I had a good side around the 2003 version. Osbourne was an AMC with awesome tackling. Rarely scored but was a great ballwinner. Giddings was the best of the City kids; got into the England side and was worth 18m when Bayern met his release clause and he spent the rest of his career there racking up 70-odd caps. Pead was at RWB with Carlisle's Lee Andrews another D/MRC as his back up, both 7m players. Fowler was decent as DMC and I've ended up signing him in multiple versions of the game over the years, especially when he dropped into Nonleague and was always one of the best bargains.
That side had Michael Duff now of Burnley as a stalwart at CB alongside an Italian called Espossito or something when I couldn't get away with Davenport and Mo. Defoe and Dean Ashton the other strikers alongside Sheff-Ashton was always a bargain from Crewe. Had a veteran Gazza for the first season (bargain buy from Everton) but by the end of the year he'd pissed off most of the rest of the squad with his drinking binges that I'd kept turning a blind eye to!
Can't remember who was in goal now...some old Italian I think? Promotion side was something like this:
----------Sheff--Ashton/Defoe------
--------Safri--Gazza---Osbourne-----
---------------Fowler---------------
Giddings---------------------Pead/Andrews
-Espossito?/Davenport--Konjic/Duff--
-------------GK--------------
I go back a lot further than that, though: last week I posted my CM93/94 City team that I recently played on DOS BOX : Oggy was a veteran but a rock, Rennie/Morgan/Busst as the CB options the weak link-it was often worth getting Peake back from Luton for 50k just to give you some quality! Babb and Atherton were both annoyingly full-backs/wingers in what was to prove their last season with us as our actual CB partnership! My formation had no FB's or wide men so I had to play them at DMC or in the Support (hole) roles. Wasn't so bad when Babb came out with Pace 20 as he sometimes did. The CM options of Hurst, Robson, McGrath with Flynn and Boland as backup was a strong area, especially in the tackling department. The front three was Ndlovu, Quinn and Wegerle: Quinn was Selfish and couldn't hit a barn door, despite having Goalscoring, a hidden skill; Wegerle and Nuddy were both really inconsistent but incredibly skillful. Williams was an AMC with Pace 20 and did a great job in CM or up front. Tony Sheridan does the same job as Willo's backup.
My rule with them now is that I'm only allowed to sign players who we signed IRL. In the latest save it's of course Nii Lamptey, the best young player in the game (by cheating by buying him with a club he will move to, then to me) and Julian Joachim, Don Hutchinson is another amazing option.
Who is a star on the early versions was a matter of their Personality, but if anything bar Withdrawn, Rash or Selfish, this lot were all legends:
Jason Kaminsky-a tragic case:
http://www.redcafe.net/threads/tragedy-of-young-player-who-fell-victim-to-the-bottle.90329/
Jim Gannon ("Gannon The Cannon" when we were kids
)
Darren Eadie (goal machine in early versions, amazing midfielder in slightly later ones)
Dominic Iorfa (African from Peterboro-never did anything IRL)
Ian Hendon and Danny Carter (two youngster at Leyton Orient that were Premier League potential)
Farah Orosco and Mark Collis (in the Amiga end of season 94 version only, the one with Klinnsman and all the WC stars. They were researchers who added themselves at Cambridge and made themselves amazing).
Marc Hottiger (best RB in the world in that version: it went nuts with anyone who had done well at the 94 WC!).
Cantona (90 goals a season in CM Italia.)
Adebola (ace signing from Crewe as a kid for lower league sides).
Ceri Hughes, Scott Houghton, John Dreyer (Luton were really lowly at the time but with some top flight talent).
Tommy Johnson (at Derby. Always used to sign him for City when I was a kid. They got his potential wrong all right! He was world class after 2 seasons).
Later versions, generally signings for City:
Viktor Leonenko (amazing Ukranian goalscorer whose thunder IRL was stolen by Rebrov and Shevchenko).
Peter Smith (IRL Brighton RB who ended up at Canvey Island: in FM, a D/MR/C played behind the strikers. Flair 20, Passing generally 1-4. Once broke his leg playing for me in the WC final on his birthday: the game wouldn't let me sub him, he proceeded to dribble past 2 players and then smack the ball into the top corner from 20 yards to win us the cup. This really happened!
So cool).
Neil Lennon (lethal goalscoring AMC when at Crewe)
Danny Murphy (Lennon's successor in the DB in the above role!)
James Cardona (mental Colombian goalscoring RB.)
Christian Castaneda (goalscoring Chilean sweeper in the DB during the Sammer Era: sweepers would usually be your top GSC back then).
Jesus Arellano (sp?) (Mexican D/M/F R).
Fredy Guiran (Colombian CM. Long Shots 20. Say no more!)
Lional Morgan (flying Wimbledon AML, often a star for City for me: career ended by injury IRL, was a great prospect.)
And literally 100's more that I can't remember! I stopped playing it about 3-4 years ago, it was soaking up too much of my time.
