Season 1: Preseason

Hey,

The first two seasons of my story will not go into huge amounts of detail as i have completed them already and it is not until now (i am just starting my third season) that i decided to write a story.

Here we go, my Football Manager 2012 career is officially starting! As you know I chose Middlesbrough as the starting point for my career, the reasons are explained in the previous post.

As you know the board expect me to steer the club towards promotion, i think this is an achievable goal as the squad is actually quite good although it is lacking in key areas. 

On to the transfers now. Nothing spectacular to be honest, mostly due to the lack of funds but also because of the scouting restrictions. I am only allowed to send my scouts in Europe and with attribute masking enabled finding good players at cheap prices is a pretty tough task at the moment. I also only want to sign the very best and the clubs low reputation has hindered that.

Apologies for the lack of screens of player stats but as mentioned earlier, i am way ahead of this time period in my career. 

The signings that i made are, I think, very good. Ahmed Soukouna is the pick of the bunch. At 21 he is a prospect for the future and to get on a free transfer is just an added bonus. Rivaldo is very old but adds huge amounts of quality to the side, he won't be playing much but should be able to fill in when needed. Stuart Parnaby was signed as cover for my defence. I also secured Pogba and Morrison on loan from Manchester United which will give me more cover in midfield and on the wing respectively. Varga is good winger who is a little older than i would have liked but is never the less, quite good. Pulido is a young spanish defender who will be taking the place of the departing McManus. The rest of my signings are young players i hope will either grow into something special or can be sold for a juicy profit later in the game.

The selling i had in mind did not go to plan. Nobody seemed to want to buy my players so the squad overhaul i had in mind didn't really come to pass. The 2M i got for McManus was a very good deal. To reduce the wage bill, and to give them some first team football, i sent a few young prospects out on loan.

I will be playing with two main tactics. The first is a 4-5-1 that is based on how Arsenal play:

This can be downloaded here: http://www.footballmanagerstory.com/2011/10/football-manager-2012-arsenal-tactic-play-the-passing-game/

The other is a 4-3-3 that is designed to replicate Barcelona:

This can be downloaded here: http://www.footballmanagerstory.com/2011/10/download-barcelona-tactic-for-fm-2012/

I used the preseason friendlies to experiment with players and formations, tweaking my line up and tactics to best suit my team. Overall i was very pleased with the result; 7 wins from 8 with the only defeat coming at the hands of Lyon who are a quality side. I was pleased with the way my team played against Lyon and was, in the end, disappointed we didn't get a result. At this stage, i can't fault the players' efforts or determination.

That's it for this update and I’m looking forward to getting the regular season started. Once again, Your comments are always welcome. If you want any screenshot and have any questions, I’ll answer the questions and post the screenshot in the next post.

Thanks,

Atokous