Official Football Manager 2017 Career Thread

Really don't know whether to buy 17. I loved 15, found it just the right learning curve in that I got sacked but also ended up winning trophies.

Then I moved to 16 and found it impossibly hard. Nothing I did seemed to work and all my teams just ended up hitting long losing streaks.

Is 17 any better?

I'm so tempted to take the plunge back into the football manager world. Haven't bought a FM game since '08 and my marriage will take a bit of a back seat but it's so bloody tempting

Get in there Sunderland go straight up!

Having bought every iteration of Champ Man and Football Manager, I had convinced myself (as I do every year) that I wouldn't be getting this year's edition. Well that lasted until, um, last Friday when I inevtiably took the plunge.

Taking charge of the Albion, I decided that I was going to try and implement a Klopp-style hyper-pressing revolution at the Amex - immediately turning pre-season training into fitness-filled extravaganza. Morale didn't seem to take a hit though and we breezed through our pre-season campaign with high-scoring wins over Rapid Vienna, Wiener, Floridsdorfer and Polten.

On the transfer front, Elvis Manu became the first to leave after I accepted an unsoliticted (but very welcome) £2m bid from FC Twente. Then, out of nowhere, Shakthar popped up with a £9m bid for Hemed (!), which I obviously bit their hand off for as he was keen to try his luck in the Champions League. Lua Lua then came to me saying that he felt that he'd outgrown the club and wanted to move on to another challenge - Burnely came in with a £3m bid for him and he packed his bag for tolerant Lancashire.

In terms of incomings, Duncan Watmore has been brought in on a season-long loan from Sunderland and attacking midfielder Boschilla from Monaco on the same terms. With the obvious need for another striker to supplement Murray and Baldock, I have myself the luxury of £12.5 million to spend before the window expires in 3 days - any suggestions?

Results so far have been mixed. After leading 2-0 at half time against Derby on the opening day, my players couldn't hack my new pressing style and ended up losing 4-2. After that, though, things have looked up with convincing wins against Yeovil in the EFL Cup, Forest and Rotherham in the league. A Burnley-style 2 early red cards resulted in a 4-0 hammering at Reading. This was followed by a nervy 1-0 EFL Cup win over Milwall and a convincing 3-1 win over Newcastle.

Overall, the players are beginning to get used to my tactical system and I'm just the big-money striker away from really challenging I think.

Yeah I'm definitely going to jump back in on this one.

Baldock scored something crazy, like 35 goals, for me in the first season. With Hemed scoring a similar amount in the second season, becoming the top goal scorer in the Premier League by quite some distance. This was on the Beta game though, so it could have been a glitch that has now been resolved.

Also, Bloom was pretty stingy when I got promoted - I think I only got around £10million, which really isn't enough to buy Premier League quality players!

turienzo's lovechild said:

I'm so tempted to take the plunge back into the football manager world. Haven't bought a FM game since '08 and my marriage will take a bit of a back seat but it's so bloody tempting

Click to expand...

So tempted every single year. Occasionally get the handheld ones on iPhone but never fully let myself get addicted. Been there before and it's a dark place.

Oh FM, don't ever change.

^^^ there can be a few reasons. I suppose if you were role playing during your game (ahem) then you'd want to "make" as much money as you can throughout your "career". I think you can check your "total earnings" somewhere.

But for me, it's because, particularly at poorer clubs, the longer your contract and the higher your wage, the less likely it is that you'll be sacked due to having to pay excessive compensation...

I gave up on my 2016 game after going to Valencia and suffering a player rebellion due to them not qualifying for European competition (which is why the post the vacant). The whole team threw a hissy fit so I sold them but when trying to sign replacements I was being told the same thing by potential signings saying "no thanks because you're not in Europe." Real bang average players from the likes of Celtic and Dynamo Kiev were turning down contract offers of almost double their wages just because they wanted to play in the Europa cup. I mean....Really? Bearing in mind I was a multiple quadruple winning manager in England and Germany, oh and I could speak Spanish after a stint as part-time manager of Uruguay, who I also won the WORLD CUP with.

The game puts too much of an onus on the influence of playing European football. I'll keep an eye on 2018 when that comes out as I'm not too keen on this whole Brexit mechanic in 2017. Hopefully Brighton'll be a Premier league team in that one.

Managing boots hung up for now.