From the opening Bastards post I mentioned that we had taken over La Serena in Chile. Close to the bottom of the table and on a pretty bad run of form. Clearly what they needed was an injection of grit. To get in touch with their inner bastards and dig deep. I’m going to write you a prescription for two testicles. You get it filled whenever. Dr Perry Cox Now we had a little bit of cash, but not much pull and to be honest not much opportunity to bring many people in. We just had a free transfer window left (with a cap of 3 transfers) so a lot of that testicle prescription to up the Bastardine ..read more

Not all people are the same, nor are all bastards. Variety is very much the spice of life, and I want to make sure I season my team with a healthy amount of bastardry of different types. I’d actually really like to shape the players I have within Football Manager to encourage the kind of foul and hard-nosed football I like, but it’s actually quite hard. Dirtiness and Sportsmanship are hidden attributes that don’t seem to change from what I could see on FM23. Temperament if it was influenced by fines and corrective disciplinary action is again hidden and hard to track. Direct action and mentori ..read more

During FM23, I leant heavily on the wisdom of Nicolai Machiavelli. Prior to that, I’ve used stats and number crunching to shape the way I approach Football Manager. But for FM24 I think I’m going to pivot to the musings of modern day poet and hero, Dr Perry Cox to guide my FM24 hand. “ Lady, people aren’t chocolates. D’you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard-coated bastards with a bastard filling. But I don’t find them half as annoying as I find naive bubble-headed optimists who walk around vomiting sunshine.” Dr Perry Cox – Scrubs So that’s how I’m going to play FM24. As a bastard ..read more

The Reducer. Letting them know you are there. Putting your mark on the game and the other player’s shins. We’re not strangers to that here at FMTahiti. But it’s something we’re going to revisit and check out with a few stats. That’s right, violence and numbers. What a combination. It does get stats heavy towards the end but there’s also a GIF of Pepe breaking the Geneva convention if you read on. What’s the point of a bone crunching tackle, legal or not, though? Tactically what’s the point? Well, you can listen to Machiavelli or Vinnie Jones. It’s partly psychological. Instilling fear and hes ..read more

We’ve made it to season 10. Hurray! Actually because my wordpress has been a steaming pile of Seagull droppings I’ve actually finished season 11 but all the posts are backed up. This post is brought to you by the Tor browser, and my l33t hacking skills. If you want to catch up on the last 9 season then please check out all the Dafuge and Data posts here, including the end of season reports. To save you time though we’ve risen gently up to the Championship, like a helium balloon released by the sticky hands of a child at Flamingo land. I think technically the quickest we could have made it to t ..read more

I am a big fan of set pieces in Football Manager, but have often looked at the attacking opportunities rather than spending much time on the defensive options. There’s a lot of exceptional guidance on how to get the most out of your attacking set pieces. Whether they are corners, free kicks or the impressively powerful throw in. Like a lot of people, I’ve been drawn towards the attacking possibilities like a moth to a flame. Or Rory Delap to a towel on the touch line. They are a great way to squeeze more goals out of your game. They are great for those incremental improvements, the marginal g ..read more

Shithousing isn’t a new phenomenon. In Football or in Football Manager. Guido Merry for example has a great guide of shithousing in FM, and in FM23 appears to be having great success with it. If you take a look at some of my past series with the likes of Scarborough and Belfast you’ll see I’m no stranger to it either. Rather than having a traditional save series this year I’m wanting to dip into my saves for examples of the footballing dark arts. All largely inspired by the writing of Niccolò Machiavelli. Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is fa ..read more

This isn’t going to be stats driven, or a Herr Lipp story. There’s not going to be much fun in this one. Unless you really enjoy talking about Sports Washing. I’ve not got FM22 yet. I’ve been busy with work and had FM21 to finish off so I’ve not been in a massive rush to play. The urge is there but honestly I’ve not had much choice but to resist. I’ll dive in soon I’m sure. It has meant I’ve had plenty of time to watch everyone else enjoying themselves on twitter. Including Miles posting about how many games have been played and pounds spent on transfers so far. Congratulations everyone. You ..read more

The great performance last season started to establish the Seadogs as more than just a flash in a pan. We weren’t relegation fodder who just happened to be enjoying a lucky season. We had become consistent, violent performers. Alongside creeping up the table, we were also setting back to back records for the worst discipline in the league. All part of the plan. With the Euro Cup to contend with on top of everything, we needed to expand and improve the squad a little bit. We could use stats to squeeze more out of the squad, and tweak tactics, but at this stage in the year and with all this cas ..read more

The some here being anyone who faced us whilst we were on blistering form. Sorry, giving the game away a little bit here before the summary, but it was a nice season. One I played many months ago in real life but have only recently got round to writing about. Season updates from now are going to be a bit briefer. Partly because FM22 is now breathing down our necks. Whilst I’m not exactly frothing with excitement at the 4000 new features updates, I will still at some point be making the move over to FM22 when the beta drops. Even if it’s just so I can spend some time reporting the inevitable bu ..read more