Hey, let's start a new game of Football Manager 2012! Feel free to click any pictures for a larger view.

And to make it interesting, I'm going to see how successful I can be with a formation of 10-0-0. No midfielders, no strikers, just a goalie and ten defenders. The goal: To go through an entire season scoring more goals than I allow with a 10-0-0 formation. Let's see how we can do!

I chose Birmingham City because I want in-game logos, basically. Pretty arbitrary.

Making our formation.

For our first match against the Birmingham City Reserves Team, we're going to try this variant on the 10-0-0 (there are really only two variants I know of, but anyway) with 5 defenders and 5 sweepers behind them. Unfortunately, this game doesn't have many players who claim to be natural sweepers, for whatever reason. Just not a typical position in the modern game. But for our first match, let's just set our midfield and forward starters as sweepers and see how they do.

Here's a search for all sweepers within my area of scouting knowledge, that have a realistic chance of being obtained. There's only one guy, a 40 year-old from Sierra Leone. Seriously?

Welp, you're hired, mate!

Unfortunately, the club rejected our offer for the 40 year-old from Sierra Leone because we "don't need another assistant coach." I didn't even realize we were hiring him as one, but okay, we'll just offer him a player-only contract.... But he turns it down. This 40 year-old from Sierra Leone has standards that are too high for English football.

Time for our game versus the Reserves. You can see our creative formation again on the left.

Hahaha holy crap they actually all stay in one place.

When the ball's at midfield, one Birminghamer dares to step beyond the Reserves' striker!

Oh hell this is not going well.

Our goal kicks just get sent back to the opposing goalie, we barely get to midfield with the ball, ever. I don't think the AI understands how to play catenaccio, probably because half of the sweepers are natural strikers.

Whoops. 0-1 Birmingham Reserves.

I'll just tell them it's all their fault I guess.

Showing off the nice behind goal cameras in FM2012.

Bearing in mind that we've switched fields, HOLY CRAP WE HAVE THE BALL NEAR THEIR BOX!

Nothing doing.

So, basically, despite one heroic attempt at goal by our natural striker, dribbling alone deep in enemy territory, Birmingham City falls to its own Reserve team, 0-1. For our next episode I think it's time to sack all the strikers and bring in as many defenders as possible, and perhaps we'll try a slightly different formation.

Brave sir, I will return to see how this goes!

Okay, so last week's 10-0-0 formation experiment didn't go very well, as Birmingham City were beaten by their own reserves 1-0. This week, we're trying this formation with two less sweepers and two more wingbacks, so now we only have one player still in the red, unfamiliar with his position. If there were any freaking sweepers in the entire world besides that one 40 year-old sweeper from Sierra Leone I failed to sign last week, I swear they would be on my squad, but nope.

So naturally, it's time to get rid of our excess weight, i.e., any non-defenders on the team.

Oh hey! That 40 year-old from Sierra Leone has forgotten all our troubles of two days ago and is now ready to agree terms, without a coaching position. He's not signed yet, but things are looking good.

Today's friendly match is against Bolton Wanderers. Wikipedia tells me they were founded as Christ Church FC, which was the name of a soccer team my team used to beat up on every year back in high school. So this will be easy, right?

Now that we have actual defenders playing our defensive positions, our formation looks a lot better this week.

But every single highlight the game shows is naturally Bolton taking long throws, corners, or deep tries at goal.

This is probably the furthest towards Bolton's goal we'll get the ball.

Bolton had approximately 42,986 long shots at goal, which made my heart leap EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Because we don't have a defensive midfielder, we get very little pressure on their attacking midfielders, with nobody closing down. We'll have to devise a way to fix that without straying from the 10-0-0.

I was so sure this corner was about to be a goal that I took a screenshot of it. Nope!

OH GOD, HANDLE IT GOALIE

We actually got a man over the midpoint for a moment here.

TOO MUCH SPACE FOR KAKUTA!

A clearance off the line on a different shot!

I should probably mention here that our team has no idea what to do on any set piece. We just slam the ball as far forward as we can without even trying to keep possession. That needs fixing as well somehow.

Every now and then, some holes develop on the wings that the opposing team could exploit if they were better than Bolton. Thankfully Bolton are not very good.

I got the ball a little further downfield and Bolton's goalie's name looks like a broken string of random text.

Another frightening chance for Bolton that goes awry as the last minute.

Ooh, new FM12 camera angles! Look at the shadows!

Half-time, and nothing but a ton of junk shots by Bolton. Maybe this is in fact going to work as planned?

Switched fields, and we're immediately under attack, but no goals.

We return the favor with a brief chance of our own, and all of our players are actually in the opponents' half! But no goal.

Everybody sprints back in panic at the sight of a well-covered Davies with the ball.

Then we're back to the same long shot nonsense. This game likely set a record for goal kicks.

All these fans in the stadium sure are enjoying a riveting game. I wonder if there's an algorithm in place that will reduce my attendance after enough 0-0 games.

Bolton are getting desperate and we're still hanging on to the draw.

The game commentary bar is finally starting to notice some patterns here as the game is nearly over.

OH GOD BLOW THE WHISTLE AND END IT, REF!

NOOOO

OOOOH?

YESSS?

YESSSSS!!!

27% possession. Outshot 59 to 0. We get a draw. Good result out there, men.

Oh shut up, BBC.

That Hubbins guy has no place in the 10-0-0. Did you see him all the way in the other half? That formation needs players with discipline, not showboaters.