After many option-file trials and tribulations, I finally managed to get to the half-way point in my first ML season last night.
I started off playing on Top Player, and managed to beat Tottenham 2-0 at home before a 0-0 versus Man Utd at Old Trafford.
After that, and reading that other folks "could only play" on Superstar, I decided to give it a go. Well, I've lasted 17 games on it so far, but I'm not exactly enjoying what it does to the AI!
I can't argue that results are more realistic - I've only managed to win five of that 17 - but I'm finding that even on 16 minute games, they're mostly 0-0s. The AI just doesn't make a defensive mistake, ever. I press shoot, and there's just enough of a delay for them to always get a defender in the way.
But, I'm not changing the difficulty - because I've got one of the worst squads in the league, so I knew what I was getting into, and if anything I'm getting better results than I should (we're 10th, and I feel like I've really achieved something).
There's no money left - I bought a young LB and RB at the start of the season for a few million, and I've just bought GK Matz Sels from Newcastle with what was left of the budget (he seems to have a bright future).
My CBs are ageing and have dropped 3pts from their OVR rating since the start of the season - I'm really struggling. I desperately need to replace them, but I can't afford anyone on the transfer list, and there are no better CBs on the loan list - it's a pretty bad situation.
A new intake of youth players have just arrived, and one of them is a 16-year-old striker who already has an OVR rating of 75 - but I can't even afford his signing-on fee (which is a bit silly, by the way)...
If I play two strikers (usually Hernandez and Mbokani), I find I get overrun in the midfield, but when I play one of them on their own... Well, put it like this - between them, they've scored five goals in 19 games. They're not good enough to function on their own.
You'd imagine they'd have a ton of headed goals between them, but they can never get onto the end of a cross - they're nearly always headed away (literally at least 90% of the time). But I put that down to having pretty poor wingers who don't have a great crossing ability (Snodgrass on the left, El Mohamady on the right).
But I'm working through all of this until the end of the season, when I've got a decision to make - I don't know what I can do to improve the state of the squad without a big cash influx, so it's either sell the star strikers, make about £20m and make improvements here and there (but Phil Jones is transfer listed for £10m - one decent CB would use up half of that budget), OR... I walk away.
Such a fantastic game, though. The player individuality, the way that the right tactics make it 20% easier. I wish there were less times where my button input is delayed unnecessarily, and I really wish the AI defence wasn't so absolutely perfect, but even with my gripes, it's the best football game I've played (and I feel vindicated for thinking the last few years of football games have been shite - "see, I'm not just a grumpy old bastard, I was right!").