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.