Shifty*i Messes Around at FM

[ShiftyPowers]

 

[yoyo913]

Monaco it is.

So them and Gundogan are the magic trio for you? Any chance of getting him? I think he should be available. IRL he would be available for 30 mil (or up).

 

[ShiftyPowers]

He wasn't. Actually all my money got spent on those two, so I couldn't help the squad and didn't care for the team. If I had a lot more money I'd have grabbed Mangala at least. Can't figure out who to be for my first game... dicking around for a few preseasons with some teams, but nothing has taken yet. Ideally I just want a team with a decent stadium and a good young squad lacking a CM with Michael Bradley interested in coming.

 

[yoyo913]

Why are you awake?

 

[ShiftyPowers]

I'm on leave, I stayed up all night messing around with FM14 and watching the Breaking Bad marathon on AMC.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

So I took up with Southampton and checked the box to not allow transfer funds in the first window. Ended up finishing 12th as this was my first full season of FM14 and it took me awhile to start understanding the match engine. One thing is that there are waaaay too many set piece and especially corner goals. Anyway, after some experimentation I ended up playing the season with a Christmas Tree formation. This was my first choice XI throughout the season:

The stars of the season for me were 1) James Ward-Prowse, 2) Victor Wanyama, 3) Luke Shaw. JWP really really impressed for me and had probably the toughest role in the team as the deep lying playmaker. However, I just thought the team lacked width and I went into the summer looking for wingers. We got a 26.5m Euro transfer budget, so immediately splashed 20m of it on Vladimir Weiss and Alesio Cerci. We also welcomed Fernando from Porto on a Bosman transfer. The biggest deal though, was the free transfer of VICTOR VALDES. To SOUTHAMPTON.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Transfer fees are a lot more realistic this year. For the most part you can get players for their value, or only slightly higher which is really the point of having player value in the first place. There are exceptions of course, but I think they've done a great job, and players are sensitive to even the slightest increase in their asking price above their value.

With that introduction, I think my first summer at Southampton may have been my greatest transfer window in all my years playing this series.

 

[yoyo913]

Good call with Weiss. It's always a plus for me when a player has already played in that league (experience and language).

Pic of Balanta?

Having Fernando as DM is awesome.

 

[Bobby]

I signed Williams in the demo, really solid player.

 

[yoyo913]

Wouldn't he be worth more IRL?

 

[Bobby]

Probably 15-20m.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Wouldn't he be worth more IRL?

Swansea were relegated.

Here's Balanta. I googled him and it looks like he only broke into the River first team at the end of last season, but he's got a tremendous amount of hype around him. I'm really glad I found him because it was kind of a fluke, I put a bunch of attributes into the search and then made it like 6/8 and he showed up. The only reason he only had 6/8 was because most of his attributes were hidden.

 

[Bobby]

Are you planning to keep him or sell when his value peaks?

 

[yoyo913]

Too bad about the jumping reach.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

He's got a lot of potential, I can train that easily.

 

[yoyo913]

I would just focus on that. If you can get it to 15/16 + he can be elite.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

I made 19 year old Ward-Prowse my captain

 

[yoyo913]

Influence, Determination attributes?

 

[ShiftyPowers]

15 leadership (former influence), 17 determination, 16 work rate, 15 team work.

 

[yoyo913]

Good to go