Terk Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 It never stops anywhere for very long and usually leaves chaos when it does. I hadn't intended to start a thread on this game when I began the save, so excuse me if the screenshots aren't hugely extensive for the first couple of seasons. Having holidayed through the first season, I resolved to take over one of the three clubs relegated from the Premier League. When I saw that Newcastle were among them my decision was made. So it was onwards and upwards with St James' Park as my starting point. Game Settings Database: Large Player Count: 69,000 Leagues running: Lots Aim Win titles. Lots of titles. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terk Posted March 2, 2012 Author Share Posted March 2, 2012 Newcastle United 2012-13 Championship History Newcastle United Football Club (often abbreviated to NUFC) is an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End andNewcastle West End, and has played at its current home ground, St James' Park, since. The ground was developed into an all-seater stadium in the mid-1990s and now has a capacity of 52,387. The club has been a member of the Premier League for all but two years of the competition's history, and never dropped below the English football's second tier, since joining the Football Leaguein 1893. In 2007, long term chairman and owner Sir John Hall sold his share in the club to Mike Ashley.They have won four League Championship titles and six FA Cups, as well as the1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the 2006 UEFA Intertoto Cup. Newcastle United has the eighth highest total of major honours won by an English club. The club's most successful period was between 1904 and 1910, when they won an FA Cup and three of their First Division titles. They have a fierce local rivalry with Sunderland, and the two clubs have engaged in the Tyne–Wear derby since 1898. The club's traditional kit colours are black and white striped shirts, black shorts and black socks. Their traditional crest takes elements of the city coat of arms which features two seahorses. League We were by far the favourites for the title at the start of the season, and it would be nice to say that we lived up to that billing. We didn't, however, and after a slightly slow start were always playing catch up to Mick Harford's Wigan. I went with a 4-2-3-1 formation which took a while to get going, bringing us just three wins from the first seven games in the league. Given the money we'd spent and the players we had, that wasn't exactly what we'd been looking for. A run of three victories then kept the Wolves from my door, but then draws against Peterborough and Southampton before defeats against Wigan and Reading meant that in early November we sat just ninth in the table. In the nineteen games that followed, before I left the club prematurely, we picked up fourteen wins, three defeats and two draws, a run which propelled us right up into second place for a number of weeks, though we dropped to 3rd on the weekend that I left. This was despite a run of injuries through December that would have made even Arsene Wenger cry. I could barely change my back four, indeed for some games Cheick Tioté was forced to fill in at centre back, and the broken leg suffered by Sylvain Marveaux didn't help matters further up the field. We somehow motored on though, playing in a bit more circumspect fashion for those games in which we had to field a makeshift line up. It didn't help matters that we kept picking up red cards; no matter how many times I told players to stay on their feet, they kept diving in and getting their marching orders. But come the day I left they were in a strong position, and my replacement, Keith Millen, had a strong base to work from and managed to complete the job, gaining them automatic promotion in 2nd place, eventually finishing just three points shy of Wigan. Transfers I inherited a good squad, but one full of players with morale somewhere down in their boots and many of whom wanted to leave as soon as possible. Players such as Yoann Cabaye and Fabricio Coloccini were among the first out of the door but before the end of the window they were followed by Tim Krul and Jonás. Along with the decent chunk of money that the owners had provided me with, that meant I could do a fair amount of shopping. My biggest ticket purchase, Danny Graham, didn't work out as well as I'd expected, and it was only in the winter transfer window that we brought in Fraizer Campbell and began playing with a poacher up front that we truly started to find goals flying in on a regular basis. There were some successes during the summer window though, not least the loan moves for Emmanuel PingPong and Anthony Pilkington. It was the winter window that I did most of my spending though, burning through £10M each on Rafael Tolói and Carlos Fierro and a more modest £750K on Campbell, who proved to be the best buy of the lot. The winter window also saw another bunch of unhappy players leave as we terminated the contracts of Demba Ba and Xisco, and punted Hatem Ben Arfa out to AC Milan. I hadn't wanted to lose the Frenchman who had bagged 13 assists, but his constant temper tantrums had meant that Milan's offer of £5M was too good to turn down. Cups We exited the FA Cup at the 4th round stage, a 1-0 defeat at Hudderfield after a third round victory over Shrewsbury. It was the League Cup where my interest lay, however, as we embarked upon a truly great run. We needed extra time to beat Millwall at St. James' Park in the 2nd round, but announced our intentions in the 3rd round with a 7-0 thrashing of Premier League Ipswich at Portman Road. Another trip to Premier League opposition awaited in round four, but we disposed of Wolves 2-0 at Molineux with two second half goals. The quarter final presented us with a trip to Southampton, and by this time a number of the 'big' sides in the competition had been dumped out. I was starting to harbour a little hope that we might be able to pull off something magnificent, and that was only furthered by our comfortable 3-0 win at St. Mary's. The semi final paired us with Bolton, and despite a red card for new boy Rafael Tolói, we won the first leg 2-1 on our own patch. I wasn't entirely confident about the second leg, but we led 2-0 at half time and ran out 4-1 winners on the night. Everton, now under the guidance of Tony Pulis, had made it to the final despite their troubles in the Premier League - they sat in 18th place when we met at Wembley - and they must have anticipated an easy day when Tolói was again sent off, this time in just the 23rd minute. We held firm though, and sixteen minutes from time, Fraizer Campbell scored what proved to be the winner. Not even being reduced to nine men, when Steven Taylor picked up a second booking, could stop us as we went on to lift the trophy. The following day, however, I got an offer that I couldn't refuse... 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jcoll Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Can't believe you bought an ex-sunderland player.... disgusting Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CityAndColour Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I think I saw Keith Millen sacked from every single Championship side on one of my FM11 saves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maw74 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Good update, I reckon it's Man City next. Can't believe you bought an ex-sunderland player.... disgusting If he's not a Newcastle fan then it's not really gonna bother him though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terk Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 Can't believe you bought an ex-sunderland player.... disgusting It did give me a moment's pause, and the fans weren't particularly happy with it, but then he started scoring plenty of goals and they quickly dropped their objections. By the time I left Campbell had 9 goals in 13 games in all competitions, so he proved to be a good few hundred grand spent. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terk Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 2012-13 (Part 2) Liverpool Premier League Being a Liverpool fan I can generally never resist it when the job comes up and in almost every save I play I end up at Anfield at some point. The first season had seen them qualify for the Champions League, but the following campaign had not gone as well, and with the club sat 14th in the Premier League*, Kenny Dalglish was chucked out of the back door. It wasn't a knee jerk reaction either, they hadn't been higher than 10th at any point of the season. This happened just twenty-four hours before the League Cup final with Newcastle (after Liverpool had lost to Manchester United) and I risked upsetting the players, board and fans on the eve of such a big game by applying for the job. It worked though, as we won the cup and then on the Monday I got offered the Liverpool gig. League I stuck with the same 4-2-3-1 formation that had served me well in Newcastle, and it was largely made up of players who were with the club when the game began. Dalglish had signed a few players since then, but none were really good enough to displace any of the players already there, although I was without Charlie Adam for the Premier League games as he hadn't been included in the 25 man registration list. There were only ten games left in the league season, but we certainly got 'new manager bump' and managed to pick up 25 of the 30 points available, a tally that was enough to see us climb up to 7th place by the end of the campaign. Cups We were still (technically) in the Champions League when I arrived, but we were trailing 3-0 from the first leg in Naples. A better performance came in the second leg, but the 2-1 win on the night was far from enough to send us through. The magic was left for the FA Cup. I arrived with Liverpool in the quarter final and drawn against Peterborough, having already beaten Tottenham, Everton and West Brom to reach that stage. We disposed of Peterborough 3-0 at London Road (despite having Salomón Rondón sent off in the 23rd minute) and that put us into a semi final against Harry Redknapp's Manchester City. Luis Suárez scored the early (and only) goal to put us in front, after which we dominated possession but left ourselves open to the counter attack. It was only a good performance from Pepe Reina which saw us into the final. The Final paired us against League champions, Manchester United, who left 30-odd goal striker Javier Hernández on the bench. His replacement, Danny Welbeck, put them ahead early on, but that was the last point at which United were the better side. An odd tactical switch from Ferguson (to a very, very narrow formation) played into our hands and we ran away with the game, ending up 4-1 winners to complete what I'm certain is a very rare cup double from me. The Aim Now that I'm at Liverpool, I'm here for a while. Manchester United won their 20th league title, after which Ferguson retired and Louis van Gaal took his place. My aim is, at least, to overhaul their lead in the title numbers, which means putting a minimum of another three in the cabinet for Liverpool. I also want to put the FA Cup into double figures (currently 8), win a 6th European Cup and a first World Club Championship (or whatever it's currently called). After all that I'll consider my job done and move on elsewhere. *This league table screenshot was taken after my opening game (a draw against Cardiff) but our league position hadn't changed. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleon Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Good luck with Liverpool adventure Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpfc543 Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Good luck! Will be definitely following this thread. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.W.G Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Well done on winning the League Cup with Newcastle,good luck at Liverpool! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terk Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 Cheers for the comments, I'm hoping I can get this Liverpool stage done quickly. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terk Posted March 12, 2012 Author Share Posted March 12, 2012 Liverpool 2013-14 (Part 1) There have been good and bad moments in the opening few months of the league season, losing to both Leicester and Stoke would have to rate among the low, while thrashing Fulham 6-0 and rising up to sit third in the table would be the high. The board and I agreed a target of Champions League qualification for the season, and with the Manchester clubs already beginning to open a gap, one imagines that the rest of us will likely be fighting over the two remaining places at Europe's top table. This season we have the Europa League to contend with, though I hope to keep up my cup record in the save so far (I am yet to lose a cup game) and land at least one more trophy for the cabinet this season. We've been given a fairly straightforward group, and the 5-0 thumping of the team supposed to be our rivals for the top spot, Celtic, made it even easier. The League Cup has so far seen us ease past two Championship clubs (Blackpool & Peterborough) and has given us a trip to a third (Southampton) in the quarter final draw. We have suffered with injuries. Luis Suárez spent 6 weeks out with a knee injury - though Moussa Sow proved an able deputy in his absence - while both Luis Enrique (broken ankle) and John Flanagan (torn calf muscle) are both currently on the long term injury list. Marco Reus has proved (so far) to be an excellent signing with 6 assists in 9 league appearances on the right wing while Stevan Jovetic was something of an impulse buy on transfer deadline day; a type of signing that I really need to learn to avoid. We let plenty of players go over the summer to trim down the bloated squad, and so the net spend for the summer only ate up £30M of the £76M that the club gave me to spend at the start of the summer, and the trimming of the squad (although I couldn't find a willing home for Alberto Aquilani) means that we're still a good £500K per week under the wage budget. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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