2015 A visual guide to managing transfers

[phila]

I am a bit of a visual learner. Namely I find it much easier to understand something if I can see a visual representation of it. When I first started playing FMH, one of the things I struggled with was having an orderly transfer plan. In other words, working out not only areas of weakness in the team and who should I buy/sell this transfer period but also who I should get ready to replace next year or the year after that. So the solution I came up with was a spreadsheet to help me visually plan out my future growth plans

Workbook Overview

1.       Each sheet in the workbook represents a year. Every year into the game, a new tab gets added to the workbook and labelled accordingly. This also helps me to keep an historical record of how the game has gone.

2.       So year 1 of a save, I will create a tab called 2014 to map out my planned transfer related activities

3.       Then each new year, I will make a new sheet to represent that year. So in the attached example, I have played a save for 2 years.

4.       I have an additional sheet called “Next Year” to give me a visual representation of what my team might look like in a year’s time assuming my transfers go as planned.

The Year Overview

1.       Within the sheet, the team is broken up into proposed positions. In the attached example, I was testing a variation of Piggs Drift and so set up the positions accordingly

2.       I then identify areas of possible weakness in the team and mark the position Red.

3.   Players I wish to sell are then marked “Green”

4.       Players who I would consider selling if I got a good enough offer (or really needed the money) I mark with light green

5.       I then work out how much I believe I can sell each of them for and enter data accordingly.

6.       I then identify which positions I wish to upgrade or  lack depth and determine players that might meet my needs and mark them Red

7.       I estimate how much each will cost and enter that data

8.       The financial numbers at the bottom of each sheet allow me to determine if I can afford to buy all my targets. This is obviously a rough estimate but does indicate if I will need to move money from my wage budget into transfer budget and flag if I’m being overly ambitious.

9.       Players which I am interested in but don’t believe I can afford or might not end up needing are marked Ochre

10.       Players on loan are marked Blue. I haven’t bothered to come up with different colour scheme to track players out on loan or in on loan.

11.   The ages of each player are tracked to help me determine when I might need to replace them (ie get too old).

12.   Column D enable me to track which player is in 1^st or Reserves. This I can see at a glance if I will need to obtain more depth in a particular position or whether it is covered by my reserves.

13.   Column E was used by me in a couple of saves to track how much a players value increased/decreased over a period of time. It also gives me a better idea of how much I might be able to sell a player for.

14.   Column H is used to track which players I will send out on loan

15.   Column I tracks when they were purchased. This also is used to automatically calculate the person age each year.

16.   Column J tracks how much a club has asked for a player when I made them an offer. Used when I cant immediately afford them but wish to reoffer at a later stage.

17.   Column K tracks when I am considering selling a player in the future.

18.   Column L tracks when I might be looking to promote a player from Reserves to Firsts. (this obviously will change depending on progress). But it helps determine if I will have adequate coverage for a position when a player retires. It also ensures that Im not hindering the progress of a player by blocking his movement into 1^st grade.

19.   Column M is purely for comments about a particular player (eg who I might need to use as a player exchange, what role I might consider giving a player etc)

Walkthrough

The attached example mimics a save I played with Liverpool and is 2.5 years into the career.

1)      So in 2014,

a)      I identified Rulli as a possible replacement for GK. I estimated that I would need to pay 4.8 million plus player exchange with Joe Allen in order to get him. In addition to this, I decided to sell Jones and Ward and estimated I would get a total of 1.3 million for them.

b)      In the DL position, I identified that Shaw, Di Sciglio and Gaya were possible upgrades for that position but since I didn’t perceive it as a priority was unwilling to spend the money on them.

c)       In the DC position, I decide to sell Toure and Skrtel, buy Balanta, recall Wisdom and sell him and use Ilori as a bench player

This should be self explanatory for the remaining positions.

2.       In 2015,

The transfers followed a similar pattern. However note that

a)      the game has told me to keep an eye out for Totti, Kaka and Essien retiring and thus their regens appearing. So Ive flagged this to remind myself to scout for them.

b)      You will notice that the players ages have automatically updated

c)       Courtois has mysteriously appeared. This is a reflection of him being transfer listed in the Jan 2015 period where I picked him up and sold Mignolet (but couldn’t be bothered updating the 2014 sheet to reflect this)

3.       The Next Year sheet details what the team might look like in 2016. This obviously will change as I play the save through 2015. One thing to note is that the Kaka and Totti regens did appear but I didn’t like them and so they were dropped off the list.

FMH_Overview.xlsx

[Ashez]

A very interesting approach mate, I sometimes also plan out how I want the save to go but that's normally for big challenges like Pride of a continent. 

[AndersJ]

Phila thats right on champ!

my favourite thing with the game is "the build up of the team"

thanks for the share of thoughts