Football Manager 2009 Team Guides: Manchester United - Red Devil

Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at the Old Trafford stadium in Trafford, Greater Manchester, and is one of the most popular football clubs in the world, with over 330 million supporters worldwide – almost 5% of the world's population. The club was a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, and has played in the top division of English football since 1938, with the exception of the 1974–75 season. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65.

The club is the second most successful in the history of English football and by far the most successful of recent times, having won 20 major honours since the start of Alex Ferguson's reign as manager in November 1986. They are the Premier League's reigning champions, and have won England's top division 17 times, one short of Liverpool's record of 18 league titles. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1. They won a second European Cup as part of an unprecedented Treble in 1999, before winning their third in 2008, 40 years almost to the day after their first. The club also holds the record for the most FA Cup titles with 11. - Credit to Wikipedia.

Club Information

Name: Manchester United
Nickname: The Red Devils
Founded: 1878
Fierce Rivals: Liverpool, Man City, Leeds
Minor Rivals: Arsenal, Bolton, Chelsea
Affiliations: Bury, Antwerp, Altrincham
Legends: Roy Keane, Ole Gunnar Solsjaer, Sir Bobby Charlton, Eric Cantona, Sir Alex Ferguson
Icons: Bryan Robson, Ryan Giggs, Mark Hughes, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Brian Kidd, Steve Bruce, Peter Schmeichel, Denis Irvin, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Phil Neville, David Beckham, Brian McClair, Nicky Butt, Andrew Cole
Favoured Personnel: Teddy Sheringham, Sammy Mcllory, Lou Macari, Steve Coppell
League: English Premier League
Media Prediction: 1st
Team Captain: Gary Neville
Vice Captain: Ryan Giggs

Finances

Estimated Value: £403m
Loan Debt: £682m
Balance: £75m +
Transfer Budget: £10m
Remaining Wage Budget: £160k

Stadium and Training

Ground: Old Trafford
Capacity: 75000
Season Ticket Holders: 58000
Average Ticket Price: £37
Average Season Ticket Price: £709
Training Facilities: Top Training Facilities
Youth Facilities: Excellent Youth Facilities + Youth Academy

First Team Squad

Goalkeepers

Ben Foster
Tomas Kusczcak
Edwin van der Sar

Defenders

Rio Ferdinand
Nemanja Vidic
Jonny Evans

Fullbacks

Gary Neville
Wes Brown
Patrice Evra
John O'Shea

Midfielders

Michael Carrick
Owen Hargreaves
Darren Fletcher
Anderson
Paul Scholes

Wingers

Cristiano Ronaldo
Nani
Ryan Giggs
Park Ji-Sung

Forwards

Wayne Rooney
Carlos Tevez
Dimitar Berbatov
Manucho

Squad Analysis 

This is an overall analysis of the squad from my point of view.

Goalkeepers: You have thre main keepers in the Squad; They are of course Edwin van der Sar, Ben Foster and Tomas Kusczcak. This department is strong enough in the first season as Van der Sar although ageing can do a job in the first season and Foster and Kuzczcak can provide fantastic back up. So there is no need to improve here in the 1st season. Your long term first choice GK should be Ben Foster but thsi could be a position to strengthen after VdS retires as Kusczcak is not good enough to be 1st choice..

Left Backs: Patrice Evra is fantastic as always and should be your first choice LB. O'Shea will provide adequate back up. No need for improvement except if you want a top class LB to rotate with Evra in latter seasons.

Right Backs: On the right side Neville and Brown both can do a job but you should be looking to get a long term replacement for Gary Neville. It will be also intresting to see how the Brazilian twins Fabio and Rafael develop.

Centre Backs: Both Ferdinand and Vidic look amazing and could be the best DC's in the game imo. They should be your first teamers with Jonny Evans, O'Shea and Brown providing back up. You may want to sign a promising young CB though.

Defensive Midfielders: This position again looks strong with Hargreaves and Carrick both looking solid and they are English aswell. You should rotate the two of them and maybe use Fletcher as back up.

Central & Attacking Midfielders: Paul Scholes looks amazing and still could have a couple of seasons in him. Anderson looks very good and should have a high potential. A long term replacement is needed for Scholes but i would advise to buy in the 2nd season.

Wingers: You have four main wingers in Ronaldo, Giggs, Nani and Park. Ronaldo is arguably the best player in the game and he should obviously be your first choice on the RW with Park as back up. Howver both of them are injured so it could be useful to find a short term replacement at the start of the game. On the LW Nani and Giggs should be good enough for the 1st season but you need a long term replacement for Giggs.

Strikers: Man Utd have arguably the best Strike force in the game with Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov. Rooney looks as though he has been slighty downgraded but he is still fb. Tevez also looks like he has been toned down but agin he still looks fantastic. Berbatov looks amazing and gives you another option and with Manucho as further back up and promising ST's such as Welbeck and Brandy in the Under 18s there is no need for investment here.

Recommended Formation and Lineup 

This is based on the original players that start at the club. That is, no additional signings have been taken into account.

Van der Sar
Neville Ferdinand Vidic Evra
Ronaldo scholes Carrick Giggs
Berbatov/Tevez Rooney

Player/Staff Recommendations

Staff Credit goes to davidbowie

Like alot of managers these days, once you join a club, you need to sort out the backroom staff. Whilst in real life United have one of the best coaching staff in the world, in-game there are areas sadly lacking.

You have alot, but most of them simply are not that good:

Clearing out the Backroom:

Scouting

With scouting, you simply require 18+ for either Ability or Potential scouting, and preferably 19 or 20. Anything less is not good enough with 17+ scraping through. This requires you to release:

Emmanuel Amunike
Martin Ferguson
Joe Corcoran
Antonio Lopez
John Owen
Tom Veron
Gilles Rouillon

This will leave you with about 6 scouts left, which have at least 17 for potential scouting. This is not ideal, but it is better than nothing. It also keeps release costs down.

Coaching

United's coaching staff are a good base to work from, with the majority of the staff being a 5 or 6 star rated in a particular area. You should also only want each staff member working on one area.

United have a very good Goalkeeping staff, with the other areas being generally being 5+ stars or higher. The 5+ requirement means the following staff should be released:

First Team Coaches:
Warren Joyce - Nothing above 4 stars

Youth Team Coaches:
Tommy Martin - Highest is 5 stars in Ball Control, which United have coaches with 6 and 7 stars already.

Youth staff to contract as 1st and Youth team coaches:
Eamon Malvey - 6 stars for shooting.
Mark Dempsey - 6 stars for ball control.
Tony Whelan - 6 stars for attacking.

Other notes on coaches:
Paul McGuinness - Has a stupidly large contract, but only 5 star in defence.
Brian McClair - Another stupidly large contract, but nothing about 5 stars.

Physios
The obvious statistic for these staff is Physiotherapy. You have 8, release the following:
Garry Armer (12)
Tony Gill (14)
Richard Merron (15)
Mandy Johnson (16)
John Davin (16)

The main issue here is that the game in it's current state appears to limited United to 3 physios after you sack the ones you start with. You may want to keep Davin and Johnson who have 16 each, or you can sack the entire physio staff and hire new ones.

Hiring new staff:
Now that you have cleared the deadwood, you need to replace the staff and upgrade.

Scouts:
The first scout needed is a high level Current Ability scout:

Roberto Bettega, is World Class, unemployed, and has 20 for both stats. He is perfect. He will cost though, 11k a week, but his stats are worth it.

2nd choice is Uwe Scherr, from Schalke, who will cost 130k transfer, but only 1.4k a week. He only has 14 for Potential though.

The next lot are high level Potential Ability scouts:
Arnold Catalano - AS Monaco - 180k Transfer - 20 Potential.
Nicky Hammond - Reading - 50k - 20 Potential, 18 Ability.
Hans-Martin Kleitsch Stuttgart - 275k - 20 Potential, 18 Ability.
Micheal Schroder - HSV - 60k - 19 Potential.

Just keep signing scouts with high potential ability spotting, until you hit the limit of about 12.

Physios:
Again, you need Physio 20 skills, other skills include Motivating, Determination, Discipline. However, there is a problem in that you may not be allowed to sign any more than 3, meaning you may have to fire anyone not as good as these staff to actually bring them to the club:
Alex Nieper - Chelsea - 250k - 20 Physio
Jose Luiz Runco - Flamengo - 110k - 20 Physio
Silvano Cotti - Unemployed - 20 Physio.
Gary Lewin - Unemployed - 20 Physio.
Odir de Souza - Unemployed - 19 Physio.
Rodrigo Lasmar - Atletico Miniero - 19 Physio

Reserve Team Manager:
For this position, you require a coach with Tactical Knowledge, good Judging Player Ability as the main attributes. Having good Motivating and Man Management is a plus, but all 4 in a single coach would be rare. The only real candidate at the start of the game I belive is:
Joao Alves - Benfica - 210k - Tac Know 18, Judge Ability 19, Man Man 15.

Youth Team Manager:
This position is similar, but requires Working With Youngsters and Judging Potential Ability as much or more than you would want tactical knowledge as well, some candidates include:
Massimo Neri - Unemployed
Torbjorn Nilsson - Unemployed
David Court - Arsenal - 210k

Coaches

These should be left to after you have arranged the team's coaching with the newly promoted to full coaching staff (from the youth coaches). Once you have done this, you should have almost, if not all, the areas covered by at least 6 star coaches. Move to fill any gaps, and to upgrade to 6 or 7 star coaches.

The main areas you will need to fill are:

Tactics - There are no staff (who appear in the England Demo Start) with 20 for tactics. United have no-one above 14, best option would be:

Luc Rabat - Unemployed - Tactical 19, Youngsters 20.

Defending - For a team who concede so few goals during a season, the fact their highest defensive coach is rated at 5 stars, and is a youth team coach only is a strange issue, 2 main options are:
Rene Eijkelkamp - Schalke - 375k - 20 Defending
Ludek Miklosko - West Ham - 525k - 20 Defending
Peter Drake - West Ham - 300k - 19 Defending, 18 Youngsters

You should end up with a staff which is comprised of:
Coaching - Majority of 6 stars in every area, for both the first and youth teams, with a GK rating of 7, with 1-2 coaches in each area with a "light" workload.

Physio - Between 3 to 5 good Physios, with most of them ranging in the 18+ category.

Scouts - approximately 12 scouts, with at least 5 being 19 or 20 for Potential Ability, with the rest comprised of 17 for Potential Ability, with a few with 20 for Current Ability.

Reserve Manager, and a Youth Team Manager.

From there, you need to setup your training, your scouting and what you will leave up to your Youth and Reserve managers.

Hope you Enjoy playing as Man Utd. And Good Luck!

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