Can it be done better? - A Football Manager Story

[nasser95]

So, after the debacle of yesterday, I decided, "Can I do it better?"

Now, in reality, I'm certain that none of us can, there's a lot that goes into being a manager and none of us have the experience required to keep control of the personalities of a side. But, we can do it in a game. Football Manager 2016, currently the best real world management simulator available. So, I took over the QPR side as it was at the start of last season, and this thread will be my story of managing the club. From beginning, until FM17 comes out and I start again on that.

[West Acton]

Used to love that game. Would spend hours on it

[nasser95]

The Introduction

And so we begin, 2015/16 season coming up, the new QPR Manager, a young, talented bloke called Nasser, takes over the reigns after Tony Fernandes decided not to renew Chris Ramsey's contract at the end of the disastrous premier league campaign that saw the club finish bottom. Redemption was necessary, and QPR decided to take their chances with the untested manager who makes up for his lack of experience with a ton of ambition and passion that can only be described as infectious.

Taking on the challenge of rebuilding the club, making it sustainable and succeeding with the current crop of players and a few additions here and there, we start our story at a meeting with Mr. Fernandes himself. After welcoming me to the club, he introduces me to my assistant manager:



Having an old head like Neil Warnock should help get the players onside in the early stages of the season. Speaking of the players, we start with a look at the current first team and under 21 side.





The first thing I want to do is get rid of all the deadwood at the club. Paul Konchesky, Rob Green, Yun (for the fact that we can't renew his contract next season) and Samba Diakite. Streamline the squad, kill off the wage issues and we start looking more stable financially.

And for the formations that I will build my squad around, I know what the fans want to see... tactical fluidity. That means 3 formations that we can work through dependent on the situation. Those 3 formations are a 4231; 442; 5212.

4231 will be the primary tactic, with an emphasis on high closing down, movement from the wingers and getting the ball wide as often as possible to deliver into the middle and giving us numbers in the middle of the park. 442 will be used when we've got a home game against a poor side and we can afford to run with one fewer player in the middle. The 532 is going to be our rotational tactic, mainly used when we come up against a solid attacking side who can't deal with us on the counter.

And so comes our first official day in charge, the start of the transfer window brings with it the setting of season expectations.



You'll see there that I went with getting promoted, but didn't put a cup run as my focus is the league, understandably, given the limitations of the squad.

You'll also see that we have gotten an offer for Phillips.



Now, this is a decent offer, but I decided to try and negotiate the 5 mil initial fee to a 10 mil fee and thankfully, they accepted. So it looks like Matty Phillips will be off to Watford for £13.5mil and a 20% profit from next sale clause. Not at all a bad start.

[nanocopic]

Good thread interested to see how you get on.

[Fraggy]

JFH out Nas in

[nasser95]

JFH out Nas in

Haha, let's wait and see how I do before we start making these suggestions. Hoping to get into the prem before we get a chance to play Newcastle at this level

[nasser95]

In the coming days, I terminated Paul Konchesky's loan, freeing up 10k of wages and put Diakite, Green and Yun on the transfer market. This led to the Green and Yun getting angered, leading to discussions. Unfortunately, neither of them were happy at all with me trying to force them out. Thankfully, I got an offer almost immediately of £100k for Green from Esbjerg fB, which I naturally accepted. This ends up however being irrelevant as (shockingly), Green rejects them over wages. So I offered him out for free.

It then became clear that Aston Villa were interested in signing Charlie Austin. I decided it was in the best interest of the club to sign Austin up to a new contract, just to guarantee his value, which is exactly what I did, bringing his wage from 20k to 40k with a release clause of 18.5 million to teams in the Premier League and a 12.5 mil non promotion release clause.

You might be wondering where I got the money for this, and that came as a result of completing the sale of Matt Phillips for a grand total of at least £11.75mil and potentially upwards of £13.5mil. Since the club isn't doing fantastically financially, I was only able to add £2mil of that to my transfer budget, bringing me up to a total of £5.37mil to spend.

Then came the all important Philosophy talks. The club initially set that they want possession football, but I wanted to add to that. So I suggested signing young players for the first team and they duly accepted. This should hopefully encourage them to spend a little more to reach our goals. Naturally, with the desire to sign players like this, I set my eyes on two players on the cheap to get us going. The first is Frederik Oldrup Jensen, a young Norwegian centre midfielder available for no compensation. He's got the right energy to make himself a star here. He accepted my contract offer and within days, QPR had made their first signing of the season. He won't be available however until the 1st of January 2016



Following him, I knew I needed someone to play full back/wing back. Luckily, I found just the guy: Guillermo Varela of Manchester United. Available for only £350k, an absolute bargain, I made sure to bring him in as my second signing of the summer.



Next up, came a look at bringing in a winger to replace Matt Phillips. Someone with Championship experience, still young, pacy, energetic, good ball delivery and goalscoring pedigree and someone who can deliver a set piece well. So I found the perfect loan signing. Alex Pritchard, Tottenham Right Winger, 22 years of age, came into the club, for only £155k per month.



The next thing is the start of Preseason, our first game being against RKC Waalwijk in the Jupiler League. That'll come in the next update. Hope you're enjoying the choices so far, lets see how they work out.

[nanocopic]

Good signings Nass, I remember Green being a nightmare to get rid of. Sometimes Liverpool wanted him which was a saviour.

[nasser95]

Good signings Nass, I remember Green being a nightmare to get rid of. Sometimes Liverpool wanted him which was a saviour.

Oh god yea, he's awful to try and sell, wages are a nightmare. Might just offer to pay some of his wages to keep him gone.

[Shania]

Fredrik Oldrup Jensen is a good shout, Nasser95.

[nasser95]

Fredrik Oldrup Jensen is a good shout, Nasser95.

haha I knew you'd like that one. Can't wait to get him in January. I was looking at getting in some full back cover from Norway, so you might see that happening soon.

[Norths]

There's facepacks/summer 2016 transfers/kit and badge updates available. Why not make use of them?
Easy enough to download and setup.

[nasser95]

There's facepacks/summer 2016 transfers/kit and badge updates available. Why not make use of them?
Easy enough to download and setup.

I might use facepacks and kits etc but transfers I wanted to keep it accurate to the year the game started.

[Cjskinz]

Calum Paterson is a must!