The Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge [FM15]

I am sure some of you will have seen this around, well, I'm going to give it a blast - descripton of the challenge follows:

November 6 1986 Manchester United are second from bottom in the first division and they have just appointed Alex Ferguson as their new manager.

Present day you have simulated your copy of Football Manager 2015 to November 6 and you take over…

That’s the challenge in a nutshell, emulate Sir Alex Ferguson by taking over a club 19th in the table on that date and try to replicate what he did at United. Of course United were a big club who were struggling but some players of this challenge have received the likes of Liverpool and Newcastle so it is possible. Ferguson won 13 Premier league titles, five FA Cups and two Champions League.

Swansea City is the club in 19th and as such are the team I am taking over.

With hopes of a mid table finish, and offering me low wages - if I don't get instant results I could be out of the door quickly.

I have 3 days with the squad before an away game against Newcastle, it was time to get the lads on the training pitch and have them work towards an already accomplished 4-3-2-1 DM Narrow formation.

01.December 2014

So the first couple of league games came and went, and a pretty decent start was seen.

First up was a 1-1 away draw at Newcastle, man of the match Ángel Rangel set up Nélson Miguel Castro Oliveira, the on loan striker from Portuguese side SLB making it 4 league goals in 8 league games.

Coming just 3 days later was an amazing 4-0 home win against Stoke in which Wayne Routledge scored all the lot and just 1 more goal this season will see him have his best return. The result was never in danager and after the match Mark Hughes was sacked as Stoke gaffer. Jonjo Shelvey set 1 up, whilst Gylfi Thor Sigurðsson set 2 of the goals up.

Off the field I brought in a number of back-room staff, with no fewer than 8 staff members joing the club.

6 youth and second string players also moved out on loan as I wanted to see if the players would develop quicker that way.

Ángel Rangel had decided he wanted to leave the club as he wanted to win trophies and didn't want to wait, 7 clubs have made a bid, ranging between £1.5m and £1.6m.

I myself was looking to tempt Jonny Howson away from Norwich, the 26 year old central midfield player was someone I wanted. £8.3m I had in the kitty, and my current bid of £5m was being thought over. The media was saying I would need to be looking between £6.5m and £13.m to get the lad to sign.

Jonny started his career off at Leeds United and played 184 league games scoring 23 goals before a £1.5m transfer fee saw him move to Norwich where he has currently scored 4 goals in 69 league games. A roaming midfield playmaker - could I snap him up, should I be paying such a large amount for a player not really well known?