean team will be playing more academic football with low amount of unpredictable actions. It’s absolutely opposite style to my Leeds United tactics where fluid philosophy is propagandized.

Individual instructions

Goalkeeper

Quick Throw allows to avoid loosing ball that happens often after Long Kick (another Distribution option). I suggest you to use this setting always when you try to set up football style with high percent of ball control.

Left/Right defenders

Wing backs who support attacks from time to time distracting one opponent player to the flank. They give more space for central midfielders and forwards to attack through the middle.

Left/Right central defenders

Pure central defenders with Limited Defender Role. They are targeted to tackle ball and win headers.

Central defender

Central defender should have abilities to make good accurate passes often.

Left/Right central midfielders

Attack supporters with Hard ball tackling. Such MLC and MRC work very nice I want you to say. Their current Duty makes them to join attacks very often when my Northern Ireland controls a ball.

Central midfielder

Playmaker typed midfielder who thinks about ball distribution directions often. Normally he has 3 attacking cases where he make a pass:

- wing backs
- MLC and MRC who run forward
- forwards

Left central forward

“Run and score” guy has to be used at this position. Northern Ireland team has a lot of guys with decent speed and finishing. It would also be great if such player had cool dribbling skills…

Right central forward

Deep Lying Forward. Sometimes he is useful to connect midfield and attack when all midfielders are afraid to go forward.

So this is how my new FM 2010 tactics looks. By the way I didn’t try to use Counter Attack strategy and can only say that Control works better than Standard. So it’s up to you to check out this tactics and try playing with different strategies. Hope you’ll like it!

________________

In the end I want to congratulate national team of Spain with their historical first victory! World Cup 2010… It’s sad that it’s over… Though next destination point is Euro-2012 that will be held in my native Ukraine and Poland.

Here is the brilliant video clip of Shakira with her World Cup 2010 official song “Waka Waka”:

It must be watched because:

- it contains a lot memorable moments from previous World Cups and many football stars in the video
- it was watched by almost 100 million people!
- Shakira is one of the best singers in the world (though it’s just my opinion here)

Barazite, Hulk, Opare, Sigurdsson and others

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 07:05:00 +0000

As usually I am opened for you requests to post a picture that or another player, team in my game. Today I have prepared the next portion of screen shots asked by you, my dear readers. I remind that my Football Manager 2010 game is in the middle of the 6th season.

Nacer Barazite

Ryan Bertrand

Patrick Van Aanholt

Gylfi Sigurdsson

Chris Cohen

Andrew Davies

Daniel Opare

Rodney Strasser

Michelangelo Albertazzi

Hulk

Hulk looks world class footballer in my game. I would advise everyone to buy him in case of any opportunity.

In the middle of the season #6

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Leeds story today.

World Cup Preamble

Though at first I want to share my minds regarding World Cup. I am really glad that Brazil and Argentina leave World Cup 2010. Please don’t hate me for that if these teams were among your favourites. It’s just because Brazil was playing in boring football… They shouldn’t do that. Argentina made an absolute mistake assigning Maradona as team manager. He knows nothing about football tactics. Maradona didn’t take Cambiasso and Zanetti who would strengthen the squad for sure. Just try to imaging pair of DMC’s Mascherano and Cambiasso tackling every ball!

And, of course, my applauses to Germany! Their attacking style is great. Hope they will win World Cup 2010!

Tournaments

Now let’s get back to Leeds story. Premier League table after 21 fixtures:

The 7th position tells us Leeds is underachieving. Let’s try to examine why the situation is like this. At first we should look into played matches screen shot:

I want you to outline matches starting from the first against Reading and ending with Chelsea away game lost with 1:3 score. It was period of real crisis for my team. I think it was caused by adaptation problems of new Leeds players. Additionally my defence and attacks did too many mistakes. Well, you know that Leeds defense is the weakest area on a pitch currently. Suddenly they made very perceptible several errors in 10 matches. Plus 2 mistakes from Enyeama (my goalie). I started to feel myself lost…

Moreover, we had problems in finishing stage. Just look at match stats of our home game with Burnley:

Too many goal chances were failed!

Europe League

Good thing is that Leeds has a success in other tournaments. For instance, Europa League opponents didn’t make me to doubt of the team that would take the first position:

Now we will have the following opponents in the next round:

Feyenoord looks more or less dangerous but I believe my team is stronger.

League Cup

This year’s League Cup is like Champions League. Just consider Leeds opponents: Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea and Wolves (quite tough guys in my game). The quarter final against Chelsea was something like Uruguay – Ghana in real life:

I substituted leading forward Andre-Pierre Gignac by Victor Anichebe. It was done due to light injury although Gignac could continue playing. As a result Anichebe scored twice on 90th and 120th minutes!!! And the goal assists were made by another player who came from substitution bench – Fabian Delph! I felt myself like genius coach after that!

If you take a look at match stats you’ll see we had an advantage:

The match is one using counter-attacking style. And this is Leeds player ratings screen shot for you:

After such victories (add previous ones against Man Utd and Tottenham) gaining League Cup is my debt!

Leeds players

Gignac left behind Marquinhos by amount of scored goals. I would like to praise Stephane Mbia and Marco Verratti – they lead my midfield. The first tackles many balls, the seconds creates a lot of goal chances.

Marquinhos

And this is how Marquinhos attributes look currently:

I decided to include screen shot of one Leeds player in every story post.

Transfers

Regarding winter transfers I made decision to restrict myself from buying new footballers. Just sold several guys:

There some comments are needed. All sold players wanted to play in the first team and asked to put them to the transfer list. Giuliano was surprised unpleasantly because I hadn’t included him into Europa League squad. High squad competition – what else I can say… So I had to sell this talented midfielder.

Domestic bias

One of you, my dear readers, asked me: “I would like to know what is your domestic player bias and what do you think about it”. Well here is the screen shot:

Domestic player bias is not really important I suppose. Though if I have opportunity of buying 11 high-quality English players to my squad I would do that. It’s always better when all players talk in English, have same culture playing for club that belong to same country. I think it boosts effectiveness of team in general.

FM 2010: How to find good players?

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:09:00 +0000

First of all I would like to say that yesterday’s quarterfinals were absolutely fantastic. Especially Uruguay – Ghana. Therefore I want to devote this post to all players of teams that got to the World Cup quarterfinals. Here are few photos of them from Football Manager 2010 because this post is about good players:

“How do you find good players in Football Manager 2010?” – some of you ask me from time to time. Sure you may use one of these links on my players’ posts as easy solution to this question:

- Wonderkids List

- Free players

But I think it’s time for a concrete answer that will really help you to find good players by yourself. I use the following methods:

Scouts

The most quick method actually. You don’t need to spend much time, just indicate your scouts different world regions/countries and tournaments to observe. Some hints for you regarding scouts usages:

- Try to have maximal amount of scouts allowed by your club board.

- Sign scouts having expertises in absolutely different countries.

Players search

I prefer to use Players search functionality when it’s necessary to buy a player from transfer list or sign him on free. Moreover it can be helpful to create some special search filters to find a player among those whose attribute values are not hidden at current moment. There can be an interesting trick with player search:

1. Create a filter for some concrete position (let’s say DC, for example).

2. Choose view “Mental”.

3. Sort by Anticipation and look through first 20 players.

4. Sort by Concentration and look through first 20 players.

5,6,7…. and so on for each attribute important for DC.

This method helps much. It’s really better than simple filters by attributes because you loose good players having values less by 1 or 2 than your limits.

Discovering U21 national teams

Tedious but prospective approach to find good youngsters. Just go and checkout every more or less competitive national team manually. Player by player.

In the end I would like to notice these 3 methods are enough for me. And of course I don’t use Database Editor and some FM tools like Genius Scout. Just because I am sure it spoils all pleasure from playing Football Manager 2010. If you want to get a real delight from FM 2010 use only functions present in the game itself without any other programs.

And now it’s time to ask you: what player search methods do you use? May be your method will be helpful to me.

Clubs you asked me to show

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:52:00 +0000

First of all I would like to present my condolences to all fans of English national team. It’s really pity that Lampard’s goal wasn’t counted. Very bad mistake by referee squad.

Today I am going to continue answering your requests and putting screen shots from my Football Manager 2010 story. Don’t forget I am in the season #6 now.

England squad

By the way here are the result of two World Cups in my game:

Italy is an absolute winner!

Liverpool

MK Dons

MK Dons play in League 2 now. This is how their history in domestic leagues looks:

Luton

League 2 participators as well.

Porto

Last Champions League winners possess long substitution bench.

Atlético Madrid

They won Europa League last year. But the results in Primera are not so cool:

Sheffield Wednesday

Exeter City

Real Sociedad

They had only 1 year of Primera:

The second Spanish division is not included in my game.

Dinamo Zagreb

Gray guys here…

A.C. Milan

______________________________

Additionally I suggest you to watch BBC Best 10 goals of World Cup:

Most of all I like the one scored by Dennis Bergkamp!

Season beginning that could be predicted

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:26:00 +0000

Leeds story continues, my dear readers! And I want to inform you that season #6 has already begun. It was kind of start that could be predicted due to 4 new players in the first squad…

Matches and results

Premier League table after 12 fixtures (though Leeds has only 11 played) doesn’t correspond to my title challenge ambitions. As we see currently Manchester City has 27 points versus my 19 points + 1 game on hand. Potentially gap is 5 points – not so much for unstable start in the league. Though some of my players have already stated that club is underachieving.

Let’s look into played matches screen:

First 3 matches became the best start in my career - 3:1, 6:1 and 5:0 scores slightly convinced me in quick adaptation process of new first squad players. But then we got more strong opponents - Manchester United and Tottenham – who convinced me in an opposite thought The most poor matches were against Wolves and Aston Villa in which almost all goals were scored after mistake of defenders and goalkeeper. In the end it was very important to win home game versus The Gunners (champions of the last season) because gap between Leeds and 1st line of the table started to grow.

I cannot tell any special news regarding Europa League just because all teams in my group are perceptibly weaker. Therefore I use Leeds second squad in the matches against them.

League Cup

League Cup is a separate story. Do you remember I claimed before the season that I am going to challenge for title and also win one of local trophies (League Cup or FA Cup)? It seems like Leeds players support me much in this outburst. We have the most terrible calendar in League Cup this year:

- Manchester United

- Tottenham

- Chelsea (awaits me in the next round)

Now I can boast with confident victories over these clubs. The highest pride is 3:0 win over rival Manchester United:

Leeds players

Now some words about the players. At first look into the screen shot below:

I want to single out wonderful start by Marquinhos. Together with Gignac they have already managed to score 18 goals. Now seems like I have two scoring forwards. I could claim the same in the last season because result of Marquihnos was only 6 goals in 34 matches.

Now some words about new Leeds players:

- Mevlut Sahin (DC). 19 years old defender is an excellent prospective player actually. He develops himself much during trainings (like Marco Verratti), performs pretty well and has constant place in the first squad. Though there are few problems: he made two mistakes that turned into goals, and he is not really confident in air.

- Zoran Tosic (ML). I found wonderful winger for my team. His speed, dribbling and crosses are of high-quality. Moreover Zoran scored one goal from free kick and did several assists from corners. Totally he has 8 assists in 14 matches and was awarded as best Premier League player of August!

- Lautaro Acosta (AMR). Quick Argentinian is only on the way to adapt in team. Therefore I am not really happy with him currently. Dribbles too much and sometimes looses ball. Made 2 assists in 17 games. I think he’ll adapt and improve his performance.

- Fabian Delph (MC). He is also trying to blend into squad. The same feeling as about Mbia’s start in the previous season. Made 2 assists in 10 matches.

Brede Hangeland

Let’s praise Brede who is 33 years old:

With all these attribute values he managed to score 7 goals from corners taken by Tosic, Verratti and Jadson! His average rating is highest among all Premier League defender.

And here are Hangeland’s match stats:

Amazing! I didn’t expect such amount of won headers and succeeded passes in this season. Leeds captain is truly fantastic defender!

Northern Ireland: The start!

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 05:27:00 +0000

As you remember after the failure with Bosnia & Herzegovina national team I started to manage Northern Ireland. It was one season ago when all World Cup qualification matches were over. And I should just wait for the start till this season. Therefore I am reporting about my first success with the new nation team just right now.

Northern Ireland tactics

Northern Ireland doesn’t have available many good players. There are only few high-quality players in defence (Cathcart, Evans) and fine central midfielder Davis. The others are below the level. That’s the challenge I needed! For me it was important to have strong defenders and this is enough.

So I decided to use tactical formation with 5 defenders in line, 3 central midfielders and 2 forwards with the following team instructions:

Rigid philosophy (instead of Fluid I use in Leeds), disciplined creative freedom, aggressive tackling, closing down and Control match strategy. Very important tactics setting is focusing passing through the middle. Of course, only half of these settings were enabled before the match. Most of them were added only after first games.

Therefore it’s significant to spend you time organizing and watching friendly matches (HINT! ).

I will give you this tactics after some tunings and when I will see that it’s really effective and useful for you.

Matches

The start of European Championship qualification was almost perfect for my team. Only poor draw with weak Azerbaijan spoiled my mood. But that fail can easily overlapped by victories over Georgia and especially Denmark.

My thoughts of match against certainly more strong Denmark were: “Guys! Let’s try to be accurate in defence and don’t concede goals. And then may be we can score from corner or something like that”. I was feeling myself as New Zealand against Italiy in yesterday’s World Cup game Fortunately my pretty smart tactics gave 2:0 win. Ye, the second goal was scored from corner by Cathcart. But the first one is the result of excellent combination with finishing effort by striker Paterson. Here are more statistical information regarding this match:

Group A

Northern Ireland is on the second position after 3 fixtures! This is what I have been dreaming of. Hopefully we will be able to dictate terms to our opponents and stay on this position in the end. It would be also fantastic to make two draws with Portugal (it’s hard to think of winning games against them)– absolute favourite in my group by squad strength .

Season 6: Simon Kjaer, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and others

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:29:00 +0000

Posts with information from my game (Leeds story) become more and more popular among you, my dear readers. Last weeks you asked many players and teams and therefore I cannot put them into one post. So now you will see attributes of many players in the sixth season in Football Manager 2010. I included career history of every player below allowing to understand:

- level of player performance in my game

- names of former and current clubs

Simon Kjaer

Aaron Ramsey

Jack Wilshere

Jack Wilshere didn’t manage to reveal his potential.

Edgar Cani

Mirko Vucinic

Mirco is a world class player with excellent career history!

Andrea Luci

Keirrison

Not so much dangerous Chelsea attacker as Suarez.

Pichu Atienza

Georginio Wijnaldum

Stevan Jovetic

Marek Hamsik

Mathias Jorgensen

Giovani dos Santos

World Cup 2010 start

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 09:46:00 +0000

Dear readers, I just want to congratulate you with the start of the greatest football tournament between national teams - World Cup 2010! It’s a real holiday for all football fans. And I am truly excited about World Cup 2010 and hope it will be great and unforgettable championship.

Previous World Cups in my life

“What did they mean to me?” – I ask myself.

I remember I became an active World Cup watcher since 1994. Since that wonderful time when I was only 12 years old. The best national teams with the best players compete for one of the greatest football prizes having less than month till the tournament’s end. It’s always cool to see clashes of different football styles.

I’ll try to recollect the most impressive (for me) moments of World Cups I watches earlier:

1994

Brazilian national team and its attacking pair Romario and Bebeto.

1998

Unbelievable performance by Chilavert (legend goalkeeper of Paraguay), red card by Beckham, final between France and Brazil (I was supporting France).

2002

Strange playoff games by South Korea, early match time when I had to turn on TV in the morning for live watching of the matches, amazing Ronaldo, beautiful goals of Dennis Bergcamp and Ronaldinho.

2006

First of all, Ukraine’s debut at World Cup championships and getting to the quarterfinal! Excellent performance by Fabio Canavarro, last Zidane’s match in the final with his head kick and red card.

What I am planning to do during World Cup 2010

Well, it will take much time to watch all World Cup matches.Though in my case it’s absolutely impossible to watch them all. But anyway I have intentions to follow this plan:

- watch all matches starting at 21:30.

- watch all matches on Saturdays, Sundays.

- watch second-halfs of games starting at 17:00 every working day.

- visit the most popular Kiev sport/beer bars together with my friends.

The last point is really interesting for me because normally I prefer to stay at home, sit in comfortable armchair and drink favourite beer watch a game. But now it’s time to experiment. There are many interesting places in Kiev where I could watch World Cup matches on a big TV screen with a good company. At least I hope so.

My favourite for this year tournament – Spain. Just because I like and support attacking football.

And what do you think of World Cup 2010? What are you hopes?

PS. I would like to congratulate the best forward (as for me) in Football Manager 2010 – Andre-Pierre Gignac – with nice yesterday’s debut match in World Cup final stage. It would be great if he score so often as he does for my Leeds in FM 2010!

Season 6 target – title challenge!

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:06:00 +0000

This is how I claimed expectations for the upcoming season 2014-15. Going to participate in title battle this time. Moreover, I expect my Leeds to win one of English cups and get into at least semi final stage in Europa League. These plans are really ambitious taking into account current Leeds Media Prediction:

I think it’s time to inflame Leeds story because I haven’t been feeling any danger to be sacked from the very first season in Football Manager 2010.

Sold Leeds players

(all prices are specified in US dollars)

As I promised in the last season post I would sell players who had didn’t impress me much and had ratings below 6.80. The only one stable first squad footballer appeared in this list - Daniele Galloppa. He did not become a left midfielder I had needed. He is more MC than ML actually. But it was a really fine bargain to get $15M for his person from Inter.

Kostas Siavaras (young regen talent) brought me $10.25M. Decided to sell him because of low speed and acceleration (both below 10). He didn’t develop these two attributes during trainings.

The best deal is of course transfer of well-known central midfielder Michael Johnson to Bayern Munich. $11.5M – the high sum for substitution bench player who wasn’t able to compete against my Cameroonian MC’s (Mbia and Teicou).

I sold Maxym Koval – young prospective among Leeds goalkeepers – thinking to replace him with keeper of English nationality.

Welcome new Leeds players!

The following Leeds signings make me quite optimistic regarding the season expectations claimed above.

(all prices are specified in US dollars)

I tried to increase Leeds strength in the most problematic positions: DC, ML, AMR.

Lautaro Acosta - $27M

Welcome new attacking winger whom I consider to use at AMR position. Acosta is kind of player I have always been dreaming of before. He possesses high levels of Pace, Acceleration, Dribbling, Technique, Passing, Flair, Agility and Creativity. Sure Lautaro is not Messi but he should a real right flank danger for my future opponents!

Zoran Tosic - $27M

The same $27 million dollars were paid for Zoran Tosic – Aston Villa star player in my FM game. He resembles Lautaro Acosta by his attributes with some differences in mental abilities. Tosic will take ML position that turned into headache for me during the last season.

Fabian Delph - $19M

I am really glad to announces transfer of this talented English player from Aston Villa (damn, I weakened their squad!). I like him very much because he is quick, strong and possesses excellent passing abilities. Fabian Delph can be used in two ways:

- as MC (instead of Teicou)

- as right midfielder (when I move AMR position to MR)

For me Delph is a gem player.

Mevlut Sahin - $7.75M

The fourth newbie who is intended to be used in the main Leeds squad. You see Mevlut Sahin is very prospective regen who will ideally blend with my 3-4-R-2 tactics. I think he’ll become a leader of defence in future. Now he is a player of Hangeland level almostly.

Frank Lampard - Free

What should I say about this very respected footballer and former (in my game) Chelsea leader? Frank can certainly help in decisive matches due to his fantastic values of mental attributes. Though 36 years age doesn’t allow to claim him as first squad midfielder.

Clement Grenier - Free

It just a nice free bargain. This guy may help in increasing squad depth because he can be used as AMR.

John Ruddy - $400K

John Ruddy became an English replacement for Maxym Koval. Decent goalie who has to feel himself conveniently sitting on a substitution bench.

I’d like to ask you…

This is my assistant’s team report:

Add Lautaro Acosta to it and answer the following questions:

1. How do you like my transfer campaign before the 6th season in Football Manager 2010?

2. And how do you consider my chances to meet claimed season targets:

- fight for Premier League title and get the 3rd position at least

- win one of English cups

- enter semifinals of Europa League.

Howson, Juventus, Celtic, Arsenal and other asked screen shots

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 04:50:00 +0000

Today’s post consists of information asked by you completely. You suggested me to show different screen shots including Juventus and Arsenal squads, attributes of Howson and Dodo in my Leeds story. So here they are below:

Jonathan Howson

I use Howson as a reserve player in Leeds. But I am glad that he is footballer who stays in Leeds from the very beginning of the game.

Dodo

Dodo is still in Corinthians. If I need full back I would buy him. But my 3-4-R-2 tactics doesn’t use full backs.

James Rodriguez

Attacking midfielder who is present at my shortlist. In 2009 he was bought by Roma for only $1.3M. Three seasons later HSV acquired this talented player paying $11.75M.

Celtic squad

Juventus squad

They have too many goalkeepers

AS Roma squad

Artem Milevskiy from Ukraine is leading Roma forward!

Arsenal squad

They still have pretty young and ambitious squad which allowed to win Premier League in the last season.

West Ham squad

Notts. County squad

Notts County plays in League 1 in the season #6. Though they were competing in the Championship (the 4th season) but relegated back to League 1.

Results of other tournaments (season 2013-2014)

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 04:59:00 +0000

The season #5 is over. You’ve probably read its totals including Premier League final table in the previous post. Today I’d like to add results of other tournaments in my game.

Champions League

Surprise by Porto who beat Real Madrid, Tottenham and Juventus. This triumph was provided by pair of their forwards: Columbian Falcao and Brazilian Hulk.

Europa League

No surprise here because the tournament was won by club of Aguero, Asenjo, Capoue and many other talents.

Seria A

Edin Dzeko from Juventus became Seria A top scorer with 23 goals. Player of the year is Pato from Milan.

Primera

Classic Primera final table when we see Real Madrid and Barcelona at the top. Top scorer – Roberto Soldado (Getafe) with 26 goals. Highest average rating by unreal Lionel Messi – 8.21!!!!!

FA Cup

League Cup

Coca-Cola Championship

Everton was among the most unsuccessful clubs in the season #4 when they had relegated to the Championship. Now they are back and on the wave of success: absolute advantage in the league + sensational winning of League Cup.

And they managed to do all this having sold before the season’s start:

- Steven Pienaar
- Marc Wilson
- Jack Rodwell
- Dan Gosling
- Dinijar Bilyaletdinov
- David Wheater

Season #5 totals

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sat, 29 May 2010 11:18:00 +0000

Finally the long-long season #5 is over. I was very attentive in the season’s end trying to get into Champions League. But this time Leeds achieved the 6th position only. Actually why do I say “only”? The main target of the season was continental qualification. So everything is fine – expectations have been met.

Leeds results

But anyway I had chances to gain the 4th position allowing to participate in Champions League. Remember there was an intrigue before the last two fixtures which I described in my blog in the previous post? Here the results of Leeds United matches including two last Premier League fixtures:

Unfortunately we were beaten by Manchester City with 0:3 score and it was the decisive moment breaking all hopes on Champions League. In the last fixture my angry players revenged Aston Villa for that together with fantastic Gignac who scored hat-trick:

And resulting Premier League table of season 2013-2014 looks in the following way:

It’s certainly the best Leeds result of all 3 Premier League seasons. You can compare:

So now I can start preparing my Leeds to Europa League. It would be great to win it!

Next season has to be very important in sense of winning trophies, getting to Champions League and maybe even battling for PL title!

Leeds squad

Currently the most important thing for me is a smart squad analysis. It’s necessary to do because I want to bring the team to the highest level where Manchester City and Arsenal now. Hope you will join my analysis tryouts in comments.

Now the squad:

Actually here you may already see the strongest and weakest Leeds positions. But I’m going to discuss the weakest ones in the very end of this blog post. At first I suggest you to share my joy of achievements by Leeds players.

Best Premier League players

Leeds leaders Verratti, Hangeland and Gignac got to the team of the year!

Moreover Gignac and Verratti managed to become the 2nd and 3rd in English footballer of the year award:

Season summary reflects my progress in Leeds management:

- overachivers
- top goalscorer award by Gignac
- two best signings of the season

Let’s praise Gignac!

Andre-Pierre Gignac is fantastic, fantastic, fantastic!!! I cannot hide my deep impression of his result performance. This world class (that’s for sure!) forward scored 32 goals in 31 match! And 29 goals were made in Premier League:

This fact allowed him becoming the best goal score of England and even the whole Europe:

Golden boot award is gained by Leeds leading striker! Yahoooooo! I am really glad that Raymond Domenech took him to France squad for World Cup 2010. Hope to see this talented footballer in real life scoring goals on South African pitches.

Now look to the following screen shot:

All 3 new Leeds forwards (I bought them all before this season) got to the top 6 of Shots on Target rating. This is really good. It means they have fine shot accuracy. Especially Andre-Pierre Gignac. He is simply amazing with his 76% beating Luis Suarez and Fernando Torres.

2 players of my team are in top 4 in MoM statistics:

Other achievements in Premier League ratings

Among other “smithes of Leeds success” are also Marco Verratti and Marquinhos with their assists:

Two central Cameroonian midfielders Teicou and Mbia are used with Ball-winning midfielder role very well. They got to the top 7 by average amount of tackles in match:

And the best Premier League distance runner is Jadson, Brazilian naturalized into Ukrainian:

Final squad analysis before transfers window

Now as I promised we will single out the most weak Leeds positions and after the I will start working hard on transfer market.

Well, looking into the screen shots above you could understand that:

- goalkeeper is good enough
- at least one central defender (Hangeland) is really cool and confident player
- central midfielders (ball-winners + AMC) perform at high level
- forwards are almost superb. I say ‘almost’ because all forwards apart Gignac are not so great goal scorers.

The weak positions are:

- ML. Daniele Galloppa was feeling himself out of position. Wallace didn’t impress, though he was targeted as substitution bench player. Going to sell Galloppa because he is 30 years old but still can be sold for some $10-20M.
- AMR. Padalino and Matthews who were used at this position has the worst ratings. Obviously I need better player here. Sometimes I have been using Marco Verratti, he was trained to this position eventually. But it’s not his natural one. Plus I cannot use Marco when I move AMR to MR playing against team having very quick ML.
- DC. It’s necessary to buy a new stopper of Brede Hangeland level. And I think he should be young talent.

In the end I would like to say that I am going sell many players who don’t play in the main squad often or have low match ratings (below 6.90).

And what would you advise me to do? Who knows maybe your idea will be helpful…

In two fixtures before Premier League finish

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Wed, 26 May 2010 03:39:00 +0000

Today’s Leeds story post consists of two parts:

- my attempt to describe current situation in Premier League before two last fixture

- squads of teams you asked me to post (+ names of their actual managers).

So at first here is the current standing in Premier League:

I want you to pay attention at the opposition between Chelsea, Tottenham and my club. Aston Villa doesn’t seem to be dangerous at the moment – the gap between 6th and 7th positions is too large. It’s so tempting to get Champions League place… Unfortunately not all depends on Leeds results in two last fixtures. The 4th position can be gained only in case if Chelsea and Tottenham loose 3 and 1 points correspondingly. Don’t sure if this is likely to happen. Just look at their calendars below.

Chelsea

Chelsea will play FA Cup final against Man Utd.

Tottenham

Tottenham will face off Porto in Champions League semi final after home lost match with 0:2 score.

Leeds United

And compare their calendars with mine:

Away match against Manchester City is very tough. I didn’t win any match against them having 3 draws and 2 losses in my baggage… The game with Aston Villa is quite complicated as well. Their players may take away points in this last game.

So how do you think? What position will my Leeds take in the end?

Squads you asked me to post…

Barcelona squad

Manager – Josep Guardiola

Real Mardid squad

Manager – Manuel Pellegrini

Inter squad

Manager – Jose Mourinho

Tottenham squad

Manager – Urgen Klinsmann

Aston Villa squad

Manager – Martin O’Neill

Gillingham squad

Manager – Mark Stimson. Gillingham is at the 21 position in League 1 now.

Leeds versus Tottenham and Aston Villa

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Sat, 22 May 2010 20:43:00 +0000

Hello, my dear readers! I have prepared new Leeds story post for you that promises to be captivating.

Matches and results

We’ll start with Premier League table before the final quarter of fixture in this season:

As far as you see Leeds is about to get to Europe League. But there is a strong competition between my club and Tottenham with Aston Villa. They are very strong competitors, believe me. Seems like pretty complicated finish awaits me this season. By the way the 4th Champions League position is also can be taken by Leeds. I feel I have some chances to make kind of surprise making a final spurt during last season fixtures. Why do I have this feeling? There are two points:

- positive mood after my last match: fantastic victory over Chelsea with 3:0 score

- the squad started to play better together, they understand one another very well now.

And here are the last matches played by guys:

In this list you can find excellent 5:1 win over Wigan, strange failure 0:3 with West Ham and absolutely disappointing 1:0 victory over Everton that didn’t allow to go through to League Cup final (because of 1:3 loss in the first match). But none of them is near the following two truly emotional games…

Worst game – stunned by Newcastle

My god… It was that kind of unlucky matches when I have more clear cut chances but loose nevertheless. And it’s absolutely terrible to concede 4 goals from 6 shots on target… It’s hard to explain how that failure happened. All negative factors were combined together and it’s resulted in several stupid mistakes by Enyeama and defenders. But looking into the match stats you see that it was equal game, not less.

Best game – famous victory over rival Chelsea

After the defeat from Newcastle I was somewhat angry and embarrassed. I didn’t feel confident before the next very important match against Chelsea. And this is the reason why I decided to use counter-attacking tactics for home match…

Counter-attacks made the result! 3:0 in game with Champions League winner of the previous season!!!!!

Leeds leaders proved their top class quality in this game. Especially it was marvellous performance from Andre-Pierre Gignac!

Interesting fact that usage of counter attacks allowed to have really perceptible advantage over the Blues. Just look at the stats below:

8 shorts on target from our side against only 3 from Chelsea players. The game recollections are still vivid. I remember Chelsea had only one dangerous moment near Leeds goal line. Fantastic performance by the whole team!

Leeds players

And here are my guys and their current stats:

The best Leeds player of the last period is certainly Andre-Pierre Gignac. 25 goals in 25 matches! It’s the most efficient forward that I had in Football Manager 2010, 2009 and 2008 taken together!

Another main Leeds forward Marquinhos is not so cool. Seems like he is much better in ball control, dribbling and creative passes than in goal scoring with his 6 goals.

The most weak position is AMR currently. Padalino and Matthews with average ratings below 6.60 doesn’t correspond to the level of our club at the moment. Therefore I try often to use my wonderkid Marco Verrattti at AMR position.

Things you asked me to post

You asked me to report few things from my game and I’m glad to do it for you. And we start with players wages of Leeds United.

Leeds players wages

Manchester City squad screen

Here are Premier League title winners of the two last seasons:

I dream to buy Micah Richards to Leeds someday…

And last but not least it’s necessary to announce that friendly site to my blog - FM Discussion – has been reopened.

PS I want to congratulate every Inter fan with their great victory in Champions League. Diego Milito is the best forward of the tournament!

Leeds transfers during winter of season #5

noreply@blogger.com (Vitaliy Mokosiy) — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:13:00 +0000

Today’s post will be devoted to transfers of Leeds and other clubs in my Football Manager 2010 story completely.

Leeds have sold the following players

Don’t be wondered too much. I’ve just decided to provide financial strategy of wage decrease by sale of players who are not successful in my team. Additionally I looked through wages and understood that getting rid of Buonanotte, Carroll and Nilsson would save around $150K monthly.

It was very sad to say goodbye Buonanotte who became a legend of Hull in my Football Manager 2009 story. His problem was the fact that he had always been out of position in Leeds. On the player position screen bright green one circle is only at AMC – the position that I have no in my tactics. Therefore he didn’t manage to flow in to Leeds team play.

Andy Carroll was the most contradictory and discussed transfer before Leeds start in Premier League. I still wouldn’t say it was a total fail because sometimes Andy had truly excellent series of matches. And he became the best Leeds goal scorer in the last season. But now it’s no sense to use him because I have better players in attack. Leeds fans are upset with the transfer:

Everything is simple regarding Nillsson. He is the most weak defender in the team. Too many mistakes from his side made me really angry. Fortunately I managed to sell him for $4M.

Mendizov is one of those youngsters-regens who didn’t develop to good player of Leeds first team level. This is the reason why he was sold.

Leeds have bought 2 experienced defenders

I decided to increase depth of Leeds defence because I had few matches when most main defenders where injured and I should use young guys from U21 team instead. Two experienced central defenders were bought:

Ricardo Carvalho

Old but still usable central defender. His experience and nice defensive attributes may help sometimes. The most weak side of Ricardo is his speed.

Roger Johnson

Former leader of Birmingham was quite desired guy for my team just because he is:

- Cheap bargain

- Pretty qualitative player

- Possesses English nationality

I hope to use him in the first squad instead of Van Buyten whose age became 36!

I didn’t want to sign more players because squad harmony is really important in this stage of the season if I want to achieve position allowing to player in Europe League.

Transfers you asked me to show

In the end there are 3 screen shots of transfers in my game that someone of you asked:

Hope it was interesting for you to read this post