Category: Miscellaneous

 

Well, football season is back – thank God – so it’s time to preview the 2018/19 NFL season for the team from the Windy City, the Chicago Bears. Much has changed for the storied franchise since Week 17’s 23-10 loss to divisional rivals the Minnesota Vikings, that concluded a disappointing 5-11 season – good enough for the 2nd worst record in the NFC. As the season ended, so did John Fox’s three year tenure as Head Coach, with the organisation bringing in former Chiefs Offensive Coordinator Mike Nagy as Head Coach. Nagy is expected to finally get the once great franchise moving again, twelve years after their last Super Bowl appearance. Nagy has since moved quickly, bringing in his own staff in Offensive Coordinator Norv Kubiak and Defensive Coordinator Ryan Charles. Nagy is expected to give both coordinators a lot of independence on their respective sides of the football, and will involve both men heavily in the scouting and drafting process. Coach Nagy has stated his reasoning behind this approach when asked by reporters:

Really, it’s just a part of our process. We’re aware we have work to do, and this is the way we’re going to do it. I trust Norv and Ryan’s judgements, and we’re going to get better working as a unit.

Read More “Season Preview: Chicago Bears”

Aside from the tactical side of the game, I always feel as if my strengths on Football Manager are my ability to spot the key weaknesses in my team and utilise the transfer market to rectify them. I’ve also said on several occasions that my biggest weakness by far is developing players. If you go back through my saves all the way through this blog, you’ll notice that I’ve never ever developed a young player through the academy for the first team. I’ll openly admit that I’m just not very good at it. In this instance, I’m much more Mourinho than Guardiola.

As a result, I have to rely on the transfer market to spot young players I feel can make a mark, and improve weaknesses in my team. When I’m with a smaller team such as Lorient, I try and exploit the transfer window market (although this can be done at any level), but at a larger club there’s greater freedom. This article is going to serve as a bit of a coaching guide, and give you a bit of an insight into my thought process during a transfer window. For this article, I’m going to play as the team who are the epitome of a need to rectify weaknesses within their team, Arsenal.

Read More “How To Spot Weaknesses and Build Your Team in Football Manager”

Sorry, this isn’t a new update for the Bayer Leverkusen save, but I thought I’d do a post to highlight some things I’ve been doing lately. First off, I’ve been thinking a lot about my first save on FM16, and I’ve got a few ideas, ranging from a Dynamo Berlin save in an East German structure, to Paris FC in France, to a team in a Yugoslavian structure. There’s a lot more floating round my head, but I’ve got some great plans for FM16, and I’m really looking forward to the new game. I’ll go through these ideas (with some tactical theories) in a proper preview post I’ll do much closer to the release date.

I’ve also been doing some writing on real life football. I’ve become a member of the team over at These Football Times, a fantastic site full of some very good football writing. I’m extremely proud to be writing for TFT, and I’m hoping to take this as far as I can. Of course, my writing for TFT won’t get in the way of my Football Manager writing, and this blog will continue to produce quality content.

I’ve written two articles so far for TFT. The first was an article on Torino, my Italian team, and a club that is probably the most tragic club in the history of football. I’ve looked at the recent resurgence of the side, and their return to being (seemingly) a solid Serie A team. The second article was more of a tactical theory piece, looking at the classic Libero role that was a staple of German, Dutch and Italian football from the 1970’s onwards, and wondering why it faded away, and why it hasn’t returned. I’ve got a third piece all written and ready to go up on TFT soon, so keep an eye out for that one too. As always, I welcome any feedback from these articles.

Read More “What I’ve Been Up To”