Mid-Table in EFL League Two for Three Years, Then Crash to Relegation

[Dewar]

I took over the Morecambe Shrimps, managed to get them to 16th in the first year, then 14th twice. Even with their crippling debt, I was able to just barely make a profit in the third year, and hire some more coaches and things were looking up. Then, my team just gave up. There were only a couple of main personnel switches, but I just couldn't keep morale up to save my life. We'd pull up a crazy upset against the 2nd team in the league, and morale would still hover around OK and then I'd lose against the worst team and it would crash to the bottom again.

After spending so much time with this save, I feel really crushed. Losing is part of the game, but I have absolutely no clue why I lost this time, which just makes me feel like no matter how well I play I could just get randomly smashed at any time.

Anyway, any generic thoughts on this sort of randomness are helpful, but here are a few specific things that happened this season and maybe one of them is the culprit?

1) I had one pretty good midfielder who was consistently getting 20 yellow cards a season, so I traded him away for chump change just so I didn't have to pay him to be suspended all the time or risk being 1 man down 10 minutes into a match.

2) We had a board takeover during the middle of the season, but no staff really changed and it didn't seem to effect me much

3) I created a new tactic, and my tactic from the third year was the one I had the best training in, so I used it. I was given the impression from some of the FAQ threads around here that keeping that training bar high is everything. Eventually fans were revolting that I was stuck on the same tactic all the time, so I fell back to my tactic from two years ago and won 3 matches in a row. After that we started to tank again

4) Brexit happened. One of my players was unable to get a work permit, and I mistakenly paid quite a bit of money for another player that needed one during the second transfer period. Things were already in the pits by then though, and I got praise from the board for such a good signing.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading. Any thoughts on what I should try to do to avoid this in the future are appreciated.

[Pow4FM]

Hi, mate.

I'll try and give you some advice and hopefully it will be helpful for you. 

I've managed a lot of lower league teams in FM17 and firstly, I'd recommend maybe looking into getting a lower league tactic that works well from steam workshop or sites like FM Base.

Secondly, try and have at least three tactics that your team knows, so if you do have a dip in form you can quickly change it up. Don't change to a completely unfamiliar tactic as this will cause your downfall. If you need a change desperately, try a variation of a tactic your team already knows to not cause your match preparation to be useless.

Always praise your players after a good couple of wins but go aggressive if you're drawing or losing at half time (unless against a Man Utd etc). 

Warn against complacency for the next match if your team is inconsistent. 

As for your player that got booked a lot, you need to warn him privately then fine him (if you didn't do this already) some players seem prone to getting booked though. 

This also goes for players not playing well, interact with them privately, your last game was unacceptable etc. 

I always seem to have a dip in form at least once in a season, moral goes down quite easily even after a couple of draws. Hold a team meeting. if things are going really bad. 

It really pays to be a bit harsh in this game as long as your team are getting results and not revolting, you should be where you need to be.  

I won't advise you on training because I honestly just cycle through everything through the season, which seems to work for me. 

[Dewar]

Thanks for the advice, it's very possible I haven't been switching up tactics enough, but picking one and running with it seemed to work in my first few seasons. I'm having a tough time keeping familiarity up with all three of my tactics if I make any real changes in the off season. I guess my guys are slow learners.

By the end of the season I'd pretty much worn out the praise individual players and team meeting functions. Even when the text seemed to indicate they were successful, morale wasn't changing much. I've never tried any of the negative individual interactions though (besides warnings and fines for my one troublemaker) so I'll think about using that at the appropriate time.

[Dewar]

I realized that I kept a save back from the end of Season 3. I noticed a few things that might be indicators of what went wrong.

 

First, the guy I fired because of all his cards was the best leader on my team by 2 points. Does the quality of your highest leader make a difference maybe?

 

Second, almost no one improved in stats, and I have a lot of young guys with potential who should have. Additionally, everyone's star rating has dropped by half a star, and a few of them have lost potential entirely and have peaked. I'm not sure if it was just my bad run ruined them, or if there's something else going on.

[Pow4FM]

It's possible if the player was integrated with the team that his departure may have caused some issues for you but it's mainly just if a departure causes lack of depth in the team or if the player was a star player etc or maybe the squad felt you were treating him unfairly but you would have been sent a message regarding this and would be able to hold a team meeting. 

I would definitely be worried about your players not improving because even if training is not the greatest, if they are getting games they should improve naturally with game time. 

Do you run your youth squad training or do you get your Head of Youth Development to do it?

It is possible they may have peaked still, best thing to do is request a scout report on your players with a scout with at least 15+ judging current ability and potential ability, if possible.