Becks is the new England manager!

England Manager




This was a no-brainer with Roy Hodgson stepping down. I expressed my interest, applied for the job and got it!

Shocking Retirement!


I was devastated to see this! I tried calling Rooney out of retirement but he won't answer my call. Anyone succeeded in calling players out of retirement on this version yet?

Bias or not?


Solid Start




Amid all the problems, it was a solid start with the national team.


Charity Shield


Back to United, it was one of those days. We had the better of the chances, couldn't convert and lost on penalties in the end!

Super Cup


This time, I had the luck and won on penalties! I really wanted to add this to our trophy haul and was really glad to have won!

 Finally it's in the bag!

I didn't know this was possible without cheating.

I have completed a clean sweep of all the competitions we entered! And what's most pleasing is that we have finally captured the Champions League title!! Having lost it in the finals for the past two seasons, I wasn't too optimistic going into the finals against our noisy neighbours Man City. And this happened!

Champions League Final


I have always been worried about facing our city rivals as they never fail to spot gaps in our defence.Jovetic and Aguero were constant threats as usual and it was no surprise to see them on the scoresheet. Thankfully, they couldn't cope with our aerial prowess and we scored two from set-pieces. Lewandowskiscored in injury time as well and it was a sweet sweet victory!!!

EPL


This is our best performance yet in the league with the most points and best goal difference. We were always comfortable and kept our nearest rivals out of reach, winning the league eventually by 13 points. There was a familiar look about the table at the end with all the big clubs finishing in the top 6.

Some proud moments


A surprise winner for the player of the year! What I am most happy about is the fact that he's English! I am really proud!



Three players named in the team of the year!



We score great goals 

League Cup


It was our second consecutive League Cup victory with us narrowly beating West Brom in the finals after overcoming Arsenal over two legs. Antonio Valencia grabbed the all important goal.

FA Cup


We came from behind and beat Everton 3-1 in the FA Cup final to complete the fantastic clean sweep!

Clean sweep!


After a great season, lets now look back on the players' performances and I will pick out the star players of their positions.

Players' Analysis 



Goalkeeper

There is no doubt who's the star performer in this position with him winning the golden glove yet again. Made some brilliant and crucial saves throughout the course of the season. How I wish he's English!

Defenders
I would like to mention both Shawcross and Smalling , who have both gone on to form a formidable partnership in the central defence. On top of their defensive solidity, they contributed ten goals in total and it's a great bonus to have! What's more, they are both English and Shawcross graduated from the United Academy! Great stuff!

Midfielders
Clearly, Tom Ince is the star man, having won EPL's player of the year. Like Ince, Zaha won 5 player of the match awards and deserved the honorable mention.

Strikers
Welbeck is the club's top scorer with 31 goals in all competitions. However, Rooney is the more all-rounded striker this season with 23 goals and 20 assists in a productive season. They would certainly form a deadly partnership should Roy Hodgson decide to pair them up for England.

Summary
All in all, what a great season! Having won everything, I am really looking forward to the Club World Championship and the European Super Cup as I have not won these competitions. It's really pleasing to see all the English players doing well and I will finally be bringing a couple of regens through to the first-team next season as they are developing well. There's a really talented central defender and an explosive left winger lurking in the reserves. I will post up screenshots of them in the next update!

Rolling on to the 4th season!


With lots of love,

Beckham Plays FM

 Mid-season update! (Third Season!)

I am glad to say that this has been the most smooth-sailing season of my tenure so far.

Premier League


As shown, we are unbeaten! The team has been really consistent, we have scored the most number of goals and conceded the least. Long may this continue!!

Cups
We are still in all competitions, with QPR awaiting us in the League Cup semis and Celtic in the Champions League first knockout round. We also have a home draw against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup. All's good!

However, we did not have the luck on the injury front and two of our players suffered really LONGGGGGterm injuries.

Darren Fletcher


Fletcher has been really unlucky  Having gone through the bowel problems, of all people, he had to be the one to go through this. This is the worst injury I have encountered in my years of playing FM. It's crazy to be out for 7 or 8 months. Let's hope this does not signal the end of his illustrious career at United.

Nick Powell


It's really unfortunate that one of my most promising English youngster became a victim of yet another long term injury. He got injured when out on loan at Aston Villa. I really hope that this does not pull back his development too much as I have high hopes for this fella.

Player Analysis


Goalkeepers
As Valdes is significantly better than Lindegaard, it allowed me to rotate a bit more in the goalkeeping department. As a result, De Gea only played 2/3 of all the games so far. However, Valdes is getting older and with Everton showing interest, I may sell him and recall Sam Johnstone back from loan. Johnstone has improved tremendously and I want to give him a chance to shine for United as he is English.

Defenders
As usual, I have rotated them a lot and all of them got their fair share of games. Caulker does not look assured at times and I am sure he will improve once he blends into the squad. Apart from him, everyone else seems solid!

Midfielders
The star of the show has got to be Phil Jones, who has already scored 6 and made 4 assists from central midfield. He's starting to remind me of Roy Keane at his prime and the fact that he's English makes things even sweeter!



For some reasons, Januzaj's stats have not improved tremendously. May I know how is he getting on in your games guys? I have made him natural at ML through position training and despite me having played him quite a bit this season, his stats have shown no signs of improvement. However, his performances have been positive with a high average rating of 7.46. Antonia Valencia has been explosive with 4 goals and 9 assists and he is no doubt our star winger so far. Tom Ince has settled in nicely with 2 goals and 5 assists.

Strikers
1. Rooney 14 goals and 8 assists in 17(1) games
2. Welbeck 12 goals and 4 assists in 18(2) games
3. Henriquez 9 goals and 3 assists in 10(3) games
4. Lewandowski 7 goals and 6 assists in 13(3) games

I am really glad that Henriquez has proven my decision to sell Chicharito right by repaying me with a decent goal ratio. Rooney and Welbeck have both performed up to my expectations. Lewandowski went through a dry spell at the start of the season but have since gone on a run, which is pleasing to see.

Having gone through such a great first half of the season, I hope that we can go on to bag some more silverware come the end of the season. Bring on the second half!


With lots of love,

Beckham Plays FM

 Third season lets go!

The third season is on the way and we have played the community shield game and 2 league games. First, lets take a look at the signings I made!

Steven Caulker


With Vidic ageing, English centre-back Steven Caulker signs for 15.25 million pounds as he is one of the top young English centre-backs in the market.Arsenal and Spurs both wanted the man and it makes even more sense bringing him in.

Ryan Bertrand


As mentioned earlier, a left-back is needed to replace Evra and Bertrand is the chosen man. He's relatively young and would compete with Luke Shaw for the left-back slot.

Tom Ince


With Ashley Young offloaded due to his stats deteriorating after a serious injury, Tom Ince (another young and English player) signs for United.

Transfers Out
Apart from Ashley Young, Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez is offloaded to Benfica for 30 million pounds due to the emergence of Angelo Hernandez. It was a painful but inevitable sale as there's no longer room for improvement in his stats and he's not English.

The Dutch Sharpshooter returns! 


Shirt Sales


This is one of my favourite new features of FM14 as it tells us who are the most popular players among the fans and how the pre-season tours boost the shirt sales.

Community Shield


It was a fairly even game between two strong sides but we were sharper and Jones & Rooney helped themselves to their first goals of the season.

Chelsea H


It was a tough first fixture of the season but my players made little fuss of it, putting up a perfect performance and we came away 4-0 winners. Shelvey has established himself in the team playing the DLPd role while Tom Ince had a great home debut!

Cardiff A


We didn't play well in the first half at all and Cardiff scored when Cornelius latched onto a long punt from former keeper Lindergaard to finish past De Gea. After giving the hairdryer, the team came out on fire as we turned the game around just three minutes into the second period. Team-talks have proved to be vitally important on this version.

It was a pleasing start to our third season and long may it continue!


With lots of love,

Beckham Plays FM

 Roller coaster ride!

Hi readers,

I am finally done with the second season! Like what the title says, this game really puts you through an emotional roller coaster ride! Why do I say so? Lets start with the league:

EPL


We won the league by just one point! We were trailing Spurs by 5 points with 3 games to go as the squad was struck by an injury crisis towards the end of the season. I was prepared to give the league up until Spurs was miraculously beaten at home twice consecutively by Cardiff and Forest (how many times would this have happened?!) and thankfully, we capitalized on their slump by winning our last three games againstChelsea H, Newcastle A and Hull H to clinch the title. It was by no means a vintage season and unlike last season, we didn't score the most goals or concede the least. We were really lucky this time round to avoid the second season syndrome.

League Cup


We won! We had a run of easy draws until we met Arsenal in the finals and I was surprised by the ease of the victory. It was a bizarre game with an hat-trick of own goals as we dismissed them 3-0 and secured the first ever league cup win of my tenure. I was also pleased to see Chris Smalling pick up the man of match award.

FA Cup


Lady Luck smiled on us yet again! We beat Liverpool 1-0 in the semis to reach the finals and our fierce rivals Leeds United awaited us at Wembley. It was a crazy game and Fellaini was sent off real early 10 minutes from half-time. (I am pretty sure that there's a bug regarding these sending-offs) However, I was still relatively confident as my team always seems to play better with ten men and it was against a weaker opposition. Phil Jones opened the scoring on 78th minute with a powerful effort and I was sure that it was the winner until Pratley equalized with a Gerrard-like screamer from 25 yards. With that we went into extra-time and in the second period, Jones capped an excellent performance from the bench with yet another powerful effort to win us the FA Cup. Vidic got sent off right at the end and again, I strongly believe that it's due to a bug in the match engine.

Champions League


I thought it was gonna be a special season when we beat PSG in the semis to meet Dynamo Kyiv (they beat Juventus!!) in the Champions League Final. Everything was going my way with victories in every single one of our domestic competitions and with a relatively weaker opposition awaiting us in the final, I was confident. Miraculously, the team was real flat and the real hot Younes Belhanda grabbed all three goals to beat us comfortably. It blew my chance of a clean sweep and I was really disappointed. It felt like the roller coaster has plunged right to the bottom from great heights.

On a positive note, we added three trophies (plus the community shield) to my collection and it was certainly a successful season. Let us now take a look at the players' performance:



Goalkeepers
As you can see, De Gea played the majority of the games once more with Lindergaard really unconvincing. That made me sign Victor Valdes on a free towards the end of the season to provide better cover. It was yet another superb season for De Gea, who saved us on countless occasions with his great shot-stopping ability.

Defenders
I rotated the defenders even more this season, so much so that they each played half of the games. Chris Smalling and Ryan Shawcross impressed the most with the highest ratings, and they will have to raise their game even more next season to replace the fast deproving Vidic. The full-backs weren't particularly impressive, and with Evra fast deteriorating, there's a need to bring in another left-back in the summer.

Midfielders
Age certainly didn't show in Michael Carrick's performances as he grabbed 6 goals and 7 assists in an impressive season. Jones, Fellaini, Fletcher and Shelvey contributed 10 goals and 21 assists altogether in a productive season.

Red card bug?
This is supported by the fact that a total of 12 red cards was obtained throughout the course of the season. This is exceptionally high in comparison to the situation in real life and I am contemplating if I should tweak my tactics/players instructions to improve the problem. What do you guys think?

Cleverley
I would like to give a special mention to one of my favourite players at United. I retrained him at MR as I was trying to mold him into a similar type of player as Beckham (myself!). I played him as WMa and he was simply electrifying with 8 goals and 9 assists! He really reminded me of myself with quality delivery, clever runs and great finishing ability. Unfortunately, he tore his hamstring towards the end of the season and will be out for 2-3 months. Lets hope that he will come back playing the same way!!

Strikers
Lewandowski has a solid first season with 16 goals and 4 assists and he will only get better once he settles down in Manchester. Rooney grabbed 18 goals and 7 assists while Chicharito scored only 10 as he went through a dry spell in the middle of the season. Special mention goes out to Danny Welbeck, who went on to be our top scorer with 23 goals and an incredible 12 assists in a brilliant season. This is definitely due to the improvement in his composure through training and he's really growing into a beast for us upfront. Long may it continue!

All in all, it was a satisfying season despite losing a second consecutive final in Champions League. It certainly made me even hungrier for it and I will give my all to go one step further in the next few seasons! I will be looking to play the game slower and enjoy the details of the game more as I feel like I have rushed through my games out of excitement. Hence, I may be making tweaks to my tactics (I have been using the same treble attacking tactics throughout the season without changing) and I will be posting more updates instead of just 2 per season. Bring on the third season!


With lots of love,

Beckham Plays FM

Second season! Ready, set... go!

Hi readers!

I am finally back with the second season! Pre-season was long and draggy and I would like to start off by explaining some of the key transfers made.

 

 

Lewandowski for RVP!

The decision is made! And here are the reasons for it:

1. Age: Lewandowski is on the right side of 30 but RVP isn't. Lewandowski still has lots of room for improvement as he's still relatively young.

2. Money: I had to cash in on RVP early before his value starts to drop as United is still in debt. Lewandowski is too good to be ignored on a free transfer and his value can still rise in the next few years.

3. Freshening of the squad: Every title-winning squad needs some freshening to prevent complacency from setting in. Man City regretted not adding RVP last season and United is struggling this season with only Fellaini coming in. Hopefully the addition of the Polish sharpshooter can help me to my second consecutive title.   

 

Double S - Shelvey and Shawcross

I mentioned in my last post that a central defender is essential this summer due to Rio's decline and I decided to bring in an ex-Red Devil Ryan Shawcross for ten million pounds. Similarly, Shelvey is brought in for cover as both Carrick and Fletcher are on their wrong sides of thirty. And of course, they are young and English.

 

Trimming of squad 

The likes of Nani, Bebe, Vermijil and Will Keane all left for decent money as I saw the need to trim the squad.

 

Table

 

Here's how the table looks after half a season. The top four has a more familiar look this time round with Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool all back in contention. I was pleased to see us top again with Spurs breathing down our necks, with a mere 3 points behind. It will be closer this time round and my team will surely have to gather more than 81 points to win the league.

 

Cups

We struggled to get out of the Champions League group and only managed to seal qualification in our sixth fixture. Galatasaray beat us twice with Drogba bullying our central defenders but thankfully, we managed to clock the magical ten points to finish second in the group. We managed to avoid the giants in the draw and we will be facing Benfica in the next round. We are also in the quarter-finals of the League Cup and hopefully we can go one better to reach the finals this season.

 

Now, I would like to examine the development of some of my young English talents:

 

Shaw

 

Luke is developing faster than what I expected and he's already getting his fair share of games at left-back. With Evra ageing fast, he's already giving me selection problems and I can't decide who my best left-back is. Although Luke is a left back, he has awesome attacking capacity with 17 Dribbling, 17 Acceleration and 18 Pace. If he can avoid injury problems, I believe that he will go on to have an awesome career like the legendary left-back Ashley Cole.

Welbeck

This kid has everything to be a top forward except his composure. After some training focus on this attribute, he now has 14 composure and is missing less of the one-on-one chances. With 16 Finishing, 16 Flair, 17 Work Rate (this is what I like most about him) and great all-rounded physical attributes, I predict that he will go on to score a lot of goals for us and for England.

 

Zaha 

 

And last but not least, last season's player of the season. His stats don't look as impressive because huge amount of focus was placed on retraining him in the new positions MR/L. Nevertheless, he's still performing tremendously for us down both flanks with 18 Dribbling, Acceleration and Pace, as well as 17 Flair and Agility. If he can improve his decision-making and finishing ability further, he will surely get more goals and assists than he already has.

 

Hopefully come the end of season, we will have more success to look back on! Cheers! \o/

 

Do follow me on twitter: beckham_fm
Like my facebook page: David Beckham FM
Subscribe to my youtube channel: David Beckham

And help share my blog around! I will be back with updates on my game/views on football real soon! 

 

 

With lots of love,

 

Beckham Plays FM

 

First season completed!

Hi readers,

I have completed season 1 and it was a season of mixed feelings.

English Premier League - Champions

It was a weird season in the league, with many of the big teams struggling. Stoke and Everton were the surprise packages in the top four, with Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool all under-acheiving. Liverpool in particular ended up in 17th,  narrowly escaping relegation and it was shocking to say the least. 

In the end, we won comfortably on 81 points, 14 points clear of second placed Chelsea. We didn't impress this season and it was again a case of other teams failing rather than us succeeding. We will have to improve next season if we want to be champions again.

Champions League
This was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the season. We went all the way to the finals to face Juventus after beating Dortmund (after losing to them twice in the group stages, it was sweet sweet revenge) in the semis. However, key players Vidic and Fellaini were both suspended for the finals and we came up short against the Italian giants. To add to the disappointment, we lost one nil to a Carlos Tevez goal. Yes, it had to be him. :(

FA and League Cups
We lost to Chelsea in the League Cup semis after my central defenders went too high up the pitch once again. I read in the bugs forum that this is one of the problems with the match engine but well, that's life and I lost narrowly 2-3 on aggregate. FA Cup was another disappointment with Newcastle beating us yet again through a Cabeye wonder goal.

All in all, I could have done better with some luck but I ended up with the league win, which isn't too bad considering how we are doing in real life. Let us now move on to the players' analysis:



Goalkeepers
De Gea continued his solid form for the second half of the season, winning the Premier League golden glove. Lindegaard was disappointing as usual and he cost us three points in the league after letting in two long range efforts against Norwich at Old Trafford.

Defenders
They were solid but not spectacular throughout the course of the season, with every single one of them making at least 20 starts. Walker and Shaw continued to settle well, making 67 appearances between them. With Rio declining, I would be looking to bring in a center-back in the summer.

Midfielders
I have picked out three top performers:
3. Fellaini: Considering that this is his first season, he contributed well with 5 goals and 6 assists from central midfield. However, he was sent off thrice this season and I believe that this is due to a bug from the latest 14.1.4 patch.
2. Valencia: He was more impressive in the first half of the season. Nevertheless, he ended up with 9 goals and 7 assists playing down the right flank.
1. Zaha: Both the fans' and my player of the season! He was one of the success stories this season, chipping in with 5 goals and an impressive 13 assists. As a result, he was named in the Premier League Team of the Season and I was proud to see the English youngster doing so well.
  


Strikers
They didn't perform as well in the second half of the season, with only RVP reaching my 20-goal target. Welbeck was disappointing as he missed lots of clear-cut chances. I believe that this was down to his poor composure and I will be focusing on this particular attribute in his individual training. Nevertheless, my Fab Four ended up with 65 goals and 26 assists for the season and I was reasonably pleased. 

In a nutshell, I am on course to acheive my aims set out at the start of the season. I won something, developed and bought English talents and of course had lotsa fun! Bring on the second season!

Do follow me on twitter: beckham_fm
Like my facebook page: David Beckham FM
Subscribe to my youtube channel: David Beckham

And help share my blog around! I will be back with updates on my game/views on football real soon!

With lots of love,

Beckham Plays FM