No Middle Ground

[Super Mattio]

Why is it you can never go through a average run of forum, im in 2015 with Wrexham in League 1, and I was walking the league, with my tactics of getting it wide, not shooting long and patient build up was working. Yet after it starts going wrong and a drew and lost a few, the players seemed to lose all tactics, they're shooting long (most go wide by 5 yards) and then after lengthy unbeaten runs, I go on lengthy runs of poor form and now linger in the play offs.

[LiamOT]

This is FM for you.

Drastic loses in form just come out of nowhere with no reasonable explanations.

[dooro23]

Complete nonsense, the OP's answer would be, that half way through the season the opponents re-assess your squad and change their approach. Most likely you will encounter more defensive match-ups that can be make your tactics less effective if you don't change your own approach. This could leave your players with less room to play, thus encouraging long shots when they are out of options.

This isn't helped by the current ME thinking long shots are a good idea too often, but unlike the incorrect blabbering around here, this is better compared with the effect a few pints have on the attractiveness of women, than making the concept of women, drinking or life in general broken and unlivable.

[BurghBear]

Agree with the last post, I have the same issue and have a slightly altered tactic ready to use which works for a while, usually January till march, then back to the original. Not foolproof but seems to lessen the blip in form.

[Super Mattio]

Thanks for yours answers! Dooro, is that what actually happens? is it bang on the half way stage? Because I only tweaked my tacics, I still played to my strengths of having two good wingers in Lloyd Dyer and Shaun Maloney in the AML/ R positions, so would it be a case of changing my tactics completely or what?

[AlexNFFC]

You don't have to re-invent the wheel - a couple of tweaks here and there to freshen things up a bit will usually suffice.

[Flub-A-Dub]

Opponents adapt to tactics, this is undoubted.

My first reaction was that you walked the league until your opponents worked you out, we see it all the time in football, like in the Premier League when a promoted team surprises the others and in the second half of the season they start going on some 10-game winless run and just avoid relegation.

Perhaps your players are playing different and shooting long because now those are the best options in the circumstances they find themselves in. It's like having a team in the game set up to play a short, slow passing game with the formation set to a wide 4-1-3-2 formation: you think you've just told your team to play like Barcelona and having an attacking force to steamroll teams, but on the pitch it turns out the team are playing long ball and lose possession. Because they have no one to pass to.