Football Manager Early Access Beta *Official* Feedback Thread - 18.0.3

[Neil Brock]

1 minute ago, Swindon69 said:

tbh the whole thing feels clunky as well.

If you have any specific examples please feel free to raise them in the UI bugs forum. The more constructive feedback and issues we get the more we can look at getting improved prior to full release.

Thanks. 

[themadsheep2001]

2 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

how could possibliy a defensive shape like the one on the left go through the season and finish without a single loss in all competiotions?

 

and how is the defensive shape on the left side covering space better than the one on the right?

what is wrong with this game?

To come back to this again on the left shape. United had this primary shape for 3 years, and Ronaldo tracked back far less than the IFs will. They were one of the best defensive units in England and Europe between 2006-and 2009. Hell, they are the very reason the shape is in the game. Nothing wrong with the shape tbh

 

[Armistice]

2 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

how could possibliy a defensive shape like the one on the left go through the season and finish without a single loss in all competiotions?

 

and how is the defensive shape on the left side covering space better than the one on the right?

what is wrong with this game?

I've seen this too, was a bit baffled tbh as why in the world this should work but he uses lots of support duties even in more advanced areas so in it could look like a 4-1-4-1 or so in defence.

 

Anyway he said something about having green all over the pitch zones & he covered all the areas so that made me think if it's really gonna be how this year's edition is gonna pan out because if so, we gonna see more funny shapes like this and it's gonna be an absolute shame imo, we need Analysis only to see where we could lack bodies, in what area of the pitch.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Armistice

[SmurfDude]

I can see injuries are going to be an issue on FM18. Not even out of pre season and I've had a dozen different injuries, with most lasting 2-4 weeks. 

[NabsKebabs]

To be honest, I haven't really enjoyed fm18 so far...there is just way too many clicks required to do simple things especially during matches. I'm one of those players who constantly changes tactics during games to adapt to situations. It's just so annoying in fm18. It was absolutely perfect in fm17. Too many completely unnecessary changes to the interface for my liking. 

[Seb Wassell]

9 minutes ago, SmurfDude said:

I can see injuries are going to be an issue on FM18. Not even out of pre season and I've had a dozen different injuries, with most lasting 2-4 weeks. 

12 injuries in pre-season actually sounds about right.

We are at roughly 80% of reality.

[Davey Boy]

I scored two goals via freekicks either directly or in directly and the camera angle only shows the free kick taker not the goal, it happened and lower end of the pitch/monitor, the camera angle im using is director.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Davey Boy
spelling

[MHovel]

Why there is no option for 144hz to choose like in previous editions?

[Dagenham_Dave]

During the 3D match display, all of my players heads are black/silouhettes, as are the opposition. 

I was about to raise this in the bugs forum, but I've just watched a couple of lets play videos where it's not happening for those people, so wondered if there was anything I could do to fix it myself?

[Smurf]

1 hour ago, Lordbonney said:

A manager wouldn't 'Instant Result' either, they'd watch the game even if it is essentially pointless in terms of league position.

Full-fat FM aims for more realism - if you want it to be quicker, with less realism, you've got Touch, Mobile or just wait for someone to mod it.

 

A real manager wouldn't watch just highlights either - or watch from an unrealistic high view - or do a lot of things that happen on match day. 

You're missing the point, you can already instant result, sort of, by holidaying, which gives the assistant manager the credit. 

However, an instant result button doesn't.

And no - getting Touch or Mobile is not the answer - there's a lot of people that want instant result button

1 hour ago, KUBI said:

Wait until custom skins are available, they have usually instant result activated.

Hence why people skin it .. but why should we have to rely on people skinning it - why don't FM give the people what they want? 

[sammiller14]

Apologies if I've missed this posted earlier.

My in-game match screen is causing me bother. I miss 'split screen' view - it's dominated by both sides player ratings, with a small box in the middle for stats (but no clear cut or woodwork?).

Is it possible to amend this? I have to scroll down to see possession and can't view shots and possession at the same time. Just ruining the game a bit for me.

[MBarbaric]

44 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

To come back to this again on the left shape. United had this primary shape for 3 years, and Ronaldo tracked back far less than the IFs will. They were one of the best defensive units in England and Europe between 2006-and 2009. Hell, they are the very reason the shape is in the game. Nothing wrong with the shape tbh

would like to see what you mean, because this is how they defended against tottenham in March 2009

41 minutes ago, Armistice said:

I've seen this too, was a bit baffled tbh as why in the world this should work but he uses lots of support duties even in more advanced areas so in it could look like a 4-1-4-1 or so in defence.

might have but isn't the formation screen supposed to be defensive positioning or that changed?

42 minutes ago, Armistice said:

Anyway he said something about having green all over the pitch zones & he covered all the areas so that made me think if it's really gonna be how this year's edition is gonna pan out because if so, we gonna see more funny shapes like this and it's gonna be an absolute shame imo, we need Analysis only to see where we could lack bodies, in what area of the pitch.

1

remains to see I guess. 

[pheelf]

Managed to get my hands on a copy of the game and here is my feedback with positive and negative bullet points:

POSITIVES

+ Absolutely loving the new custom set pieces and the increased flexibility when it comes to setting up attacking corners (can have more than one player lurking outside the area)

+ I enjoyed seeing a trophy celebration on winning a cup, a minor improvement to some but anything that increases the immersion is always welcome in my book

+ I'm actually liking the tactics screen more than I thought I would, the analysis overview has been a lot better implemented than I expected and provides useful information which I feel will help players ability to construct more coherent tactics

+ The dynamics aspect of the game actually adds to the game which again confounds my expectation that it would just be extra fluff. The increased transparency given by the new module really does help, for e.g. I took over a club mid season with no coaching badges and sunday league footballer experience and where as before there would be no way of me knowing how being so inexperienced impacted my players I can now see exactly what the problems are and how I can go about solving them

+ The medical centre is a nice touch although I haven't really had much opportunity to explore it fully being at a club which wont allow me to hire a sports scientist. What is presented is however clear and logical which is helpful 

+ Graphically the match engine has improved which is nice to see even though it's not a quantum leap

+ It looks like the wide midfielder positioning issue might have been resolved

+ The adding of tactical intensity is very useful

+ The ability to define match plans could be a great addition especially for players which don't like to micromanage games which aren't particularly interesting (It's quite astonishing the amount of aspects of FIFA Manager that have found their way in FM...I'm not complaining though...they weren't bad ideas in FIFA Manager they were just implemented poorly, if FM can take those ideas and implement them properly then why not add them)

NEGATIVES

- I'm not pleased about the scouting section at all, way too much additional clicking for no good reason at all. If there is one module of the game which needs to have an ultra clean UI this is it and it doesn't even come close at the moment

- Although the advice given by the analysis tab on the tactics screen can be useful there are occasions when it isn't, for e.g. Being told that an attacking midfielder (attack) doesn't work well with an advanced forward (attack) which isn't necessarily true, it doesn't seem to take into account PIs

- No changes to training at all

- I felt the job offers received can be somewhat unrealistic, as I stated earlier I made a manager with no coaching badges and sunday league football experience but still I was offered interviews at sides in the N. Irish Premier Division and given a job a Glenavon after offers from two other clubs in the DBP. Even though the DBP is fairly low level I can't see some Johnny No Name rocking up and getting a job there 

- Not feeling the interaction module at all, the talks have become tired and it needs changing. As I suspected I would I've just delegated the whole lot out except new player signings, there is absolutely nothing drawing me in to make me consider changing that decision

- The game is a lot less polished than I expected based on last seasons game but as it is only a beta that can be forgiven although the number of bugs I'm encountering is pretty poor. The inability to select more than one corner/free kick/throw in taker being especially vexing

- Why was the number of cameras views reduced? The Data Analyst camera is actually worse now than when you couldn't alter it, the ball is so hard to see its unreal

- The game plays a lot more sluggishly and this is without a particularly large database and only having one country open

I'll leave it there for now, at this point I can't say that the game is better than FM17 but with some more polish it should be. A really good effort by SI

[themadsheep2001]

17 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

would like to see what you mean, because this is how they defended against tottenham in March 2009

might have but isn't the formation screen supposed to be defensive positioning or that changed?

remains to see I guess. 

Picking out one frame vs 3 years of football really doesn't stand up. If you can find the games from then, go and have a watch. Or at the very least look up the articles on their lopsided shape. Because without having watched the formation at play, I'm not sure how you can say the game is wrong and formation is inherently flawed when it wasn't...

[Neil Brock]

33 minutes ago, MHovel said:

Why there is no option for 144hz to choose like in previous editions?

The hz displays that appear in game are currently bugged. Whatever you current display settings are set to via your system display is what will appear.

[Lynch48]

-2D classic is gone disappointed

-is now hard to change attribute color with color plate (i'm color blind)

-ugly match day design, to much click to do simple thing

I'm going to re-install my FM17 until FM18 is release

 

[frank_olaf]

I'm still a bit confused/overwhelmed by the new scouting interface.

In FM17 I could see every previous scouting report for a specific player (there was a drop down list towards the top of the report allowing you to select a previous report). In FM18 I can't seem to find previous scouting reports, only the most recent one. Am I missing something or are the previous reports gone?

[Swindon69]

An additional thing the ratings being all the way over to the right on the screen at half time isn't the natural place for the eye to fall.

[PhilT]

I'm guessing this is a bug rather than a new feature but when you have a man down, should your trainer run on the pitch with his todger hanging out?

[Artin]

is the option to send your scouts to specific countries no longer in the game?

[ivanfm]

can anyone from SI answer if there is even a slight posibility of returning the shader option from previous years the one in which you could decide between gpu assisted and software because i was only able to play the game because of the software option and now having it removed playing the game is really hard i know that its because of my pc and how bad it is but still we also require attention and there is quite a lot of us who live in countries that are very expsensive and cannot afford good pcs 

[RobertPage]

goalkeepers parrying any cross near the post out for a corner is still a thing..

[GetScoutReport]

12 hours ago, OLLMEISTER1 said:

Somewhat disappointing start to the BETA for me...playing on Mac Book Pro and all text is very pixelated & blurry (Unplayable, with no remedy as yet) The loss of standard 2D is a crime in my eyes. Was fantastic in FM2017 the 2D Classic is very poor IMO.

Tactic screen looks so cluttered & far too much going on in one spot.

Back to FM2017 for me until the Retina & resolution gets sorted for Mac Books.

Disappointing indeed!!! 

Same as me

[Jibby123]

14 minutes ago, Artin said:

is the option to send your scouts to specific countries no longer in the game?

Was wondering the same, took me a little while to find, but you can still send out to individual nations through the "set new assignment" drop down and then "scope" in top left right hand part of the assignments page.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Jibby123
not knowing left from right

[Artin]

Just now, Jibby123 said:

Was wondering the same, took me a little while to find, but you can still send out to individual nations through the "set new assignment" drop down and then "scope" in top left hand part of the assignments page.

awesome, tyvm!

[Neil Brock]

8 minutes ago, ivanfm said:

can anyone from SI answer if there is even a slight posibility of returning the shader option from previous years the one in which you could decide between gpu assisted and software because i was only able to play the game because of the software option and now having it removed playing the game is really hard i know that its because of my pc and how bad it is but still we also require attention and there is quite a lot of us who live in countries that are very expsensive and cannot afford good pcs 

No, I'm afraid for the game to be able to progress we had to stop supporting software rendering mode. We can't hold back progression of the game to support often old and very poor standard systems. Sorry. 

[CJG21]

Why are there fewer zooming options than last year? On last year's game you could choose to zoom in and out on a big range of %s, and it meant I was able to fit loads of information on a small screen. This year the options are much more limited, and on screens like the tactics screen, I just want things to be smaller. I should surely be allowed to zoom out further or change the resolution to fit my monitor? Makes it much harder to play the game fluidly this year.

[roykela]

2 hours ago, kingjericho said:

Again?... this is disappointing.

Don't know what it's like for other people but it's still happening on my end.
It's been going on for far too long now.
Did find the magic formula on FM17 but that magic touch doesn't work for me anymore on this FM18 Beta

Edited October 27, 2017 by roykela

[JayArr]

Not a fan of the matchday UI. The data analyst view isn't a good replacement for the 'new' 2D view if you want to use any widgets at all - I feel like I need binoculars. 

I don't really get why certain elements have been shrunk down so much - the confirm changes button seems tiny.

Does the match timeline (not keen on it's random move to the top of the screen, fwiw) not work at half time now? Like, I can't get to half time and just click the goal icon to watch a replay?

Edited October 27, 2017 by JayArr

[m@rk]

The challenge that SI face is the demand to be wanting a realistic match engine, realistic football VS the desire to want a quick sim match button and cut down version of the game that isn't FMT.

If only life had a quick win, easy option. Do you know what, I dont fancy managing staff today, let me skip it please boss. 

Hey, there might be a kid in Brazil who's good at football, dont want to scout to see, just tell me he's the next Messi and I'll pay the 20 grand. 

 

[Armistice]

1 hour ago, MBarbaric said:

would like to see what you mean, because this is how they defended against tottenham in March 2009

might have but isn't the formation screen supposed to be defensive positioning or that changed?

Yeah it is your defensive positioning, but think a bit of 3-5-2 for example, you have wingbacks who are in the DM strata, but they can and should get back in line with the CBs, forming a 5-man defence.

[SmurfDude]

On FMT the star rating is missing from the player report widget.

And can you add current transfer budget back to the player search screen? 

I can't find the 'go to live' button when I click further back on the match timeline. I have to manually move the slider back to the further point. 

Edited October 27, 2017 by SmurfDude

[Sheriff7]

I have serious problem when i try to start a new game..I stick with intro song(this is the moment) and i end up dancing with manager idol...

[PHITSO]

How can I turn off the stadium images in the background during matches at kick off and full time? They really do not look good or realistic.

[Vinnyvagus77]

10 hours ago, Dalglish said:

What's with all the picnic benches? I can understand if these were outside the ground in a fan zone - but that close to the pitch???

In the MLS you have fans sitting at tables right up close to the pitch

[Adzke]

Can someone provide a screenshot of the 2D view? 

[JayArr]

Minor annoyance with the player instructions screen:

1. Why is the toggle for player instructions defaulted to 'position' rather than 'personalised'? I just spent like 20 minutes going through each of my players setting their specific roles without noticing that the toggle was even there, so none of the changes counted. I was just changing the 'position' instructions over and over and had to do the whole thing again, with the added step of switching every single player to 'personalised' instructions. 

2. Why can't I set personalised instructions for injured players? The toggle isn't even there. 

[Dalglish]

41 minutes ago, Vinnyvagus77 said:

In the MLS you have fans sitting at tables right up close to the pitch

Maybe, but it's hardly the norm in most other countries. The image I uploaded was from the Italian leagues.

[ZoSo-Scouse]

Am I missing something in the new Transfer Centre?  I certainly hope so...

The new Transfer Centre is a step backwards from 17.  I've always preferred to offer groups of youngsters to other clubs on loan.  It is common for me to field over 100 transfer offers in one turn.  17 is ideal in the way that one can scan through a group of offers for one player and accept offers that are the combination of the right league, the right playing time, and the right wage contribution.

17 made this easy in the way we could click the player on the left and immediately see an overview of the offers made for him.  Scrolling down through the offers, on 17, we can green-check-accept the preferred offers and leave the undesirable offers un-responded.  Two more clicks and we can reject all of these un-responded offers.  The Transfer Centre of 17 is an efficient use of clicks.

The new, 18 Transfer Centre has added an huge number of clicks and removed our ability to quickly see an overview of the most important transfer information.  This is highly annoying, since with my typical play style, I average 10-20 loans per season.

Adding a player/position/type filter for the new Transfer Centre?  Bah, useless.  The number of players/staff in your transfer center is never an issue, the number of offers for these players is.  We need more a much more concise way to deal with the number of transfer offers.

Thanks for the effort, SI, but the new 18 Transfer Centre is inferior in every way to 17.  Even with improvements to the 18 Transfer Centre, it will always have at least 1 extra click from the 17 design.

Scrap the 18 Transfer Centre.

Below is an instance of receiving 26 loan offers for Ovie Ejaria - a very common occurrence.  On 17, we can see in which league each offering team competes, the playing time offered, and the proposed wage contribution.  We can crtl+click each desired offer and accept them all at once, then "reject all un-responded offers".  On this new 18 Transfer Centre, we first have to expand the offers by clicking on the frightfully small, white arrow.  Then we have to click in each and every specific offer to see the offer details.  Then, when going back to the Transfer Centre we have to, again, expand the offers after scrolling down to the preferred player.  Nightmare!

[MBarbaric]

1 hour ago, Armistice said:

Yeah it is your defensive positioning, but think a bit of 3-5-2 for example, you have wingbacks who are in the DM strata, but they can and should get back in line with the CBs, forming a 5-man defence.

indeed, but who is supposed to get in line with what in 4-DM-LM-CM-CAML-AMR-SC formation? There is no such defensive shape. Nobody plays defence in that way. 

1 hour ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Picking out one frame vs 3 years of football really doesn't stand up. If you can find the games from then, go and have a watch. Or at the very least look up the articles on their lopsided shape. Because without having watched the formation at play, I'm not sure how you can say the game is wrong and formation is inherently flawed when it wasn't...

i've picked the first instance of positional defence in the first random game from a period. there is no "lopsided defensive shape". Man utd defended within that shape just like nobody ever defended in that shape. They might have attacked in that shape, but that is beside the point (or is it?) as the formation in FM is supposed to represent the defensive shape. based on experience and all the knowledge in tactics I can absolutely say that shape is not a defensive shape (and you can see on these screenshots it clearly isn't). So, if it isn't a defensive shape then the game is wrong. And inherently so indeed as there is no team in the whole world that defends like that. At least not intentionally.

here's the first instance of a positional defence from Man Utd v Chelsea 2008 CL final. It is no asymmetrical nonsense, a bog standard 4-4-2. Look where CR7 (a left winger) stands. I'd bet that if I went through all matches Man Utd played that season, I'd find the same or similar defensive shape. It is because it is the shape that works, it is used by 95% of the teams that play football. I honestly never seen anything that would remotely represent 4-1-2-2-1 asymmetrical when the team is in the defensive phase.

So, why/how is that shape even available in the game if the formation is supposed to be a defensive shape? And how is it possible it can win all competitions entered without a single loss? 

 

Edited October 27, 2017 by MBarbaric

[rdbayly]

Having played a full pre-season I can say without any doubt that head & shoulders above everything else, the match UI is a shambles.

What possible rationale is their to change the well established in match tactics screen, and split it up in to two separate screens called 'pitch' and 'list' - I must navigate between these two rotten screens a dozen times per match. To top it off, the pitch screen is now horizontal, and aesthetically different to the way our brain and eyes have been trained to quickly interact with it for years. 

I'm off to take some painkillers for the headache caused by the florescent pitch.

 

Edit: I also want to add that the new tactics pitch grid showing weaknesses and partnership effectiveness is excellent, so why deny us access to this during matches and present with an entirely different pitch view??

Edited October 28, 2017 by rdbayly

[Mystique]

22 hours ago, Jack Deal said:

Split screen as it was is no longer an option, however you can "dock" widgets and pin them, which creates the same effect. When dragging a match widget, there are icons at the top/bottom/left/right, if you drag onto those you create a dock. Click the pin icon and you have a split view between the pitch and your widgets, so you can have the view split from any angle and have any widgets you'd like in it. It can be widened if you choose to.

Split screen is essential, I hope this will be reconsidered for the full release, because if not, this will definately be the last version I will buy.

Anyway, I am unable to attempt this workaround because I don't know what you mean by a 'widget'.  Can you explain what a widget is, where this widget is and what 'docking' this widget will actually do.  Where do I drag the widget from and where do I drag it to...  and where is this 'Pin icon'?

 

And what do you mean when you say I can view "split from any angle"?

[fm2020.smith]

my feedback so far.

transfers are unreal,m very few come in for transfer listed players and there is little to no activity by any the premiership teams. no big fees players go for there value. unrealistic players being added to tl and players being signed that wouldnt normally leaves clubs.

match engine seems waited to defensive counter attack. most of the lower clubs are playing park the bus and counter and getting too many wins from this, man city and chelsea are both at the bottom of the league because they dominate the games and have loads of shots and possession and then get hit with one attack and goal. ha;ppend to me with burnly 18 shots 10 on target. they break 1 goal. break again 1 goal . pin point passing from them pace when their players are less pacey thann my defenders and mids  players also not reactiing to whats around them, the ball will come out of the area and my players will wait for the opposition to get the ball before reacting. playes not creative, no through balls, no lobs over the top. most goals are from crosses. 

the briefing thing is just pointless, first game of the season and your about to brief your team and your team are not listening and dis interested apparently? on the first day ? little bit unrealistic 

scouts dont find anyone, ive scouted all the big leagues under 18s 19s or 20s and they dont find anyone and my scouts are all pa 18 plus. i also got hold of an unnoficial editor and didnt look at the names but in looked to see if there were any 16 yo over 170 pa kids and not one in the world !!!! i find that a little unrealistic .

and only about 6 17 year olds 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

2 hours ago, Lynch48 said:

-2D classic is gone disappointed

-is now hard to change attribute color with color plate (i'm color blind)

-ugly match day design, to much click to do simple thing

I'm going to re-install my FM17 until FM18 is release

 

Attribute colours can be changed in the exactly the same way as in previous versions, until custom skins can be released you can change the attribute colours from the Preferences -> Interface -> Colour Chooser panel.

Also 2D Classic is still in, its the other 2D mode that has been removed.

[PHITSO]

Going back to FM17 until release of 18. Hopefully then I can use the editor and download a new skin.

So far (I know it's only beta), it seems to be a backwards step from FM17. The skin and interface looks amateurish. Not sure what the capital letters on each header of each page are about, please can they go? Really not sure what the font is. Did it really need to change?

I'm a 2D player, I just can't get into the 3D gameplay. Never will, but that's fine. 2D is worrying me, I hope SI aren't trying to hard to slowly decommission it and move all players over to 3D. Having to still have the 3D stadium backgrounds on my screen before a game starts and when it finishes, before I can go to my team talk, really bugs me. I wish there was an options in the preferences to disable anything graphical like that all together from the matches.

 

Been playing for 10 years now and I'm sad to say it's the first time I've not been able to delve straight in and feel immersed into the game.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

16 minutes ago, Mystique said:

Split screen is essential, I hope this will be reconsidered for the full release, because if not, this will definately be the last version I will buy.

Anyway, I am unable to attempt this workaround because I don't know what you mean by a 'widget'.  Can you explain what a widget is, where this widget is and what 'docking' this widget will actually do.  Where do I drag the widget from and where do I drag it to...  and where is this 'Pin icon'?

 

And what do you mean when you say I can view "split from any angle"?

This is the 2D Classic view in FM18;

At the top right (where I have circled in yellow) is the widget menu, click that to get a list of widgets, pick the one that you want to display.

- Grab the title area of the widget and you can grab it.
- When you grab it icons will appear in the corners of the screen, drag it to one of these icons and an outline of a box will appear let go and the widget will now dock in said corner.
- Select the pin icon in the dock area and it will now pin the docked area, so the pitch only goes upto it.
- You can now drag this panel to resize it, like you could with the split view.

You can also get another docked panel;

- First you need to click the X to close the panel you have already docked.
- Now select the other widget you want to display and repeat the above steps to dock it in a different corner.
- Now re-enable the first widget and you should get two docked panels you can resize, like the below screenshot, you can also dock several widgets in each dock);

 

[CJG21]

When you are viewing a player from another team, you can't select one of the drop down boxes to show his fitness/injuries, so you have to do another click to another screen to be able to view it. That surely should be something you should be able to choose from on the profile screen? There are currently only 8 options for me and so you see the same boxes repeated on the same screen, and yet there are things that ought to be there that aren't.

[themadsheep2001]

42 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

indeed, but who is supposed to get in line with what in 4-DM-LM-CM-CAML-AMR-SC formation? There is no such defensive shape. Nobody plays defence in that way. 

i've picked the first instance of positional defence in the first random game from a period. there is no "lopsided defensive shape". Man utd defended within that shape just like nobody ever defended in that shape. They might have attacked in that shape, but that is beside the point (or is it?) as the formation in FM is supposed to represent the defensive shape. based on experience and all the knowledge in tactics I can absolutely say that shape is not a defensive shape (and you can see on these screenshots it clearly isn't). So, if it isn't a defensive shape then the game is wrong. And inherently so indeed as there is no team in the whole world that defends like that. At least not intentionally.

here's the first instance of a positional defence from Man Utd v Chelsea 2008 CL final. It is no asymmetrical nonsense, a bog standard 4-4-2. Look where CR7 (a left winger) stands. I'd bet that if I went through all matches Man Utd played that season, I'd find the same or similar defensive shape. It is because it is the shape that works, it is used by 95% of the teams that play football. I honestly never seen anything that would remotely represent 4-1-2-2-1 asymmetrical when the team is in the defensive phase.

So, why/how is that shape even available in the game if the formation is supposed to be a defensive shape? And how is it possible it can win all competitions entered without a single loss? 

 

If you had watched the 2008 final, you’d know they played a much deeper formational setup with and entirely different defensive style, almost man to man. The lopsided shape was built on three things : Ronaldo’s often lack of tracking back, freeing Ronaldo to isolate his man, and creating the best opportunity for a counter attacking involving him. You can bet, but I actually watched them during those games. So it’s more than a little frustrating to see some who didn’t avidly watch United those years say they played a style that’s didn’t work, when it did in a most spectacular way. Either way I don’t expect SI to change that and rightly so. That’s the last on from me as it’s  off topic. 

[warlock]

3 hours ago, Armistice said:

we gonna see more funny shapes like this and it's gonna be an absolute shame imo

I don't understand your issue - it's a standard formation and been in the game for ages. I've played it in previous FMs with some success and in both 16 and 17 it was a natural for Man Utd given the available squad. I think I first saw it in an Arsenal thread back in FM15.

[janesy20]

The fact that scouting reports do not land directly in my inbox really frustrates me. Why has this been stopped? I like to see the report cards asap not have to search again for the player.