Breaking the Habit - A Man United rebuild

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
Impressive wage reduction. I am curious, though, as to how all this fits in with the objectives set by the game, and whether you can meet them; and of course what that will do to your employment status come the end of the season...

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That's a pretty good question! And the answer is that I removed some of the highest rated players from squad before I started up the game. And some I knew would leave anyway. Casemiro, Varane, Rashford, Bruno Fernandes, Sancho and van de Beek. So in stead of being handed a "win the league" objective, the expectation for me is now a place in the top 4. I'm not sure if I'll manage that either, but at least it's a more lenient approach.

I'm not too worried about employment status anymore. The cup objective is one I'm cautious about, but apart from that I haven't found it hard to stay employed. I've also missed cup objectives without any fuzz. The only time it troubled me, was when I exited the competition rather early, so the game had MONTHS to reduce my manager rating, which eventually pushed it down below 50. So I'm careful with early cup exits, trying hard to avoid these (FA Cup in this case).

I think I'll be all right, even if I don't make it into top 4. But I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Very interesting idea to approach. Man United can certainly use a clean out and a fresh start. Bruno was surprising but I actually like moving him. His attitude is not a leader attitude imo..

United could use a few years of playing youth and younger guys to freshen things up..

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@Stlducks4 wrote:

Very interesting idea to approach. Man United can certainly use a clean out and a fresh start. Bruno was surprising but I actually like moving him. His attitude is not a leader attitude imo..

United could use a few years of playing youth and younger guys to freshen things up..

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Thanks. I agree with Bruno, by the way. To be fair, there are different ways to be a captain, some being louder than others e.g., and he does have some characteristics that would usually suit well for a captain. He runs the most, players every minute of every game, and he often steps up at the most important times. But then there is the other side... And no, him being captain has to be the best of a lot of bad options for this role.

Summary of August results:

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
You know, I keep saying to my brother-in-law that ten Hag should switch the wingers round, and stop this inverted nonsense, especially with the players we have (such as Antony).
I know it's the fashion to have the wingers cutting in, but if you keep doing it and getting the same non-result, shouldn't you try something different?
Your experiences with him show how right that aproach could be, even if it is just in a console game 🙂

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Haha, yes as I wrote in another thread, I could actually see him being useful in the left, though perhaps not as great as he's been so far in this save. But on the right wing, no. He does have a great shot to the far corner, once he comes in from the right, I'll give him that. But after a few early successes, he's been read by every defence since, and his success rate has fallen drastically, even though he still tries to make these near impossible shots. I don't expect he would become world class on the left or anything, or live of to his gigantic price tag. But I could definitely see improvements to his game with such a change.

In regards to other wingers in the team, I was reluctant to see Garnacho in the right side. I saw him as a true left winger, who was often lethal, when cutting in from the left. But the last few games with him on the right wing (IRL) has convinced me that he should play in the right from now on. Which has otherwise been a problem position for years.

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
On the subject of Hojlund, I don't know what your experience of him has been in your career save so far, but in my United save he's not that good. He seems to lose the ball too easily and his shooting (mine, to some extent, I suppose!) isn't that accurate, either. He's another IRL that United paid well over the odds for, in my opinion.

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I haven't played him very much so far. I saw he had an 89 Potential in the game, and I feel it's way too much for him. I think he'll improve IRL, and I also think he's played better than his goal contributions suggest. But 89 potential, that's too much IMO. So I'm trying to play him as little as possible in the first season, in order for his potential to perhaps drop a bit and be more realistic in the seasons to come.

Good to see Eriksen performing! He was one of my favorite's at Spurs and he has such a great story now after what happened to him. I do think he's a weird fit at United though, he does not seem like a player for their style but happy to see him doing well for you.

Stuttering start to the season in the league, possibly to have been expected with quite the overhaul over the summer. Like the individual player reports. It's something I kept meaning to add to my updates before focusing on 1 player etc 

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@Stlducks4 wrote:

Good to see Eriksen performing! He was one of my favorite's at Spurs and he has such a great story now after what happened to him. I do think he's a weird fit at United though, he does not seem like a player for their style but happy to see him doing well for you.

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Weird fit, yes, I think I agree with that. As I also hinted before, I find him to be quite important in games, where United are dominant on the ball. He distributes the ball like no other in the current squad. But he often comes off being "too light" in the big games, and with more and more Premier League teams improving and knocking on the door to the top 4-6 (Aston Villa, Brighton, Newcastle etc.), I suppose we are only getting fewer of these "Eriksen games"...

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@thurlow885 wrote:

Stuttering start to the season in the league, possibly to have been expected with quite the overhaul over the summer. Like the individual player reports. It's something I kept meaning to add to my updates before focusing on 1 player etc 

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Thanks! Yes I'm trying to find the best way for me to summarize a run of games, to find the balance between writing information and not making it too dense, now that I play and write quite frequently. So my plan here is to bring the results and let the player evaluation be the text to go with it. Knowing well that I won't get every detail into the writeup... Glad you like the approach so far...

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
Even in their reduced state, United should be too good for the other teams in the UECL group.
Varied set of results in the premier league; again what is to be expected at this point.

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Thanks, yeah I do expect to win this group. It's certainly a step down from Champions League opponents. 

Judging from the images, I assume you still play the games yourself?...

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@Danimal5981 wrote:

Judging from the images, I assume you still play the games yourself?...

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Yes, I do. I'm still mostly involved in the Rangers career, but jump over here from time to time to play a few games.

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@CO88LER5 wrote:
Unable to score....sounds familiar.
Any academy strikers to promote and give a chance to, perhaps?

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I haven't found any myself so far, but there is one striker, a Portuguese fellow, who was the only one I kept from the academy, when I started. I didn't like the others, so I set them free.

I think it's way too soon for the Portuguese though, his OVR is really poor, so I need him to improve, before I'll give him a chance. Next season perhaps. I also play Mainoo and Garnacho quite regularly, so swarming the squad with more academy players are also not in my plans at this point.

Strange to say the table looks realistic with United and Chelsea in the middle. Scoring is a big issue so far. Any changes to the formation coming?

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@Stlducks4 wrote:

Strange to say the table looks realistic with United and Chelsea in the middle. Scoring is a big issue so far. Any changes to the formation coming?

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Yes, I noticed Chelsea too. Quite realistic actually. Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool in top 3 is also quite similar to the current real life league standings, except Aston Villa pushing Arsenal down to 4th IRL. I could be inclined to switch up a few things in regards to the formation. In my Rangers setup I have tweeked the formation to a back 4, a midfield with a CDM, RCM, LAM and a forward three with a RM/RW, a LF and a ST. It creates a lot of these "diagonals", which @Danimal5981 spoke of earlier, and it's worked wonders for me. I could try to recreate that here, though with the players at my disposal I'd probably try to reverse it, with a CDM, LCM, RAM, LM, RF and ST.