The FM Library

We continue our introducing series with a chat with a man who uses metric analysis to assess player performance and tactical set-ups.

Please say hello to A FM Old Timer

Creator name – I’ve been playing FM for years now, since CM Italia 2, and wanted to pay respect to that. Working out that I’d played since my mid-teens, some ~20 years ago made me realise that if this was a job, I’d be considered an old timer at it now.

Real name – Chris (I’m a teacher so I’ll decline to say more than that)

Who do you support in real life – Liverpool. Working on a blog for AC Milan, but it could be months from being published yet.

When did I first start playing FM? Genuinely can’t remember but I think Championship Manager 2 and that came with a free copy of CM Italia 2, which I played until I broke the game. A bug seemed to come into the game so that when I was playing with the original Ronaldo at Inter Milan, after about 15 years I couldn’t sign anyone despite having a bank balance of around £150m, which was huge back in the 1990s. Since then, I’ve owned pretty much all the versions, though I did manage a modicum of self-restraint when I had my final year of my undergraduate degree and skipped a year.

Ok, you’ve been playing the game, what made you jump from “player” to “creator” and how have you found the journey? In terms of becoming a creator, probably reading saves by others. I’m 100% sure that others will reference FM Grasshopper and FM Pressure, and most (should) reference Oliver Jensen (fmFutbolManager). I’ve also enjoyed reading other saves too, but there’s quite a lot to name. I decided to take the plunge on Slack first of all and it was a combination of FM_Samo and Marc Bowen who encouraged me to blog. Marc kindly offered me a guest writing slot on his website and I wrote about my LFC save on FM16. I wrote seven or so posts on his site. Life was too busy to post anything on FM17 and then with FM18 I decided to take a different approach after listening to Statsbomb’s podcast and reading some of their blog posts. Data analysis goes hand-in-hand with my background and piqued my interest as to whether or not that could be applied to FM. After speaking to MikaelinhoGM and FMVars, they helped me come up with models to use and assess players, I then played around with the graphics. They’re not great graphics, but they do a job.

What’s your style of play? I’m really busy with my job now, so I don’t tend to get very far at all now. FM20 has been out for over a month and I’ve not even been a manager for a season yet. I had a beta save with Hoffenheim, trying to get a 3-man defence working but I failed pretty badly. Hopefully, though probably not realistically, life my get a little easier in the New Year to allow me to play the game a little more often. The setting up of the AC Milan time is going to take a long time, and I’ve already holidayed a season into the save, but I can see it being at least a month before I get to play a game that is meaningful. Beyond that, I like to take quite a lot of control. I’m going to go with a DoF-lite approach, providing them with transfer lists using data, highlighting areas of weakness and seeking to improve those rather than splashing the cash to improve any area and buying up all the wonderkids (there’s nothing wrong with this approach, it’s just not overly realistic).

Favourite version/save? Any particular bittersweet/comic/down right depressing memories? FM18 is probably my favourite version – largely because I went back to it after FM19 was released and spent hours more playing it. This is the save I blogged about with Reggina. I had around six home-grown newgen talents that had come through the Reggina academy all roughly at the same time who made it into the Italy squad and were really good. Between being able to spot young talent and hoover them up and sell on for profit and working up from Serie C to Serie A was really rewarding. It wasn’t an easy save either, there were tight wage structures, no money in the bank and the Serie C promotion play-offs are incredibly tough. It wasn’t a double promotion straight away either which I think made it more interesting as the squad became mine and the project felt a little more realistic (despite the number of double promotions that Italian football has recently seen). When Bagnoli, a 15-year old newgen scored against Inter after coming through the academy only weeks before, I think this was when I was properly hooked into the save to try and give him the career he deserved – something that I’ve still yet to do – maybe one day… I will always have a soft spot for FM09 though as I had a Brazilian newgen who averaged 1.5 assists every game called Rodrigo. He was just incredible in his play-making abilities.

Which bloggers do you always make sure that you read? As stated above, FM Grasshopper, FM Pressure and fmFutbolManager, but you can also add FMSamo, FMVars, FM Tahiti, Guido Merry, Mikaelinho and FridayNightFM, amongst others.

Who within the community, seriously impresses you – produces the type of content that you just think “Wow, I couldn’t even contemplate producing stuff to at that level – for me it’s Laura/Chilled Moose and the face packs that she produces – some serious design talent there. This can be across any format of creation. Chilled Moose definitely, but then also FM Grasshopper for his consistency of quality in his blog posts. I’d also say FM_Samo for setting up and running the Slack site and the various podcasts: such as 5* Potential guys. If I had more time, I’d commit to listening to more pods and consuming more content but my girlfriend already thinks I’m obsessed enough as it is.

What puts you off reading other creators blogs – what makes you click that “X” button in the top right of the page. Being a teacher, anyone that says “i” in a blog and has lots of grammar/spelling mistakes. I have to spend enough time correcting that in my marking, it’s not something I can mentally turn off, and so it just makes me find something else. If you’re writing in a foreign language, then I can sympathise, it’s why I offer to help proof-read/correct posts from Guido Merry to help him with some of the nuances of the English language. Anything that is a ‘generic’ save blog too – these are over done and frankly a bit dull. In terms of YouTube content, poor microphones, the person not having a clue about the footballing world in any shape or form, things like that. You can say the same for podcasts, if I can’t hear you, I’m not going to continue listening for long and if there’s two of you talking on the pod, please please please try and have a balance in volume so that I am not having to constantly turn the sound up and down!

Ok, final question.. I have 5 minutes and I have a list of blogs in front of me – In 100 words, why should I click on your blog… I’d like to think that I’m something a little bit different the average bloggers. There’s a small niche of data-focussed FM bloggers, which I think will only continue to grow as FM starts to move towards an analysis approach. I think that this will be being worked on as a major feature overhaul by SI to bring FM back up to a more realistic level when engaging in player recruitment. The AC Milan save I’ve started to work on could be a deep dive into club culture and analytics. Fingers crossed it’ll work! If the blog arrives, it probably has.

Some really interesting answers from A FM Old Timer there – if you love graphs then please do check out his stuff.