First of all, I have began to play a secondary formation/tactic with my team. After doing quite a bit of reading I decided to try something similar to what Vitaliy Mokosiy uses on his Boston United series, which can be found on his blog, True Football Manager. If I haven't mentioned this blog before, I recommend it, it's fun and very informative. The guy has been playing FM for a long time and I feel like he's one of the better players out there. He's at least very good at writing a fun FM blog.
So my team is now switching between my original 4-3-2-1 which has been fairly successful and my new 4-3-3 (although I am tempted to also call it 4-3-2-1). This new formation if quite different from my original one, where I now have 3 midfielders playing in the middle with no one on the ML and MR positions. Then I have an AML and a AMR playing as inside forwards, who are supporting a Poacher at the FC position. I actually had a lot of players to make this formation work with my current squad, and I'm starting to feel that this new formation might be a better choice in the long term. The 4-3-2-1 was a bit limiting as my 2 AMCs were often covering the same ground, and my two wingers would have to move much more than in my new strategy. I also feel that my 4-3-2-1 would work better if I had amazing wingers, which I didn't, I was using some relatively young players in that position.
Anyway, I will talk more about my new formation once I'm more comfortable with it. The bottom line is, I have been getting rid of a couple strikers, such as Milivoje Novakovic who was sold to AC Milan for 3M (not bad for a player that I barely got to play) and now I am discussing the sale of Mikael Forssell for 3.3M to A.C. Milan as well. I have had some trouble with Forssell in the past, as he was quite unhappy about playing so little first team football. With these two sales I intend to bring a new striker to the squad, and right now I'm seriously considering Lukas Podolski, who is currently a free agent (I couldn't believe that when his agent contacted me). Here is his profile right now:
The only downside to picking him up is his high salary, but 80+k is probably fair for a player of his caliber. It should really add some quality to our front, I'm just hoping Luis Garcia doesn't mind new competition.
Aside from that I have also received a substantial offer for Juan, our main DL who was valued 7.75M. Arsenal and Liverpool began a bidding war on him, even though I did not have Juan on transfer list, in the end I received a 14.25M offer, and despite not wanting to sell him originally, I can't see myself saying no to such a large sum of money. Anyway, I sold him, but I'll have Juan until the end of the season, with so many good young talents in the team, I don't think it should be hard to substitute him with someone a bit weaker and still survive for a while. I do wonder whether the next tier will be as easy as this one, something tells me it won't.
Finally, I have been considering a new central midfielder for our squad. Playing 3 MCs does make my selection look a bit small at the moment. I want to eventually build up a really solid midfield, and I'm going to start by picking a good defensive one for my MCc position (ball winning mid). Currently I have 2 free agents who I'm looking at, here they are:
They are similar players, and I wish I had some help deciding. Right now I'm kinda pending towards Ernst. I feel like his size advantage as well as slightly better speed would be more suitable for ball winning midfielder / anchorman.
