Welcome new readers! After having played around with FM 20 for quite a while now, I have decided to start with a long term FM save. And with the recent down turn in the form of Spurs and with the special one coming into the club, I decided to put myself as the Special one. My aim is to convert Spurs into a dominant powerhouse that keeps purring like a high power engine and wins everything there is to win!
Part 1 : Pre-Season Window
The board requirements:
The board requirements regarding the club culture were the most I have seen in any FM save! So many desired attributes. But most of them are in line with my style of play, attacking possession based football and to sign future wonder kids. Not signing players over 30 years is my default play style so that is fine as well. Signing English players is a bit worrisome since they are usually not worth the price but I will try to snap up a few a few good ones when they get transfer listed.
Transfers and Contracts:
The contract situation at the start of the same is quite grim. Three key players have less than 1 year of contract left. Eriksen and Alderweireld were not remotely interested in signing contracts. Vertonghen was interested but was asking for hefty wages for a 32 year old. So, sell them rebels!!! I was worried the most about Eriksen since no one was initially interested. But once I put him on sale, PSG came and snapped him up. I hoped they would splash £100 mil with their oil riches, but they remained economical, with him going for £66 mil. Then came Liverpool for the 2 centre halves. A 400 IQ play i would tell myself, with the pair giving added competition for Van Dijk and co with slower defenders who I and some other teams can hopefully beat on the counter.
In terms of incoming, I am really excited. I have replaced the ageing pair well with Ruben Dias and Kristoffer Ajer. They are going to be my mainstays for the future. And i have invested the money from selling Eriksen in Bernardeschi and James Rodriguez who for some weird reason were transfer listed at the start of the game. Both are genuine top level players and I am happy to have bought them. Almendra is the mandatory wonderkid signing with Palacios asking for a ridiculous £100K wages per week . All in all, I have only went ahead and strengthened the team.
I thought of a back up for Harry Kane but there is Troy Parrott who is going to develop into a legendary striker so I am going to rotate Kane heavily with Troy Parrott so that Kane remains fresh and Troy can also develop quickly. It is a risk but one that I am willing to take since I have Son who can also play well as a pressing forward.
Tactics :
For tactics, I have went with my own custom control possession. I had adapted this from a 5-4-1 tactic I saw in FM 19. That tactic was more attacking , more injury prone but gave a lot of goals. This is less intense, less injury prone but still has worked for me.
The tactic works by having a solid back three defense who screen any potential counters while the brunt of the attack is through the interplay between the mezzalas and the wide players. There is a lot of movement here and leads to some nice eye candy goals. I try to press high but the intent is to win the ball back and regain possession with my default style not having pass in space or counter. Initially I had them on but I realized that they lead to more counters against me and we anyways have the required quality in the final third with this Tottenham team to not rely on counters. No player instructions as of now but based on the shooting style I might add some ‘shoot less option’ in the future.
Based on the opposition style – possession or counter, i push higher up or have a standard defensive line . Same goes for narrow / standard defensive width. With narrow width, often it leaves space behind the wing backs which leaves my defense wide open during fast counters switching across the field.
Set pieces are standard as of now. There is plan to work on it in the future once open play is completely clear and taken care of.
Pre Season and Start of Season
Pre Season went reasonably well, with good result on the majority and the players beginning to gel together. With high hopes , we went into the start of the season and the players did not disappoint. We won in a convincing manner against Newcastle and Leicester and Harry Kane has been good in both open play and set pieces for us so far.
Hope you enjoyed reading the journey so far. Share your tips on who else I could have signed or how I can improve my tactic further.
Football Manager Stories 