What are your thoughts?

Wunderkinds?  Good Bosmans?  New Negotiations?

every year i say im not going to buy it until they fix career mode.  at least this year i bought it straight away. $79 at target.

i think the new transfers are good. at least it's quicker. although it seems really hard to offload dead wood in a new squad though. that's pretty annoying and I count on that to raise some cash for early purchases.  the transfer hub is a bit clunky.

the training is a bit shitty. it's really hard to get a A grade for training. and using the training sim is still a waste.  i think they need to bring back some of the old training routines and improve sim performance.

i started with melbourne city in league 1 in england. soft enough to build the team up  - which is pretty weak this year - and purchase a bunch of young talents and build them up on a budget.

Bosnians still to easy, still to easy to gain money and legendary is too easy but besides that I think its great this year. Was playing on legendary and killing everyone but have since adjusted sliders to make it a bit harder (found one on YouTube by the name of Chesnoid gaming that works well). I am a decent but not fantastic player yet was top of the league with Newcastle so that says a lot.

Sunderland (as usual) on Legendary.  Half a season in.  Finances seem a little more realistic (in terms of being very hard to get a bargain) - although the starting wages of my squad are stupidly low (in reality we are over-stretched and haemorrhaging cash).  Have absolutely nothing to spend which will make things very interesting if I get promoted at the end of the season.

For anyone playing outside the top leagues - can thoroughly recommend picking up Gyrano Kerk, a very quick and young Dutch striker/winger who can be signed for around 2.5m; and as a target man Ridge Munsy, a journeyman playing in Switzerland, who you can nick for a million.

I'm finding a 4-3-3 is working a lot better than my usual 4-3-1-2 formation.  Also using 'long ball' rather than 'counter attack', even though I tend to play a close-passing game, as it gives me the option to launch the occasion long pass over the top.  Using a lot of short through-balls as regular passes too.

Also, to make things even tougher - I edited the squads to return all of Sunderland's real life summer signings to their original clubs and leave me with the actual squad Simon Grayson inherited (but left our 'best' players - Lens, Djilobodji, Khazri and Borini - out on loan).  Left me with about 10-11 million to spend on half a dozen signings (3 for transfer fees, 1 trade, 2 free agents).

i havent ever been fired but it would really shit me off after putting so much time into the team.  so i dont overdo difficulties.

i bought in mooy, sainsbury and maclaren into the squad before loading a new career. it gets annoying try to chase down a few decent aus signings every time i start, so i did it like that.  i had about 6 millions euros to stock the team.  out of the original city squad only budz, fornaroli, fitzgerald and jameison made the 11. fitz is playing fullback.

it's tougher to defend this time.  although ive only just switched to legendary for the first time, so that is probably all the difference.

really interesting tactic with the long ball setting.  i set my team up for tiki taka and possession and try so move the ball quickly up the pitch with short passes and lots of little through balls.  i play a 4 2 2 2 with no wings just a defensive box and an attacking box with the fullbacks running their guts out up and down the sides.  i find the defensive mids sit back to much and dont move forward into attacking passing options when they are open.  that's pretty frustrating watching mooy hang back when you know he would overload the front and have a clear space for a shot if he pushed up a bit.

also. Angel Gomes from man united. 16 years old. starts with a 64 and a 89 potential.

signed him for 900k and sfa wages.  he's only up to 68 at 3 months in but is absolutely killing it from an attacking mid position.  best of my 4 wonderkids.

Mid February and have already fulfilled all the goals the club set me for season 1 - need a 'mid table' finish and I'm currently in the promotion chase.  VERY interested to see how the step up to Premier League will go (I beat Chelsea in the league cup - smash and grab 2-0 away win - drew 1-1 with West Ham then lost the replay 0-1) - particularly how much cash I'll be given to built a Prem team...  Just need to grind out the results between now and then.

Agree defending is tougher, players don't turn as fast and overshoot the player when you try to cover.  Tackling not as precise either.  Easier to score goals though - so more realistic scores.  Have won games 5-2 and 5-3 this season.  Comedy defending but wicked fast attacks with my wingers cutting inside.  Also the midfield claiming a lot more goals.

Spoke too soon...  January window was excellent and I thought I was set up for the second half of the season...  February/March has seen a draw and 5 (count them) defeats.  Once you lose 2 in a row the players confident drops through the floor and getting them up again is a nightmare... Either that or I was half asleep when I was playing!

Final thoughts on career mode so far? Picking up fifa 18 this arvo, might give it a whirl while I set up shop on FUT

Seems a lot more realistic on the financial side.  Gameplay a little different, especially on the defensive side (you'll notice that on FUT too obviously), goals are easier and more varied - I haven't noticed that I'm scoring the same goal over and over again.  First touches can be shocking (but that's possibly because I'm playing Championship rather than Premier League now).

Following on from this...  Not sure WTF happened (only sold one player in January), but went from 3rd top in the league, 2nd highest scorers, to only winning 3 games after January - strengthened considerably in the summer transfer window (getting 4 76-80 ranked players back off loan for a start), and started the new season with 1 win, 2 draws, and 4 defeats, plus getting knocked out of the cup...  Aaaaannd, rage quit my own game.

Wouldn't have minded losing games if it had been from the start of the season and I could have blamed it being new game-play, but I had a good first half of the year and was scoring for fun...  Either player confidence is ridiculously important, some kind of bug in the game, or I've had a stroke...

i always found it hard to win after squad changes.  i push to grind out draws after all transfer windows and then they pick up form.  

why cant the commentator say the name of the club when you swap in a club? im playing melbourne city in england. it never changes over new releases of games.  the commentator just says nothing and reads out every other team in the table.

also there is a glitch in the team announcement in game.  it will say the other team eg "they are playing a 4231" etc and read out the names of players in the team. but my team the commentator says something like "the home team line up today".,.... then silence.

wow.  just brutalised walsall. 8-1.  maclaren puts 5 away.  i think our boys are ready for the championship.

So is prize money carried over realistically? I won millions in money but only received 6 millions as a budget the next season.

If it was squad changes I could understand it (to a degree) but this was literally one out, one in.  Re-started the game and immediately won three games 1-0, 5-0, 3-1... And then season has fallen apart again - they score with every attack, I can't buy a goal.  As I said before - if I wasn't getting those wins at the start I'd put it down to me being shit, or my squad not being up to it...  But I win, and easily, then it randomly changes from Legendary mode to Bastard mode.

did you sell a player?  that is what im getting at with squad changes. it definitely impacts my teams performance. i notice a slump at the end of every january/feb start and a slow start to every season.

i dont understand the point of giving you prize money for the season when you cant keep it. it's just plain dumb. and there is not transparency about how the process works (which could be said about most things on fifa. eg requirements to sell tickets)

also i found in fifa 17 when i'd stack the wages on someone i wanted to sell - so i could get the money back next season - negotiations fell apart.

It appeared to be carried over for me - but it didn't actually go into my transfer fund until the next window opened.

Just one central defender, who I replaced with a slightly lesser but younger player.  I've noticed on previous versions if I offloaded 2-3 first team players things would go wobbly for a few games, so I limited it to just the one this time and still chaos.  If selling one player causes a meltdown then it's a stupid game engine.

So...  Restarted...  Made it really tough for myself to 'enjoy' the full Simon Grayson experience at Sunderland*.  Used squad editor to return all of Grayson's signings to their original clubs, left my 'star' players out on loan as in real life, didn't take the budget boost at the start of the game, played on Legendary without touching the sliders**.

This meant that I started with a pretty thin squad and not much money to build with.  I then managed to spend the lot recruiting new players to the point that at the end of the transfer window I had less than 1k left in my budget.  The only way to top your budget up is through sales - gate money, cup runs, etc., don't seem to have an effect on 'this' year's budget - and as I didn't get any offers for any of my players I ended up crawling through the second half of the season with 8 players running down their contracts and no way for me to sign them up to new deals.  Furthermore, no money for a youth scout, and no money to sign a player even if I had a scout - or to sign any more free agents.  By the end of the season I was bare bones with a few injuries and actually had to forfeit a fixture as I couldn't put a team out.  Lost 3-0.  Guess what I missed out on promotion by?  Yep - goal difference, 2 goals!

Finished league in 3rd, then lost play-off.  Lost League Cup final, lost FA Cup semi-final.  A season of near misses.

* There are a few tricks and twists to improve your transfer budget
- obviously using the budget boost bonus thing at the start
- recalling loaned star players, then whacking them on the transfer market and cashing out
- a bug allows you to trade players you only have on loan as if they belonged to you
- if I'd started with SAFC's actual squad I would have had extra players to sell/trade/use
After this career I may go with the default squad and use all the tricks to see what I can do - but for now it's 'realism' as far as possible.

** Recently saw a suggestion online that if you alter the sliders for keepers only, both teams, from 50 down to 40-45 you get a much more realistic experience without all the wonder saves on both sides...  Might have to try that.

Just noticed a guy on youtube giving showing all kinds of 'cheats' for career mode and thought - "why bother?" - I want the game to be as realistic as possible - tough finances, very few wunderkinds, expensive transfers, etc.

My last game on 17 I was winning the league, banking a fortune and training up half a dozen home-grown 80plus kids...  And it felt fake as f*ck.  I'm actually loving how tough the finances are on this latest game (so far).

yeah i agree.  it's empty to cheat it.  i use to replay a lot of games - mostly because i'd spend so much time on a squad and get attached to it.

i fiddle with the sliders - some of them have nothing to do with skill they are things about team with and line height etc. things i would as a manager change.  ive also used them a bit to scaffold the difficulty settings as ive gotten better.  im now playing on legendary mode. absolutely no rematching allowed. high risk fifa! 

i also reload quite a bit in the transfer because the current transfer system i find very unrealistic. i think you dont get as much opportunity to sell as would happen in real life.

do you play out each training session or sim it? atm i play each one, but it gets tedious.

I don't do as much training as I should, and on 18 I almost always sim.  On 17 I went flat out on youth development and trained like a machine - actually doing most of the sessions too - but it didn't seem too realistic to be producing 2-3 first team 17 yr olds each season - plus following on from your comment about getting attached to certain squads - when you've had a lad from 15, turned him into a full international, first team regular with league titles and european football, money no object when it comes to wages - and he suddenly decides he's going to leave...  I'm too invested!

I've never replayed a game due to the result - once or twice because of crashes.  Never re-done the transfer window - and don't think I will.  I could have re-done January on the season I've just finished - only needed to sell one player to make things very different, but I treated it as a simple case of reality biting...  Shit happens in real life, why not in the game.

I usually sim a couple of games in January if my league position is reasonable - just want to get into the transfer market and see what I've got for the second half of the season.  Maybe sim toward the end of the season, again only when league position won't be too badly affected by a bad result.

Forgot to mention before - this one goes in the 'most frustrating FIFA 18 quirk' category...  That Birmingham game I had to forfeit due to lack of players...  The biggest problem was that it was a re-arranged fixture due to cup ties, and the computer slapped it into an International week, so I lost my three full internationals on top of a few injuries.  Extremely frustrating.  Actually went through the FA Cup Semi-Final, last 3 league games, and my play-offs with only 16 fit players - knowing that any injury or suspension would cost me the next game 3-0.  Stressful when it's tight at the top and you tend to tackle a lot!  Got through it but players were exhausted by the time I played the 2nd leg of the play-offs.

you need to look at the free agents.  there's a couple times when they have saved me in that situation.  you can bring someone in on the cheap just to fill the squad and all you pay is wage - maybe they might want a signing fee in 18.

i train them hard to get them up to a level. this season it's all players i have long term plans for (which is about 7 players) up to 75 by the end of the season. once they are there i will work on training the youth in camp.

had a glitch with a youth player.  their stats show speed and acceleration at over 90 while they were in the youth camp.  i signed them and his speed was in the 60's. i redid it 3 or 4 times with the same issue.  pretty frustrating tbh.

if you want a list of the best youth signings you can make in the first season this guy has them all.

I always check the free agents but in that season I literally had nothing to spend.  My total budget at the end of the transfer window was something like GBP700 in the bank - or GBP6/week!  No-one ready to play for that!!  I thought someone would come in in January and pick off one of my better players, which would have allowed me to get a couple of freebies in, but no...  Nobody wanted any of them.

I try to make it a rule that I only sign players my scouts have recommended to me - that way I can't take advantage of any of the numerous websites/videos out there giving hints and tips.  I'm a sucker for making it tough.  I actually made that first season really hard by spending most of my initial budget on better scouts - so great scouting but nothing to buy the players that are recommended.  Just going through summer transfer window before second season now and it's beginning to pay off...  Half a dozen signings already, young lads (but not too young) with potential to be solid EPL players - if I can get promoted this year.

the scouting system sucks. i dont think it reflects real life at all - where you actually do have access to the internet, websites and videos.

funnily enough there are a few stories about players being picked up after being noticed on football manager. even a managers kid who started banging on to his dad about this teenager lionel messi. dad had a look had a look into messi and then decided against it.