This is my first attempt at any sort of guide. It is for my most played game of
the year up until recently when Spiderman 2 was released.
I am Matt Burn from York England. 19 years old and my username is Ghetto Prince
on Neoseeker.
E-mail and Messenger address ? LL_Cool_M_18@Hotmail.com
This is not, repeat NOT a walkthrough guide, just a guideline to playing LMA
Manger 2004 with Newcastle United.
It is the work of me, Matt Burn, and therefore cannot be used on any other
website other then Neoseeker without my permission. If you want it on your site,
e-mail me and ask, I will say yes, as long as I get credit on your site.
0.1) Starting the game.
Assuming you have gotten use to the controls by reading the manual, we will
begin.
After you have chosen your friendly games, I chose to play all English teams, I
have no reason, just personal preference, you will be left to look at your
squad.
The first thing that I did was look for a replacement for Alan Shearer. Although
he may not retire in the first season, he most definitely will in the second.
Also, Gary Speed is older then Shearer and retires within the first two seasons
aswell.
Secondly, your defence !! I had to really sort this problem out as I was letting
in goals left, right and centre.
0.2)     Replacing Alan Shearer
There are a couple of options here:
Option 1 is to call back Lua Lua on loan at Portsmouth and have him and Ameobi,
Or:
Option 2 is to leave Lua Lua there, sell Ameobi and buy a new striker with the
money. Its entirely your choice, but I left Lua Lua on loan and sold him in the
January transfer window. This is because Ameobi has the qualities to be great.
More on this later.
Seeing as your money is not as good as Arsenal, Chelsea and Man U, you will have
to sell players to buy a new striker. If you chose to sell Lua Lua, you will get
no less then £10,750,000 as this is his value. You also get around £18,000,000
given at the beginning of the game. So your looking for a new striker, and I
always scout a player before buying him to check out his potential. He also
needs to be quite tall, as you will want somebody who can score headers.
I have listed below a few candidates for this job:-
E.Gudjohnsen     Chelsea
J.Milner (Attacking Midfield) Leeds
P.Lovenkrands Rangers
E.Heskey Liverpool
Saha Man U
P.Counago Ipswich
M.Viduka Leeds
Out of those on the list, I picked up Gudjohnsen from Chelsea, as he was already
on the transfer list. He scored quite a lot from the bench in the first season,
and is Craig Bellamy?s partner now in the second season.
0.3)     Shola Ameobi
This guy is great. He is one of my fave players in the whole of LMA 2004. He is
English, which means he will get on really well with all the English players in
my team, is really tall (186 cm), got bags of potential and scores almost every
game for me. In my first season, I let him go to Birmingham on loan all season,
he finished third top scorer in the league with 22 goals after Mutu who had 25
and Bellamy with 31. His value is now £10,750,000 the same as Lua Lua was. My
advice is to never sell Ameobi. He will do wonders for Newcastle.
0.4) Midfield
Now that your attack is sorted for at least 4 seasons, lets concentrate on your
midfielders. Jenas and Robert on the right and left respectively, and Dyer and
Viana in the middle. You will probably be getting all sorts of offers for J.J
(Jenas) and Viana, maybe even Ambrose, but the one I would HIGHLY recommend
selling, and I got a lot of stick from my brother for this, is Dyer. His overall
rating is not as good as J.J and Viana, he is a bit older then them two, and his
value is high for some reason. His temperament and intelligence are not too
high, which is a bad thing. If you put him on the transfer list, you will get
£24,500,000 for him, but I got an offer from Inter Milan for £31,000,000 so I
sold him and bought Gerrard with the money.
Also, let Ambrose go out on loan for the whole season, why? Because you got
Speed and Bowyer for cover, also Bernard can play left midfield and Bellamy can
drop back into centre midfield.
If Speed retires, you always got Amborse who is young, under rated and got bags
of potential, but if you need a replacement straight away, try Emre from an
Italian team.
0.5) Defence
Okay, your defence should look like this at the beginning:
LB ? Bernard
RB ? O?Brien
CB ? Woodgate
CB ? Hughes
Bench ? Caldwell and/or Bramble
I sold Bramble straight away, loaned out Caldwell again, and brought in
P.Cannavaro and Coco on loan. Speed can play LB and CB but try avoid using him
if you can, his role in midfield is more important. I played with Woddy and
Cannavaro in CB, Coco in LB and O?Brien at RB. At the beginning of the second
season, you might be able to get some good out of contract defenders, I got
Moore from Rangers and Rio Ferdinand. I have not changed goalkeeper at all
because I think shay Given is a pretty good goalie.
0.6) Players to sell (Will Be Updated A.S.A.P)
Here are the players you should sell to make some money at the beginning of the
game:-
J.McClen
A.Colin
C.Zola
0.7) Training
Always train the players yourself. Give every player 30 hours on each routine.
Also set the training bias all the way towards individual. Then, after every
month (On the 1day of each month) move it one click towards team. But make sure
that it is always one click away from the very end of the bar !!
You will soon see the results on the pitch as you players get better and better,
especially the younger ones **Shola Ameobi**
When you select a formation (I played 4 ? 3 ? 1 ? 2 with Viana playing attacking
midfield) make sure you press X and the players will play the tatics the coaches
are currently training them. This way, your team will be familiar with the
tactics and therefore will be better at them.
0.8)    Youth and Recommended Players
Your youth team is a good source of players. When you look at the players, you
will be wanting to look at players with high:-
Fitness
Stamina
Temperament
Intellignece
These skills will not decline as you train your players like the other skills.
With the youth player having high intell skills, he will improve his rating a
lot faster. This is especially true with goalkeepers.
Here are a list of players with Very Good, Excellent or World Class potential:
Defenders
P.Cannavaro
J.O?Shea
N.De Jong
M.DAWSON (Buy him straight away, you won?t regret it!!)
Metzelder (From some German team)
A.Cole (From Arsenal)
W.Brown
J.Terry
Midfield
J.Milner
Kleberson
S.Parker
F.Lampard
S.Gerrard
M.Carrick
M.Arteta
Emre
Rivaldo (16 year old, not the player of the year 2002 Rivaldo)
T.Cahill
K.Richardson
C.Ronaldo
Diego
Attackers
C.Tevez
P.Lovenkrandz
C.Cole
R.Keane (From Spurs)
J.Defoe
D.Vassel
S.Dalmat
J.Reyes
M.De Vries
M.Kezman
That?s it for my guide, I will without a doubt be updating the guide when I
progress a bit more on LMA. Hope you found it useful.
Any questions or contributions to the guide please mail me on:
LL_Cool_M_18@Hotmail.com
Peace
-Prince