He was unhappy and at the minute, he wasn't going to get first team football. I thought £7.5million was a good enough offer, so took the money. I also needed the money to fund other transfers.

I looked into getting him a loan, but he rejected a few different clubs saying he didn't want to go there (Championship clubs), so i didn't want him to upset the harmony of the team.

I wanted a challenge as a lower league English club, so I started a game as Carlisle United. They have a decent squad that I can build on over the years. I'll update on my progress.

Now underway in my 2nd season with Wigan. Got lucky at the end of last season. The final table ended up

16th Wigan 34
17th Birmingham 32
18th Fulham 31

My last game been away at Birmingham. The final day having started with myself and Fulham on 31 points and Brum 32. A come from behind 3-2 victory saved me. New season has been ridiculously hard with my 1st 4 fixtures been Villa away, Liverpool home, Spurs away and Man City home. Should of taken at least a point out of the Villa and Liverpool games.

Lineup is:
GK: Kirkland
LB: Figueroa
RB: Boyce
CB: Bramble
CB: Jorgensen
LM: Kalou
RM: Oscar - Very exciting youngster from Sao Paulo who is mainly a Central player but i'm trying to give him game time
CM: Sokolowski
CM: Smiljanic
CF: Kikin Fonseca - 750k and was signing of the season last season
CF: Nordstrand

Subs
Pollitt
Pitbull
Poulsen
Mark Wilson
Rodallega
Watson
Sibaya

Others of note

Vingaard
Steven Cohen - bargain at 65k from Israel. Can do a job though he is nothing special

Take a look at the players and get back to me on your thoughts. They are the best i have been able to get in on my limited budget. Scharner went for £4mil and N'Zogbia £9.75mil as they were both unhappy/out of contract at seasons end. To follow up on the other guy who did a Wigan game it's been the same for me. As soon as anyone shows interest in one of my players they become unhappy and want to leave, whether its a bigger club or not

I've never changed anyone PPM's unless they are obvious ones that have been annoying me, like telling Senderos to stop trying to dribble out of defense.

I had both Hazard and Jovetic for a spell. Hazard just did nothing. He played 32 games with an average rating of 6.68 and little in the way of assists or goals. Jovetic has now played 52 games in total and has 31 goals and an average rating of around 7.6 over two seasons. He just seems to drift in from the touchline and rattle them or play Rooney in for a tap in. I haven't found a right sided player to match him, I have a young lad called Gustavo Jerez whos a wonderkid, but he's not consistent and I'm not sure if he's a regen or not.

With Jovetic/Hazard it could be the variable potential thing again? Or perhaps the mental stats like consistency are variable? I dunno.

I set my expectations as "Consolidate" at the beginning of the season, but looking at the squad I've assembled I reckon I can push for the top half at least, maybe even the play-offs.

Carlisle United :

1. Lars Stubhaug (Free)
40. Lenny Pidgeley

2. Tony Kane
3. Ian Harte
4. Godwin Antwi (Free)
5. Danny Livesey
6. Dejan Stefanovic (Free)
21. Richard Keogh
26. Chris Smalling (Loan from Fulham)

7. Joe Anyinsah
8. Graham Kavanagh
11. Paul Thirlwell
12. Tom Taiwo
19. Danny Rose (Loan from Spurs)
24. Kevan Hurst
44. Gael Kakuta (Loan from Chelsea)

9. Scott Dobie
10. Richard Offiong
16. Vincent Pericard
17. Michael Mifsud (Free)

Both Jovetic and Hazard have fixed PA's, with Jovetic's being slightly higher. I dunno, I varied with Jovetic a bit, I played him up front for a spell and he done well, but after a bit, he was poor so I thought I'd stick him in his natural position. I played him as an inside forward for a few months, but still he done nothing, so I tried to change his wide play to 'moves into channels' like his PPM, but still, nothing. During this time, whenever he was rested, Hazard was ripping into pretty much everyone. Assists, goals and bags of skill every game. Got him learning off Zhirkov to give him a determination boost, I think he's class. I've considered using Hazard in midfield, he's not the best defensively but his physical stats are excellent and he could easily be a quality advanced playmaker.

Not all players reach their potential on FM. Perhaps I just hadn't put enough work in with Hazard wheresa Jovetic who I had learning from Arshavin just impressed from the off.

Apparantely the 10.3 patch is out tomorrow. So tomorrow night my Wigan game will commence.

Really? End of Feb/early March according to SI games forum.

Fair enough, I saw it on a NeoSeeker forum, must have been wrong.

To go with my Manchester United game I've started off a game as Genoa, any ideas on who to sign ?

How do you stop weaker teams beating you? It's got me right at the edge of the 'uninstall and ignore for a year' point.

I'm Arsenal and have a decent team, easily capable of winning the league. But teams like Sunderland, Stoke, Blackburn, Hull, West Brom etc that aren't anyway near as good as me ALWAYS beat me and in the most ridiculous circumstances.

I've just turned it off, losing 3 months of in game time. I was 3-0 at home to Stoke after 83 minutes. I minimised it to respond to MSN messages, only to flick back to see Arsenal 3 - 4 Stoke. Scored after 84, 87, 89 and 93 minutes to win the game, 4 shots on goal in total, 0 clear chances.

At 3-0 up I had 'retain possession' set and was using 'counter'. I've looked at the replays and two of the goals were the same ridiculous passes into the strikers and them scoring off the rebounds and the other two were 35 yard screamers from players with very low 'long shot' attributes.

FM is a good game, but every version and every patch has a new 'buzz topic'. This time I feel it's complacency against smaller sides, which IMO they are using as a way to hold back better sides and prevent any 'super tactics'. They just go way, way too far with things, it's far too extreme. Too many goals, too many long shots going in, too many one on one chances, too many missed one on ones, too few penalty misses/saves.

Feel ya pain. My team is fond of getting a 2-0 lead early then having it thrown away by the 70th minute. Doesn't matter what i do with tactics etc the opposition find a way to get back into it then go ahead early in the 2nd half. Also has Fernando Torres ever missed a chance? I know he's good but he's just plain ridiculous on mine. Standard game against Liverpool involves me losing 3-0/3-1 with Torres having 3 chances and putting em all away.

When I've played with Torres, he regularly missed 5 chances a game

Finished the season 5th on 80 points (How daft is that?). Bizarrely my board confidence level having missed out on the Champions League is better than it was having won the league the previous season.

I must admit that the club is in a complete mess. I finished the season with only 3 defenders after Sagna retired at 31 and Senderos refused to turn up for training. Sold him to Inter for £18m but wasn't allowed any transfer funds.

I sold players worth £148m in the last 12 months, buying only Rooney for £28m-ish. (47 goals in 45 games). The previous season I made a profit of £57m and £12m in my first season there. Current season, somehow, the club has made a £87m loss,despite me being well within the wage budget, and has enormous debt. No transfer funds for the new season and no available wages to sign freebies either.

Denilson at centre back and Fabregas at right back again then. Unless I go 3-5-2

Things are looking good for me at Tottenham at the minute. I set my expectations at the start of the season to compete for the league title, and i am definatly doing that. I am currently sitting 3 points at the top of the league after 27 games. However, Chelsea and United both have 2 games in hand (Chelsea are 3 points behind and United are 6 points behind). I have also played both those sides recently so will not have to play them again. I play Liverpool shortly and Arsenal a few games after that, so once there out the way i should have a fairly decent run in till the end of the season. I am confident that we can win the league.

As for other competitions, we was knocked out the league cup fairly early to Chelsea, losing 1-0, but i wasn't too bothered as i rested several players and played some hot prospects and youngsters. Currently set to play Birmingham in the 5th round of the FA Cup (who are in the Championship), so that should be a win and a chance to play some quality youngsters. I also topped my Champions League group and play Genoa in the first knock-out round, which i am confident of winning. The January window has just passed and i didn't make many changes to my squad, despite players like Modric becoming unhappy due to wanting a bigger club. I did offer him out for £30million, but i wanted the money upfront and Barcelona wouldn't offer it, so we will see what happens in the summer but it isn't looking likely he will stay for next season. I also sold Diarra as he wasn't needed. I brought in Van der Vaart on a pretty cheap loan with the option to buy for £3.3million (basically because i expected Modric to leave), but he will add some depth with me still being in several competitions.

Roma offered me the job and £12,500,000 to spend in the middle of the January transfer window but they was sitting in 16th place in Italy so i decided against it. There was no reason for me to leave Tottenham at the minute and i've built my own squad and i brought in about 5 or 6 hot prospects who are starting to show signs of becoming world class players so it would have been a shame to leave after building a very, very good squad that is only going to get better.

In the 2012-2013 season with Stoke now.

09 - 17th
10 - 11th
11 - 8th

Obvious improvement for me so far, after 6 games this year i'm top with 6 wins. [Man City, Newcastle, Tottenham, Blackburn, Liverpool, Wigan and beat Coventry in the CC.

My team is pretty damn good i'd say

GK 1. Sergio Romero

RB 2. Jesus Gamez
LB 23. Christian Ansaldi
RCB 17. Ryan Shawcross [HG
LCB 3. Mamadou Sakho

RW 14. Aaron Lennon
LW 7. Frank Ribery
RCM 25. Steven Defour
LCM 11. Ibrahim Affelay

RCF 10. Mirko Vucinic
LCF 8. Marouane Chamakh

Bench:
GK 13. Mickael Landreau
CB 16. Gabriel Milito
MF 15. Renato Augusto
AMC 19. Marco Verratti [HG
FW 18. Romelu Lukaku
FW 9. Yannis Tafer [HG
MF 27. James Rodriguez

Also in my squad:

CB 4. Robert Huth
MC 12. Matt James
FW 21. Artem Milevskyi

Regens

right i am England U21s manager, named my 26 man squad for the qualifiers. I've come to play Slovakia and i cant field a team of more than 10 due to the remainder being ineligable. I cant add/remove players to my squad. What can i do?

Go on holiday? Leave?

Cant resign cos its a match day same with holiday!

You can go on holiday at any point, I thought.

It wont let me do anything. Cant continue cos i cant play a team. I'd happily take a 3-0 defeat for a forefit

Sussed it, went on holiday by the manager menu. Lost 2-3 in the end.

I didn't even know you could manage the U21s. I always thought it was odd that it kept telling me that Venezuela were looking for an Under 21s coach.

Aye i applied for the England job when Capello got sacked in 2012, but Psycho got promoted and made me U21s gaffer. Got a great team!