I was very busy during the last month working over new site for Football Manager fans. Consider it as a little announcement. The site will appear in the Web in 2-3 weeks. So this is the reason why I am so slow playing Football Manager 2011 after release. But finally I am ready to share information about the first Deportivo matches.

We will start with the odds from Sky Bet:

"150-1" describes strength of Deportivo team this year. It's hard to disagree.

+ 1 loaned player

You read about transfers of Deportivo in one of the previous posts. Additionally I loaned Kevin - Spanish talent – who should help the team in role of playmaker in rotation with Baronio and Valeron. The loan was completed during the last transfer day. Now look to Kevin's attributes:

Media Comparison field of his profile proves his place in my wonderkids list:

Deportivo matches

I decided to play more friendly matches than I usually play. It was necessary to "feel the game" and try to tune the tactics.

The first La Liga match (against Zaragoza) was won with 4:1 score quite surprisingly. Then the away draw with Sevilla made me thinking of right tactics choice. But I was hurrying with conclusions… Deportivo got to the series of misfortunes

The most said losses were in the home matches:

- Deportivo – Almeria 1:2

- Deportivo – Espanyol 1:3

Now I can say that I made the wrong choice of tactics because Depor experiences problems in more than half of formation positions.

This is how La Liga table looks after 10 fixtures played:

Unlucky tactics

I decided to create tactics using this 5-3-2 formation:

Team instructions for it:

Here are some problems I encountered with it:

- most Deportivo players have average level of ball control and first touch abilities to play quick Tempo.

- several goals were conceded because Guardado and Mendy (used as WBL and WBR correspondingly) lost their headers after high flank passes.

- I have no good playmakers in the team who could be efficiently used at MC position. Though I enabled Playmaker setting for it.

After all matches I feel the tactics is not suitable for my team because of quite weak players in several positions. The club is in money debts so it will be hard to build squad over tactics. This is my main mistake. I should choose tactics that suits to the squad…

Deportivo players

Now I feel I have a long list of players. I should not sign 1 or 2 players during the transfer window.

Frankly speaking I am not happy with the most of players and their performance. Average rating below 7 confirm my discontent.

Deportivo goalkeepers are decent. Aranzubia is somewhat better than Manu. But they both make mistakes from time to time.

Central defenders are slow. The worst performer is Diego Colotto who was considered by me as one of Depor's best players…

Wing backs. Wome disappointed me with ball tackling and poor performances at all. Guardado's injury of 2.5 months made him to miss season's start. Though I am glad to praise Bernard Mendy. He showed great tackling and speed of attack support.

Central midfielders. Only Juan Rodriguez is of good level here. Others made me said. Especially Juan Carlos Valeron. He is one of the main 'wage budget' eaters. And he is absolutely useless due to very poor physical attributes' values   I didn't expected that he will be unable to play at decent level.

Forwards. Adrian was more or less efficient at this last stage of our attacks. His partner Riki controls the ball even better but fails a lot of scoring chances due to average levels of Finishing and Composure. Lassad didn't impress me thus far…

So you see:

- I have problems with tactics

- I have problems with Deportivo players

The conclusion is that I need time to create tactics that can work efficiently with the current squad because Depor's financial situation doesn't allow to make loud transfers.

True Football Manager