[[FM22] Newcastle United F.C - Richest club in the world]

Just finished my first season with Newcastle, and the second half of the season everything seemed to start falling into place. 

 

As you can see we managedd to finish in the Champions League places which is huge for us. We only had 6 points after 9 games so our form massively picked up. The team settled down and the younger players improved massively. We strengthend in January by signing Andrea Belotti and James Tarkowski. Belotti was excellent 10 goals in 16 games with 3 assist. Tarkowski was a rotation option when a number of our back up players wanted to leave.

 

As you can see the goals where spread around our attacking players. ASM was dxcellent, he suffered a few injuries but whenever he come back he was excellent. Musiala improved as the season went on. Fraser also scored double figues too with Wilson and Adeyemi get 9 goals too. Jamal Lewis was also good, really improving throughout the year, but the defence as a whole performed really well. 

The two players that didn't seem to settle was Rice and Bissouma, they didn't seem to work well together with Willock performing better when he was in the team. However, we know Rice and Bissouma are two top players who we need to keep in the side as I know they will settle. The system needs them two holding or sitting deep really.

Now we are in the Champions League we need to add some depth, I've already signed Adnan Januzaj, Matthias Ginter and Florian Grillitsch on free transfers to add some depth to the squad. We have a few teams circling Fraser and ASM, so Januzaj as a homegrown player as well helps. We have just over £170m to spend we can spend that on a 3 or 4 players to really improve the strength of the squad as we have already got some depth from our free transfers. 

[[FM22] Newcastle United F.C - Richest club in the world]

Well my first season has been a real mixed bag after the expected busy summer transfer window.

 

I brought in:

 

Jules Kounde £68M

Declan Rice £43m

Yves Bissouma £28m

Karim Adeyemi £15m

Dan Axel Zagadou £5m

Kieran Trippier £15m

Yari Verscharen £5.25m

Matias Arezo £1.5m

Thiago Almada £5.25m

Jamal Musiala £47m

No-one major our, although a significant amount will move on in January now I have reached that point.

As expected, it took a long time for the players to get used to the system, and the tempo. A lot of the players are tiring very quickly, more rotation is needed. Definately need some more depth to the squad next summer. One or two free transfers will no doubt help. The big signings haven't settled other than Kounde who has being incredibly. Musiala has settled quicker than the rest and done well in patches. 

We started awfully and where 15th after 10 games but now in January we are 10th, only 3 points off 6th. No real ambitions for this first season other than settle the young players out, get a core of a team together and settle on my tactics. If we can get Europe that would be ideal, and assist with boosting next year's budget. 

I imagine another very busy summer as a number of players who used to be firt choice are disappointed not to be so no need to be moved on. 

[[FM22] Newcastle United F.C - Richest club in the world]

Just starting my first save with Newcastle. 

No real aims or ambitions for the first season, focusing on building the squad out first and see how things end up as it's going to be a busy transfer window. First of all looking at bring 4 new coaches in, 5 new scouts and a Director of Football. 

The long term aim of the save is to build that attacking brand of football that Keegan played. Completely Gung Ho. However, I won't do this from Day 1 the aim is to be practical and aim to have that in place for season 3. 

The system is still up for debate but I definately want to play with wingers. Mainly as Newcastle had some brilliant attacking wingers down the years and I want to keep that tradition. 

I am also keen to keep both Longstaffs long term to help with the Homegrown quotes and to maintain some local lads.

First two signings are looking like they might be Declan Rice and Yves Bissouma, both long term buys, know the league. Provide lots of energy, work rate and allow the attacking players not to have worry too much about defensive duties. 

[Brexit in FM21]

A great article today in The Athletic about how the Brexit rules around U18s will actually have very little impact on the Premier League.

Which highlights another question, is FM extremely unrealistic (previously) in that you can sign a number of u18s on previous FMs and they practically always became a success based on the potential. Where as in real life how many 16 year olds have been signed from abroad and actually made a success of it? Fabregas gets mentioned but probably another 20 signed that didn't make it. 

So actually these rules could aid FM in becoming more realistic.

[Brexit in FM21]

2 hours ago, gooner-joe-1989 said:

Just signed Tonali for Arsenal. £30m and 100k p/w.
62 Serie A appearances
7 Italy caps (11 U21 caps)

Described as an Elite Midfielder, and the opening line of his bio calls him "one of football's global superstars".

Obviously, he didn't get a work permit. He probably doesn't meet the threshold based on the "rules", but there's no way he wouldn't get a WP IRL. As it's the beta i'll wait and see if things are relaxed in the full game, or a more fluid common sense approach is taken for WP's, but it has stopped me in my tracks until then.

He has just got a Work Permit on my save to move to Newcastle (They have had a takeover). I saw another poster mention scouts, all staff I have tried to bring to Burnley have got WPs.

I completely agree with the implementation of Brexit, and it would be wrong to not include something. Not including anything would go agaainst what this game tries to be which is a very realistic football manager game. They have based it on the most likely scenario post Brexit, which has been posted in numerous media outlets, with numerous sources confirming this is what is currently on the table. 

However, I think there needs to be some more info on how it works, as currently Tonali gets it on one save and not another which is very weird. Especially given in my current save the example in question, Tonali has less caps and is on less money and had less Serie A appearances. 

I do think the scaremongering by some in this thread stating it makes it impossible to sign players from abroad is factually incorrect, as I have proven in this thread. At worst it makes it inconsistent and unclear. Something that can easily be cleared up by SI confirming how it works in more detail.

[Do you want the full release to be harder than the beta?]

I think it is too simplistic to say whether you want the game harder or easy. 

I think the key is that the AI needs improving. There are significant faults in it, which I am sure SI are trying to correct. The biggest one I come across is that they are awful at squad building, start off as a Championship/L1 and with moderate ability and squad building ability you will always end up domanting England after 10 years. Due to the AI's ability to be unable to build a squad they then never challenge you. In the past 2/3 years of FM once I have reached the top I have never been knocked off my perch. I am a bang average Football Manager player, always have been and always will be. 

The other area I have found the AI to be inept is in countering your tactics. You watch any top level game in detail and you will see the top sides changing system, altering instructions throughout to counter each other, but the AI never seems to do that. I can't remember the last time I had to try and counter something the AI changed mid game. 

Games like this are always going to be hard to fail in, because you have time to understand the mechanics of the game so you are unlikely to fail, but it needs to have some consequences if you do. 

I have had years off forums, and I didn't even know there where tactics that could break the system anymore, it seems a fundamental flaw that seems to exist still in this day and age. 

I do provide myself with challenges within the game automatically, i.e no preset tactics, can't sign players you know are great from previous saves etc.. We are always going to have to do that though as in real life you can't go back to the beginning when you want a fresh challenge knowing that Rayan Cherki 9/10 becomes a wonderkid.

[Brexit in FM21]

On 16/11/2020 at 19:34, Icy said:

Just to understand it, why did these get a work permit without international caps? Was it because the points system? because they came from top clubs (not the case of Caicara)? because high salary? or why?

Caicara - Brazilian - Free Agent - 0  Caps previously playing in Turkey

Mike Maignan - 0 Caps - Lille - 5.2m

Antony - Ajax - 14.1m - 0 Caps

Also why not to make the points visible so at least we know why it was approved or denied? like this player has 14 points, from which 3 come from X reason, 5 from Y reason, etc.

Unfortunately I don't know  the reason behind why they got it and why they didn't. I have continued that save and the PL is still full of foreign signings as expected. 

I was responding to claims it made the game unplayable and ruined the standard of the Premier League, which to me it hasn't. Si have taken a very very educated guess of what is likely to happen after Brexit based on all the evidence available to them. It would have been far more unrealistic to have had no restrictions. 

 

[Brexit in FM21]

I have finished the first season with Burnley and thought I would give my experience so far on the Work Permit's "issue" rather than rely on hearsay. 

 

Work Permits Approved

Esteban Andrada - 4.2m - Argentinian with 5 Caps

Caicara - Brazilian - Free Agent - 0  Caps previously playing in Turkey

Mike Maignan - 0 Caps - Lille - 5.2m

Jerome Onguene - 9 Caps - Salzburg 3.7m 

Antony - Ajax - 14.1m - 0 Caps 

 

Rejected

Matias Arezo - Wonderkid from Argentina

Boubakary Soumare - 3.2m - Lille - 0 caps

 

So as you can, see this is hardly making the game unplayable. Arezo is a prime example of a wonderkid who I can't bring in, but realistically Burnley haven't signed any wonderkids in a long time and tbh, I knew before I was going to sign him it would be impossible.

Both Arezo and Soumare I knew before making any bids I couldn't sign them, and I was told when I then offered them contracts, but I wanted to see what the process was like so I carried on.

Personally I have found it very realistic and it has not had any detrimental impact on my game. I appreciate if you play in a different manner (Less realistic one potentially) it may impact your games, but as I am managing Burnley, a middling English team I am still able to sign a lot of players.

[The layout overlaps my screen and i have to click above a button to press it]

I have the same issue, which can be fixed by going to windowed mode but it isn't ideal for how I want to play. Whenever I quit the game and go back in it then resets it to not be in windowed mode and I have the same issue again.