11 replies to this topic

[Hanko]

My Football Manager Background

Before starting my story, I thought I'd let you know a little bit about my Football Manager background. I'm a huge fan of Football manager. I've been playing the game since my early teens back in the Championship Manager days. A mate at school decided to get a group of us together and play a kind of multi-player season. He would print of the squad sheets, bring them into school and we would all select our team for the next couple of games. Looking back the poor guy must of been up all night sorting out our tactics - from then on I was hooked. I worked as a paper boy to save up the money to buy my first game and now I own them all.

Although I've played the game for so many years, this doesn't mean I'm any good. In fact I'm borderline awful, but I keep working at tweaking tactics here and there and sometimes come out on top. I'm not going to start my new save, which I've called "The Hanko Career", a nickname from school!, with a lower league club as I don't feel I'm good enough to make it to the top. So i've decided to start with a fairly good club that I can hopefully turn into the greatest!

That club is - Tottenham Hotspur FC

I have some ground rules that I want to stick with throughout my save.
1) No transfers in the first season
2) Aim to sign British players or Young talent from around the world.
3) Spend no more than £15m on a single player
4) Use own tactics and training

So i'll fire up the game and be back with a pre-season report shortly!

[-11-PeDrO]

Good luck

[Ana Garcia]

Oh well done you for saving up the money to buy the game, that was so sweet.

I liked the introduction and I like the rules! I wouldn't worry about being a good manager most of the best stories I have read are those that see you struggling from game to game but hopefully you can build you own formation to a successful one!

Really good luck with this story.

[NUFCdan]

I like the rules to this story
Good luck with this story! I will be following

[eightnight]

Likey likey. Avid Spurs supporter, I am, I am Good luck mate. Will follow.

[GChaddah98]

Good luck pal.

[Hanko]

Harry Redknapp takes the England job and there is an opening at White Hart Lane!

I apply for the Tottenham Hotspur job and am delighted that the board have accepted my application. As a fairly unknown manager the fans are sceptical on the decision but know that the board have selected a young manager with plenty ambition and new ideas.

I get to work meeting the staff and players at the club. The board expect to qualify for the Euro Cup through league qualification and I except their challenge. They offer me a £12m transfer budget and £1.1m wage structure. These of course don't mean anything to me as one of my rules on this save is to have a transfer free first season.

Squad

Taking a look at the first team squad we have quite a few injuries, serious ones at that, with the likes of Gallas, King, Sandro, Rose and Nelson all out with long injuries. Nelsen's career is all but over. At 33 years old and out for 7 months i'll have to place him in the reserves until his contract ends at the end of the season.

The loss of Gallas and King for up to 3 months will be worrying for the start of the season. This leaves me with Dawson and Kaboul who are great center backs, but if one picks up an injury I only have Bongani Khumalo, a young South African lad with not much experience but with good attributes.

Sandro is another injury we could do without. He has bags of ability and will be world class defensive midfielder in a few seasons as long as he stays fit. We'll have to make do for a few months until he returns.

The squad as a whole look to have plenty of potential. This is how I see the squad playing in my formation with covering players.

GK - Friedel, Gomes - Both quality goalkeepers with Friedel being my number 1.
DC - Gallas, Dawson, King, Kaboul, Khumalo
DL - Assou-Ekotto, Bale
DR - Walker, Kaboul
DMC - Sandro, Huddlestone, Parker
MC (Deep Lying Playmaker) - Parker, Livermore
MC (Attacking Playmaker) - Modric, Van Der Vaart
AML - Bale, Kranjcar, Rose
AMR - Lennon, Dos Santos
SC - Defoe, Adebayor, Saha

Tactics

I want the team to be playing fluid and attacking football with short passing and at a quick tempo. I will be expecting most of our goals to come from Defoe (SC), Bale (AML) and Lennon (AMR) our attacking 3 with the support from Parker (MC) and Modric (MC) pulling the strings. Huddlestone the Defensive Midfielder until Sandro is back will be commanding the gap between the defence and midfield. They will have to be strong and tidy up any problems. The two center backs will play very defensively with full back pushing up the wings when attacking.

Pre-Season

I couldn't of asked for a better pre-season from the team. They only down side were more injuries including, yep you guessed it, Kaboul! Luckily Khumalo stepped up and showed some great performances. Dos Santos and Modric picked up a couple of knocks and are also out for a few weeks each.

I could see that the guys were struggling to get used to the formation to start, but soon picked things up and were scoring goals left, right and centre. Just as I wanted goals coming from Defoe, Bale and Lennon all with great pace.

I couldn't believe we beat Inter - even though we were playing at home we dominated from kick-off and thoroughly deserved the win.

I'm about to kick-off the start of the season against Stoke City at home so will report back with the results of August & September.

Fingers crossed!

[GChaddah98]

some good results in pre season and like the tactic, good luck for the season!

[Acss]

That's a good preseason mate.

Tottenham is a club where you can really succeed with a good strategy, so I hope you'll achieve great things with them.

Good luck!

[vaibhavc]

Good luck!

[Wicklander]

Nice friendlies and a 3-0 win against Inter is not bad.

[NUFCdan]

love that tactic! good luck for the season