HELP! - Football Manager 2010

[Dan]

Post-January-Transfer-Window Update:

I get antsy, I think, and when I couldn't spend my money in the summer, I just HAD to spend it in the winter. So I did.

IN:
-Flemming Wagner for $1.3 million from FC Nordjaelland. He's just a reservist - he's 18 and won't be much, but is funning to havving on my teamming.
-The aforementioned Midfielding Wagner for $8.25 million from Lokomotiv Moscow. He's now my best AMC.
-GK Alphonse Areola on a free. He had been released from PSG 9 months ago. I saw his name pop up on some "wonderkids" lists so I got him. I guess now that he's 20 and unemployed he's no longer valuable, but I don't have much to lose.
-Manuele Blasi for $700K from West Ham.
-Gregoor van Dijk for $375K from Plymouth.
-Emanuele Pellegrini for $5 million from Udinese.

OUT:
-Jaap Herbrand for $4 million.
-Jonjo Shelvey for $8.25 million.

I basically traded Shelvey for AMC Wagner. I don't know why, but Shelvey had never done much to make me love him. My fans were upset that we only got $8.25 million. I guess I should have gotten more? I am confident in hindsight that I could have gotten Pellegrini for less but ooops. It happens.

Here they are:









Basically my scouts think Pellegrini is about the same as Lewandowski. Which is good - I like RL, but at the same time what I really need is someone better than him. Oh well. And Gregoor and Blasi are my attempts to get some vets to tutor. Look at Blasi's mental!!! Wow.

I have a much-too-large squad right now. Argh. I need to stop getting guys worth the $5-10 million range and go after the $20-30 million ones. That's one of the reasons the squad is so large.

Otherwise, I downloaded the latest patch and am kicking myself for not doing so earlier. The game seems to run a bit smoother/faster/better now. No one cares but me, but I'm happy I finally did that.

We lost in our first FA Cup game to Hull. That pissed me off. So much so that I did the reset cheat to advance past Liverpool in the second leg of the League Cup semis. Hehehehehe. So now we're in the finals against Birmingham. Nice. I don't know if I can really be proud of that since I cheated to get there, but ... welllllll...whatev.

Otherwise the squad is in 5th or 6th place and obviously won't be relegated. I doubt we'll qualify for Europe, and honestly I don't know if I want to get hammered in that yet. But hey I'm still going to try to win. We've cooled off considerably from our early-season run of successes, but are still winning the games we're supposed to, and that's important.

Yay for fun games on a Saturday night in which I chose to save my money.

[Dan]

We won the 2014 League Cup! Yay! And I didn't even reset-cheat to do so. Well, I did to get there but not for the final.

So my question is: it says we qualify for the EURO Cup. What is that?

[rva]

It's something FM 2010 made up.  Sort of.  It's a real competition, but SI don't own the right to use the name.

There are two European competitions:  Champions League (which FM calls "Euro Champions Cup") and UEFA Cup aka UEFA Europa League (which FM calls "Euro Cup.")

In England, the top four teams go to Champions League, and the FA Cup and League Cup winners go to UEFA Europa League.  If the FA Cup and/or League Cup winners already qualify for Champions League, then the UEFA Europa League slot goes to the runners up.  If the runners up have also qualified for Champions League, then the slots go to the fifth place team and then the sixth place team.  This actually happens a lot because the FA Cup usually ends up being Man U vs Chelsea or something, and those two teams usually end up qualifying for Europe by virtue of their EPL standings.  The same thing might happen to you.  If you finish top 4, you will go to "Euro Champions Cup" instead of "Euro Cup."

So Champions League is the more prestigious of the two European competitions, but UEFA Cup is still considered a fairly big deal.  It will raise your club reputation considerably, especially if you advance.  This will help you attract much better players.  It's also fairly lucrative.  You'll get lots of appearance and prize money, the games will be on TV, and you will get a few extra games at home which tend to sell out.

Group round play consists of four teams in a group that play each other home and away.   The games are during midweek as well, so that's six more weeks minimum of two games a week against tough competition.  So you will have to deepen your squad accordingly.  On the plus side, it potentially gives you a chance to get some PT for your young players. 

European competition is why it takes longer to win the Premier League than it does other divisions.  You need to get to Europe in order to sign the players you need to compete with the big clubs.  But then playing in Europe (along with advancing deeper into FA and League Cup) taxes your squad so you typically need another year to build up the required depth to play all those extra matches.

Seasons take FOREVER to play.  Like you could have a year where you are playing Community Shield plus European Super Cup plus FA Cup plus League Cup plus Champions League plus Club World Championship which leads to playing something like 70 games a season.  And you end up playing the good teams over and over.  I once played Man City 9 times in one season. 

I think I probably reset about five or six games a season.  I consider them "legitimate" resets because I do it when things happen that would not happen to a manager in real life.   Like I don't notice it's raining.  Or I forget to make a lineup change I meant to make, or to issue opponent instructions, or to give a team talk or something like that.  But it's still kind of cheating because I'm lazy.  I'll notice I did something wrong by accident, but I'm too lazy to quit and restart so I play out the game.  If I win, I do nothing.  If I lose, I'm all like "That wasn't fair because I messed up."  So it skews in my favor. 

In my defense though, I don't reset if I lose legitimately, either initially or after fixing a mess-up.  I also tend to reset after what I deem to be "stupid" matches.  Like where one team gets an early red card or goal on a terrible call and it changes the whole tenor of the match.  Or if one team vastly outplays the other and loses on a stupid own goal or something.  But I do that both when it goes against me or for me so I don't consider that cheating.  Just making the game more fair and realistic for everyone.

[Dan]

Thanks. I remember Butter teaching me about how the Champions League is the premier league and then there's an NIT style league as well. I'd never heard of "Euro Cup" though. That's awesome that we get three more big name home games. I'm looking forward to it. We're in 8th place right now, but about the hit the gauntlet of Liverpool, ManU, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal or something like that. So I imagine we'll be dropping as opposed to rising. And thus won't be qualifying for any other Cups.

My team right now is incredibly bloated (or "deep" depending on how you look at it) so I would welcome more games. But I bet by the time we get to all those tons of games you're mentioning I won't have lots of these players.

I've only done the reset cheat once a season (or less) so far. This was the first time I did it twice so I don't feel bad. I don't like doing it except when it's a game where I'm down like 3-0 in the first ten minutes against an inferior opponent. Or when two guys who play the same position get injured in the same game.

I'm beginning to think that our team loves the 4-4-1-1 formation. It's what kept us in the EPL last season, and it's what I switched to in a desperate move to win that League Cup final. I might have to use it more. Which is good... since I just discovered that when I compare Marquinhos and Lallana... they are almost the EXACT same player. It's really spooky. And plus I have that new midfielding Wagner, who is better than both of them. So that formation allows for more playing time for those three guys. The only way I've gotten away with dealing with them is that Marquinhos is "accomplished" at the forward positions and Lewandowski has missed 4 months so far this year due to injuries. So he's been playing up more and scoring lots of goals. But if I bring in an awesome striker (always my dream) then we've got a clusterfuck up there.

Also, since we're here: what is Super League Cup? And what is Community Shield?

[rva]

Community Shield= FA Cup winner vs. Premier League top finisher.  Which in my case would lead to Southampton vs. Southampton, so it becomes FA winner vs. 2nd place Premier League team.  Which ends up being Southampton vs. Man City every year.

European Super Cup= Champions League winner vs. UEFA Europa winner.  Usually a very easy victory for the Champions League winner for obvious reasons.

Can Marquinhos play AMR?  Then you could play 4-2-3-1, which is my favorite formation in the game.  You get a good target striker and use him as your target man.  Then on the break, you can kick it up to the target striker who will nod it down to your AMR or AML who is streaking diagonally towards the goal, creating havoc in the defense because neither the FB or DC knows whether to cover him.  45 degree angle of penetration!  Dick Vitale would love it.

The rest of the time, you can use your AMC as playmaker (although unfortunately, Lallana is not the best at this), and your wingers can still run down the flanks and cross to your striker.

The only reason why I don't play 4-2-3-1 is because you have to field separate AML and AMR's, whereas in a diamond 4-2-1-2-1, you can use interchangeable MC's.  That way I just sign 4 MC's and can shuffle them around. 

[Dan]

Yeah Marquihos is definitely an AMR. I'll try that out since I've never used that formation - although I sadly admit that my concept of tactics isn't as advanced as that. I've never once set up a target man or told anyone to do anything specific yet. I just let the computer auto-assign roles and such and then go for it.

Other random things Ive noticed recently...
Why does the game think Man City is the best club? Is that just the programming choice of the day when the game came out?
Gergin Aleksiev has really blossomed as my DMC. I was scouting someone in Mexico and my scouts came back with the report that they would be a leading Premier Division star, and that they are currently at Aleksiev's level. So that made me smile. His stats are still going up, too, which just astounds me. I can't even remember how I found him or what his report said. But he was clearly worth the $160k I paid (insert evil maniacal laugh).
So far that Emmanuel Pellegrini guy stinks. Maybe he needs more time but it's looking like he's not the answer.
My scouts turned up ManU's 17 yr old starting striker as a recommended player. If I had $34 million I could have him now. This excites me b/c I think he's the type to get and tutor and develop into a superstar. It also excites me because usually guys won't go from ManU to us unless they are on the reserves. So yeah - maybe I can start poaching soon?
David Allen has had himself a few phenomenal games in a row. I hope these are glimpses of his future and not just anomalies.
Fernando Forestieri will be on of my offseason targets.     

[rva]

I've haven't been playing FM much recently.  Just 3-4 games a night maybe while watching TV.

It's a good thing, too because I had a really annoying season that would have seriously pissed me off were I still in the throes of FM-addiction trying to play 10 games a day.  Instead I was able to just turn off the game, and then carefully and calmly make the required moves for each match.  So I actually ended up having one of my best coached seasons ever.

In early October, I had a rash of injuries that forced me to go without my top 3 strikers, 2 best midfielders and my best DC for close to a month.  My reserve team was still good enough to beat most teams in any one game, but I no longer had adequate cover.  So I had to pull my youth players in some games and try and pursue strategy where I won the important games and punted others.

But I tinkered with my tactics and spent a lot more time working on team morale and focusing on gameday and in-game adjustments and actually ended up going undefeated during that period, with some of my biggest wins ever.

Then all the guys I'd signed at 18 and had for 5 years started getting itchy feet.  So I had to let my best DR (and probably the best DR in the game) go.  And then do some heavy coaxing to get some other guys to stay, if only until the end of the season.

So in January I was just grinding out the weeks trying for draws and watching my team underachieve and I almost quit.  But then everything came together in mid-February and my team was on such a major role that I pretty much finished the rest of the season in two nights just by going with the same standard tactic, playing the games on fast and hardly paying attention at all.  I might as well have just gone on vacation.  I ended up winning FA Cup, Champions League and the EPL title again.

Adam Lallana ended up having the best season of his career, putting up better stats than he did back in even in fizzy pop.  He had something like 18 goals in 27 games and was just totally on fire the last half of the season even as his attributes were dropping like a rock.  At one point in January I think I won four straight games 1-0 with Lallana scoring the lone goal each time.  He was actually voted Premiership Player of the month.  Definitely the MVP of the team, although the fans voted for Zafer Kaya.

The problem is that Lallana is now 31 and his skills are deteriorating rapidly.  But he had such a good season, he will not want to retire and wants a contract extension.  If he had better mental attributes, I'd keep him as a rotation guy and tutor, but he doesn't.  So despite my not-so-subtle hints about what a fantastic manager he would make it looks like I will have to let him go and bear the wrath of the fans.  Not happy about that.

Speaking of Zafer Kaya, that dude is flat awesome.  I knew he was going to be good, but not THIS good.
He's crazy.  He has both the best finishing AND the best playmaking skills I've ever seen.   

Bryan Sinclair is turning out to be a bit of a problem.  He is improving at a pretty good clip across-the-board.  But what I need him to do is improve less on his already awesome defense and more on his strength.  But despite the fact that I have his strength training as high as I can possibly make it without injuring him (and in fact he did get two minor injuries from strength training) he has only made it to a strength of 10.  He's still only 18 so hopefully he can get it to a minimally acceptable level of 13 or so.

The only reason I'm still playing the game is that I want the team to build a stadium and name it after me.  That, and to have Lallana retire a Saint.  Except that the Lallana thing looks like it won't happen.  And despite the fact that I've pretty much sold out every home game for four years running and the stadium can no longer be expanded, the Board still refuses to build me a new one.  So now I don't know if I will play another season or not.

[Dan]

Hire the most awesome assistant you can find and play the next season in his hands as much as possible. Hah. See if he can do a good job.

10 games a night? Man. I think my machine is really too old for the game/leagues/database I'm using. I had an hour the other day and sat down to play. My machine processes so slowly that I didn't even get a match in... Granted it was one of those two week stretches with no games, but still...

[Dan]

Simplice Terren is now listed as "towering centre-back" instead of wonderkid. Does this signify that I did something wrong? Or just that he's a little older now? Or does it signify pretty much nothing at all?

Btw, even tho my staff all still think Ryhor Filipenko is fizzy-pop material, he made the most of a few opportunities for playing time that popped up and he has won a few MoM awards and has generally getting a 7.5 or so rating every game. The dude is on fire. I love it.

Also, when you said I should try the 4-2-3-1 formation, you meant the one with the wide attacking midfielders, right? Because that's the one I tried out and it has been rather successful. I don't know if the wins are from the new formation or not but it's fun to think they are. The biggest issue is that my MC's that don't play any other positions have been stuck on the bench. Yes I'm looking at you Juan Ricardo Ledezma. 

[Dan]

Another random update!

We finished 6th in the Premiership at the end of the 2013-2014 season. Yay! Verrrry unexpected from my end, but hey that $25 million prize was pretty cool. We went 5-2-2 in our last nine games, closing out the season strongly. I was quite pleased, especially since I was barely trying at that point. We finished just behind ManU and just ahead of Chelsea, Everton, and Liverpool. Man City ran away with the league this year. Grrr.

Yours truly finished 3rd in Manager of the Year. Pretty cool, considering I still feel like I don’t know anything about tactics. Ochoa was named to the Players Team of the Year as the starting GK, and in a surprise David Allen was voted in as the starting MR. I guess he did have a pretty rockin year, now that I think about it. And obviously Mr. Allen was voted in 2nd place for the Young Player of the Year, behind Jack Harvey, a computer regen who has won that award for 3 years running now.

Oh, and I noticed that Otocka is now listed as a Wonderkid. The label just jumped from Terren to Otocka I guess. Cool.

In the pre-transfer window (it’s now July 1st, 2014) I made some moves… using up all of my transfer budget in one move. Hehehehehheeh.

OUT:
DC Pedro Jimenez for $2.9 million to West Ham
ST Emanuele Pellegrini for $5.25 million to Getafe
And… likely but not completed yet, longtime Saint ST Santiago Fernandez for $6.25 million to Newcastle. That one pains me, but sometimes you have to do it. He’s not been that effective lately – good, but not great, ya know? Maybe Newcastle can get more out of him than I could. I still like the guy – I just wanted to shrink my squad a little.

Also out is Gregoor Van Dijk who was just signed for the 6 months. I barely used him. I guess that was a dumb move on my part.

That leaves me with only two 1st team strikers, Lewandowski and Lukaku. Ahhh, but my big signing!

IN:
ST Roger Teague for $39 million from ManU. The game says he’s the next Michael Owen. I hope so for the price I paid.
DL Gerrit Wagner for $2.8 million from Schalke. He’s 18 and my scouts say he’ll be a decent/good Premier Division player if I train him right.
AML/C David Faulkner for $2.9 million from Stoke. He’s also 18 and my scouts think well of him.
ST Vincent Acapandie on a Free from AJ Auxerre. He’s 24 and looks to be a solid striker. Honestly… I don’t remember signing him. I mean, I know I did…but it was a while ago and I remember looking at my transfer center and thinking “who is that?” Ah well. He looks pretty good. He’ll help for depth if we end up with a congested fixture schedule.

I have a bunch of guys who have their contracts up at the end of the upcoming year, but they are all my older vets who I don’t even emphasize anyhow. I just resigned a few guys – backup GK Atanas Velikov being the most important re-signing and DC/DM Wagner being my other big inking. Wagner had been the target of a ‘rumor’ that ManU wanted him for $24 million. That bid was never made, but I realized he’d been pretty under-paid recently and so I locked him up longer term. It’s weird b/c both Wagner and Filipenko are rated by my own coaches as Championship level players, but then when they are on the field they do great. Filipenko one 3 Man-of-the-Match awards this year in only 20 or so appearances. I mean, what more can you ask of a guy? I thought about moving him for better/younger talent, but I don’t think you can ask for better.

That’s it for now… but I’ve told the board we hope to have a top-half table finish. Seems like a tall order, although we just finished sixth so maybe not? I’m gonna need Roger Teague to develop a bit before I can really think we’re awesome. I coulda gone after a guy in Scotland who was basically the 21 yr old more-advanced version of Teague, but I figured it’s more fun to watch them grow up.














Yeah, I admit Faulkner doesn’t look like much, and I probably won’t even use him much, which means he’s not going to grow. But I didn’t spend TOO much on him, so whatev.

[Dan]

At serious risk, I made two more moves:

1) I signed Frank Lampard on a free. He's 36 now and obviously declining, but he's the first "star player" I've ever been able to sign. I define Star as someone I have heard of prior to this game. I went after Thierry Henry for a while, and Gerrard, and a bunch of others... but he had been released and I wanted his services. This was a risk only in that my squad is much too big and I'm bringing in another dude? Not good for squad harmony. But hey, it's only for 1 year and was free and I'm just psyched to have him.




2) I signed Stevie Winters from Rangers for $24 million. This is VERY risky as, in addition to the squad size issues I just mentioned, he's also EXPENSIVE. I mean, he's less costly than Roger Teague, but that move was fine b/c I had most of the cash for it. This move... I had $3.9 million in transfer budget left, and had to pay the rest on an installment plan. That means our club is probably going to be in the red for the rest of the length of my game. D'oh. I also now have 5 strikers - Teague, Lewandowski, Lukaku, Acapandie, and Winters. That's 1 too many, or 2 too many if I play the 4-2-3-1 formation that I liked last season. My thought process in signing him, though, was simply that a) my scouts brought him up to me like 4 times and I was tired of it, but more importantly b) I realized that Teague is a great prospect but not really going to help this year...while Winters can help this year. I want to start winning this year (not that 6th place last year wasn't... but you know, win more). I'd felt that Lewandowski is great but would be even better as my 2nd best striker, so that's the role Winters will fill (I hope).




Also of note: Acapandie has looked pretty good in the few friendlies we've played, so that's a relief.
Also also of note: I was registering my team for the EURO Cup and noticed it said I didn't have to register guys 21 or under, so I didn't. Then David Allen, my star right midfielder complained about not getting included and was thinking of moving elsewhere. Ummm, dude, you're only 21. WTF? Crap like that pisses me off about the game.

[rva]

Teague is 17.  I don't think he'll be too upset if you don't play him.  I think you have two options with him: 

1)  Put him in your U-18 squad (and if your ass. man handles your reserve matches he'll probably get a lot of reserve games in as well) and tutor him, or

2) Loan him out to a team of at an appropriate level for his skills and that sees him as a "valuable member of the first team." 

You can do both.  That is, you can keep Teague around the first half of the season where you may have some easy early round matches in Euro Cup or Domestic tournaments, then loan him out the second half of the season when he may be riding the bench a lot.  Or you can do the reverse.  If you think you're not that good, your Cup matches will be tough so you'll have to bench Teague.  But you'll also likely get knocked out early so there will be more easy matches the second half of the season.  So loan out Teague early, move a striker or two during the transfer window, and then bring him back.

Same thing with Faulkner.  No player really expects to break into the first team until at least 19 or so.  I don't know what either of their personalities are like, so can't tell if they are professional and/or ambitious.  But at least they have high determination and workrate so they will tend to improve on their own.  Meaning they can be loaned out and may not need tutoring.

Lampard is unreal in this game.  Have him tutor your best DC prospect right away. 20 determination, and I don't know his hidden personality attributes but they are without a doubt insanely high.  And 18 influence means they are sure to rub off on whoever he tutors.  If he gets PO'ed for half a season because he's not playing, who cares?  At that point you're almost rid of his contract and he'll be nearly finished tutoring anyway.  Although you can probably find some games for him to play in.  Aside from his abysmal speed, he's still an insanely awesome player.  So any team that isn't fast or runs a lot he should still be okay.  He also probably wants to manage or be a coach (look at his personal page).  If so, make sure to comment every other month about what a fine coach/manager/scout he'd make.  With luck, he'll decide to retire at some point in the season and you can hire him.

Teague looks like an exciting prospect.  Just be aware that you can already tell he's a pure fast/technical striker.  He will always be shite in the air, and he'll probably only ever be a so-so finisher.  His speed will give him lots of chances though, and fortunately he's a decent crosser.  So he'll be extremely dangerous at counter attacks where he can either cross to a trailing AM or try and finish it himself.

Acapandie a decent all-around guy out of the Lewandowski mold so he and Teague would make a good striker pairing if you choose to play two.  It's a bit unfortunate that Winters is a bit of a puss and that his natural fitness is poor.  But he's the guy a want if you're going to use just one up front.  Lots of high skills all around.

I've never seen a player complain about not being registered if they didn't have to be registered.  But if Allen is in fact eligible, he'll quiet down once you use him.  Also, if you get through the group stage you'll get a chance to re-register players during the January transfer window so you can register him then if you have space.  In fact, the deadline may not have passed for the group stage yet so see if you can go back and register him real fast.

[Dan]

I think I'll do the loan-in-the-2nd-half-of-the-season option. It sounds like a plan - plus, he was getting starting time at ManU, so I wouldn't want him to come to St. Marys and then get benched. Plus, I spent all that money on Teague, so I want to watch him myself.

My staff says Lukaku isn't very good and should be transfer listed. That might be the way to go. If he was 16/17 like he is at the start of the game I guess he becomes pretty good, but now that he's 21 maybe he's peaked already? Too bad.

The David Allen thing... well, it was too late, so I just plowed forward. He definitely was ineligible for the home-and-home with the Swiss side I was playing, so I guess he was legitimately angry. I must have mis-read the rules or something. I could have swore they said 21-and-younger on August 14, and he doesn't turn 22 until August 31. But maybe I was wrong. I dunno. Hopefully we'll get through this. Otherwise maybe I'll have to sell him off.

Speaking of selling off... we have a new problem: I'm over my wage budget for the first time ever. My board gave me $37 million and I'm at $38.5 million. That $1.5 million...well, I don't know what the repercussions are for going over your budget since I've never done it.

If I *have* to sell someone I've decided that I have two routes: I can either cut loose one guy who's a regular, or two lesser guys that I was hoping would pan out. Gerrit Wagner would be one of the lesser guys - he's making $875k, so that would be half my decision. It's the other guy... or two guys? Or three guys? I don't know if I can just release someone on a free b/c I thought you have to pay those guys the rest of their contract when you do that, so it's zero gain.

But my other option is to sell a 1st Teamer. And after long and hard decision making, I've decided it would be Marquinhos. He's worth $9 million estimated, and if I can get $6 million for him or more then that would solve a lot of problems. Marquinhos did finish in the top 2 in scoring last year for the Saints, but he's not as awesome as he was in FM2009 for rva, and honestly I have Wagner and Lallana who serve the same roles as he does. But he scored so many goals for us... but then all of my staff think of him as a backup to the first team - they never suggest him as a starter. So it's weird and I still have to decide how I feel. I haven't put him up on the transfer list yet, but I might soon. I dunno... It's weird b/c I clicked on Club Finances or whatever and the board said they are okay with our current wages, and my confidence bar is at 46% for that category. That's the lowest it's ever been, but honestly that's better than I expected it to be.

[Dan]

Okay, I decided against selling anyone. I just didn't want to deal with it. I loaned out Jose Moreira for 5 months to Peterborough since they agreed to pay his full wage for that time. That helps. Then I'm hoping that my prize money from EURO Cup/UEFA Cup/WhateverYouCallIt Cup will help keep the club in the black, although I notice that those winnings don't get funneled back into my budgets. Oh well.

Also part of the reason was b/c Marquinhos is waaay too valuable. I don't know what I was thinking. The dude is my 1st backup for AMR *and* AML. And he scores consistently. So he's not going anywhere. I guess if I have to maybe I'll sell Wagner or Lallana or someone else. But in the meantime I'm just going to go forward and see where we land.

Btw, I got through the Third and Fourth Qualifying Rounds of the EURO Cup and just entered the Group Stage. FUN! We are the third seed in our group, with a club from Turkey with a name that I can't pronounce, and... crap, I forget the other two. Maybe Sevilla? We just had the draw, so I haven't played them yet.

[Dan]

Any advice on making him happy? I play him a lot as he is one of the best on the team. The only other thing I can think of is to sign someone he likes, but I have no transfer budget.