The Higher Tempo Press
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Bye Bye Africa
This might just be the final time I will be writing something about Africa.. you’ll get to know more below. Transfers Like any other season transfers to the football club were apparent. This year I really did want to get out of this mess in South Africa. Hence I did buy a whole lot of […]
Back to the drawing board 2.7
The fact that Israel’s Toto Cup, played at the beginning of the season, permits the selection of foreign triallists has given me an opportunity to assess two Argentinian left-sided centre-backs – Barrena and Palacio. I’m expecting to sign one of them, for Hapoel Ashkelon. I alternated the two, giving them two matches each. Palacio’s main […]
Episode 18 Part 3
Transfers: Massimo Bruno: Whilst not being a usual signing for us (being 28), Bruno looks an ideal fit for our team, he’s home-grown (which we’re struggling with) and is versatile, being able to play attacking midfield or on the wing. I also think he’d make a good back-up striker although we have plenty of options […]
Blades of Glory 23
Sheffield United | Blades of Glory #23 | Derby Disaster | Let’s Play Football Manager 2017 Welcome to Episode 23 of my Sheffield United FM17 Save. Today we take on Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship. After losing the Sheffield Derby earlier in the season can we claim back the bragging rights from our local rivals? […]
Duel in Little Argentina 2.6
This season, my second in charge of Hapoel Ashkelon FC, I don’t need my assistant, Seb Rozental, to alert me to the rule that permits you to play foreign triallists in the Premier League Toto Cup. I intend to do just that. I have two lads over from Argentina – the club is known as […]
Title run in at the Double? 1.6
Welcome back to the 6th and final instalment of our first season in charge of Dundee United. It’s only March but I’ve taken the decision to rattle through the rest of the season, I hope you enjoy the ride. Youth Candidate Day comes and goes without much to write home about, except for a young […]
The Bundesliga Tale 5.1
A Kolnoscopy Challenge The Bundesliga Tale: Season 5: 1 Extract from the Managers diary: ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, where are you Gary? I miss you.’ The beer slides down the back of my throat with ease. Wonderful this stuff, I thought. Tasty and good quality. None of that rat poison they serve back […]
I’ve messed up
There’s no easy way to post things like this, but I felt that everyone should know. THE ALPHABET CHALLENGE IS NO MORE 🙁 🙁 🙁 I haven’t quit it, no, I loved that save. I was having so much fun playing it and was hitting a FM groove that I hadn’t experienced before in my […]
Youri Tielemans
Youri Tielemans is a player that all Football Manager players will have heard of and been talking about for years. He starts off at Anderlect and has in the past become an absolute amazing player! Is that still the case or can his lack of physical stats hinder him? In this player profile we take […]
Thank you, Mourinho 2.5
On the day before Hapoel Ashkelon FC’s season’s opener, I make a signing that has me punch the air in jubilation. Given that I’ve already brought in 8 new players, you might wonder why I need to sign a 9th. But this signing isn’t a player. The board have increased the number of physios permitted. […]
Gaze into Your Crystal Ball
Gaze into Your Crystal Ball How Youth Intake Can Dictate Your Squad’s Evolution To follow me on social media, check out my profile at the end of this post and to see what else I have written click on my name. It is important that over time, a manager does not become predictable. If one […]
Transfer Special Part 13
It was Harold Wilson who said a week is a long time in politics. I’m sure, had he ever tried to reshape an entire football club in four weeks, he’d say that in football, a month goes by bloody quickly and it’s a mad slog to get anything done. Although, perhaps he’d have been a […]
A Tactical Crusade Episode 4
We’re back from pre-season and ready to roll into the glory that is the Premier League, before all that I have to take part in a pre-match press conference. I don’t get nervous very often but when there’s a spotlight on you and journalists and pundits are throwing questions at you left right and centre […]
To The Promised Land 2.4
Israel’s senior football season opens with the Premier League Toto Cup. Hapoel Ashkelon FC has drawn a tough group. I would have liked an easy opening match to give our legion of new players a chance to bed in. But the fates didn’t have that in line for us. No, instead the team we faced […]
First Trophy!
Last time out you saw me taking over at Kaizer Chiefs, here in this blog post you will see how we actually got on in our first year. Transfers There were a few transfers but they were for the sake of getting the team that I wanted and the kind of players I would have needed […]
Blades of Glory 22
Sheffield United | Blades of Glory #22 | 6 Pointer | Let’s Play Football Manager 2017 Welcome to Episode 22 of my Sheffield United FM17 save. Today we take on Brighton in the Championship and with the teams so close in the table this is certain a most win and definitely a not lose game. […]
Franck Kessie
Welcome to the Franck Kessie player profile. Franck Kessie has been linked with top clubs in Europe and at the start of the game has come very good stats for his age. He likes to take shots from distance but also has the attributes to become a midfield destroyer. In this review we see which […]
The Kosovo Journey 2017 Pt. 2
July July begins with the news that the 2022 World Cup will not be hosted by Qatar and instead will be awarded to China. Take note for your travel plans Kosovans! We’re then presented with the announcement that our Assistant Manager Tord Grip will retire on Christmas Eve…this is not welcome news. Given the youth […]
To The Promised Land 2.3
Back in the spring I decided to renew the contract of Avi Nimni, the Head of Youth Development at Hapoel Ashkelon FC – the one remainder of the staff I inherited when I took. Well, I needn’t have bothered, since he’s been poached by Bnei Sakhnin. When I got wind of the offer, I told […]
Blades of Glory 21
Sheffield United | Blades of Glory #21 | Tykes Trouble | Let’s Play Football Manager 2017 Welcome to Episode 21 of my Sheffield United FM17 save. Today we take on Barnsley in the 4th Round of the FA Cup! Can we win in the local derby to book our place in the 5th Round? Join […]
To The Promised Land 2.2
I started the process of signing players for my second season at Hapoel Ashkelon FC well before the end of the first. I had some spare budget and I created more by gradually terminating players’ contracts by mutual consent. I like to get the bulk of my transfer business done early. A good deal of […]
Taste The Feeling Episode 18 Part 2
Transfers Only 2 players from last years successful season were sold, with striker Cerqueira getting sold to Atalanta for £6m (possibly rising to £8m), not a bad profit considering he only joined last summer (on a free transfer!). Souici also leaves for 150k. We bought him for 300k and got 2 good seasons out of […]
FM17 Who Would Win A European Super League?
The idea of a European Super League has been flirted with for a long time now. It is a concept that would see some of the best teams in Europe compete in one league to crown the best team on the continent. Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez, among others is a known supporter of the […]
To The Promised Land 2.1
FM has both a rational side and an emotional side. A harmless way to indulge the latter lies in the organisation of pre-season friendlies. My son, Simon, and I have both developed the habit of organising competitions – cups and leagues. During his long stint at York City, where he took negative football to inexcusable […]
A quiet transfer window?
We move into December and the month starts with a top of the table clash against Hibernian. We’re level on points, and as discussed in the last episode we’d been on a blistering run of form up until our loss to Morton. We stick with our usual 4231 formation coupled with an attacking mentality, and […]
A New Club
Well if you did read the previous blog post you could hint that we did have quite a good season we an average Ajax CT side. There I did say that if there was a job offer which would come about of a club which is in the upper fringes of South Africa. And boy […]
A Player Profile of Kelechi Iheanacho
Manchester City have said they want to produce top young talent in their youth system to one day enter the first team. Kelechi Iheanacho is a player who could reach that level he came onto the Premier League scene and scored some important goals for his club. In this player profile we take a look […]
Champions League Return
It’s been a while but it’s time to get my Liverpool save back into full flow. We return with a bumper episode with no less than six fixtures to look forward to. Also, we finally have Champions League football back at Anfield. Follow me on Twitter – @MarcusBanks7 – Visit my blog The Beautiful Game […]
CM9798 tackles FM17 | Part 7 | Don’t Look Back in Anger
Greetings! Welcome to the 7th and final part of my FM17 experiment. We’ve been through a lot together. We started in those care free December months, where things looked optimistic for a bit. Then as Santa came and went, so did that optimism, and before long I was at loggerheads with half the squad and […]
#FM17 | Emotional Engagement | 5 of 5 | The Role of Narrative
I knew a lot of people played FM. But until recently, when I began to explore the blogosphere, I had no idea how many people wrote about FM. Stories of saves are everywhere. What explains this fecundity? Does FM, like the University of East Anglia’s creative writing master’s, attract a particularly literary set – all […]
#FM17 | A Kolnoscopy Challenge | 4:2
A Kolnoscopy Challenge A Bundesliga Tale: Season 4: 2 Extract from the Managers diary: ‘How many Germans does it take to change a lightbulb?’ Valerien Ismael, the new french assistant manager smiles politely. ‘Nein.’ Valerien stares blankly. *Sigh* ‘I miss Garry.’ So, I entered into my new managers office on January 2nd with my new […]
#FM17 | Hull City | A Tactical Crusade | Episode 3
Being a Premier League manager is hard work, I’ve only been in the job just over a month and already I want to rip my hair out, I don’t understand how Arsene Wenger has done it for twenty years. Our pre-season has come and gone with differing results against an assortment of opponents, this is […]
#FM17 | Emotional Engagement | 4 of 5 | The Role of Decisions
In this mini-series of posts I’ve been exploring what factors account for the extraordinary ability of FM to engage managers’ emotions. This post examines the fourth of five factors, namely the role of decisions. The more that you as manager make decisions, the more emotionally engaged you will become. I don’t mean any old decisions. […]
#FM17 | Back in the USSR | Part 12
This is no time for a preamble. The push for promotion suffered a near fatal blow last time, but I won’t let that discourage us. If we keep pushing and the teams at the top have something cataclysmic happen to them then, mathematically, we can still do it. Illichivets come to visit, it’ll be a […]
#FM17 | International Management | The Kosovo Journey | 2017 Pt. 1
I’m going to vary the format slightly here to make sure the bits you definitely want to read are the most prominent…bear with me while I find the best way to update you! ====== Our competitive losses in 2016 were expected so it would be slightly harsh to say I was in any way disappointed. […]
Sheffield United | Blades of Glory #20 | Corner Turned | Let’s Play Football Manager 2017
Welcome to Episode 20 of my Sheffield United FM17 save. Today we take on Reading FC. Can we keep up a recent good run of form? Join me as we continue our adventure on Football Manager 2017 Hit the LIKE button for more Football Manager 2017 content! ✔ Remember to like & subscribe! And thank […]
#FM17 | Emotional Engagement | 3 of 5 | The Role of Pattern
In the evolution of our species, the role of pattern has been vital. Our survival would not have been possible without the ability to perceive patterns, and deviations from patterns, and the ability to produce them. That, for example, is how we make sense of our natural environment – from bush people in the Kalahari […]
#FM17 | The Islanders XVIII
OSU! We’re all about the J1 today and, for some weird reason, I am wishing this season away. ‘Why’s that?’ someone at the back just enquired. Well, we’re not going down, we’re not going to qualify for the ACL and I doubt we’ll get past FC Tokyo in the League Cup. It feels a little […]
#FM17 | Emotional Engagement | 2 of 5 | The Role of Character
The purpose of this mini-series, of which this post is the second of five, is to explore what it is about FM that engages the emotions of its managers. The first post considered the most obvious factor — enjoyment of success with a club. Here i consider a second factor, namely character. Character resides […]
#FM17 | Player Profile | Martin Odegaard
Martin Odegaard came out of nowhere and was so popular that Sports Interactive asked for his parents permission to add him into the game as he was under the age of 16. He has since secured a dream move to Real Madrid, made a few appearances for the first team and is currently out on […]
#FM17 | Predicting The Final Premier League Table
As it stands, Chelsea are on course to win their second Premier League table in three seasons after establishing a ten-point lead at the top of the table. The race for the finish in the top four is heating up with a number of teams in contention. Just one point separates fifth from second with […]
#FM17 | Football Manager and Emotional Engagement | 1 of 5 | The Role of Success
Some saves, you engage with. They arouse the emotions: excitement, hope, jubilation, even love (and the greatest of these is love) – but also the negative emotions, such as anger and frustration. Others saves leave you cold. They grind on without ever catching fire. You go through the motions, try the usual things — but […]
#FM17 | Taste The Feeling Episode 18 | Part 1 | Silkeborg
Transfers: Giambattista Stefanelli (loan): Rejoins Silkeborg after a season on loan in the Pro League. I really don’t get why this guy always performs so well, his stats don’t look fantastic but he’s always reliable and does a job fantastically in front of the defence – despite the low tackling attribute. Hasan Yakut (loan): Picked […]
Sheffield United | Blades of Glory #19 | Wasted Chances | Let’s Play Football Manager 2017
Sheffield United – Blades of Glory #19 | Wasted Chances | Let’s Play Football Manager 2017 Welcome to Episode 19 of my Sheffield United FM17 Save. Today we take on Bristol City. After our current run can we get ourselves upwardly mobile? Join me as we continue our adventure on Football Manager 2017 Hit the […]
#FM17 | Forward Asia | S3-3
On April 11th, 183 mad Laskar Wong Kito (a snappy nickname, I’m sure you’ll agree) fans joined us on our journey to Myanmar to take on Boxing Cake, aka Yadanarbon FC in the Confederations Cup. All the more mad as they could have just watched it on TV. Nevertheless, the team didn’t let down the […]
#FM17 | Hapoel Hope 1.66 | No end?
‘There is no end, to a good thing, oh no’ according to the first line of a song by Israel Vibration. Well, seasons come to an end — as has my first season at Hapeol Ashkelon FC. But then another season comes along. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his […]
#FM17 | How would Diego Simeone fare as Arsenal manager?
Once again the ‘Wenger Out’ campaign is in full flow. Some Arsenal supporters have become disillusioned with life under Arsene Wenger after another title challenge seemingly fell apart. Others believe Wenger deserves more respect for all he has achieved with the club. It is worrying for the Frenchman that the same flaws have appeared yet […]
#FM17 | The FM Sessions | 4 | Top of the Table Clash
The race to the Scottish Championship is heating up, and just like in real life they are only two real contenders aiming for the title and that much-sought after Scottish Premiership spot which comes with it. Thankfully we’re one of the two clubs in this dogfight, and we start this episode with our first bout […]
#FM17 | Back in the USSR | Part 11
In the film 3:10 to Yuma, Christain Bale agrees to hold the captured Russell Crowe who’s awaiting a train to go to court in Yuma. A battle of wills ensues as Crowe tries to psych out Bale. I mention this because it reminds me of our current predicament. Except, instead of the 3:10 to Yuma, […]
#FM17 | The Ultimate Journey | Overachievers
So after the introduction to the squad in the previous blog post here you’ll get to know how we actually faired in the season. This might be a longer post so stick along till the end! Transfers There were quite a few dealings in the transfer front. Though to be honest there were many more […]