The Deep Lying Podcast

Ed, George and Ian Dransfield try a live experiment in East London. A bit of same room fun with a slightly wonky sound and Ed and George trade charming insults.

The question of the week is inspired by Leicester’s victory at Manchester City. We ask which improbable teams you’ve lead to victory, or which teams you’ve seen win in your saves.

Ed talks about Slovakia winning Euro 2016. Ian talks about Stoke City becoming a dominant force in Europe, both in terms of results and spending capacity. We’re talking them splashing out £100 million on a single player. Then there’s Huddersfield as well.

George’s tale involves Burnley winning the FA Cup against Man City. Strangely enough none of these stories actually involve us being in charge of the teams in question.

Then there’s all of this excellent stuff too –

• Ian is back playing FM15, because he’s not had the time to really get to grips with FM16. He talks about Leicester not doing as well under him as they are under Ranieri.
• Ed is having a tough time with Torino. But he can’t face starting another save so he’s slogging on. The results are up and down, but a last minute draw has knocked him out of the Champions League.
• After “flubbing it” with Ireland, George has gone to Crystal Palace. He’s got them into the Premier League, and has been given a large transfer fund to try and keep them in the promised land. And he’s only played three games.
• And then we have a chat about when our love affair with Football Manager started. And Ian talks about balancing a shoe on the space bar.
• There’s even more, and plenty of background noise, and you can check it out in the SoundCloud player below. Or head to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.
• Oh, and he sells his son.

Ed and George discuss the time-based freedom that listeners of the podcast have. And they’re joined by Paul from FMCentral.

George runs out of ideas for the question of the week, but the community comes in and saves him. With the closing of the transfer window, which players need a change in their stats with the new update?

Ed grinds his teeth and plumps for Dele Alli. And then tries to big up Arsenal. Paul gets annoyed because Ed steals his ideas, but then goes for demoting Falcao and promoting Suarez.

George basically agrees. But then decides that every Aston Villa player should be knocked down, and Stoke’s Arnoutovic deserves a boost.

Then we’ve got all of this gold for you as well –

• Paul fills us in on his FM16 save. He’s mid-table in League One with FC United of Manchester coming in to the end of his tenth season. It’s all about youth for him.
• George shocks us all by revealing he’s still on his first save. After jumping ship from Oldham to Ireland, he’s been in an awful lot of pain. In-game pain, not real pain. A tragic defeat to Slovenia leads him to the play off finals for Euro 2020.
• Ed had to have a talk with his wife about his obsession with Torino (she’s not a fan). But he’s six games into his second season and he’s cracking on with a reasonably kind Champions League group.
• Then we have a bit of a vent about SI’s slightly less than excellent communication with the Football Manager community.

There’s all of that and more, and you can check it out in the SoundCloud player below. Or if you’d prefer head to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

This week a hungry Ed and George don’t have a guest, but that’s okay because this dream team is a recipe for success.

The question of the week is inspired by George’s Oldham save, and it goes something like this – what has Football Manager taught you about things in the real world of football?

George learns about the slightly convoluted qualifying system for Euro 2020, and Ed describes the amount of pub knowledge he’s earned from his time in FM. And then George waxes lyrical about the tactics he’s learned from watching his sides get beaten by Maribor.

Ed’s save is going pretty well. He finished second in Serie A in his first season and is in pre-season for his second year in charge. He beat Juventus as well, which he’s pretty pleased about. Not all of his tactics worked out though.

George’s time at Oldham has come to an end. Mainly due to a string of terrible results in the Premier League. He shifted to manage the Irish national team, but unfortunately he’s found the whole thing dull. Well, not the whole thing, some of it’s an incredible amount of fun.

And then there’s all of this as well –

• We talk about games imitating life. And then Ed talks about how much influence the real world has on his choices of saves in FM.
• George explains how he can’t start a save without a point of reference. He’s all about the inspiration – which is one of the reasons he’s getting a bit bored with his save.
• And then we talk about the three things that are the most influential on our saves. George’s include books and things he’s seen.
• Ed says that football is a universal language. Which is good because he can’t speak Italian very well.

You can check out the whole thing in the SoundCloud player below. Or if you’d prefer head over to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

Ed and a sleepy George are joined this week by Diego Mendoza from passthebloodyball. George gets star struck when he meets a Football Manager scout in real life.

This week’s question is about the best signing you’ve made in the January transfer window. Diego’s answer is his most recent signing. It was a 190k club record in Venezuela. There’s a fan back lash, but much hat-eating after a sterling season.

George only found out about the question 15 minutes ago, but plumps for bringing Roman Pavlyuchenko to Marseille. It was a signing the managed to power his career.

Ed bought Leroy Sane for Stoke, and then developed a mancrush for him. But it’s souring a little because now all he wants to do is leave.

Then there’s all of this good stuff as well –

• George brings up Maribor for the first time in a long while. And his hatred hasn’t dimmed since the end of his Slovenian adventure.
• Ed’s Stoke save is dying a death. His third season has been thwarted by player unrest and midtable obscurity despite doing well in the Champions League. So he’s started a save with Torino instead.
• Diego talks us through his save with Caracas. He’s ended up there because he liked the kit of the Venezuelan national team. After a bit of a run of nil nils, talking to the FM community has given him some new ideas. He also finished 33 points clear at the top of the table.
• George hasn’t had much time this week, and has moved forward just three games in his Oldham save. None of them were all that interesting, but he’s got some ideas that he’s implementing involving the benefits of not conceding and the benefits of scoring.
• Then we have a gab about how to get yourself out of a slump, why sometimes you need to step away from the game, and why it’s great to look to the community for inspiration.

There’s loads more as well, and you can listen to it all on SoundCloud right here. Or alternatively head over to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

 

This week Ed and George are joined by Chris Darwin. Ed returns from his slump with a desire to keep everything super positive.

The question of the week is all about superstitions. We dig into the strange rituals that we have to perform before or during a save. Well, Chris doesn’t, because he doesn’t believe in that sort of thing. And anything he does do is definitely common sense.

George is also a perfectly rational human being without any superstitions. And he suggests that a lot of the superstitions are actually just planning. And then we have an argument about where the keeper should be in your subs list.

Luckily Ed saves the question with a superstition of his own. It’s all about the position of the cursor when he’s playing. And it’s a bit weird to be honest. He also carries it on in real life.

And then there’s all of this excellent stuff as well.

• Chris is on a cliffhanger with his FK Obilić save. He’s through to the last game of the season with a three way chance for the last promotion spot. But he might have ruined it for himself when he set up the custom leagues.
• George’s Oldham save has collapsed around his ears. But he’s not unhappy about it, mainly because he’s got Oldham up to the Premier League. And his transfer budget is six million.
• Has Ed managed to get out of his funk? Well yes, he has, all thanks to Stoke City and stumbling across a formation that accidentally worked.
• George wonders whether keeping things simple is the way forward. He has after all got only two team instructions running in his Oldham save.
• We then go on to talk about the FM community, how SI’s promotion for that community has dropped down a little, and why people are banding together to make sure all of the high quality content is still getting pushed. It’s all about the hashtag wearethecommunity.

You can listen to the podcast on SoundCloud by clicking this link right here, or head over to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

It’s the first podcast of 2016, and once again Ed isn’t around. But that’s okay because we’ve got James Jones from the Football Fancast to join us. Well, to join George.

This week’s question is designed to cheer Ed up – we asked what your best tip to get Ed out of his FM16 rut would be. James talks about his own rut, which involved giving the game up entirely over the Christmas period. The West Ham job can be a cruel mistress.

But his suggestion to Ed is to try and become a legend managing a team that interests him in the real world. Although unfortunately he’s slightly tactically inept tinker man.

George feels guilty because he’s having one of the best saves in his career while Ed is in the doldrums. But he suggests trying to keep things simple.

The community has other ideas though, like jumping into one of the big boys of the footballing world and spending the ridiculous budget. Retail therapy, if you will.

And then there’s all of this as well –

• James talks us through the future of his saves. He might head back to Barnet, partly to keep his fiancee happy with his FM decisions. George does the same with Luton Town.
• Osborn’s Oldham Odyssey continues. Back to back promotions have lead him back to the Premier League, despite having the lowest wage bill in the Championship. He can’t really understand how all of this has happened.
• Then we chat to James about the Football Fancast, banter and why fan’s opinions are his bread and butter. George gets a bit giddy about gifs.
• We also start to ponder how the digital world is bleeding through into the real world and what James thinks about all of that. And how he simulated Slaven Bilic’s time at West Ham.

There’s loads more as well, and you can listen to it all on SoundCloud by clicking here. Or if you’d prefer head over to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

It’s that time of year, so while your hosts are off wrapping presents and wondering about the January transfer window, we’ve put together a clip show special that shows off the best bits of the past year of the Deep Lying Podcast.

We also announce the winner of our Christmas giveaway. Was it you? You’ll have to listen to find out. Now there’s some incentive for you.

We’d also like to say a big thank you to everyone who’s listened and joined in this year. Expect more potentially excellent episodes in the new year.

Here’s what you can expect from the rest of the clips –

• Iain Macintosh talks us through his book about Football Manager – The Football Manager’s Guide To Football Management.
• Then we talk to Tony Jameson and how he made a comedy show based around his exploits in Football Manager. He definitely doesn’t drop any names.
• Next up it’s James Beedie from the FM Whizzkids. We have a chat about how he runs one of the biggest FM databases, and why they’re so popular.
• Last but not least we catch up with Hamoudi to talk about FM in the UAE. We cover what the community is like over there, and how FIFA is still the top of the football tree in that corner of the world.

That’s a whole lot of great content in one lovely podcast. You can listen to it on SoundCloud by clicking here, or if you’d prefer head over to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

George is on his own again this week, because Ed is having trouble with the commute of his new job. But fear not, because he’s joined by Hogan Ephraim, who we think is the first guest we’ve had on who’s actually been in Football Manager. And we’ve got a competition. Yup, a competition.

The question of the week is about people’s festive traditions in FM. George’s Christmas tradition revolves around A Muppet’s Christmas Carol and ignoring family time in order to get in a full season with Wolves.

A lot of the community make sure that they line up Christmas Day in the real world with Christmas Day in the game to get a special Easter Egg. We guess that’s actually a Christmas Egg, really.

And then there’s all of this stuff too –

• Hogan walks us through learning the logistics of the game with Manchester United. He’s more than ten years in the future, but he’s looking to start a new save in the next week or so.
• He also talks about the realism of the transfer market, and how he’s thinking about QPR for his next save and possibly starting a save in the conference and working his way up.
• George’s Oldham save features another player revolt, and even though he’s only got a £5000 transfer budget everything’s going pretty darn well.
• Hogan talks about how many people you’ll see playing Football Manager on the coach to games on a Saturday. And George wonders whether FM is likely to get more people into actual football management.
• We then chat about how Hogan doesn’t sign himself when he plays, how he sometimes need to substitute himself, and how he dealt with his own digital son.
• And then we launch our first competition. Full of fabulous prizes!

If you want to check all of that out, and a bunch more excellent content, then check out the podcast on SoundCloud by clicking right here. Or alternatively head to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.

George takes the hosting reins this week, and Ed might turn but it’s his last day at work and he could be boozing it up in Swindon.

George is joined by Dec from FMHVibe to talk about Football Manager Mobile, and what it’s like working in the hallowed halls of Sports Interactive.

The question of the week is about the clubs you’ve never gotten round to managing. Obviously there’s loads, but we’re talking about the ones we’ve avoided for a reason.

Dec goes for Arsenal, partly for stylistic reasons and partly because he really doesn’t like Arsenal. George admits that in his 13 year career he’s never taken over the reins at Bayern Munich.

And then there’s all of this good stuff as well –

• George’s Leeds team are in the top half of the table after a Christmas funk, but a new formation has picked his team up. Injuries might foil his plans, and the January transfer window could be key.
• Dec reveals he’s never played Championship Manager, and that his FM career started off on a slightly strange console. Could it be nostalgia that keeps him playing the mobile versions?
• Then we talk about the changes that have been made in the latest mobile version of the game, including coaches and the cross save between FM Touch.
• And he talks about the understandable gripes that PC players have with the more casual version that you can fit in your pocket. Then we discuss the mobile games that might have the chance to topple SI from the top of its mobile perch.
• The Dec tells us about the time he spent on work placement at SI. Everyone is very nice there, and everyone is incredibly passionate about FM, which is good to hear.

There’s more going on as well, and you can catch it all in the SoundCloud player below. Or hop off to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.