RageMaster

May 15, 2020

@Jamo456 Are you still playing as Everton? I'm tempted to give them a go as looks a challenge with the amount of dead wood they have in the squad.

May 12, 2020

I've managed to reach the summer of 2026 with QPR, and we managed to finish the last season in 2nd place behind a dominant Liverpool. I've decided to take a break from this save and park it up to hopefully return to it at some stage.

Edit:

@Parmie fantastic save you've got there with Bradford, loving Glaucio and Gustavo especially, hopefully you can keep them in the long term.

May 12, 2020

Unlucky to finish 2nd @_Ben_, perhaps could have been different if your PC didn't update from before.

I will be watching with great interest on your quest to gain more output from your attackers. This is something I feel I have struggled with this year compared to the previous editions of FM in a lot of teams I have managed. Danilo will hopefully be the key once he's been tweaked slightly I'm sure.

One thing I wanted to ask as someone who enjoys reading about all the details, is how you plan for the season in advance. Typically with myself, for the first 1 to say 4 seasons (depending on the club, division etc) I don't tend to plan until I know what division I am playing in however once I move into a top division and the club is settled, I tend to start planning for my next season around the November international break. This is because I have a better idea of who will be running there contracts down for the following June and allows me to scout a couple of matches before deciding to approach them on free's at the end of December. I also start to think about tactical changes and how my current players would fit in. Also, how long do you give a player a chance if they are not performing consistent or as productive enough for your liking, after so much tweaking there has to be a cut off moment ?

Hopefully that makes some kind of sense to you as for me reading it back it seems to lack some structure lol.

May 5, 2020

Harry Pickering - Crewe

Ivan Sunjic - Birmingham

Jude Bellingham - Birmingham (depends what season you are in, normally he can be signed on a free transfer at the end of season 2)

Joe Lolley - Nottingham Forest

Jonathan Leko - West Brom

I've used the above before in the Premier League and all played well for me.

May 3, 2020

@smplfc123 Good luck with your next challenge and hope to see you back at QPR at some point down the line. They would be a fun challenge if you holidayed for a season to see if they got relegated to League One even and I have seen this on a couple of previous saves.

@Parmie A good start to life at Bradford, unlucky with the playoff defeat but you'll be back stronger for the experience.

@Jogo Bonito Congrats on the Title win

@robterrace Cracking signings and hope to see you go up as Champions!

@andy_gtfc Good luck in the Championship

@flase9 Best of luck with Accrington and hope to see you do well with them

Back to my own game, I've played 2 seasons since my last update. To recap I finished 14th in my first season in the PL after spending 2 seasons in the Championship. In the last 2 seasons I've finished in 9th and now 6th place meaning we have qualified for the Europa League. I also got to the FA Cup final but lost to Chelsea. I have a new stadium on the way (25,000 capacity, bit low for my liking) opening in 2 years time. The only player I still have from when I started is Eze although I have thought about upgrading him but he will stay for this season unless I get a decent bid. Oh and I did buy Harry Pickering in the 1st season and he's still performing well!

Wages and Bonuses are becoming a problem as I don't want to lose my best players so having to offer more than i'd like to pay and the ground is simply too small and our lack of European football (in previous seasons) and Sponsorship money is hurting us financially. We are heavily relying on the TV money to stay financially healthy. I am starting to find fruition to my plans though in that I like to sign free transfers and sell them on, or sign cheap to develop and sell high. We've made profit in all of our seasons in the Premier League so far though.

Here is how my squad is looking currently, some are regens. Missing at the top is Goalkeeper Nathan Baxter.

And some of my regens:

Sonny Linssen: (£28m from FC Twente)

Spoiler

Luanzinho: (£17.5m from Flamengo)

Spoiler

Velibor Bubalo: (free from FK Vojvodina)

Spoiler

Guilherme: (free from Mallorca)

Spoiler

Previously the Board didn't have too many expectations from me in the club vision but this season they've demanded a Top Half finish which could be a challenge with the added European games. Liverpool, Chelsea and Man Utd are far too good currently and then Arsenal, Tottenham and Man City spending big so it will be a challenge to improve on last seasons 6th place. I am starting to get the squad the way I want and I'm hoping to really push on next summer where I am hoping to mount an assault on the Champions League places then.

April 30, 2020

Fantastic opening post @Jamo456. I will be following this with interest. The squad really does need some tlc with long term thinking and planning involved. Will be interesting to see who you buy.

April 29, 2020

@Jamesbfc1887 Looks a good start to the season there and i'm sure you'll make it out the rocky patch, I had a similar issue with the lack of goals in my first season at QPR and I literally tried everything including playing academy strikers in good form, changing formation, trying to get more support runs into the box etc etc, it could be worth trying to setup some set piece routines or long throws etc to make use of your big center backs if you haven't already done so of course.

I am not going to make a big post but I managed to survive and finished 14th in the PL. Made some good signings going into the summer and the aim again will be to survive. Board are planning to move to a new stadium and I'm trying to get Training and Youth Facilities improved. With the stadium coming it looks like I will need to be careful financially around transfers, wages and bonuses. If I can survive this season then I am going to try and implement a 'Phase 2' of this save to try and get us into the top half of the league and challenging for European qualification and domestic silverware.

April 27, 2020

Thanks for all the replies...great to be a part of this thread for once as I've always followed it closely without always posting in it (even back on the FM18 and FM19 threads). I've put my transfers dealings below in a spoiler so as to not take up too much space on this page.

Spoiler

First of, Jude Bellingham was available on a free but chose to go to the MLS for some strange reason. He has a £6.5m release clause so I will try to activate that ASAP as I would love to sign him. Secondly when I do squad building for a team that is not considered as one of the top teams in the country I try to maximize the selling profit by buying young players and developing them to sell later on, or I try to look for value players (either free's or transfer listed for below market value), hopefully you will notice this theme with the majority of my signings.

Brewster and Gilmour (season long loans) renewed for this season as they was both fantastic. In an ideal world I would brought back all of last seasons loans but this wasn't possible due to loan rules in the PL being different to the Championship.

Allan Campbell and Jason Kerr was brought in relatively cheap from Scotland and they will provide some depth to our squad and I should be able to profit on these 2 in a few seasons.

I think I overpaid for Bogle slightly considering Derby are in League One but decent English homegrown players are at a premium. once again I should be able to make a profit on him a few seasons in.

Hickey was just too good to not bring in when you consider his fee. He's a player I know a lot of you love and I've used him before and managed to profit off him considerably. He can cover both full back positions too.

Zagadou was brought in on loan and I can make this permanent for £13m. His heading is a little low for my liking but his other stats look very reasonable.

Ryan Haywood is a young striker my scouts spotted, he abit raw and will spend the season in the U23's and a possibly loan move from January.

Zirkzee is a player I've never managed before but on previous saves he always looks a very good players and I've seen him sold for a lot of money previously. If he can adapt to the PL he could fire us to Premier League safety on his own pretty much.

Pellegri was brought in on Loan with option to buy for £8m. Scouts reckon he is injury prone, I am going to see how he is this season before deciding whether to sign him permanently. I remember him being a beast on the last couple of FM's

Gonalons and Passlack on free's are just no brainers really. Gonalons has a driven personality and is cheap wages. He should be good for a season or 2 before we can add some real quality to the squad. Passlack will be my 1st choice at RB, stats wise he looks great, scout reports was great, once again I should be able to make a big profit on him in the future.

Button was signed as a cheap 3rd choice backup and to be honest is probably better than my 2nd choice! I didn't have any decent depth besides O'Hara and Lumley and I have been stung before in other saves only having 2 senior GK's and ending up with a 16yo in goal!

Another signing not in the screenshot is Felice D'Amico on a loan deal, I have some early season injuries to Osayi-Samuel and Eze to deal with so need some extra depth. Most likely nothing more than a cheap squad filler unless he impresses me.

The rest of the signings was to bulk up my U23's a bit as the quality in there was pretty lackluster. Our Youth Level was dropped down to 3 the previous summer and I haven't yet got enough bank balance to improve any of the facilities so I will need to manage this in the medium term by scouting and signing youth from outside the club. I don't expect to use any of them in the 1st team but if I did, then they are atleast of better quality to what I had in there before.

In terms of outgoings, Kelly was my No1 for most of the 1st season but he never really convinced me, he spent last season at Derby in League One and they wanted to keep him so no complaints from me. Todd Kane had to be sold to make room for Bogle and Passlack. Dwight Gayle was poor last season and nobody would buy him off me, luckily he will spend a season out on loan before I release him at the end of his contract. I didn't use Samuel much and made £200k transfer profit on him in a year so not bad business. Hamalainen was worth about £6m when I sold him but no one was interested until I put the asking price at £1.5m, he just isn't PL quality. A few other U23's and U18's either left on loan or was released.

Overall I am pretty happy with the business. A net spend of £23.5m is a bit risky given our finances but we should have enough to kick on and stay up. By next summer the TV money and PL money should have improved our balance alot and allow me to develop the facilities and other club infrastructure. I did revamp my staffing teams a bit this summer, I won't go through it all by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is my U23 Manager randomly and Michael Dawson is my new AM after Derek Fazackerley's contract came up. I almost lost Sir Les as DoF as he wouldn't agree a new deal due to him wanting a wage rise I couldn't afford (I did have Steve Gallen lined up in case he did leave) but I managed to get him to sign on July 1st!.

If anyone wants to see any screenshots or has any questions please do fire away! We start the PL season at home to Palace before a trip to City (who are the current Champions) and then back to Loftus Road to host Tottenham. My main aim and the boards aim this season is to survive and stay in the league. I've got £16m left in the budget in case it's needed for January. Hopefully the loan signings impress me enough to make them permanent. And as mentioned at the start I am going to be actively trying to sign Bellingham.

April 26, 2020

So... Managed to finish the season, here's how we finished:

Spoiler

I am absolutely delighted to go up automatically. We had a really poor start to the season and was a bit inconsistent here and there but we managed to pull off a fantastic sequence of results in the 2nd half of the season and I am delighted with promotion. The loanee's all did brilliantly and I am keeping Gilmour and Brewster for another season. I would've loved to have kept Neco Williams too but I've managed to sign 2 very good right backs who I will reveal in my transfer update ahead of the new season.

Player Stats:

I've been handed £34m and a 500k a week wage budget to try and fight against relegation so on the lookout now for some bargains.

April 26, 2020

Sitting in 6th at the season half way stage. Had a really bad first 2 months of the season, lost 3 and drew 1 of our first 4 in the league! This seems to have been down to team cohesion and bringing in a fair few players in the window that needed to gel and get used to my tactics. I'm hoping we can sneak into the Automatic spots if we hit top form but will be a tough ask. Newcastle being so low down the table seems a bit of a shock to me, they've got Lee Bowyer as manager.

April 25, 2020

23 minutes ago, Jogo Bonito said:

It's definitely an option, just not sure whether to head there now or try something a bit lower down the pyramid first. It seems odd to me to see them relegated so frequently (and West Brom a couple of times is even more odd) but I guess anything can happen in football (manager). I've not seen QPR relegated in Season 1 of anybody's game that I can recall, that would be a nice challenge.

Financially it would cripple them really bad, I wouldn't be shocked if they went down to League 2 straightaway if it happened on the game.

April 25, 2020

Can definitely echo @karanhsingh in regards to Pickering! I've loved using him in my QPR save.

Good luck to @robterrace in the promotion hunt.

@Jogo Bonito Derby went down on my save which I was very shocked about. They've got the foundations to be a Premier League club (I know you don't like managing there) but could be a fun save trying to get them back there before embarking on your next mission

April 25, 2020

Good luck @smplfc123! It's deffo a challenge, I struggled to get the best out of some players so hopefully you have better luck than me! Annoyingly there is some decent players on loan who would help out squad wise in the 1st season! I brought in Pickering from Crewe and Fraser from Burton. Pickering was good but Fraser not so good!

I'd recommend bringing in some kind of striker as Hugil was pretty crap for me lol.

April 25, 2020

Thanks @Jogo Bonito, Surprisingly i've had no offers for the players I want to keep although it's still only 23rd July, I am pretty much done transfer wise. I did bring a couple of the more 'obvious' faces in such as Brewster, Jones and Neco Williams all from Liverpool but I did decide to spend some money on some experienced players who will hopefully compliment my young squad.

This leaves me with a the following squad which is a little light on club homegrown players (Lumley, Gubbins and Hamalainen) but we should be ok. I'm happy with the signings and happy to keep the wage bill under control. Balance is sitting at a healthy £9m but we are paying around £1m a month in salary and debt repayments so this money won't last long. I have some room in the wage budget and transfer budget in case we need a signing in January although my next aim is to get Eze tied down to a longer term deal.

We are predicted to finish 7th in the season preview, I am hoping to make the playoff places though. Watford, West Ham and Newcastle got relegated and still have strong looking squads so will be a tough ask for automatic promotion.

April 25, 2020

We finished comfortably off the playoffs with horrific end of season form but as mentioned previously I didn't really want promotion yet as the squad needed some changes before we can even begin to think about the Premier League. We lost far too many games and we struggled to find the back of the net. Hugil on loan from West Ham was terrible and he was sent back in January. My only other senior backup was Remi Oteh and Lewis Walker but neither of them was great. Sam Winnall did ok but not great. It remains to be seen if I will bring him back on a free or not. Osayi-Samuel was our top scorer but still pretty frustrating as he seemed to miss alot of chances. His value is pretty high and I would consider cashing in if the right offer comes in. Eze is moaning about a contract renewal with more wages but I can't afford that right now. We did get taken over but all the new owner did was help the balance from -£4m to £1.7m in the black. I've managed to get Liverpool as a senior affiliate so I am hoping for some decent loans for no wages to help us push on.

New owner has boosted the wage budget a little bit but not much room. £155k transfer budget so going to have to sell to buy. Most likely going to look at free's and loans though. Board only want a top half finish next season and then to push for promotion the season after so might have to try and raise some much needed funds.

April 24, 2020

Just got the Youth Intake preview thingy and it looks like a possible Golden Generation. Board have slashed my wage budget from £240k to £180k a week due to the finance situation. Managed to terminate Hugil's loan and brought in Sam Winnall and Curtis Jones on loans. Geoff Cameron has been sold to Nashville for £60k. I'm really hoping i'm not forced into selling Eze.

April 24, 2020

I've reached the halfway mark of the season and the only word I can use to describe us at the moment is average!

We are sitting in 12th, 7 points off Wigan in 6th place but most importantly we are 12 points away from Stoke who are surprisingly 22nd and in the relegation zone along with Derby and Cardiff. Our main glaring issue is scoring goals, we seem to be creating them but Hugil has been really poor for me and he misses 95% of the time! I am definitely going to terminate his loan if I can. I have 3 league games and an FA Cup game where I am going to try out 2 lads from the U23's to see if they are any good before I can see about bringing in someone on Loan. We don't have any budget to buy anyone and FFP looks worrying!

We could perhaps make a dash for the playoff places if we score and become consistent but I'd probably rather spend one more season in the championship to allow me to mold the squad to my taste before a promotion push.

Finances are really bad, board have invested £750,000 this month but we are still £-1.7m) for balance. I hope to not be forced to sell off any of our better assets such as Eze or Manning.

April 23, 2020

@smplfc123 Bristol Rovers like @Jogo Bonito mentioned could be fun, trying to overtake Bristol City etc, don't think they've played each other in the League for nearly 20 years so that could be a fun challenge for sure. I'm not sure on expectations though from the board.

April 23, 2020

9 minutes ago, karanhsingh said:

That's insane!! What formation/ tactic are you playing?

I recently got a 9.9 rating in my game but the perfect 10 is still elusive.

I'm using a 4-3-3 with a DM screening the back 4. My style of play is keeping possession and building from the back. Since that game however I have been struggling to score and results are not looking good. I will need to make some changes it seems! I can't seen to get much out of Hugill upfront and I'm considering terminating his loan in January if I can as he is also the highest paid player in the squad! First I am going to see if I can get some better service into him though. Jack Clarke is another I don't seem to be getting much from and he is someone I enjoyed using back in FM19.

April 22, 2020

So I decided with QPR in the end, and started the save today. Played our first league game away to Stoke and this was the scene at half time...

Shocked to say the least...I expected Stoke to nulify us 2nd half but that didn't happen either!

First 10.0 rating on this years version of the game. Will hopefully be back mid-season to provide a further proper update on things.

April 21, 2020

Cracking newgen @_Ben_. Hoping you can starve off the challenges of Real and Sociedad in the League.

April 21, 2020

Hello all, has anyone managed QPR or Peterborough on FM20? Can't decide on which one to start with so any pointers or recommendations welcome. In need of a new save after a few failed Dafuge challenges!

April 17, 2020

On 15/04/2020 at 14:43, _Ben_ said:

No problem - once I found the printscreen function, the world has been my oyster!

If you start a thread about your save - make sure to @ me so I can see what your data analysis is doing! I'm always wanting to develop the way I play my save.

I will do, I just need to find a team for a long term save as have been flirting around with teams but nothing is sticking for more than 2 seasons. Forgive me if it's already covered and i've missed it but what do you look for when picking a team to manage? I like the idea of managing in Italy, Spain and France but I get frustrated at the little money on offer if your club is not competing in the Champions League after a few seasons.

April 15, 2020

Thanks for the explanation, is definitely something I am looking to experiment with based on my own saves especially with now having more time to play a save!

Tough looking group, best of luck.

April 15, 2020

Congrats on the title @Jimbokav1971 and this has been a fantastic thread to follow. Can't wait to see how you do in the Champions League.

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Posts posted by RageMaster