Gaming Football Manager 2024

Going very well in League Two so far, top of the league with 17 points after 7 matches. Just went away to 2nd place Salford who are 1-32 favourites for promotion and drew 1-1. Their xG 0.68, ours 1.86. With three going up automatically and another via the playoffs I'm optimistic.

Usually like to have my squad in place all in one go early in the window, and I had a striker on loan from League One Wrexham for the first few games but couldn't resist picking up someone else on transfer deadline day after his agent was offering him out and we had the budget to do it. Will probably lose the loanee in January as he's expected be an important player for us as I imagine Wrexham will become pissed off with him not starting. I'm going to play the new signing in every game possible instead as he's better and expects to be a star player. I've got a young, third striker for now who I've just convinced to be a breakthrough prospect. Gradually talked him down from regular starter to squad player to breakthrough in stages who's into his second season with us and he's in the U21 squad for now. He's good enough backup even if the game thinks he's a Vanarama player when I inevitably lose the loaned player.

None of them are fantastically rounded players but it's all about pace with decent enough finishing and a composure for advanced forwards.

Breakthrough has a crazy form section because I kept arranging friendlies against village teams last season to keep my second string match sharp. In an U21 league now so that's no longer necessary.

110 tickets sold

Chipper said:

Going very well in League Two so far, top of the league with 17 points after 7 matches. Just went away to 2nd place Salford who are 1-32 favourites for promotion and drew 1-1. Their xG 0.68, ours 1.86. With three going up automatically and another via the playoffs I'm optimistic.

Usually like to have my squad in place all in one go early in the window, and I had a striker on loan from League One Wrexham for the first few games but couldn't resist picking up someone else on transfer deadline day after his agent was offering him out and we had the budget to do it. Will probably lose the loanee in January as he's expected be an important player for us as I imagine Wrexham will become pissed off with him not starting. I'm going to play the new signing in every game possible instead as he's better and expects to be a star player. I've got a young, third striker for now who I've just convinced to be a breakthrough prospect. Gradually talked him down from regular starter to squad player to breakthrough in stages who's into his second season with us and he's in the U21 squad for now. He's good enough backup even if the game thinks he's a Vanarama player when I inevitably lose the loaned player.

None of them are fantastically rounded players but it's all about pace with decent enough finishing and a composure for advanced forwards.

Breakthrough has a crazy form section because I kept arranging friendlies against village teams last season to keep my second string match sharp. In an U21 league now so that's no longer necessary.

Spoiler: Star/Loanee/Prospect

Click to expand...

That pace and acceleration in League Two will be absolutely lethal!

Currently sitting in 4th in the Championship with Darlington after 36 games. 2031/32 season. I have the lowest wage budget by far in the league (£249k) so it would be a miracle. This is my fourth season in the Championship after finishing 21st, 21st and 14th.

Solius said:

I had a £22m bid for my star striker Iago Guimaraes on the last day of the window. I told him I’d accept anything over £18m so I did but I was absolutely scrambling to find someone and not panic into a loan but I had decision paralysis and just saved and closed the game instead

Click to expand...

Best way. No rash decisions.

Fully expecting to come straight back down with a record low for points but we did it!

I've had quite the first season in the Premier League with Dulwich. Only won one of my first ten games but then went on an unbelievable run and I find myself second with two games to play. Arsenal had a game at 3pm today to win the league but they've drawn it 0-0, meaning I can go two points behind them with one game to go if I beat Brentford now.

My final game of the season? At home to Arsenal...

100th minute winner! We're going to the final day!

Zebs said:

100th minute winner! We're going to the final day!

Click to expand...

Well, that was disappointing. I went too defensive and couldn't get the team going when we needed to, ended up conceding in the 89th minute to lose 1-0. I did save it beforehand though, and I might come back to it one day as a "What if" kind of thing. For now, time to strengthen, Dulwich are going into Europe!

Zebs said:

I've had quite the first season in the Premier League with Dulwich. Only won one of my first ten games but then went on an unbelievable run and I find myself second with two games to play. Arsenal had a game at 3pm today to win the league but they've drawn it 0-0, meaning I can go two points behind them with one game to go if I beat Brentford now.

My final game of the season? At home to Arsenal...

Click to expand...

Thats crazy! How did you go about such a massive change in form?

Maluco said:

Thats crazy! How did you go about such a massive change in form?

Click to expand...

As I said earlier, my season was frontloaded with teams from the top six and Newcastle and confidence was at an all-time low as a result but I picked up wins against Southampton, Sheff Wed, Bournemouth and Wolves and suddenly we were flying. Then, around Christmas I tinkered with my tactics and came up with a slightly more defensive approach for playing the bigger teams and I scraped a few 1-0s against the teams that had hammered me at the start of the season. It still wasn't perfect over all but games 11-30 were undefeated and that set me up.

The long-running takeover saga is also over, with some local lad taking over and immediately bidding 99m for Moscardo and 50m for Dorrington on my behalf. Both bids were accepted but the players turned me down. Did that £149m appear in my transfer fund? Of course not. Bastard.

Zebs said:

As I said earlier, my season was frontloaded with teams from the top six and Newcastle and confidence was at an all-time low as a result but I picked up wins against Southampton, Sheff Wed, Bournemouth and Wolves and suddenly we were flying. Then, around Christmas I tinkered with my tactics and came up with a slightly more defensive approach for playing the bigger teams and I scraped a few 1-0s against the teams that had hammered me at the start of the season. It still wasn't perfect over all but games 11-30 were undefeated and that set me up.

The long-running takeover saga is also over, with some local lad taking over and immediately bidding 99m for Moscardo and 50m for Dorrington on my behalf. Both bids were accepted but the players turned me down. Did that £149m appear in my transfer fund? Of course not. Bastard.

Click to expand...

That is some going to go undefeated that long in the PL with a promoted team. Very impressive!

Maluco said:

That pace and acceleration in League Two will be absolutely lethal!

Click to expand...

The star man is smashing it so far! 11 goals in 16 league appearances. Looking very strong for promotion just past halfway.

Assuming Salford will overtake Northampton with their games in hand, so it's the gap to Northampton I'm looking at. 13 points + better goal difference back to them with 22 games left.

The game is still giving one of my central defenders a very high market value and his contract was due to be up at the end of the season. Wouldn't be too bothered if we lost him as a player in terms of ability but if I could cash in that would be great so I've managed to extend. Our max wage is £1.1k a week and we wanted £1.9k. Shoved a ton of bonuses, release clauses etc in there including a £0 relegation clause which isn't going to happen. After signing his market value is immedialtey worth his realease fee at £2.7m-£3.7m which would be mega money for us.


Probably will be losing a couple of players possibly as early as January. Our left back had bids of £375k over the summer. Said he could go for £500k but nobody bid. Just over 6 months on his contract remaining and he's not interested in renewing. He might change his mind if he's still here when, or if we get promoted.

The other is a goalie we only signed over the summer. Release clause of £150k that his agent insisted on and he is worth more than that. He wants £2.2-£2.4k to sign a new deal and I was hoping to give him a new contract just to increase that clause. I could try the same trick with all the bonuses but I'm not sure he'd go for it. No idea why he signed for us! He was a free agent 19 year-old Morrocan international with 1 cap, our first ESC player after his work permit was turned down. He then played a bunch of World Cup qualifiers and started the first match for them in AFCON. Got dropped after a stinker but was back in the team for the 3rd group stage game and might well lineup for them in the last 16 against South Africa. An AFCON goalie, now with 9 caps for the 20th best international team on the world rankings at the smallest League Two side is funny to me

Finished the season with Juve

We were 11 points clear going into the final 10 games, so we tried to rest players for the cup competitions.

We beat Inter at home, 2-0 and lost 4-3 away to go through to the Italian Cup Final. We also beat Salzburg at home and way very easily to make it through to the CL Quarter Finals.

We drew Barcelona, who we beat 3-0 at home before getting a nice 1-1 draw away and sending us through to the Semi-Final!

This would be against the Premier league leaders, Chelsea, so there was a real feeling of knowing we could win it if we managed to beat them. We ended up beating them 2-0 at home before going to the Bridge and winning 2-1!

I had assumed we would be playing a flying Mbappe led PSG in the final, but there was a massive shock in the other semi!

My first four years of this save were spent earning my badges in Portugal where I had many battles over two seasons with Benfica as manager of Viz. We won some, we lost some, and I felt like that rivalry was done and dusted when I moved on to Italy

However, after a 1-1 draw in Paris, Benfica had just beaten PSG 4-0 in the CL, to set the showdown against my old rivals for the biggest game in my managerial career. The CL Final!

We won the league with games to spare and were able to rest before our Itálian Cup Final game against Milan. The issue I was having was knowing who should be starting. Todibo had now replaced Inacio in my favored 11 because of his speed, but both Breschi and Placidino were knocking at the door of stalwarts Wirtz and Vlahovic and my assistant wanted me to start the youngsters.

I went with Wirtz and Breschi for the final, and we were poor, going down 0-1 at half time. I went attacking in the second half and brought on the likes of Doku, Balogun and Vlahovic after the hour mark as we pushed for an equalizer.

It was a Vlahovic free kick that fell to Vitinha in the box after 70 minutes that saved us. We went into extra time after a few close calls at the other end. Should I keep attacking? Or try to get some control of the game.

I decided to keep going and was already thinking about penalty takers when Balogun ran from the halfway line and launched in a hopeful cross. A massive, looping one that gave Vlahovic all the time he needed to get on it and power in a last second winner. We had done the double once again!

And so it came down to the CL Final against old rivals Benfica. I had no idea what their team was like now or how good they were, but I was about to get a shock.

Who to start in the key positions? We went with…

Marmashivili

Sieweld
Upamecano
Todibo
Davies

Stoopkofer
Vitinha

Muani
Wirtz
Chiesa

Vlahovic

The game was crazy right from the off for two reasons. One, they had some really good players and were passing round us like we weren’t there at times. Two, the challenges were flying in! It was a war.

We got off to a great start as Vlahovic tapped in a Davies cutback from all of two yards. Benfica quickly drew level. 1-1

Vlahovic then held onto a Chiesa cut back with his back to goal and was able to turn, and make it 2-1. Benfica had a young Turkish midfielder who was tearing us apart, and he made it 2-2 on the night.

There were now 10 yellows in the game and I proceeded to take both my fullbacks off, who were exhausted and on yellows. Balogun replaced a horrendous Muani and Wirtz made way for Placidino. I left myself with only one sub.

I watched in despair as Marmashvili’s rating dropped to a 6,0. Confidence gone after their second, I have seen this story before. I bit the bullet and took him off with 10 minutes to go…

Full time. 2-2. A nerve-wracking battle that took me back to my days at Viz when I felt they could always turn it on and snatch a game away from me.

It stayed tense…until there was a massive flashpoint.

Chiesa broke away after another Benfica attack and was brought down by Benfica attacked Rego. The ref brought out the red and they were down to 10 men.

Just 3 minutes later…99th minute. Placidino gets the ball in space and clips a wonderful ball over the top. Vlahovic is a carthorse, but his first touch is beautiful and the goalkeeper doesn’t know whether to stay or go. He comes…but too late, as the big man gets there first and slips it past him to make it 3-2 on the night and prove his doubters, his coaches, and his manager wrong! Hat trick Vlahovic!!

From here, Benfica lose their head and a two footed crazy lunge from Bah puts them down to 9 men. Placidino, loving the space, taps home a well worked set piece for 4, and then places a nice finish from a rebound to make it 5-2.

The Guttman curse lives on, we have won the final chapter against our old rivals, and we are Champions of Europe!

Just beat mid-table Championship side WBA 1-3 AET away from home in the FA Cup 4th round, buzzing! Smashed them on xG too, WBA 1.35-4.06 Fairford Town.

Got a PL side away from home in the 5th round. Slightly unfortunately it's Crystal Palace and not one of the giants so no massive payday. Still, this cup run has been nice for the finances and that will increase it further. Already been promised a £10k increase on wages for next reason £14k > £24k. Got a healthy bank balance of £637k.

Only problem is we have Peterborough away in the Bristol Street Motors QF 3 days after this extra time win and we're running on fumes! Squad's knackered after 120 minutes in that game and have had 2 players being reported as jaded and in need of a rest. Peterborough are 17th in League One so it could be winnable in normal circumstances. Going to have to rotate a lot here so not expecting much.You never know though, my boys are fighters!

Average age of my entire first team squad going into Dulwich's second season in the PL is 21.3. Best starting XI is the same. Got rid of plenty over the summer to let the young lads I've been embedding in for a while now have a go and to also boost the coffers a little because the new stadium is eating up our money. Bookies have us finishing 11th, while the board are looking for a top-half finish so I'll hopefully manage that and push for the European places next season again when we'll be in a much better position financially to strengthen and all my wonderkids will have a year's experience at the top level under their belts.

Current stadium, holds 10,500. I had 9,650 season tickets sold last season and ended the season with a waiting list of 7,800. Yet I've somehow managed to only sell 9,500 season tickets this year. Go figure.

Does anyone else start getting weird scheduling a few years into the game? Last season, the draw for the FA Cup 4th round was made a week before I had my 3rd round game and the two rounds were played on consecutive weekends. This season I have Liverpool home and away in the league in the space of four days. In October...

I remember similar abnormalities in my United save before this one.

Solius said:

Morale is a bit... much in this isn't it. I had an injury crisis and played youth players against Arsenal because I felt we'd have a good chance of getting to the Carabao quarters with our strongest team a couple of days after. We lost 6 - 0 to Arsenal and then comfortably lost the Carabao game I'd saved the players for anyway

What has followed is the most wretched run of form I've had in the entire save. I've had to hold team meetings and also had the players almost mutiny against me because of the 'bad atmosphere'. Spoiler alert guys, you are the atmosphere.

Finally managed to stop the rot after almost two months of it but I was worried I might get sacked at points. We're still 18th at the min and 3 points from safety.

Click to expand...

Yes, a youtuber I've been watching lately sometimes refers to the game as morale manager

Think our morale could be what's getting us through the past few matches. Had to rotate heavily away at Peterborough in the BSM Trophy but won 4-0 recently which surprised me.

Squad is so tired with injury problems too, using players out of position at times. Only won 2 of the last 5 in the league but didn't lose any either. One genuinely disappointing result was a 4-4 home draw with 23rd place Rochdale. Beat a couple of other teams narrowly 2-1, and had 0-0 draws at home to 2nd place Salford and the same score away at 6th place Northampton which I'll take. We're just about doing enough right now.

Solius said:

Morale is a bit... much in this isn't it. I had an injury crisis and played youth players against Arsenal because I felt we'd have a good chance of getting to the Carabao quarters with our strongest team a couple of days after. We lost 6 - 0 to Arsenal and then comfortably lost the Carabao game I'd saved the players for anyway

What has followed is the most wretched run of form I've had in the entire save. I've had to hold team meetings and also had the players almost mutiny against me because of the 'bad atmosphere'. Spoiler alert guys, you are the atmosphere.

Finally managed to stop the rot after almost two months of it but I was worried I might get sacked at points. We're still 18th at the min and 3 points from safety.

Click to expand...

Best way as always with FM when this happens, get some friendlies going against lesser opposition and give them a tonking.

When players moan about playing time they always say they think they should be starting more games. It's that all they're arsed about, actually starting?

My left back is giving me more headaches. Been rotating him lately as he's knackered and can't play weekend-midweek-weekend. Kind of got backed into a corner and ended up having to promise him more game time even though I tried to convince him things would be ok at first.

Does it count if I start him and sub him off at half time? No real difference to the team between him playing 45 minutes then his backup 45 for a few matches in a row and him playing 75-90 one match then his backup the same the next game. Between them they'd both be on the pitch for 90 minutes every 2 games.

If it keeps him happy I'll do that.

Dominated League Two, promoted wih 7 games remaining. Now for the title! 12 points needed at the very most, 11 when taking GD into account. 5 or 6 may well be enough.

Solius said:

Is their badge two lions having a slapping match?

Click to expand...

A loving embrace

Solius said:

Is their badge two lions having a slapping match?

Click to expand...

Not sure what the blue creature is, might be a seahorse but it kind of looks part-dragon too.

If it's just a seahorse my money is firmly on the lion.

What have they done to the match engine Can't score for toffee since the update.

Found a free agent called Hollman McCormick, a Colombian-Irish striker. Can't decide if I want to sign him or not. Part of the appeal is that he sounds like an old-school FM newgen with an atypical background, but he's actually real.

He only wants to be back up, and that's what he'd be if I offered a contract now, it's late March in-game. Would currently be our best paid player if giving him what he wants but budgets are going up so the finances of the deal wouldn't be too bad. He wouldn't need a work-permit due to him being part Irish.

I don't know if I'd end up finding multiple striker options better than him over the summer once more players get released at the end of their contracts and do have some doubts over him. Good enough key attributes for a backup advanced forward in League One I reckon, but not much of an all-around player at all. He's quite limited.

It's not too important as AF's don't score many headers but I do like my entire team to be able to jump a bit better than he can as well. Goalies are instructed to roll it out but they still boot it sometimes.He's not going to be winning us posession very often the times they do and that can put us under pressure. Mind you, our current backup in that position in on loan can't jump either!

Smithy89 said:

What have they done to the match engine Can't score for toffee since the update.

Click to expand...

You know what, I've been struggling for goals so much the last few days and haven't been able to figure out why. This would be the only explanation!