FM 12 EPL exp majour difference?

[crpcarrot]

I am playing with Hereford and in the 2022 season. I managed to Bring Hereford to the EPL a few seasons ago 4-5 and managed to finish mid table first season and kept improving position since till i finished 5th last year gaining EURO football. i bought in one very good FB and one average EPL standard MF player (who is only now gelling with team 2/3 of the way through the season) I am pleasantly surprised that my players have this season grown very strong backbones and are currently sitting second in the league one point behind the leaders with 3 games in hand. have already wont the league cup for first time, in the last 8 of the FA cup and looking good in the EURo cup as well hammering most teams on the way to the 2nd knockout round.

what i would like to know is what made my players improve so much in one year. previously we would struggle against the top 6 teams almost always losing badly with their players running rings around my defenders and midfield though my attacking players were always good enough to get goals and sometimes win us a game due to bigger teams over attacking. now suddenly my team is rock solid at the back. I also managed to buy a cheap Romanian goalkeeper who is turning out to be a jem though he cant speak English. i have conceded the least number of goals all season and only lost 2 times. suddenly even players iw as looking to offload last year are playing well. so has anyone else experienced this? is it to do with the years of experience in the EPL?

i'm not complaining, jsut trying to understand what happened.

[VonBlade]

As your rep increases the opposition play more cautiously. In the same way we set up a little more defensively against Barcelona, but look to play 235 against Barrow, so the AI does too.

Because they're playing more naturally you're not being pinned back all the time, and so starting to grab the odd goal here and there, and therefore win.