Go as an obscure or lower league team

An obvious one, but many people usually stick to the bigger teams on the game, I will admit I am one of these people. Going as a lower league team can be difficult but it is also a great challenge. The joy you get when you bring a club from nothing to domination is a great feeling. It will be a long game with a lot of ups and downs but stick with it and I can guarantee you will enjoy it. Check out How to cheat financially in the lower leagues for a good lower league tip and http://www.fmstory.com which is a great lower league story written by fellow blogger Lye.

Set yourself a challenge

If you are following my blog, you will know I set myself a challenge http://aidtheboss.com/my-challenge/. Setting yourself goals before you start your career is a good way to make sure you stay determined. You have the mind and power to give yourself any type of challenge, however ridiculous it is. From getting Barnet to champions league glory, or like me winning a competition with a team from each country. It can turn out to be a lot of fun and help keep you focused.

Use the editor

The editor is an extremely powerful tool, and it’s under used. Spice up your game by creating your own database and doing whatever you want with it. Mixing up players, competitions, or creating your own club can be a good boredom killer and keep you interested in FM2010.

Downloads

The Football Manager 2010 community is amazing and we should be lucky to have some of the people we do participating. Many fans are creating there own fantasy databases and these are a good way to keep you interested. FM-View released a Bayern Munich Legends databse last week which I downloaded and tried out, it is a great idea and if it was not for my challenge and the blog I would definitely be playing a proper save with it. Check out http://www.sortitoutsi.net/forum/forum/122-custom-databases/ where you can find a whole load of cool databases for FM2010.

Graphics

You may not think so, but just changing the appearance of Football Manager 2010 can do a lot of good. Sometimes when I am lacking inspiration, I change the skin or install some facepacks to brighten up my game and give myself a change of scenery. Two blog posts that can get you started 60,000 Image Facepack and Top 10 most wanted Football Manager 2010 skins.

Football Manager 2010 Time Machine

The Football Manager 2010 Time Machine I created is a good way to fast forward years in the game. The first season in my opinion is the worst and seems to drag on and on. The time machine allows you to start a game from 2010-2025 in England, Spain, Italy and Germany. I will be looking to add more countries to this list, including France which will be available to download tonight. Read more about the time machine and downloads here.

Get Involved!

If you have simply had enough of Football Manager for the moment, have  look around the FM Community. There are some great fansites out there with amazing discussion forums where you can get involved and chat about Football Manager 2010 with other fans of the game. My person favourites are FM-View, Los Wonderkids, Football Manager Fanboys, FM-Britain and of course the official Sports Interactive Forums.

There is nothing wrong with being bored in FM2010, it happens to me all the time on every version, and sometimes little changes to the game or doing something different can spice things up for us and rekindle our love for the game!

Firstly, if you are wondering what a regen is, they are the players that are generated through out your Football Manager save so that there is never a shortage of players. When the old players retire, new players must come through the youth academies etc in the game to make sure there is no player shortage, and if you get far enough in the game every play will be a regen/’made-up’ player.

Anyways, I found the creation dates interesting because it will allow me to know the dates of certain countries creations, so in future on a certain day in my game I can search for the regen’s (u16’s) from that country to try to find a hidden gem or wonderkid before anybody else does. A pretty useful piece of information if you, like me are one that is always on the hunt for the next generation of players and enjoy developing them from a young age.  The regen creation dates are as folllows:

January 1 Brazil, Chile
January 5 Rep. Ireland, Iceland
January 7 Finland
January 10 Colombia
January 15 Africa (except South Africa)
January 20 Norway
January 28 Peru
February 14 Belarus
June 7 Baltic States, Georgia, Bosnia, Cyprus, Armenia, Montenegro, Albania
June 20 Germany, Ukraine, Portugal, France, Turkey, Israel, Australia, Scotland, Hungary, Croatia, N.Ireland, Greece, Switzerland
June 24 England, Austria
June 29 Slovakia
June 30 Italy, Czech Rep, Poland
July 1 Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia
July 7 Denmark, Holland
July 10 Serbia, Spain
July 15 South Africa
July 20 Mexico
August 1 Argentina, Uruguay
September 19 North/Central America & Caribbean, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay
December 9 Japan, Middle East
December 27 Russia, USA, China, Sweden

Hopefully this information will be of good use to you, I am hoping it can help me in my current save to bring in some amazing wonderkids!!

First up was a FA Cup 3rd round game against Peterborough at the Emirates. I will make this short and sweet, we dominated the possession and had an inferior amount of shots and was unlucky not to win by more goals. I am pretty sure if Dzeko was playing he would have converted most of those chances It took until the 20 minute mark for us to break the deadlock with a wonderful striker from gifted striker Robin Van Persie, before he netted again 8 minutes later with a 1 on 1, and RVP was always going to put that one away. Thhings were pretty boring after that, we had shot after shot but nothing came from it. I must say Peterborough’s defence was pretty good because it felt like they put in some good tackles when we were close on goal. Craig Morgan of Peterborough got sent off on the 55th minute but that did not change anything as they remained a solid unit. Never the less we progressed to the next round so things were good.

The next four games were pretty boring, despite me playing Tottenham twice. I drew with them the first time in the League Cup thanks to a late Theo Walcott goal that levelled it at 1-1 for the next leg. Walcott went on to save me again as I beat Portsmouth 1-0 at Fratton Park. My next game was up against Blackburn at this was Dzeko’s first game back from injury. I had been lacking goals lately but still managing to grind results out, and Dzeko’s return put some spirit back into my peformances and he got on the scoresheet with a dazzling volley from the edge of the box. Van Persie scored the second as we nailed Blackburn 2-0 and managed to grab another 3 points.

Next up was the return leg in the League Cup against Tottenham. I need a win here as Tottenham already had the advantage with the away goal. It was a pretty boring game all round and I expected a bit more flair and excitement considering the nature of the two teams. It took a 50th minute striker by my hero Edin Dzeko to break the lock, and the game finished 1-0. We were through to the league cup final where we will play Liverpool in an attempt to win my first piece of silverware

After beating Peterborough in the 3rd round of the FA cup, we were up against what should be an easy Ipswich side. The 2-0 win did not reflect our performance  because we absoutley dominated them from start to finish and had countless attempts at goal. It was only in the last quarter of the match where things started to turn as a Van Persie goal on the 75th minute before Eduardo Salvio finishing the game on the 84th minute secured the win. The FA cup is a trophy I really want to win because winning the domestic cups is something I have in mind along with my challenge too.

I had a tough away trip against Everton to contemplate with next. Everton have always been my bogey side in Football Manager especially when I have managed Arsenal I can never beat them. 12 minutes in I thought things would be the same as Leighton Baines put Everton 1-0 up. Everton controlled the possesion in the first 20 minutes of the match and had a number of opportunities. 5 minutes before half time we picked up the game and I witnessed 2 great goals from Andrey Arshavin and Robin Van Persie that put us in the lead going into half time. I still did not feel comfortable as Everton continued to push us and it was a very nervous match.  A 75th minute striker from Arshavin secured the win and brought us even closer to Chelsea going into the next game against them. Looking at the match stats Everton had a lot more shots than us and a higher possesion, but only 5 out of the 19 shots they had were on target where as 8 out of 10 (cats ) of my shots were where they should be, well not exactly as that would be in the back of the net but you know what I mean.

The last game of January saw me travel across London to play bitter rivals and title contenders Chelsea. Before the match we were 2 points behind them but they had an inferior goal difference which is actually quite scary (+45 compared to my +27). I was expecting another eventful game like the last at the Emirates Stadium and that was exactly what I got but it wasn’t till the 2nd half where the performances from both teams really picked up. On the 33rd minute Nicolas Anelka the twat got injured and the Arsenal fans called him a Wanker as he left the pitch, well they didn’t but that was what I was doing as he got stretchered off on my screen The first half was coming to an end and it looked like it would settle 0-0 going into half time…..but no, a superb finish from Van Persie put us 1-0 up and put a smile on my face as I gave the team talk. The heat was turned on and fouls were flying all over the place, and Chelsea’s new signing Liedson equalled the score for Chelsea in the 74th minute. The last 15 minutes were very nervous and end to end stuff which had me on the edge of my seat. Picture this, a minute into injury time, Lampard plays a through ball to Landon Donovan who slots it past my keeper to give Chelsea a 2-1 league. The anger that was going through my head at the time, I was devastated and before I even got a chance to punch my computer screen we was awarded a penalty in the 95th minute!!!!! Super sub Eduardo steps up…….braces himself………….2-2 ARSENAL HAVE LEVELLED IT AT STAMFORD BRIDGE! From anger to joy in 0.00001 seconds Although this meant we would not overtake Chelsea, it kept us within touching distance of them.

A great month overall which see us remain in the FA cup, get to the league cup final, and pick up points in the Premiership. We just need Chelsea to slip up to create an opening for us to overtake them and go top of the league, although Chelsea have signed some great players and are scoring hat full’s of goals. Here are the current Premiership standings after 25 games played: (Click to enlarge)

Things look good at the moment and I eagerly anticipate the next few games! My next update will be dependant on your thoughts. I would just like some feedback in the comments section. Did you enjoy this update, and should I continue doing monthly updates? Or did you enjoy my previous way of updating which will be major updates every few months like here http://aidtheboss.com/mid-season-analysis/. Please let me know as I do not mind which one I do, as long as the readers enjoy

Stats

Verratti’s stats are already better than a lot of experienced players on the game and that says it all. His 11 for passing and creativity is very good for someone of his age, and with the right training these two stats will shoot up very quickly. His set pieces are more than special with 16+ for technique, corners, penalty taking and free kicks, this usually means a lot of assists and will should always get himself on the score sheet a few times a season. His comparison to Totti in real life is partly down to the flair and agility and this has been highlighted in Football Manager 2010. All round great stats for someone as young as he is and they can only get better with the right coaching and training.

Tactics

Marco Verratti is only 16 years old, and if you carry on following my blog you will find out that I do not like playing youngsters too early. I would recommend using Verratti as a sub if you are a big team, and bringing him on when you are in a comfortable position towards the end of the game to give him some experience and keep his match fitness. It is up to you, but I think it can really help. If you have a great centre mid or AMC at your club at a good age, Eg Fabregas at Arsenal, I suggest using the tutoring option in Football Manager 2010. This will reap great benefits for both players but especially Verratti as he will start to resemble his ‘mentor’ and become a great player. I also recommend putting him on a youth training schedule, or download Tug’s Training 2010 which can be found here http://tugstraining.co.nr/

Price

Marco Verratti starts the game with a value of around £200k. Pescaro Calcio are very reluctant to sell as he has such great potential, but usually a fee of between £300k and £400k will secure his services. I suggest getting the bid in as soon as possible as lots of other clubs come sniffing early on. I have bought him several times, including  Football Manager Live and he always becomes one of my star players.

My Rating: 7/10

Potential: 10/10

All the top players are included obviously, as well as most of all the other players, so do you want to put names to faces whilst your browsing the game? For instance, I just found out that Lauri Dalla Valle is white, and I always pictured him to be black, do not ask me why

Here is a screenshot to give you a preview of what they look like.

There are two ways that this facepack can be downloaded.

Firstly, if you prefer Torrents then you can download one here: [DOWNLOAD] , and an alternative torrent link here: [DOWNLOAD ALTERNATIVE TORRENT]

If torrents are not your thing, there is a direct download option, but because the files are so huge it has been split up into 15 parts, here are the download links:

Part1

Part2

Part3

Part4

Part5

Part6

Part7

Part 8

Part9

Part10

Part11

Part12

Part13

Part14

Part15

Once you have downloaded the facepacks, you must extract the files using WinRar to “My Documents/Sports Interactive/FM2010/Graphics/Facepack”. If you have not installed graphics before then you need to create the graphics folder and the facepack folder. Do not hesistate to comment on this post if you need any help installing them.

A big thanks to all the guys at Sortitoutsi.net for this amazing facepack which I am sure you will enjoy them. I will carry on posting any cool things I find for Football Manager 2010, and I do not take any credit for the work. Just to help my readers to enjoy the game and enhance there experience

Stats

As you can tell by his stats, which are amazing for someone so young, that Otamendi is a strong centre back who will rip opposition attackers and be a solid key player in your team. His technical attributes are not the greatest; however he does have decent attributes in the defence atts such as 15 for tackling and marking. In my opinion, his mental and physical attributes more than make up for it, especially his physical atts that are all mostly 16 or higher.

Tactics

Defenders are usually not that versatile, and Otamendi can only play in the centre back position. I suggest playing him as the right centre back because his left foot is very weak. This could cost your team goals if he is under pressure on his left foot. He is best suited to the central defender role, and not as a ball playing defender because his passing, creativity and decision making is not quite there.

Price

Otamendi is in high demand from a lot of the top teams in Europe in real life as well as Football Manager 2010, so you have to be quick in getting your offer in as usually he is snapped up straight away. Nicolas Otamendi can be picked up for between £4-7m. I highly suggest if you have the funds that you try to get him at your team. I have managed him several times incluindg my current Arsenal game if you are following, and he is averaging well over a 7 every match.

Nicolas Otamendi is a great player now, with great potential, so I highly recommend him if you can afford him.

My Rating: 9/10

—————————–
Football Manager 2010 v10.3.0
—————————–

Crash Fixes
===========
- Fixed crash when clicking on the backroom advice button.
- Fixed issue causing runtime error in network games

General
=======
- Players who say they are willing to leave the club to help with the clubs debts no longer get upset if you transfer list or offer them out.
- Fixed scouts completing their nation assignments too early for small reputation clubs.
- Adjusted generation of names for Croatian newgens with second nationalities.
- Fixed older newgens in some cases getting youth contracts instead of regular contracts.
- Playing for a clubs A and B teams now does not count as having already played for 2 clubs in a season when joining a new team.
- Past meetings tables are now sorted by goal difference and goals for after points.
- National team facts information panel now only uses first team players.
- Adjusted changes in very low average attendances
- Fixed newgen name issues where some African newgens for example were getting English names because of their birth city language being English.
- Players no longer get unhappy about the clubs league position until after a reasonable amount of games have been played.
- Fixed bug where a person loses a language skill when changing from a player to a staff member.
- Stopped inappropriate manager to manager comments been available on Brazilian State league games.
- Adjusted newgen attribute creation and development
- Adjusted Danish cup attendances
- Players don’t get called up to Olympic qualifiers if they have important club matches.
- Automatic rejection of other national job offers if offered multiple jobs. When you accept an offer it auto-rejects the other jobs just like it does with club management.
- Adjusted Turkish Super Cup attendances
- Adjusted Bulgarian attendances in continental matches
- Adjusted attribute progression
- Adjusted newgen PA levels
- Adjusted conversion of negative PA values
- Stopped players constantly feeling under media pressure.
- Cancelled friendlies now don’t cause entire tours to be cancelled.
- User achievements screen now displays the date left after the user has resigned from a national youth team job.
- Stopped user been able to interact with players who are away on loan.
- Stopped two player happiness contradictions, wanting a new challenge/agreed a future move and also wanting to stay at the club.
- Improved the selection of players parent teams send to their affiliates.
- Fixed shots off target in quick matches sometimes being displayed as a negative number.
- Increased the number of strikers selected in U20 World Cup squads.
- Fixed German First Division games being refereed by lower division refs (requires new game).
- Improved international squad selections.
- Stopped unavailable players playing matches in inactive leagues.
- Stopped player conditions dropping so much in the quick match engine.
- Removed some pre-game histories that were being retained when playing with fake players (requires new game).
- Removed inconsistency in a players decision to try to learn a new preferred move or not.
- Stopped staff members joining much smaller teams for a minor job promotion (Steve Gatting etc.)
- Fixed an issue that could stop a human getting an international job when he is the best candidate.
- Made some improvements to Best Eleven selections.
- Fixed an issue whereby a scout was hired but couldn’t perform scouting duties, mainly affects long term games.
- Stopped duplicate news item appearing for human manager’s former team when appointing a new manager.
- Removed Chelsea transfer embargo.
- Fixed an issue whereby a player could become unregistered if user went on holiday over the registration deadline.
- Got the board to take into consideration the time left on a player’s contract when deciding to veto a free transfer.
- Fixed an issue whereby the board would state you can scout a region, but the option never appears for that region on the assignments dialogue.
- Fixed incorrect contract rejection reason when a coach rejects a contract due to basic wage.
- Fixed an issue whereby a human manager was prevented from accepting a management position at an amateur club upon the first time of asking.
- Fixed an issue where the incorrect match sequence milestone could be displayed pre-match for the away team.
- When a player complains in the media the unhappiness isn’t removed until they have responded to the manager’s response.

Finances
========
- Adjusted wage and contract length demands of players with long term injuries
- Adjusted English manager wages
- Adjusted Brazilian sponsorships
- Adjusted Uruguay wages
- Adjusted English non-league finances
- Updated Brazil top level ticket prices.
- Stopped Chairman investing in club when not required.
- Fixed Swiss youth wages being too high.
- Adjusted Swiss finances.

Read the rest of the change list over at the SI forums by clicking the following link: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=192934

If you read the last article you would understand what this means, but I will paste the same thing again in case you missed it….Some of this may be jibberish to you, so let me explain PA a little bit. PA means potential ability, and that basically means the ability (out of 200) a player could develop to, however development relies on many things such as coaching, regular games, training etc, however that will be a different article some time in the near future.

If a player has -10  potential, it means that everytime you start a new game, he will be assigned a PA between 180 and 200. FM2010 will randomise this number each time, but it gives you an indication of a wonderkid, because 180 potential is still great -9 potential is basically the same thing only the players will be assigned a PA between 150 and 180.  When a player has a Fixed PA, it means that their potential ability will be the same every time you start a new game, for example Sergio Aguero has a fixed PA of 189, meaning every game he has the chance to get to that PA.

Once you have downloaded the shortlists, place them in My Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2010 > Shortlists. Now load up your FM game and go to manager, then find players. Click the shortlist button and press import shortlist, chose the one you want and it should be loaded into your game

Shortlist One:  -9 Young Stars Part 2 (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Two: u21 Talents with Fixed PA 170-180 (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Three: u18’s with Fixed PA 160-170 (Patch 10.2)

As you can see it isvery close at the top, but I am still suprised Man Utd sit so low in 5th place!

Results Analysis

The last time I updated was after the amazing 2-1 win against Chelsea, since then things have been quite good, with only two defeats (both manchester clubs). I am bit concerned at the number of draws but we won quite a lot of games so I am still pleased. After going a goal down against Man Utd and leading 2-1 with 30mins to go I was hopeful that my team could win, however a 67th min goal from Scholes and late header in 88th min from Vidic put a downer on me and left me to go to sleep very upset haha The main problem with this match was my defence as Man Utd kept hitting us on the counter attack, just like in real life, FM seems to be quite realistic

In the Man City game my defence was tighter, but complete opposite happened when lack of shots cost us points. Dzeko was injured for this game and as expected we could not score, seems we rely too much on him. Luckily we bounced back with two wins, we scored another 3 goals at Sunderland but this time we did not concede 4 so I was happy. Dzeko is injured again for 2 weeks, so Eduardo will be taking his place and I will adjust tactics to suit Eduardo, I just hope he can fill his boots as Dzeko is the main man. You can see his stats later when I go onto transfer analysis.

Squad

Quite pleased with my squad, everyone except two players (Denilson and Salvio) played above 7.0 average ratings. I am not so concerned with Salvio because he is still young, and developing well with lots of green progression arrows, plus is he not that under 7 ratings and has been chipping in with his fair of assists so far. However, the DM position is a key part of my tactic and I think this is why I am conceding some goals. Denilson must protect the defence and command the middle of the pitch winning tackles. I said at the start of the season I needed someone better, so hopefully board will allow some trasfer budget to improve this position.

New Transfer Analysis

As you know, I signed Dzeko, Otamendi, Salvio and Verratti. I would like to tell you about these new signings and what I think of them so far.

First up is Edin Dzeko, a total goal machine and if it wasn’t for him we would be really struggling. He has an amazing 23 goals in 26 games including two assists. A real power and I am confident he will pick up premier league top scorer if he carry’s on like this. Big shock happened in last match though as he got injured and will be out for 2 weeks. This is a big blow to my squad and hope we can still get wins without him until he comes back as he is a vital player. Here are Dzeko’s stats so far so you can take a look.

Nicolas Otamendi, signed from Velez for 4m has been a rock in defence and saved my team from many opposition attacks. Him and Gallas have been a great partnership so far and I expect Otamendi will remain with me for many years. Not much else I can say about him but take a look at some stats.

Eduardo Salvio…the young 19 year old wonderkid has been awesome in my opinion. For someone so young coming to new country with a new language and still performing well is a great achievement. Salvio has got lots of assists, although he has been injured a lot.  He is developing very well with lots of progression arrows, he has a bright future ahead of him

And finally Marco Verratti, my young prodigy. I will not bother showing a screenshot of his stats as I have only been bringing him on as a sub, but I think this is needed to give him some experience and help him develop. Lots of progression arrows like Salvio, so hopefully in a few years these two will be huge stars and dominating the world

I am hoping the board will give some money for January as a DM is desperately needed if I want to win the premiership this season. My next update will be the January transfer wnidow because if board do not give me money then some players will have to go in order to raise funds.

So, has anybody got any suggestions for a new DM for me????

Part one of my series contains three shortlists. One for the -10 wonderkids in the game, one for some of the -9 young stars in the game, and one for the under 23 players with a fixed PA between 180 and 200.

Some of this may be jibberish to you, so let me explain PA a little bit. PA means potential ability, and that basically means the ability (out of 200) a player could develop to, however development relies on many things such as coaching, regular games, training etc, however that will be a different article some time in the near future.

If a player has -10  potential, it means that everytime you start a new game, he will be assigned a PA between 180 and 200. FM2010 will randomise this number each time, but it gives you an indication of a wonderkid, because 180 potential is still great -9 potential is basically the same thing only the players will be assigned a PA between 150 and 180.  When a player has a Fixed PA, it means that their potential ability will be the same every time you start a new game, for example Sergio Aguero has a fixed PA of 189, meaning every game he has the chance to get to that PA.

Anyways, these set of shortlists are just the first part, and I will be making different packs each week and posting them up on the site. Once you have downloaded the shortlists, place them in My Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2010 > Shortlists. Now load up your FM game and go to manager, then find players. Click the shortlist button and press import shortlist, chose the one you want and it should be loaded into your game

Shortlist One: -10 Wonderkids (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Two: -9 Young Stars (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Three: u23 Talents with Fixed PA’s between 180-200 (Patch 10.2)