My Leeds team are flying. 3 points clear @ the top of League 1. Let in 17 goals in 22 games (rest are on about 25 already) and my strike force of Lucciano Becchio and Daryl Murphy are scoring for fun. Also I signed Chris Rawlins from Liverpool, he's a quality young midfielder

Do you have to install Steam for FM 2009, or can you play the game without it?

I had to for mine.

Don't think so. I used to be able to play it without going through steam. It's probably worth playing it on steam as it will give you the latest update, although that's probably not needed with an older game.

Steam is an interesting idea. They've tried to make it a gaming hub, much like the consoles handle games. You can download demos, buy games, get updates, add friends, chat, earn achievements etc. But it does take up system memory sitting there doing nothing most of the time. It also seems to make a mountain of a molehill when installing and running games.

Most annoying thing with steam is when I'm at my mate's. His internet is one and off, sometimes, it says everything is connected but there is no connectivity, so Steam reads it as being connected to the net but it won't start because there is no connection. It can be really annoying and we finally figured out, it's better to just disconnect everything and go offline if the net's playing up.

I like the look of it, they seem to have all sorts of offers on but I don't play games on my laptop other than FM. There's a demo on my games list called wings of prey, not sure what it is, anyone tried it?

Started a season as Welling United, in the Blue Square South, need some decent free midfield signings, any suggestions?

Sean Doherty was outstanding on the left wing for me at Fleetwood.
Also try and get Simon Heslop from Barnsley/ He's listed at around £5k but can be got for nothing if you're lucky.

I've just got automatic promotion from the BSN with Fleetwood. Brought in a couple of players (signed two of last season's loanees permanently (Terry Gornell from Tranmere and Liam Dawson from Oldham) and re-loaned another (Spencer Harris from Huddersfied).

After a pretty miserable pre-season, life in the BSP hasn't started too badly. Set a target of "learn from your experience in the BPS (whatever that means), I'm on four points from the first two games.

It means get relegated with dignity.

Touch wood, but things are going slightly better than that. Only defeats from the first six games were at home to Oxford and away to Histon. Managed to clock up a good 1-0 win at York with a makeshift side full of youngsters. This looks like being a really tight league.

One thing that is concerning me a bit is the finances.

I've not spent any of my transfer budget (all signings have been freebies) and I'm around £800 under my £11k weekly wage limit but the club is still losing money hand over fist. There was a deficit of £250k at the end of last season before a board takeover. Even after the takeover, with bigger crowds in the BSP and a similar wage budget (I've shipped out / offered pay cuts to any high earners who weren't making the first team) we're looking at monthly losses of around £15k-£20k. Part of me says not to worry, after all the chairman could be happy to underwrite this in the short term and we're expected to make the FA Cup first round as a minimum. Draw depending, should also do well OK in the Trophy which will bring a few quid in. The board say that they are "content" with the wage bill but I'm just slightly concerned that I've got Peter Ridsdale as a chairman with no concept of budgeting that will try to pin the blame on me when the hits the fan.

well its all over.....following a run of 10 games without a victory, a squad in turmoil, fans in uproar and having slipping from 5th to 14th in the league, I finally handed in my resignation as manager of Southport last night, and am now having a well deserved holiday.

I've moved on from Bradford having got them from L2 to the top of the Championship. I found that much easier that my current position at Arsenal. I was offered an £80m transfer kitty so thought it would be easy. But the squad is full of totally average players bar Fabregas and because they are not in the Champions League I can't sign anyone of any real quality to improve them either. The best players that come up on the transfer screens are the likes of Milner and Ashley Young. I reckon I only need to find 7 or 8 players to make them decent. (They finished 16th in the previous season).

I think they need to tie in your individual earnings to something somehow. I was on £1,200 a week at Bradford and was offered £91,000 a week to join Arsenal

There is the option to haggle over your salary, but why would you want to increase it? All it does is mean you have less to spend as manager. They should let you save your wages until you can afford to buy a club, let you become an owner and appoint a manager etc.

think the wage thing is tied into your job security i.e. if you are on £91k a week on a 4 year contract, they will have to pay you a huge amount to sack you and may not be able to afford it (as seen in real life at Liverpool).

Regardless of competitions, you should be able to attract some quality players to Arsenal still. On the City season, you can attract the majority of top players, despite not having any kind of European football to offer them.

Try sending out scouts on assignments to other leagues, have a nosey around, Young is good but Milner isn't anything special on it.

I've spent a couple of months up to the January window (I joined them in October in 19th position!) doing that. They have 17 scouts (!) and their scouting knowledge is full bars almost all of the way down the list of countries.

I have got no problem finding the players I want, but the likes of Dzeko (At Lazio) turned me down so did Subotic (Osasuna) and Fellaini (Everton in Champions League) and apart from Dzeko none of them are elite players. I tried to sign Michael Owen (At 33) on a free, but he wouldn't consider it and signed for Genoa. I think Arsenal's reputation in the game took a nose dive through not being in Europe at all for 3 seasons on the spin.

My lineup is pretty hillarious:

1 - Fabianski
2 - Phil Neville
3 - Clichy
4 - Gallas (35 and terrible)
5 - Senderos
6 - Blodznyswky (Terrible Eastern European midfielder)
7 - Barazite
8 - Febregas


9 - Bendtner
10 - Vaughan (Of Everton fame)
11 - Vela

This is genuinely the best side I can field, having inherited the squad with the window shut. There is only Clichy, Senderos (As backup) and Febregas I'd keep out of those. I've taken them from 19th to 6th by January but every draw or defeat is met with 'fans are unhappy' messages.

Barcelona are after Fabregas despite his asking price being £90m, so if he goes I'm off. My Bradford team in the Championship was better than my Arsenal squad).

Where are Wilshere and Ramsey? RvP?

You should try for the lower rep, higher PA players. Any good new-gens in the academy/reserves?

Yeah I've cheated and had them all rated by FM Scout. There is a lot of decent prospects in there but they are all the 108 CA and 174 PA types that will take a few years to turn into anything.

Wilshere is at QPR, Ramsey is at Portsmouth and RvP is playing for Inter Milan.

What is FM Scout?

Have you tried for people like Verratti and Kadlec? Both become immense but start off at lower clubs at a very young age.

I've never heard of those two, I'll have a look. I'm in my 4th season now, so no doubt they are going to be moving up the ladder by now.

FM Genie 2010 I think it's called. It's just a little program that imports your FM game save and lets you search the database, showing you the PA and CA of all the players in the database. You can also see the hidden stats, like injury proneness, consistency, ability to handle big matches etc and how much the AI will sell you the player for.

It ruins the game but I use it occasionally if I'm truly stuck.

I go on the editor to look at stuff like that, on the FM forums, there's a shortlist you can download with all -9 and -10 players, as well as players with PA 160/170 and above.

Verratti and Kadlec are both -9's who start the game at 16 with quite a decent current ability. Kadlec starts at a Czech side, I think it's Sparta, whilst Verratti plays for Pescara in Italy, who are a lower league side. Problem with Verratti is he's sometimes co-owned, generally turns out to be world class.

Just started into my third season with City now, my team is generally unchanged, with only Lescott, Robinho, Toure and Wright-Phillips leaving. I've brought in Azpilicueta, Diego Renan, Danny Wilson and Pato. I regret getting Azpilicueta, he wasn't really needed and I bought him 'cause he was on the cheap. The season's started OK but it feels like all the chemistry has gone in the team. I just played Ipswich, had 69% possession and 21 shots but only one goal was scored - and that was from a set piece. Maybe once the CL games come in and my players are playing 2/3 games a week, things will shape up as everybody gets games under their belts.

I got van der Vaart for £10m, bargain buy for my Man City team, provides good cover for my midfield.

I got a bit bored with my Man City game, as it was getting quite easily. In my 3rd season, i only spent £20million, as my team was already world class. I am struggling to get back into it now though, tried being a few lower league teams such as Notts County, but i can't get into the game. TBH, its probably a good thing, due to me having exams at Uni over the last few weeks, as it can become pretty addictive once you get into it.

Think i am going to start a new game with Man United, just have a little mess around until the new patch comes out in February, then look to start a proper career then, as that's usually the final patch i think.

Things are looking up at Arsenal. I managed to tie up last minute deals for Aturo Vidal, Eden Hazard and Neden Subotic and I'm on a run of W14 D1 L0 in all competitions. I've taken them from 19th in October to 3rd in February, cutting the gap on the leaders from 18 points to 6. Well worth my £91,000 per week.

Hazard is superb. If you're on 10.2, he goes immense. I play him on the left as an inside forward, never really tried him through the middle but he's a class act.