A New Beginning : FM2015

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen a reference to personal health a week or two back. You guys don’t need all of the gory details, but given the likely impact on my FM time and blogging I’ll give you the potted version.

About a month ago I received a diagnosis of bowel cancer, to say it was ‘out of the blue’ would be an understatement. A bit of a shock, as you might imagine, but once we got passed those initial words the prognosis is all very positive. I’m completely fine now, and will be again in a few months. In between I’m looking at a few weeks of simultaneous chemo and radiotherapy, a bit of a break for that to take effect, and then surgery and some follow up treatment.

You can imagine that the news, and finding the best way to tell family and close friends, has been taking up some of my spare time but that’s all sorted now – rest assured that I have a great network of family and friends who will help me through what’s on the horizon. I’m putting the info out there just so folks know, I’m happy talking about it but I don’t feel a driving need to in an environment, and circle of Twitter comrades, that is focussed on football and Football Manager.



To be fair the main reasons for a lack of FM15 time have been twofold:

• The new job, which is seeing a lot of work brought home (and a distinct lack of working from home, which the previous project role allowed)
• Playing other stuff (thanks Steam sale)

I have started on FM15 though, so let’s take a look at that and the future of the blog (I intend to keep it going, but time and circumstances will tell). The bulk of this was actually written shortly after the official release of the game, that may be important when considering some of my comments...

FOOTBALL MANAGER 2015 

“I MUST NOT just try and replicate my FM14 tactics, and plug them into an FM15 team. I must not just try and replicate my FM14 tactics, and plug them into an FM15 team. I must not just try and replicate my FM14 tactics, and plug them into an FM15 team.”


Of course it’s easy to say that, but it didn’t stop me trying to do just that when I first loaded up the FM15 Beta and tried a (very) short-lived save with Roma. Results were mixed when I adopted, as far as I could, my version of @MerryGuido’s ‘sexy football’ attacking tactic.

When I then went for a Blackburn Rovers save, just to familiarise myself with the new interface and screens, I did take my first steps to a new tactic; for various reasons (see the intro to this update, mainly) that save didn’t get past the first intra-squad friendly match.

So here we are, ready to embark on my ‘proper’ FM15 save, and ready to develop my tactics as we go, so what’s the plan?

A NEW GAME, A NEW CHALLENGE : “VELKOMMEN TIL DANMARK”

Anyone who has picked up Football Manager 2015, and who is familiar with earlier incarnations, will no doubt tell you that it’s a bit of a jump. It certainly feels like it to me, and to some extent it feels like something that I’m going to need to learn to play all over again.

I hinted, in my closing post on the Karlsruhe FM14 save (link), that I might also be taking the blog in something of a new direction – departing from what was originally intended to be a full tactical focus, and broadening the scope to cover my whole approach to the new title. So there’s the plan.

I considered that when deciding how to set up my FM15 game. In general terms I tend towards single club saves, although there were some departures from that approach for specific ‘challenges’ tackled when I was writing for the FM Stories Forum (link) over at the SI community.

With FM15 I’m looking to develop my own in game career. Rather than the focus of my game being to promote a single club to national dominance, it’s all about growing my abilities at the game and my virtual self’s abilities within the game, to become the best player and manager that I can. If that means regularly moving clubs then so be it, but where to start?

I’m pretty sure that I’ve never managed in Scandinavia before, despite playing the game for 15-ish years and rarely venturing outside Western Europe, so that made my mind up about my initial plans. Here’s my initial game setup.

I may add and remove leagues as I go, the intention is to follow the opportunities that open up for me as I play. What’s important, however, is to have specific goals in place with whichever club I’m managing; I can’t just play the game in ‘maintenance’ mode until a better offer comes along.

I’ll be starting in Scandinavia, and in Denmark to be more precise. Once I’d chosen the country, and decided that I would start at the lowest level, I then did some coin-tossing and dice-rolling to arrive at the Kolding Stadion – home of Kolding IF.

As someone who is used to taking a narrative approach to Football Manager, the next step was to set up my profile, and the new feature for FM15 – of actually having a proper managerial profile – is really nice in that regard. In my mind I had a picture of a semi-professional defender who had moved to Denmark after a less than glittering career in the English game, and who had achieved a modicum of success there (at the lower levels) before moving into coaching. Here he is...

I left the right hand side of the attribute allocation untouched, but I did deliberately tweak the left – reducing attributes in Goalkeeper and Fitness coaching, along with a couple of others, and putting the points gained into Defence and Technique. Some might consider this a bit of a cheat but at the lower end of the system, where teams have few funds to build a proper coaching setup, I wanted to give my own guy some focus that could be useful.

As I’d chosen to go with Danish as a second nationality, the game decided that I should not only be able to speak Danish – in addition to my native English – but also German, Norwegian and Swedish. Who am I to argue?

So, with my club chosen, and my manager created, it’s time to get a feel for the squad and plan out my initial goals.

Our entire playing roster, at all Squad levels. 

Media Prediction : 7th in Danish 2. Division Vest

KEY PLAYER REVIEWS

The Team Report doesn’t really make the most encouraging of reading. Clearly we have a handful of good players for this level, and I’ll be looking at these guys to provide the core of our first team.

I don’t really have a frame of reference for attribute levels at the third tier of the Danish game, but even so I’m thinking that this guy looks great... with the exception of his ‘Command of Area’ trait. It’ll be interesting to see how that manifests itself.

Nautrup rates as one of our best players in a number of areas. This is a worry. A decent physical specimen, but if he’s our best option as a wide defensive man then we could be in trouble.

Our best central defender. Not a difficult title to claim as he’s our only central defender, other than 19-year-old Christian Wogensen (or Søren Bojsen, who really doesn’t inspire). On the plus side his key traits stack up quite well as a Limited Defender, and he’s tall. He’s going to need at least one partner though, as I don’t see us playing with a lone DC.

His Pace Acceleration and Stamina make me want to start him out wide – especially when combined with his Crossing and Dribbling. He looks like a great option as a support striker as well though, so either we play one up front or I need another option for either the right flank or the second striker.

There are a fair number of positives about Friis’ profile, although his lack of Stamina and Strength is a concern. At 5’9” he’s also going to be on the short side for trying to capitalise on Justice John’s crosses, unless we play for low whipped crosses.

GOALS

• Build a competitive First XI, focussing on defence and working forwards. 
• Achieve promotion (and perhaps professional status). 

The key points, right from the off, are going to be:

• Minimum of another Centre Half, if not two. Actually, pretty much a whole new back line. 
• A big striker, or a tactical plan that removes crossing all together and plays the ball on the ground. 

With zero transfer budget, and a current wage spend of £38/week, it’s going to be some challenge. It was only when looking at the finances that I first realised that we’re effectively an amateur club, which makes for all manner of ‘fun’, but I wasn’t about to back out now.

TACTICALLY SPEAKING

It’s difficult to know where to start really, other than by throwing the above five players onto the tactics board and see where it leads us. Given a desire to build from a strong defensive base, my first thoughts took me as far as this...

I’m thinking Justice John as the primary source of attacking play, from what I’ve heard about the success rate of crosses (although, as I type this, I’m aware that an update has just been released and I have no idea if it’s addressed this). Without a big man up front I’ll aim for low driven crosses to find Friis, with an Inside Forward at AML to arrive at the far post – or possibly a Ramdeuter, just to experiment with the new role. I am tracking a big man as an option up front, so something more akin to a 4-4-2 may be on the cards as an alternative.

The back four will remain largely defensive, with a man sitting in front for extra security; I’ll possibly employ a Ball Winning Midfielder at DMC, who should track across laterally to provide support for the withdrawn DL. In terms of the central midfield pairing I’m thinking a Playmaker of some description, and possibly an attack-focussed man to make runs into the box (akin to @JLAspey’s Central Winger concept from FM14).

Here’s what I end up with, there’s not a lot in Team Instructions other than More Direct Passing, Clear Ball to Flanks, and Low Crosses. There’s nothing in Player Instructions – I’ll monitor games and make adjustments as we go – that’s what it’s all about, right?

I’ll skip over the pre-season action. Given the level of our players and coaching staff it quickly became clear that it was going to take time to settle to my tactical approach, so the friendlies were never going to be a great indicator. Even then I wasn’t prepared for this though, the first outing for our ‘star’ winger on the right...

...I'm hoping that this is just the result of 'ring rustiness' and my tactical approach needing time to bed in. If it's more representative of his general quality then we could be in a lot of trouble!

By the time the season proper kicked off I’d started to add some much needed depth to the squad in the shape of these guys, picked up on free signings...

Primarily to play as a DC, but with the option to push forward into a holding midfield role. At this level  his Work Rate, Anticipation, and Positioning all feel like good to excellent.

The ‘big man’ up front that I wanted. Rough around the edges, but his sheer physical presence alone should reap rewards.

What I started to notice, however, is that we were developing an awful lot of play up the left flank, and crosses into the box had no-one backing up at the far post. As a result, as we moved into the early competitive encounters, I set up something of a 4-4-2 that allowed for two men to be in the box whilst the central midfield pairing play pretty withdrawn roles.

It’s very early days, and I haven’t really had time to do any major tactical analysis, but things have started moving in broadly the right direction.

I’ll leave it there for now. It’s a very sparse introductory post, but I want to see if getting this up online will encourage me to play more.

If anyone has any early comments/observations, or any pointers for how you might approach this club and squad in FM15, then feel free to drop me a comment, or contact me over on Twitter at @flipsix3_FM - my recent activity there has also been infrequent, but be assured that I do keep an eye on things.