Phwoar
Phwoar
That "work through" wank must be the default go to when something is said on Twitter people don't like.
Full mid-season update coming at some point, but in the meantime:
Norwich 2021/22 - Mid Season Update
The Objectives
So rocking up in East Anglia we were met by Delia Smith, who set these objectives for the length of my conetract:
Which I guess means we can get the club relegated and perhaps still keep the job. Still, with the experience of taking Oxford City down in FM21 still lingering, I'd really rather avoid that so the aim this season will just be to stay up.
The Finances
£20m in the bank and Norwich's lack of spending, well...ever, really hits home when you look at the debt situation:
A net debt of £7m is fapworthy stuff and the £250k payable a month won't even touch the sides of that delicious tv money should we remain the Premier League (or keep yo-yoing).
The Tactics
Looking at the squad we had some hard working central midfielders, decent wing back types and some pacey wingers, so with that in mind I decided to go with this formation:
We have a second variant, which is exactly the same bar the mentality, which gets pulled back to very defensive. That'll be used for when we're trying to see a game out and whenever we're playing one of the big six, be it home or away.
The players
In terms of our better players, from those we actually own, the best and most promising two are these lads, who I like the look of a lot.
We also have Billy Gilmour on loan from Chelsea who could be great for us.
Transfers
Normally I turn first window transfers off, but given I'm coming to the FM22 party very late (and at a time when Norwich aren't even in the Premier League anymore) it didn't feel quite so dirty to leave them on, which armed us with a £10.7m WARCHEST and about £50k p/w on the wage budget to play with. After sending my scouts off to focus exclusively on players with superb potential and them giving me nothing in time, these two were brought in via the player search:
Brings some much needed pace to our high backline and an absolute bargain both in cost (£2.8m from Chivas) and his pitiful wages. We also have an optional three year extension on him, which will probably be pointless as he'll be upset with the Frank Butcher he's getting a week long before then.
£2.7m from Spezia also seemed an absolute steal.
Also looked at some loans, but we already have a few so decided that was enough to take us into the season, which has gone far better than expected.
Results
So many highlights in what has been an incredible start to the season, but the win at Anfield has to be the best. They absolutely battered us but we took our two chances and secured the three points.
The Table
It'd be pretty hard to get relegated from here, which was all I was really hoping to avoid when the season started, but if we could somehow sneak the spot in the Conference League that would be amazing.
The January window is fast approaching and I need to get some non playing dissenters out of the squad before seeing who I can get to join the PROJECT on a free in the summer.
Mbappe watch
Is Kylian Mbappe interested in joining Norwich?
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To be fair to Miles, that is a good tweet - because it makes people focus him saying that he dated an 18yr old, whilst ignoring that other stuff he said about if being ok for an 18yr bloke to date a 15yr old girl... it's all pretty weird from Miles.Originally Posted by Lofty
The deleted tweets...
Once you’ve found a player style you like, make sure to add yourself to my FM23 TTH team.
And everyone else reading this.
I'm a twit
Hold me.
Norwich Season 1 2021/22 March Update
As we approach the business end of the season we've been on a fantastic run which sees us through to the FA Cup semi-final and 8th place in the league:
FA Cup semi-finals are:
Brighton vs Arsenal
Leeds vs Norwich
And having come this far I'd be disappointed if we don't make Europe in one way or another.
Can qualification through the league go as far down as 8th depending on winners of the cups and where they finish? Liverpool won the Carabao.
Oh and these two have just come through my academy:
Yevrah, I'm in my fourth season with Norwich and Mbappe has six months on his contract and is running it down. I'm in the Champions League so he wouldn't be the most ridiculous target, however I've no real intention of giving someone probably five times what anyone else earns. Man City look most likely.
Appreciate he'll cost a fortune, but I fear he'd be missing out if he doesn't get a chance to experience the waterways and beaches of East Anglia.
We lost the cup semi-final to Leeds which looked like season over, but a ridiculous victory at Old Trafford has us back in the hunt in the league.
Not really sure what the permutations with Arsenal playing Leeds in the cup final mean, but the game at Elland Road will be huge.
Every time I open this thread I feel inadequate. Bonkers effort.
Injuries and our generally poor squad took their toll in the run in and we lost away at Leeds, which I really thought was it, but a 1-0 win at Everton where we were battered, gives us some hope going into the final game.
Although when we look at the fixtures not much hope:
Close but no cigar.
We drew with Chelsea, as did Man Utd with West Ham but that was all academic as Spurs saw Burnely off.
Still, very pleased with an outstanding season and hopefully we get a decent budget in the window. Top priority is a Premier League calibre striker, or at least a player that could become one.
Delia I could kiss you.
That'll do very nicely. Nearly £500k to play with on wages I think once the free transfers and a couple of other already agreed signings land.
Love it Yev. Have you scoped out the summer picks up?
In the past two weeks I have loaded up FM, picked three different teams, got through 2 days and closed it. The urge dies when I think about how much shit I need to "set up"
I've got six signings finalised already and a shit load of scout reports and searches to do. There are another couple of players I already have on the list that I think are definite buys, but just want to make sure I'm not missing out on other players by going for them.
It's definitely a pain in the arse to get going, but after a couple of false starts I think I've managed to get it down now and once you get through all that wank it seems a genuinely good game.
It's a great game but you need so much free time to get anything out of it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the mobile version is great. You can blast through a season in an evening.
I'm just gutted they've sacked off Touch. I clung onto Touch '17 for about four years, and now I'm in Touch '21 purgatory. I really hope Touch comes back for 2023 because the below, I'm afraid, is abominable game design.
How did it get to this?
Because they always equate more features = better game
I had a great time with Touch on ipad but I think they have binned it off now and it is mobile or nothing? The problem for me is I want a middle ground: I want the full fat database to deep dive into unearthing gems but stripped back admin tosh.
Here's something I learnt recently, despite playing since CM97/98.
Height is completely irrelevant for outfield players (not sure about keepers).
It's all about jumping reach and heading.
A 4 foot defender with 20 for jumping reach will outjump a 6ft attacker with 5. Seems like such a bizarre thing to omit by FM.
Height used to be built into Jumping in old editions. Peter Crouch, for example, would have 20 for Jumping even though he was no gazelle.
Then at some point in the FM era (the first one maybe? I don't know, I still play 01/02) they added height and weight as attributes and made jumping a raw value, which is fine, but like you say they never seemed to incorporate that in the match engine.
Difficult second season syndrome is real.
Got to the end of the normal season with Jihlava in the Czech top league, meaning we qualify for the Championship Group, whatever that is.
I think I've fucked this Norwich save. Results are spiralling out of control, players keep getting sent off and goal droughts are everywhere. So annoying.
Where’s it gone wrong, Yev?
Too many new players?
How are the squad dynamics and social groups?
I can only assume I brought in too many players and we did get a bit carried away I will admit, with 12 arriving over the summer. It's irretrievably fucked now so that'll be another note to self.
Happens to us all. Dynamics us becoming much more important. Also, be sure to treat well respected players well.
I thought I'd kept enough of the old guard around but obviously not. The downturn was absolutely brutal and the board went from A-ing me to a D. Should I also never sign anyone where they have a scout report that says "has a streak that bends the rules". Tousart and Choudary both did and would not stop getting sent off, four times between them in 10 games.
I assume you’ve changed tactics? The game will often go through a spell of not letting you win until you do.
I changed a few things yeah, but the morale in the squad is so fucked now I think I did it after the point of no return.
Get Delia in for the team talks.
Tell everyone there conduct is good, or however its worded?
Praise anyone who has decent form over the last five games or played well in their last game. Praise anyone who has been training well. Anything over about 8, but don't quote me on that number.
Do the same for criticism - poor form, poor last game or poor training. Anything 6.5 or below. In fact fine them a week's wages for the poor game - it might improve their determination and work rate.
Got to get moral up, and you need to do it consistently.
Do you have to do that in every game every week to give yourself an edge when it comes to morale? If so, fuck me, it might as well be called Anxiety Manager 22.
Try to keep on top of it if you can, and obviously it's better to be proactive than reactive.
Go into the dynamics and happiness, and see what can be done. Game time, contract situations etc. particularly those team leaders and highly influential players. It might seem like a chore but you'll get used to it and get on top of it fairly quickly. Mentoring is good too - I tend to stick to positions: defence, midfield, attack, left and right.
Also, make sure your squad statuses are accurate as you don't want players not getting what has been agreed. On that subject, I use the following guidelines:
30% of wage budget on star/important players
30% on regular starters
30% on squad players
10% backup and youth prospects
Try to have around four star players, seven or eight regular starters, and around ten or so squad players. That will allow you to keep on top of your wages as well as anything moral and happiness based. It'll also make you see quickly who is either over earning or needs a different squad status.
They're all small things that can be managed quite easily, but ignore them and things can spiral out of control.
I add 'notes' to players all the time as reminders for things that need sorting later - usually at the end of the season. I even add them when I see someone who is a consistently good/bad trainer, or if someone works really well in a certain role or with a partner. I add them for young players who I think could develop into first teamers, or if I just need to keep an eye on a situation.
Really useful stuff this Scouse, thanks very much. The tactics were fine as we finished 9th in the first season, but clearly I suck at the micro management side. My Newcastle save was ballsed up for similar reasons.
You going to continue with the save? Could be quite the journey to get relegated and then try to get out of the Championship.
I paused it earlier as if I'd continued the board were going to fire me, which may well be inevitable at this point, so in short, not sure.
Is that not the whole thing for years with FM though? Whatever tactics work for you will suddenly not work for you. It’s built into the game that you have to do a big change to tactics once this happens - another stupid ‘hammer instead of a tweezers’ thing they built into the game.
Yea, that's what I was getting at. I took Blackburn to a Europa League final one year and got sacked the next for flirting with relegation using the exact same tactic. Once it stops working, it's done.
Don't just hammer the same tactic regardless or it will come back to bite you at some point. I don't know your exact players Yev, but if you're still playing a wide 4-3-3 is there any way you can move your wingers inside and turn them into false 9s? Creative attack minded players with flair and vision can be trained into false 9s and it's the best way of getting the best out of those types of players in my experience.
You'll need wing backs on at least support duty and you'll have to sacrifice a bit in wide areas. To compensate that your central midfielders could be turned into Carrileros or Mezzalas. Make sure your players compliment each other vertically rather than horizontally.
You can go back to it once you've used another for a while, but generally I agree with this and what Giggles was saying.
I think the problem I have with the save is that the players are all miserable, the board is annoyed and we're Norwich, coming back from it will be very hard and given how long the game takes to play anyway, there's no chance I'm going through a 46 game Championship season with FM23 so close to release.
If you're after any inspiration..
22/23 - first season back in the Premier League.
...
23/24
A more than satisfactory end to the second season back, culminating in major honours and Champions League qualification. We're light years behind Liverpool though, and with my aim of this save being to win the top ten European leagues, I'm not sure whether my first 'success' will be with Norwich.
I'm a little way into 24/25 now and fyi I've sold Sargeant (Real Madrid), Dowell (PSG) and Rashica (Leicester) plus a few others and for the first time I would say this is very much 'my' team, with only Omibamadele, Idah and Tzolis preceding my arrival. We've expanded the stadium, and both youth and training facilities are 4 and a half stars.
I also use data as well when comparing players and searching for new ones, and I'll share the data screen I created. I have separate ones for different positions, but this is the overview.
Impressive set up you've got there Scouse and clearly paying dividends. Selling Sargeant and Dowell to Real Madrid and PSG respectively has blown my mind.
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