The Rookies Guide to Clinching a Deal

In a new series of guides, Blog FM will offer assistance to those new, struggling and/or desperate managers who need a little help with some of Football Manager 2007’s various features and areas. While hardly revolutionary, the articles are part of the revamped Blog FM (2.0) and are aimed at the many visitors who find our website through search engines while looking for Football Manager related help. Part one, a guide to securing the signatures of your target players, is online now.

Pushing the Board: Part Four

Previously we examined the Premiership teams in our Pushing the Board guides, a series of articles looking at how much money you can get from your board by asking nicely. Today we turn our attention to the Championship, and look at how you can swindle some extra cash for your club.

Takeover Takeaway: Part One

Over the Christmas period, someone posted a comment using the super-duper new chat box saying that we should do a feature that looks in more detail at the clubs who suffer and enjoy a board takeover during the course of a Football Manager game. And you know? We bloody well did do that, didn’t we!?

Pushing the Board: Part Three

Our third, and final part of the Pushing the Board guide today takes a look at those last eight remaining clubs we have yet to feature. If you haven’t already done so, check our parts One and Two.

Newcastle United - Wigan Athletic

Newcastle United

Newcastle United have always struck me as being a highly ambitious club, with the fans expecting some success. Yet the big name signings of the past (most of them, incidentally, turning out to be right Damien Duffers) brought little success and seem to have emptied the coffers – at the start you have a laughable £159, 352 to use. That’s right – as ShakeinStevenSpeare himself would say, ” ’tis not enough for thou’st bigg’st names”. So I stormed into Freddy Shepherds office, did a bit of way-aying, and was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no increase. Not one to give up, it took three attempts and three ultimatums before I was sent on my way.
Budget: £159,352
Three asks and three ultimatums: None, sacked

Portsmouth

Pompey are a fantastic team to manage in my opinion this season. With the board expecting a relegation battle, you have almost £20m on arrival to spend – more than most of the teams in the league, as we’ve seen. However, the board obviously feel that this is a fantastic sum themselves – one request and one ultimatum results in a straight sacking. Greed – what is it good for?
Budget: £19.7m
First Ask: None
Ultimatum: None, sacked

Reading

Ah, good old Reading. I’m not a fan of them, mind, but they are the current team I’m playing as on FM. Your given a competitive £5m on arrival. It took two requests and two ultimatums to get that increased to £8.25m – but with the club sitting on just £1.8m balance, spending all that will put you in some serious financial trouble.
Budget: £5m
First Ask: None
Ultimatum: None
Second Ask: None
Second Ultimatum: Increased to £8.25

Sheffield United

After Neil Warnock spent £1039m in the last year on new strikers, (okay, slightly silly, but there are TEN strikers in the squad, including reserves!) you have just £2m to splash out on new players. After three requests and three ultimatums, the board must have buckled under the strain of my faxes, and increased the budget to £5.350m
Budget: £2m
After three asks and three ultimatums: Increased to £5.350m

Tottenham Hotspur

Spurs have a nice £14.1m on offer at the start of the game, but don’t push your luck, as you’ll be out on your bum before you can say Amstrad computers. One request and one ultimatum, and it was game over for me.
Budget: £14.1m
First ask: None
First Ultimatum: Sacked

Watford

£3m is given to you on arrival, despite the club being in dept to tune of £1m. Can I really expect more money to be made available? Apparently, yes. After a first ultimatum, the budget is improved to £6.25m – but could that money not have been spent getting the club out of debt?!
Budget: £3m
First Ask: None
First Ultimatum: Increased to £6.25

West Ham United

I’ve decided to do this one pre-takeover, as I know a few people like to play the game as it would be from the start of the season. With just £1.8m to spend, you don’t have that much in your pocket. The board seemingly agrees – one request is all it takes to get that figure increased to a nice £6.4m
Budget: £1.8m
First Ask: Granted: now £6.4m

Wigan Athletic

Dave Whelan must be selling a lot of trainers! With £5m to spend at the start, you’re hardly scraping around for coppers. One request and ultimatum later sees the figure rise to £8.75m – presumably a few more Reebok’s were sold in that time.
Budget: £5m
First Ask: None
Ultimatum: £8.75m

And that, my greedy friends, concludes the guide – for now. In the new year, keep your eyes peeled as we may take a look elsewhere, along with our undercover equipment as we find out just how much money your board is keeping from you! Think we should go somewhere in particular? Leave a comment!

Pushing the Board: Part Two

The other day we brought you the first part of our Pushing the Board guide, looking at how you can get a little bit more money from your chairman, depending on which club you are. Today we continue the guide, taking in six more Premiership clubs.

Pushing the Board: Part One

YOU CAN NOW READ THE FULL GUIDE ON THE NEW LOOK BLOG FM

Imagine the scene: after being welcomed into your brand new managerial position, with the fans still in awe at the name the club has managed to attract to take them to future glories, you settle down for a talk with your chairman. “Oh, by the way,” he says, “I forgot to mention. While we do want you to win the league this season, I’m afraid we can only offer you *cough* £1m to spend…”. So what do you do? Risk your job by demanding more money, or shut up and try your best with what you’ve got? Of course, it all depends on the club your managing and the type of chairman you have – so Blog FM risked the wrath of the twenty Premiership chairman in an undercover investigation to fight your corner and earn some more transfer funds.

The Premiership: Arsenal

This is the second part of our Club Guides: The Premiership section. In these articles, each club will be reviewed more indepth, giving you an overall view of the players available, finances and general information regarding each club. In order to give a more effective description, I have started a season with each of these teams and are using this as the basis for the guides. With twenty teams to cover, it is impossible to play a full season with each unless I cancel my life, so I have played a few months of action only. With this in mind please note that your experiences with each club may be slightly different. Depending on your version of the game and whether or not you have edited any teams, some facts may be inaccurate. This part looks at the first (in terms of the Alphabet) club in the Premiership: Arsenal.

The Club Guides: The Premiership

The finest league in the world? We think so – but then again, we are English. The English F.A Premier League. The Premiership. The Top League. Old Old Division One. Whatever you want to call it, The Premiership offers a wide variety of challenges for the new and old gamer.