Football Manager Society II

I've just started playing FM2012, after not playing the game for a few years.
Can anybody offer any advice as to things I should look to alter and change when I first start playing? I don't feel i've gone too deep into things like training schedules and tactics, so anything along these lines that I might be overlooking that are actually very important?

I've started with Villa, and results have been a bit all over the place. In pre-season I managed to lose to my own reserve team, struggle against Gateshead and scrape a 1-0 win. But then I beat Malaga, Roma and Oxford convincingly. In the league i've started out okay, winning 3, drawing 2 and losing 1 so far. I won my first league cup game, but then lost to Arsenal in the following round 2-1 after they scored in the 120th minute!
It doesn't help that Villa start with a wage bill already over your allowed wage budget, and only 3 million to spend! And that in the first couple of games of the season Agbonlahor got injured and is out for 5 months, and then Bent, N'Zogbia, Warnock and Cuellar all got injured for 1 month+. I've only got Weimann to play upfront! And no left winger! :|

I bought Taraabt from QPR, but the fans seem to hate him ha. And Guti on a free transfer who's been awesome so far. Sold Heskey and Ireland, which got the wage bill down a little.

So yeah, i'd appreciate any advice anyone can give me with regards to the finer details!

Whooooops, almost fell ill of the 8 HG players rule!

Have built up Boreham Wood to the PL and just got taken over by a rich chairman ().

Went on a rather extravagant shopping spree, stealing some absolute gems from Italy and Spain in the 20-24 age group and sold a bunch of English players. Quickly had to rectify by buying Jack Butland as a back up and promoting one of my HG youth players, whom I suspect will get annoyed quickly at the lack of game time he'll get, being as bad a player as he is...

Board have set me a minimum target of CL qualification this season, just 2 years after promotion to the EPL.
Maybe I shouldn't have improved my squad so much...

Oh and also be careful when signing Brazillian wonderkids : sometimes they don't actually arrive until 2 years after you signed them because of their strange rules. I didn't notice that in my first season to my cost lol.

You didn't have to do promoting and buying in. If you don't have enough players to meet the rules, just register fewer players. So if you only have 6 HG players over the age of 21/22 then just register 23 players rather than 25. That's completely allowed Same applies to the rules for the Champions League and any other thing where certain requirements must be met - if nobody meets them, leave spots unfilled.

Registering youth players is a complete waste since they never need to be registered to be eligible to play anyway.

And that's not "their strange rules", that's a FIFA regulation that applies to signing players from/to any nation outside the EU; up until the age of 17 they can only move between clubs in the same country, then they can move abroad once they're 18. It doesn't apply when transferring youngsters between countries within the EU because it'd be in violation of EU law (it's prohibiting free movement of labour within the EU)

Taraabt always underperforms for me. I don't tend to buy any player (unless their other stats are insane) with workrate and teamwork below 13.

When I have a low wage bill and transfer budget I like to rely on talented youth players to bulk out my squad.
Say this is my squad (players in brackets are the replacements/subs)
GK:
DR: 2 young (get Vrsaljko if you can, or Romario)
DC: 1 or 2 experienced, 2-3 young
DL: 2 young
DM: 1 experienced (1 young)
BWM: 2x young
DLP: 1 experienced (1 young)
AMs: 1-2 experienced (2-3 young)
ST: 1 experienced (1 young)

Yeah I probably should of looked into it more before signing him! He's played 5 games so far and constantly has the "doesn't look interested" or "is in danger of losing discipline" during games. But he did score an incredible goal on his debut! Shame that wasn't enough for the fans, and the board as well who say they aren't happy with the signing.

The one good thing about Villa is the very good young players. Weimann, Clark, Bannan, Gardener, Lichaj are all getting regular game time. Weimann seems capable of scoring regularly in the Premiership alongside Bent, and Gardener scored and awesome goal against Arsenal!

I think I just need to see a season through and hopefully i'll do well, get the wage bill down and get given a bit more money.

I don't think I can load up any other leagues right now, as i'm only on the demo, i've ordered the game online though and it'll arrive in the next couple of days, so I can continue the game on after the demo which is only half a season long

Out of interest what do people say to their players pre-match?
And what reaction d'you get?
D'you always say something?

Mention which team you're managing aswell please :P

Have you experimented with what you say to him during HT talks?

It depends, if im away to a big team (Milan/Inter/Juve) I say to them that they're the underdogs and should play without pressure, for most of the other games I tell them that I expect a win. Both are said assertively and 9/10 most of the team looks happy/fired up/motivated.

This works with both Milan and Napoli for me.

Yeah I probably should of looked into it more before signing him! He's played 5 games so far and constantly has the "doesn't look interested" or "is in danger of losing discipline" during games. But he did score an incredible goal on his debut! Shame that wasn't enough for the fans, and the board as well who say they aren't happy with the signing.

The one good thing about Villa is the very good young players. Weimann, Clark, Bannan, Gardener, Lichaj are all getting regular game time. Weimann seems capable of scoring regularly in the Premiership alongside Bent, and Gardener scored and awesome goal against Arsenal!

I think I just need to see a season through and hopefully i'll do well, get the wage bill down and get given a bit more money.

I don't think I can load up any other leagues right now, as i'm only on the demo, i've ordered the game online though and it'll arrive in the next couple of days, so I can continue the game on after the demo which is only half a season long

Fair enough, do they ever get bored of that, so to speak?

I usually expect a win (but in varying manners), but for the fans if it's a big derby. It's really hit and miss though, I get a few positive reactions, no negatives either but most of the team seem to not have a reaction at all.


I picked up Ganso for ~£35mil, in his first PL appearance in the derby against Man City he scored his first goal which was the winner Hope he becomes worth it.

Everton isn’t really proving a challenge anymore so I’m considering a move to another league/ team, preferably outside of England as my last 4 teams across fm10/11/12 finished their life in the EPL. I was thinking of fallen giant teams like deportivo, nantes, sampdoria or something. Anybody know of good teams to manage? Quite like the team to have a good history and solid fan base yet excruciatingly painful finances in a division other than the top.

Torino, Bari, Celta Vigo, Monaco.

Torino's a good shout. Nothing like re-building Ill Grande Torino.

Am I right in saying you're talking about Taarabt?

I had him on a previous save at Villa. He's a bit hit and miss. First season he scored 10 goals from AM, which I was delighted with, but only managed a solitary assist.
He's quite selfish and generally shoots from range. I had injury trouble with him and when he recovered he put in a transfer request because I hadn't played him for 3 matches due to poor fitness. He's a problem player. I'd suggest sticking with Ireland/N'Zogbia in AM, or ironing out his poor attributes.
Speaking of N'Zogbia, how are you getting on with him?
I found him to be extremely poor on the left, I had Albrighton/Shaqiri on the right. Ended up getting dropped, offered him a loan out, asked for a transfer, booted into the reserves (he was crap in the reserves as well). Warnock left the following summer so I gave him the #3 shirt and stuck him at left back, where he was still mediocre at best, Clark and even a reserve I bought from Chelsea still outperformed him. Had a couple of games in AM/LW/RW (due to easy cup ties and injury crisis) and started to get better (lost my save after that).