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I was looking for something different in regard to Football Manager to help wile away my time, but something which still allowed me to write a story about what happened. Returning home on the train the other night I was playing Football Manager Handheld 2007 on my PSP when I came up with the following idea for a challenge.
I will select a top-rated team and play a game of two halves. In the first half I will select an extremely attacking formation to dominate the opposition and attempt to build up a big lead in the open 45 minutes. At half-time I will substitute my three best players and change to an extremely defensive formation which allows the opposition the time and space to come at me. I wonder what the result will be at the end of the 90 minutes.
Let’s see what happens.
10-09-2007, 05:47 AM
Victory Or Defeat – It’s In The Palm Of Your Hand Post #2
The Rangers board tell me that they expect the title, so there’s little room for safety if my challenge backfires and I start to lose too many matches. The media seems to think that I have a good chance of taking the title, but they don’t know about my little experiment.
Borussia Dortmund comes in with a bid of £825K for Libor Sionko, but I have decided to neither buy nor sell any players during this challenge, so the Czech winger will have to stay. Celtic aren’t averse to selling some players though as centre-half Stephen McManus joins Aston Villa for £1.9M and full-back Mark Wilson joins Manchester City for £2.8M.
Stefan Klos suffers a neck injury the day before the first friendly, so Allan McGregor will be the starting keeper. There are no other injury worries however, so I have 34 of the 35 players in my squad available for selection. Not knowing a lot about the players that I have at my disposal I ask my assistant manager to suggest an initial line-up. The teams he suggests looks reasonable, but I don’t like the idea of Barry Ferguson on the bench and Dado Prso on the left wing, so Ferguson comes in for Jeremy Clement and Prso goes out for Charlie Adam.
10-09-2007, 05:50 AM
Victory Or Defeat – It’s In The Palm Of Your Hand Post #4
It’s the first friendly of the season, so I’m not expecting much. Novo and Boyd combine well up front and Buffel strolls through some dodgy defence to open the scoring with a low drive after 29 minutes. McGregor has a little to do as Vaduz can’t register a shot on goal. Novo hits the crossbar in injury-time with a fierce volley.
Half-time substitutions: Sebo for Novo (8), Rae for Buffel (7), Smith for Papic (7).
Our attacking intensity definitely drops after the half-time changes and Vaduz are encouraged to adopt a more attacking formation. They manage a shot from Muller after 63 minutes, but it flies into the crowd. Only Sionko can raise a shot for us after 72 minutes as the defensive attitude kicks in.
Much easier. Actually, if you ever played CM01/02 then you would find FMH2007 very similar in many repects. It sacrifices a lot of the PC embellishments in order to give you the chance to play through a season at a reasonably quick pace, but I still find that it provides me with a decent challenge.
10-09-2007, 09:10 AM
Victory Or Defeat – It’s In The Palm Of Your Hand Post #7
I make a few changes for this friendly, but the heart of the team stays the same. We come out all guns blazing as Adam and Burke rip Fraserburgh apart down the wings. Burke makes the first goal after 8 minutes as he finds Novo with a low cross and the Spaniard tucks it away easily. From an Adam corner after 12 minutes centre-half Rodriguez powers home a header for 2-0. Adam, Sebo and Ferguson all have chances to increase the lead, but their aim is off target.
Half-time substitutions: Sionko for Burke (9), Boyd for Novo (8), Prso for Adam (8).
With Adam and Burke off for Prso and Sionko respectively we definitely lose some of our advantage down the wings. Ferguson definitely doesn’t like the change to a defensive formation as his rating drops. The long ball tactic sees only Boyd come close with a header from a Bardsley cross after 65 minutes and Fraserburgh are finally tempted to attack. In the 86th minute Hamilton crosses from the right and Williams rises to head past McGregor to give our opponents a consolation goal. The final score is 2-1 and I must admit that a better team may have forced a draw or even beaten us.
I found the 4-1-3-2 formation on FMH unbeatable. With Ayr, once I started using it, I finished 3rd in the 1st div, then 1st, then 1st in the SPL, winning the Scottish Cup in each of those last two years without signing anyone of any particular note.
Not played it since, on account of being silly and no sense of achievement.
10-11-2007, 01:26 AM
Victory Or Defeat – It’s In The Palm Of Your Hand Post #10
Cheers, HD. I am thinking of some variations to the theme to keep this interesting and changing tactics would be one of them. The 4-1-3-2 formation happens to be my favoured tactic on FMH, but initially for this story I was trying to keep the players in the same positions (hence 4-4-2) and just change the mentality and playing options.
Victory Or Defeat – It’s In The Palm Of Your Hand 
Actually, if you ever played CM01/02 then you would find FMH2007 very similar in many repects. It sacrifices a lot of the PC embellishments in order to give you the chance to play through a season at a reasonably quick pace, but I still find that it provides me with a decent challenge.
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