Introduction: Manchester City is an English football club based in Manchester, and currently plays in the Barclays Premier League. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's (West Gorton), they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and finally Manchester City in 1894. Their last win was in 2011, with the FA Cup being lifted.
Challenge: Although Manchester City are an amazing club with amazing players and unlimited money, they still have to compete with many clubs to try and win the premier league. Tottenham, Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool will all be up and around in your way. City have yet to win the Premier League, but this will be their year! ..Or will it? You decide when you take control of the club, whether you will take this rich club out of the depths of the past and into the lights of champions league finals, and first in the premier league. Will you let Tevez have a second chance, or will you ship him off? Many decisions and more!
I chose to win the league because I had high hopes for my team.. When we started, we started amazingly in pre-season. Unfortunately, we cooled off in the league/community shield. We were up 2 - 0 then fell to 2 - 2, before winning on penalty's. We were barely scoring and not doing well during the first games in the league. But as the team gelled and they began to get use to my tactic, the results began to become more and more.. good.
My Tactics:
Spoiler:4-2-4
As you can see, I play a 4-2-4, with Aguero(Trequartista Attack) and Dzeko(Target Man Attack) at the top. I choose this because Tevez will never ever play for me ever again. Also, because, Balotelli is not as good as either of them. Dzeko has yet to settle definitely, but is still playing fairly well. Aguero is a beast.
On the wings, I play Nasri(Winger Support) and Silva(Advanced Play-maker Attack), this is because I could not incorporate the both of them in attacking centre with two strikers. So where can I play both of them, at the same time? The wings! Also, I believe them to be better then Johnson and Milner. Nasri has settled quite nicely, although Silva still needs a-bit of time.
Yaya(Ball Winning Midfielder Support) is played in the middle, ahead of Barry. Yaya had a great pre-season before drifting into nothingness, and being injured. Barry took over and was amazing, but after Yaya came back I let him have a game and he was great. Since then, he's been my number one.
My Defensive Midfielder is De Jong(Defensive Midfielder Defend) of course, with Owen in second place. He has played amazingly, and gets stuck right in there. He's been my one constant performer since the start.
In the centre of defence, I play Hummels(Ball Playing Cover) and Kompany(Ball Playing Stopper). These two are absolute rocks when playing together, and I'm very happy with the purchase of Hummels. He has been playing better then Kompany! Savic and Joleon are my two back ups who have played consistently while Hummels has been injured.
Clichy (Wing Back Attack), and Van Der Wiel (Wing Back Attack) are my full backs. Clichy took a-while, but hes finally starting to settle into his role. Van Der Wiel is the same, except he got injured early on and had little time to gel. But since then, they've both improved immensely. Richards and Kolarov have been more then adequate backups, with Kolarov out performing Clichy many times, earlier!
Hart(Sweeper Keeper Attack) is, like, the best player on the team, imo. He just stops everything, and we have had something like 20 clean sheets. Pantilimon has also been fairly good in his few appearances.
Players:
Goalkeepers:
Joe Hart (★★★★ / Keep) - Joe Hart is your #1, and Englands. As the season progresses he'll get better then he already is and he's already a great keeper.
Stuart Taylor (★.5 / Sell) - 30, and not that good of a keeper.
Costel Pantilimon (★★ / Sell) - On loan, he is al-right but you can find a better backup.
Gunnar Nielsen (★ / Sell) - Will never amount to anything above League 1.
Overall, Joe Hart should never be sold and is an amazing keeper. Stuart should be sold, as should Nielsen. They should be sold ASAP as they will never cut it at this level. Pantilimon isn't great, and is good enough for the first season but it would be a waste to buy him. I suggest only buying a young, up and coming keeper to play second fiddle to Hart, and he can play in cup games. (Luckily, I got a new GK coming through the ranks so I didn't have to spend.)
Centre Backs:
Vincent Kompany (★★★★ / Keep) - Your best DC hands down
Joleon Lescott (★★★ / Keep) - A good player, but not great.
Kolo Touré (★★.5 / Sell) - A good player as-well, but not great and is ageing.
Stefan Savić (★★ / Keep) - A young player with a fairly good potential. But I am not 100% sure if he'll be able to reach it.
Nedum Onuoha (★★.5 / Sell) - Not that much better then Savic who will probably pass him either way.
Overall, Kompany should be your backline leader for years to come and does not need to be replaced for a-while yet. Lescott is a good player, but I would suggest signing a better player to play alongside Kompany. Touré is putting on the years, and isn't better then Lescott. He should be sold, and Savic can be kept as he has potential to be about the same or better then Toure. Onuoha should be sold too, as he is the worst defender (Savic, I rate higher because of his potential). So I believe in signing one world class CB to play alongside Kompany.
Full Backs:
Micah Richards (★★★ / Keep) - Richards is homegrown, fairly young, and can learn more.
Pablo Zabaleta (★★★ / Keep) - Zabaleta is better then Richards, but barely and is older.
Gaël Clichy (★★★★ / Keep) - First class fullback, one of the best DL in the world.
Aleksandar Kolarov (★★.5 / Sell) - worse then Wayne bridge (LOLWUT SI?), but younger.
Wayne Bridge (★★ / Sell) - Really putting on in years.
Overall, Richards and Zabaleta should be kept, they're perfectly fine. (Although I personally sold Zabaleta and signed a younger RB who is better, and kept a competition going between him and Richards). Clichy is class, but Kolarov and Bridge aren't that good. If you can keep Kolarov happy keep him, but I experienced him moaning too much so I just sold him. I suggest signing a young lb to play second fiddle to Clichy.
Centre Midfield:
Yaya Touré (★★★★ / Keep) - The best Cm at the club, took a little time to settle but then when he makes those forward runs.. He got a-lot of goals for me.
Gareth Barry (★★.5 / Keep) - Not as good as Yaya, and is gaining age. But, for another season or two he's still a good number 2.
Nigel De Jong (★★★.5 / Keep) - Amazing DM, and should not be sold. He's a-little aggressive, but that's one of his traits that I love.
Owen Hargreaves (★★.5 / Keep) - Exactly like Barry, a good #2 for another season or two, but he's going to start declining now.
Overall, Yaya is a beast in the middle, and should be kept there for as-long as he's with the club. Although, he is fairly old, so after about 2-3 seasons, buying a younger replacement will be good. The same is said for Owen and Barry, as their even older then Yaya. De Jong, on the other hand, should be kept and no replacement bought for awhile. So buying 2 back ups in about 1-2 seasons, and buying a new leading CM in about 2-3 seasons.
Wingers:
David Silva (★★★★ / Keep) - On the left, Silva is a beast. He was making goals like there's nothing about it. Took a small time to settle.
Adam Johnson (★★★ / Keep) - Johnson, while not amazing, is english and didn't moan once. I rarely started him, and brought him on only a little amount of times. Perfect backup
Samir Nasri (★★★★ / Keep) - Amazing on the right, was scoring in every other match, and still providing. Finished top assist maker a-long with Silva at the end of the premier league, and champions league.
James Milner (★★★ / Keep) - A very good back up, every time I called upon him, he did a stand out job. Didn't moan at all, good back up
Overall, I may be getting some questions asked about why Silva Nasri and Milner are here. Well, although their natural position is in the middle, I find them far more suited on the wing (mainly due to my tactic of playing two strikers). No transfer activity needs to be done here at all. All these players are great (although, I had to retrain Nasri Silva and Milner), and can be relied on.
Strikers:
Sergio Agüero (★★★★ / Keep) - Absolute beast; amazing player, best striker on the team.
Edin Džeko (★★★★ / Keep) - Great target man, although he took awhile to get settled, at the end of the season he was scoring as much as Agüero!
Mario Balotelli (★★★ / Keep) - A good back up player, although he was easily annoyed and kept getting mad at my team talks when everyone else was happy or fired up..
Carlos Tévez (★★★★ / Sell) - I wanted to keep bias out of this part of the report, but, just sell the little weasel. Sold in January to Tottenham for about 42m.
Overall, if you don't go against the wishes of Manchester City fans everywhere and sell Tevez, you need to sign another back up player. I suggest someone young, like Kadlec. Otherwise, your strikeforce is fine. Agüero is a beast and should be hitting them in like its nothing, and Dzeko might start off slow before banging them in too. Mario should play well coming off the bench.
Reserves: - (I'm only going to be the ones who I think are worth the time. The players under the age of twenty two, their stars are potential.)
Jeremy Helan (★.5 / Sel) - In my experience, doesn't develop.
Abdul Razak (★.5 / Sell) - In my experience, doesn't develop.
Abdi Ibrahim (★★.5 / Sell) - In my experience, doesn't develop well.
Alex Nimly (★★.5 / Sell) - In my experience, doesn't develop well.
Frederic Veseli (★★★ / Keep) - He has a chance to become a good player, but will need lots of game time. I suggest keeping but loaning for the first 3 seasons, and hopefully he becomes a good player.
Emmanuel Adebayor (★★★.5 / Sell) - He is on loan at Tottenham, and I do not believe he is worth the time or effort to keep.
Vladimir Weiss (★★★★ / Keep) - On loan at Espanyol, he has high potential, and could make it big. But you need to give him time, (or loan) and often.
Dedryck Boyata (★★★.5 / Keep) - On loan at Bolton and he has fairly high potential, could become a good player, but like Weiss needs time or a loan.
Roque Santa Cruz (★★.5 / Sell) - Not that good of a player, becoming older, so he should be sold asap.
Kieran Trippier (★★.5 / Sell) - Has a good chance of becoming a championship level player but nothing more.
Greg Cunningham (★★.5 / Sell) - Has a good chance of becoming a championship level player but nothing more.
Gai Assulin (★★★ / Keep) - Has a good chance of becoming a squad player, but would need time put into it.
Michael Johnson (★★.5 / Sell) - Has a good chance of becoming a championship level player but nothing more.
Prospects: -
Denis Suarez (★★★ / Keep) - Has a good chance of becoming a squad player.
Devante Cole (★★★ / Keep) - Has a good chance of becoming a squad player.
Juan Angel Roman (★★.5 / Sell) - Has a good chance of becoming a championship level player but nothing more.
Alex Henshall (★★ / Sell) - Has a good chance of becoming a league one level player but nothing more.
Karim Rekik (★★.5 / Sell) - Has a good chance of becoming a championship level player but nothing more.
Reccomended Transfers:
Gregory van der Wiel (★★★.5) - I signed him to replace Zabaleta so that I can rotate two young attack minded DRs.
Mats Hummels (★★★★) - I needed a great player to partner Kompany, and Hummels is all that and a bag of chips!
Vaclav Kadlec (★★.5) - I needed a fourth striker, just incase, and Kadlec is a great choice.
If you see any errors, please tell me! Also if you have any suggestions you can tell me too.
I won the Premier League, Community Shield, and the League Cup in the first season. I also made it to the finals of the FA Cup and the Champions League.
P.S. credit to ivanmatov, over at sortitoutsi, who made the facepack in which I used. Here it is
I'd have Nasri in the centre, he can play out wide but he's best through the middle.
EDIT: Just seen the bit about why you play Nasri and Silva out wide. Each to there own I guess but I like to get the best out of my players and I'm reluctant to play players out of there natural position.
In my first game as City I played the following formation:
Hart
Richards - Kompany - Lescott - Clichy
De Jong - Toure
Silva - Aguero - Nasri
Dzeko
With Silva, Nasri and Aguero playing in the center. I had each of them swapping position with one another, so all three were rotating around the park causing all sorts of trouble.
Clichy/Kolarov played as an attacking wing-back while Richards was a defensive full back that basically became a 3rd centerback when Clichy pushed forward.
De Jong held the midfield together as a ball winner while Toure charged forward as a box to box midfielder.
Dzeko was set to complete forward and rotated with Balotelli to finish off the stream of chances created by the midfield trio.
This worked well, but I gave the game up around the mid season mark while I was unbeaten in the league to start another game.
I have since played as a handful of teams, but seeing this discussion, I have started again as City. I am going to give your formation a go and see how that works, otherwise I will drop back to my original 4-2-3-1 formation.
I have signed Lahm and Chiellini to bolster my defence, letting Kolo Toure, Wayne Bridge and Pablo Zabaleta go.
Hey mate good guide im also doing a Man City save right now and i play exactly the same system as you albeit with some different players.
_________________J.Hart
D.Srna_____V.Kompany____M.Hummels_____G.Clichy
________________________N.De Jong
_____________M.Hamsik
__D.Silva____________________________M.Gotze
____________E.Cavani_____S.Aguero
I find thats the best system to play with City as i don't like playing Aguero as a lone striker simply because that doesn't suit his favoured trequartista role, i started the season in a basic 4-2-3-1 and Aguero would keep dropping to deep into the spaces of my playmakers and it gave my team zero threat in behind my playmakers through balls became redundant as there was no one to play through balls to, with this system Aguero can drop off and play how he prefers without my team suffering from a lack of a focal point and of course any excuse to sign the amazingly brilliant Edinson Cavani helped.
Also Yaya Toure is absolutely useless for me on this, i played him exactly where you do central midfield on his favoured ball winning midfielder role with a support duty, hes terrible and has been all season hence why i dipped into the January transfer market for Hamsik and will be selling Toure at the end of the season, just wouldn't perform for me at all, i kept Tevez as he was fine with everything when i took over obviously hes problems lay with the previous management and the fact is hes an awesome 3rd choice striker to have especially when Cavani is cup tied for European games since he was another January signing.
When this seasons over ill be trying to sign M'villa and Possibly a natural AMR as Silva whilst good there is performing a level below the other 3 in my front line, if i were you id strong recommend signing Mario Gotze he is unbelievably good, id say the best player on the game given his ridiculously young age and potential ability, he starts off world class and becomes insanely brilliant.
Right now im march currently top after 28 games by 7 points from United, my record is played 28 won 24 drawn 4 so far, in the champions league last 16 stage lost 3-2 first round away to CSKA (god knows how!) but should still qualify via the home leg, quater finals of the FA cup at home to liverpool where ill probably rest my best players and use the likes of Tevez/Johnson/Nasri/Barry etc.
Great guide mate I see you have put the effort in here.
I sold a few players at the start, main person I sold was Tevez but that didn't matter as I got Cavani for pretty much the same price. I would recommend Cavani to everyone he's an absolute beast.
mike_efc Indeed, he always requests to stay. I told him to piss off and then sell him asap.
RM99 Come join us City is a really fun game for me, especially when lots of people talk about it!
jtobiasm Thanks! I did, I wanted to do the best I could on a City guide/discussion. I agree, selling Tevez was the main transfer. You don't really need to sell that many players, the team is quite good.
viva fergie I agree, I have NEVER done it before. But I didn't want to sell Nasri, Silva or rotate between them so I had to figure a way out.
Phelix That seems like a class tactic! I should have thought of it.. But, then again, I enjoy mine as-well. Nice transfers, too! Tell me how they work out, I was thinking of signing Lahm before I signed Van der Wiel
United_Mike Damn! We have really similar teams, and tactics! I was going to sign Srna at the start of the season, but I have a rule of not signing anyone above the age of 26-27 (usually). I ended up signing Hamsik in my second season, to rotate as Yaya get's older. I also signed M'Villa to rotate with De Jong as I didn't have a good back-up. I was planning to sign Gotze.. But then I would have had to sell a current winger which for me would be Milner, Nasri, Johnson or Silva, and I really didn't wanna do that. Did you sell Dzeko? I have no idea why Yaya won't perform for you, he makes a-lot of forward runs for me and makes/scores goals quite a-bit. United and Tottenham were fighting with me until the last day for the title, but I beat them to it by ONE! I hope you can do the same
Ive just started a game as City. A new cb is my top priority first, hummels and chielini my main targets. Looking at Ganso as back up to Silva. If I get my way this will be my team
DragonAndLance i will just going to finish up my season with Blyth Spartans, this is going to be a totally different type of save, have no funds with Blyth to mega funds with city.
Finally got the chance to play on my Man City game after starting it 3 days ago..busy busy lol
I've signed Ganso(£25m), Hummels(£25m) and Toloi(£4m) whilst leaving are Zabaleta(£5.25m), Bridge(Ln Fee £425k) and Barry(Ln Fee £750k). Had excellent form in my friendlies for once winning all but 1 game
Man City 5-0 Man City Reserves - Y.Toure, Aguero(2), Balotelli(2) Dinamo 1-3 Man City - Y.Toure(2), Aguero Al Jazeera 2-1 Man City - Aguero Lanus 0-2 Man City - Aguero, Balotelli Man City 2-0 Stuttgart - Tevez(2) Linfield 0-5 Man City - Balotelli, Nasri, Tevez(3) Coleraine 0-3 Man City - Balotelli, Ganso, Aguero Man City 3-0 Flamengo - Tevez(3)
I carried that form into the Community Shield against Man Utd
Man City 4-1 Man Utd - Tevez(3), Silva
Got Man Utd at Home in my opening league game next. My formation is a 4-2-1-3 as follows
GK HART DR RICHARDS DL CLICHY DC KOMPANY DC HUMMELS MC GANSO MC YAYA TOURE AM SILVA ST AGUERO ST TEVEZ ST BALOTELLI