In my last post, I wrote about how my Manchester United career started and explained how I was taking my tactics away from the fashionable Gegenpress to try and take more control over my matches on a new match engine.
I am now up to the 2021/22 season so I’ve had two seasons to try to strengthen the squad and also cut the deadwood, so in this article, I’m going to tell you about my top buys in the transfer market.
My best buys in ascending order:
6. Ivan Petryak – 18/7/2020 – £2m
I signed Petryak from Fehervar FC because he had good attributes for a winger and I thought I could get him for a good price. He only cost me £2m, and although he only made six appearances for us, I managed to sell him for £16.5m to America in Mexico.
5. Calvin Stengs – 9/6/2021 – £56m
He wasn’t exactly cheap but when I saw this young winger with such impressive, well-rounded attributes, I couldn’t resist making a big bid for him. He’s still only 22 and yet he has very few weaknesses, and I hope he’ll improve still. He’s already scored six goals for the Holland senior team, scored four goals and got six assists in the Premier League, and his value has risen to £63m.
4. Dani Olmo – 1/1/2020 – £20.5m
Olmo was an absolute bargain for me. If you’ve gamed the FM transfer market before, you’ll know Dinamo Zagreb are a hotbed of cheap talent, and I managed to get Olmo for half the price he would have cost from a Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, or English, etc team.
He reminds me of Paul Scholes and plays in a similar way, scoring goals and making assists. And, as you can see, he’s now worth £63m.
3. Matheus Henrique – 1/1/2021 – £10m (£22m)
The next signing was somewhat random. I believe I received a scout report on Henrique – I’d never heard of him – and my scout was impressed and so was I. He cost me £10m up front with £12m more if he made 50 appearances. After less than a year at Manchester United, he’s valued at £52m and he’s put in some fantastic displays. He scored five goals and laid on five assists in his first season, with an average rating of 7.63. Bargain!
2. Alex Telles – 9/6/2020 – £29.5m
I love Telles as a player in real life and he was my top target to replace the not very good Luke Shaw. I had also managed him before on FM when I was at Porto, so I knew how good he was. He hasn’t let me down and he’s always one of the first names on the team sheet. Considering how reliable he has been, he was well worth the money.
1. Daniele Rugani – 10/6/2020 – £13.75m
Rugani has been an ever-present in my team since I signed him and he has never had a bad game. Now I think about it, I wonder if it’s actually a bug – how can a defender be so reliable?
Have a look at all of my signings since my career at Man United started:
As you can see, in the 2020/21 season I made a lot of signings (12) for a lot of money (£275m). But I still made a profit on player transfers, thanks to selling Paul Pogba for £164m. This year (2021/22), I’ve a net transfer spend of only £7m thanks in part to the sale of Alexis Sanchez to Norwich for £31.5m, and Chris Smalling to Bologna for £20m.
In the near future, I plan to sell Donny van de Beek, Scott McTominay, Harry Maguire, Axel Tuanzebe, Victor Tsygankov, Marco Asensio, Mikael Cuisance, and potentially Aaron Wan-Bissaka. None of these players have performed horribly but they’ve certainly not been outstanding, and more importantly they haven’t shown me that they fit into my play style. Van de Beek isn’t particularly great at defending or going forward, nor is he my best passer or best dribbler, and he’s not very fast. What’s more, he’s never had very high ratings. Maguire is slow and he’s been caught out by the over-the-top through balls ‘bug’ in FM20. Plus, he’s not that good on the ball and you need pace as a defender these days.
The rest have also struggled to convince me that they’re the best or second-best option for their position. Wan-Bissaka isn’t great going forward and he hasn’t looked as good as Diogo Dalot in defence either, so I don’t think I can keep him.
The Method Behind My Madness
Whenever I buy or sell a player, I always consider if it’s a good long-term business deal for the club. When I consider buying a player, I ask myself the following:
- Do we need him?
- Is he good value for money?
- Will he become more or less valuable over time?
- Can we afford him?
I try to avoid agreeing any sell-on clauses, unless I know I’m getting a good deal for a player, or I am sure they are going to help us win silverware. And sometimes I buy talented, young players knowing that if it doesn’t work out at our club, at least I can sell them on for a profit or, in a worst case scenario, break even.
The main objective is always to improve the squad by adding something we’re missing, replacing a current player with a better option, or bringing in a back-up/future starter.
Some players have inflated values, because they have a big reputation, or maybe they have reached a high current ability at a young age. But no matter how good a player is, there is almost always another equally good option out there.
That’s all for now. Keep an eye on my Twitter – fmscrapbook – and the blog for updates.
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