I know i said that i would compete for the league this season, but no way did i expect to be top of the table after 31 games (on level points with Chelsea - 73). United are on 70 and after that the rest are miles behind so i definatly have a great chance of winning the league. I also play Inter in the Champions league quarter final. If you would have offered me this at the start of the season i would have snapped your hand of. I've signed Riquelme and Demba Ba on free's for next season, just to give me a bit of depth but also because one or two players look like they will be leaving and Ba offers me a bit of versatility and Riquelme offers experience and would also act as cover for Modric for a season and could be a great tutor for Verratti.

Well i managed to secure the league title, after a very close run in with Chelsea. Both finished on 90 points, but obviously i had the better goal difference so won it. I got beat by Inter in the quarters of the Champions league. I'm looking to make quite a few changes to my squad this season, and i feel i have too many players and the youngsters i signed in the first season are now looking ready to step up.

Half way through the transfer window before the new season:

IN:

Sniejder, Riquelme, Demba Ba and Zapata.

Out:

Bentley, Crouch, Verretti (Loan - with re-call), King (Despite him being constantly injured and the fans still moaned) Hutton, Palacios and dos Santos.

I don't think that is the end of my buisness this transfer window with a couple of players looking to move clubs, but i will have to see how things go.

9 games to go with Stoke, i'm 3rd in the table [2 behind Man City, 10 behind Arsenal and 11 ahead of Chelski and got Man City in the FA Cup Semis.

I might be taking Stoke to Europe.

How the hell have you got a squad like that together with Stoke - some serious money there, plus it's (no offence intended) Stoke.

Just finished my third season with Everton, finished 4th after 5th place finishes the previous two seasons.

I'll put the squad in later - when i've added a couple more players (and sold some by the looks of it)

With the transfer window now shut, my team looks like this:

Gomes

Srna
Zapata
Thiago Silva
Bassong

Sniejder
Moutinho/Veloso
Jovetic/Hazard

Modric

Keane/Pavleyechnko
Defoe/Kadlec

Subs:

Dawson
Rodwell
Moutinho/Veloso
Jovetic/Hazard
Gourcuff
Keane/Pavleyechnko
Defoe/Kadlec

Cudicini
Bale
Assou-Ekotto
Zucilini
Lennon
Demba Ba
Buonanotte
Riquelme

This means that i have also let Woodgate go for £8.5million, despite him being 31 and valued at £2.5million. Plenty of depth and quality.

Consortium's are your friend =D

Ended up coming in 2nd in the league, won the FA cup too.

Activity over summer:

Sold Shawcross & Verratti for good sums of money, gave me enough to bring in Zapata & Joe Mattock. Botha is now my #1 reserve midfielder after impressing hugely in preseason.

Looking to challenge for title again this year.

I'm on the up with Arsenal. Finished 3rd after taking over in 19th or so. Won the league the following season, then dropped to 6th after a horror season, finishing with just 3 defenders at the club. On course to win the league now though and in the final of the UEFA cup against Spurs.

Talking of Spurs I haven't beaten them once. Is it possible?

But I've spent the past 4 months under a transfer embargo, being told almost daily that I will be replaced by some Portugese manager once the consortium takes over the club. Unbelievable.

One thing I hope they tighten up on FM is the use of delayed payments and the resulting financial meltdown. If you go on the FM forums everyone's squads, right from the first season or two are filled with megastar names. They've sold a few then bought loads of players with little up front and then ridiculous fees over the next few seasons. The game allows you to do this and you can make virtually unlimited signings using it. For example if you have £10m, you can buy 4 players for £2.5m up front, then £10m over 2 years. So a club with a budget of £10m can spend £40m on players. All the people playing it just exploit it to almost instantly assemble ridiculous squads. It's all "I'm Everton and first season I bought Akinfeev, Jovetic, Pjanic, Van Der Vaart, Hazard, Renato and Welliton. I sold Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville".

But what happens on the game is that the club then loses tens of millions per season, the chairman keeps injecting money to 'help with running costs' and when it gets absolutely stupid in terms of loses and debts the club ALWAYS gets taken over. You then get the debt written off and another large wedge of transfer money to spend.

What should happen is the club gets into a mess, points docked, players leaving etc. You should be punished for financial stupidity on the game. Finances are a mess on the game. At Arsenal I've got a net transfer spend of £102m in over 4 seasons (I'm tight) and always a couple of hundred thousand inside the wage budget, yet the club loses £60-70m per season.

I think one of the reasons that the finances are the way they are, is because probably the best part of the game is signing players. I know that when i have very little to spend and can't sign anyone, i get pretty bored quite quick. TBH, i take full advantage of the way the finances are, and i do sign a lot of players, as you have probably noticed. Although, i do agree with what you are saying. I think they should tighten up on this, as it is a bit far fetched and it is very easy to build a quality quad and pretty quickly too.

You are right, there is a line between realism and enjoyment. I'm not suggesting they bring in realistic finances as no one would enjoy managing anyone bar City. But I think it should be toned down slightly, perhaps by letting it happen, but then once the finances get bad forcing you to choose between trying to ride it out to reach promtion/europe etc or sell players. If you then fail to achieve the promotion/european place you would then be forced into administration and docked points or have your chairman sell your leading players. You would still have enough room to progress things and take a club onto better things, but wouldn't be able to just hoover up a ridiculously talented squad without any consequences.

At the moment you can go on a Leeds-esque spending spree, fall flat and then get taken over to start the process again.

Couple of classics with the media tonight on FM.

"Moyes reveals his admiration for Money" - David Moyes of Everton about Forest boss Richard Money
"Klinsmann reveals his fondness for Dick" - Jurgen about another German manager, Florian Dick

Anyone know when the new patch is out?

Another frustrating season with Wigan out of the way. Safety was secured with about 3 games to go after a bolt from the blue 3-0 wooping of Chelsea at the DW. Think I'm going to start looking for other jobs as it's possibly the most infuriating job going. You get rock all, in premiership terms, to spend. Any player who does reasonable for you immediately generates interest from other clubs whether they be premiership or not. I honestly don't know how I've held on to Jorgensen for so long. Going to try get Kalou on loan for another season to cover the left wing. Anybody know of any good young english players for around £1mil as I'm struggling to get 8 HG players in my 25.

Won the league and UEFA Cup and have a superb squad. Yet Tony Clarke has just completed the prolonged takeover negotiations and the following message comes about the takeover by the London based businessman comes up. According to KICK magazine Clarke has had strong business links in Mexico in the past and is likely to want to install Javier Aguirre as the new Arsenal boss"

Personal message from Tony Clarke:

"New Chairman Tony Clarke has thanked you for your patience during what has undoubtedly been a stressful time for those involved with the club.

Clarke added however that it was always the intention to appoint a new manager following the takeover and a decision on your future will be taken shortly"

Having just clicked on Aguirre's profile and although he's been unemployed for three years after being sacked by Osasuna his 'favourite personnel' include Wayne Rooney, Jordan Spence and Neven Subotic, who are two of my best players and my vice captain, none of whom he has coached.

Looks like my P45 might be in the post.

Tell me about it. Season 3 out the way and another mid table finish. No doubt my budget will be £7m again.

Jordan Spence has slowly turned world class on my games, always being available cheaply. Frank Moussa is another who starts at a poor club, somewhere like Southend I think but usually ends up playing for either England or France.

You had a look at Jonjo Shelvey or Adam Pepper?

Cheers I'll have a look at em tomorrow. Confusing start to the season so far losing heavily to Wolves but holding Arsenal and defeating Man Utd. My squad is now very young, average age 22, after a summer clear out and high in quality. Though depth may be an issue down the road. I'll put my squad up tomorrow.

Well after three mid-table finishes with Wigan Spurs offer me a job. In the 3 years i've been running the game they have finished 4th, 3rd and 4th. Despite being Wigan through and through some things are just too good to turn down.

Not posted on here yet but i've had FM10 for a few weeks now. Just about to go into my 3rd season as Liverpool. First year i won the league cup and came 2nd in the league, year two i won the league and retained my league cup and made the semi final of the champions league.

What i find infuriating about the game is when i bid for players in order to get them i have to double or triple the market value, yet when i'm selling players even if they are wanted i have to sell them for less than market value. Really annoys me.

Anyway i've got £43million transfer budget but i'm not sure on who to buy. I need to replace the likes of Aurelio and get some decent depth if anybody has any names. I tried to bid for a kid called German Pacheco from Athletico Madrid who had a market value of £750K and they would accept no bid of less than £17 million (i tried to bid for him about 8 times) which i refuse to pay. I like to promote my youth and some of the kids are turning out pretty good after a few first team games and being loaned out.

My team (4-3-1-2):

Reina

Johnson
Carragher
Skrtel
Insua

Lucas
Mascherano
Aquilani

Gerrrard

Defoe (£10million - replacement for Kuyt who i sold for £18million to Athletico Madrid)
Torres

Subs:
Ngog
Dalla Valle
Plessis
Benayoun
Monnin (£3 million from France (only 15))
Kyrgiakos
Bouzanis

My bench is horribly light but i refuse to pay extortionate amounts for players just to be back-ups.

Right my squad is:

Kirkland

Morgado - 21 year old with hopefully a big future ahead
Pulido - 20 year old from Atletico. Not sure if he is good enough to make it but Bramble has been making too many errors.
Jorgensen - Top class. Think someone on here recommended him. Man Utd and Arsenal tracking him
Naughton - Should turn into a very good player as he is already premiership standard

Fleck - 20 year old with good speed attributes and a reasonable cross
Sokolowski - Steady away CM
Smiljanic - The weak part of my team though Koke will replace him eventually
Oscar - Exciting youngster who takes a while to settle in. Man Utd tracking him

Fonseca - Can't rate this guy highly enough. 38 in 75 after 725k transfer.
Owen - Picked up on a free. Started quite well with Capello watching him last couple of games.

On the bench:
Smithies - 21 year old who could turn out very well
Bramble - Wrong side of 30 now. Juve and Inter tracking him. Will let him go in january
Poulsen - Poor mental attributes let down an otherwise great player
Pitbull - Bargain. Free transfer last season. Hit 16 in 32.
Wilson - Cheap player bought for cover. Reasonable at DR or DL
Vingaard - Ok winger
Nordstrand - Bit of a letdown this guy. Only hit 3 last season. Has good pace and finishing attributes.

Reserves:
Stuart Taylor
Magnin
Amaya
Koke - Exciting CM prospect. Will ease him in throughout the season.
Watson
McCarthy
Cohen - Cost 75k, now worth 1.6mil. Top end Championship standard player who is useful as depth.
Gomez

Tough Champions League group with Barcelona, Juventus and Leverkusen. Managed a draw in Turin though so here's hoping.

Now that the new patch is up and running, thought i would start a proper career type game and start in the lower leagues. Chose to go for Southampton, purely because they are called Saints. Although, looking through it is quite a challenge. They are on -10 points and the board want promotion. I've played 4 league games and won 3, drew 1. Currently on 0 points and off the bottom of the table. It would also mean i will only be 7 points off a play-off place so there is every chance of promotion and maybe even automatic promotion if things continue the way they are.

I've made a few signings, but i haven't really heard of any of them apart from Viduka (free) and Gavin Mcann. also signed Ali Karimi and John-Baptiste. Got a reasonable squad for this standard and won all my games comfortable, apart from the first game of the season i drew 0-0 to Millwall.

With the new patch out, I've starting a career as Wigan, which will now take up the majority of my time of FM10. I'll update on my progress.

First season over and done with. Won the league easily by 9 clear points (despite starting with 10 points deducted). Had a points difference which was miles better than anyone elses. Had a big clear out in the Summer, although i kept a few players that will give me some depth. To my amazement, i managed to get Patrick Viera, Belletti, Zaki, Dindane and David James on free transfers. I also got some great players in (for the championship anyway), such as Arango, Stoor, Matic, Da Costa and Bjorn Helge Riise all pretty cheap. They made me favourites to gain promotion so i should be in the premiership next season if all goes to plan, which will be a great achievement and turn around for the club. Not counting my chickens however, but i definatly have a great squad for the championship, and probably even better than a few Premier League clubs.

My current squad is as follows:

David James
Brian Murphy

Fredrik Stoor
Alex John-Baptiste
Manual Da Costa
Jose Fonte
Radhi Jaidi
Havard Nordtveit (Loan)
Graeme Murty
Juliano Belletti
Dan Harding

Gavin McCann
Patrick Vieira
Simon Gillett
Nemanja Matic
Joseph Mills
Bjorn Helge Riise
Andy Van der Meyde
Juan Arango
Adam Lallana
Jason Punechon
Daniel Pacheco
Ali Karimi (Long term injury)

Maicon (Loan)
Aruna Dindane
Amr Zaki
Rickie Lambert
Lee Bernard

Thats a pretty big squad, but i feel that i need a big squad with playing a lot of games in the championship, that will be trimmed down next season, if i gain promotion.

Lookin for a PL challenge, thinking either Sunderland or Blackburn perhaps? Done Stoke already and got bored of it