Dang, it really has been over a month since I've played football manager. Slight withdrawals I might add, but nothing too serious.
k, I've played a couple of friendlies and have a ton of updates to do, so this is going to be a fairly lengthy post. You should also know that this will be a bit out of order since I can't remember when I did what. I could always look at the date of the pics, but I think that's asking too much...
So the Rio deal was turned down. I never understood this with fm. You reject a teams enquiry or offer and the next day you go back and offer the same player. Only for the opposing team to say they aren't looking for that type of player. What gives?
I have changed my stance on Rio. I am going to keep him and try to offload Vidic once again. I want to pair Rio with Pique.
So with that said, I offered Vidic to AC Milan. Unfortunately they didn't accept. I'll keep offering him to clubs, without slapping the "for sale" sign.
I did some comparisons of the strikers which I mentioned previously. Here they are:
I should point that Mika Aaritalo was not in my game. So I chose Vagner Love instead.
When I was looking into purchasing a striker I was primarily interested in high ratings for the following (URD, let me know if I was correct in doing so please):
Finishing
Heading
Off The Ball
Positioning
Balance
Jumping
Strength
Acceleration
With:
Techinque
First Touch
Penalty Taking
Concentration
Pace
Stamina
as secondary attributes. I'm sure this will be argued as to what attributes should be looked for when selecting a striker, but my mindset was for a striker who I could rely on to score without having to take a ton of shots.
So matching up Love with Iaquinta, the latters ratings are a bit more attractive than Love's. Love's wages, price tag and age work in his favour, but I could always juggle around salaries to make Iaquinta's work. One think that worked in Iaquinta's favour as well was his height. So I chose him for my next matchup. Against...
Benni McCarthy
This wasn't really a contest. Iaquinta has better attributes than Benni, is a lil younger and is taller. So again Iaquinta was chosen to now match up against...
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
Huntelaar seems to have less attractive attributes than Iaquinta. What is working in Huntelaar's favour is I know through my fm days what a talent he becomes. If I just started with fm and didn't know much about fm or football and was strictly going by attributes, the choice would be obvious. Since, this is not the case, here is the player I chose to add to United's strikeforce...
It's always nice when you attempt to unsettle a player, they play along. Here's Huntelaar's response.
I ended up putting in an offer for Huntelaar which was:
The media engine picks up steam...
Ajax cracks and accepts my bid. I'm surprised this happened for the 7.5 million upfront fee. I figured they would want more. Not complaining though.
Here's the contract I offered. Hopefully he accepts. Forgot to screencap how much he was making for Ajax (19k a week), but I gave him a decent raise and gave him some decent incentive bonuses. I'm hoping that by stating he is a rotational player, he doesn't get pissy. The process has gone smooth so far, I'm just waiting for the ball the drop. Fingers crossed.
I received my options for feeder teams. Here they are:
After reading through all the options, I decided to go with DC United. They had a healthy roster of active players I could get if I wanted and DC United is one of the more "prestigious" teams in MLS.
Adriano's loan deal was declined by Inter who stated that the intial offer was unacceptable. Look and see what happens several days after. It's funny how things work out.
Moving a bit to current players that have been enquired about. They are Carrick, Evra, Fletcher and Ronaldo.
Listed below are the offers I made for each player for the respective enquiring teams to accept.
Carrick
Evra
Fletcher
This transfer hurt because...
I'll try again when he gets healthy.
Ronaldo
[I thought Arsene enjoyed the kiddies. Breaking them in and all... :P]
Carrick and Fletcher were the only two that I'm serious about selling. If Barcelona bite and accept the offer for Evra, I'm going to need another left back.
I'll continue the rest of the update shortly.