Episode 46: The Bliss Release

This week George falls into Ed’s trap and says “evening” to everyone. He’s disgusted with himself. But that’s unlikely to stop the podcast rolling on.

This week we’re joined by Nathan Bliss, a sports journalist student and an FM researcher for West Brom. That’s something that George gets incredibly excited about.

Our question this week is inspired by George’s love of things that are awful – who’s the worst signing that you’ve ever made in a game in FM.

Ed goes for signing Michael Owen for Arsenal. Who then almost instantly broke his leg and has to sit out for 11 months. Nathan has a few contenders, but the worst is Isco who was useless when he switched to Valencia. He took the failure pretty personally.

George can’t think of a total failure, because all of his players are pretty average when he signs them. Federico Macheda was meant to take George’s Wolves team to the next level. It didn’t work out that way though. Ed suggests it might be more about the manager than the player in most of these cases.

And then there’s all this too –

  • George reveals his failed secret project to us. It involves La Liga, three players, and installing philosophies on teams that probably don’t need them.
  • His Benfica save is going pretty well. He’s 11 points clear at the top of the league, but he’s found a new bogey team in Arouca who could well be the new Maribor. And he’s signed Shane Long to score some goals. He’s feeling chippy.
  • Nathan is managing Valencia in 2020. He’s just won his third title in a row and it’s all going pretty swimmingly. Right now he’s attempting to deflect offers from teams for his stars. Including Deep Lying favourite Gabriel Barbosa.
  • Ed’s working through his 8th season with Stoke. He just beat Chelsea away from home to get a five point cushion at the top of the Premier League. He’s got Atletico Madrid coming up in the second leg of a Champions League knockout game too.
  • And then we have a chat about Nathan’s job as an FM researcher. George gets incredibly excited and we find out what it all means.

Obviously there’s loads more as well, and you can listen to it all in the SoundCloud player below. Or if you’d prefer, head off to iTunes and search for Deep Lying Podcast.