FM22 is beginning to feel like it's scripted

[markoconnell]

I'm sure I'll be told 'it's your tactics' but just hear me out. I'm not an absolute novice at the game. In fact, I've bought almost every version that came out. I recently purchased this year's version and am struggling brutally trying to keep a good run of games despite trawling the forums here on tactical information, even jotting down every word watching @Rashidi videos. I just can't see my game having patterns of play that I want to. It's extremely frustrating. So frustrating that all that time I put into it but always come out of it feeling frustrated, angry.

Here's my Arsenal save. I've restarted and replayed the match with Brentford especially for more than a dozen times and still fell to them dominating, splitting the team apart, even after trying tweaks after tweaks, change after change. This is probably my last straw. Every 'aha' moment from threads and videos thinking some things will work so far has been nothing but pure disappointment. I'm just hoping if maybe there's something I'm missing before I put this aside for the unforeseeable future.

I apologize if this feels like some negative ranting but I just don't see any other way other than maybe expressing how I feel. Thanks for reading.

[Mr U Rosler]

Whilst everyone will say its not 'scripted', which it isn't, current form & morale seem to be hugely influential. It can be hard to break a poor run of form, and equally hard to stop winning when in good form/morale.

So your Brentford match does not exists in a vacuum, what has gone before can have a huge bearing on what happens in match. 

[markoconnell]

I don't think morale was hit hard, we beat Spurs 2-0 in the previous game.

[Metal]

I usually say just git gud, but in all seriousness, you need to ensure you have good coaching setup, in game man management using shouts, a solid training regime that builds up team cohesion whilst making sure you fine players for below 6.5 performances or warn them about form and praise them as a team when putting a good run together. These are things which help alongside just having a solid tactic

Some people just expect to plug in a tactic and it will do all the work for you in winning games consistently. It takes more than that to build form and consistency.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Metal

[HUNT3R]

The game isn't scripted and even if you don't believe that, it's never been proven either.

Every single time this has come up with claims of 'scripting' and the user uploaded the save, someone is able to win within minutes. That's all I can add because there's precious little information that we can work with to try and decipher what's going wrong or to try and help your situation.

On the other hand, if you can provide more information (or even make the save available) then people can try and offer reasons for what's happening or advice on what can be done to improve the situation.

[XaW]

Here is the best explanation you can get for this:

 

[Mars_Blackmon]

Other things affect performance other than tactics.

 

also note that yes playing the game on key highlights or extended will make the games seem scripted but just watch a game on full and see what really happens 

 

It’s also beneficial that you are taking full advantage of your player’s strengths. Wether that is using PI’s or just playing them at their best roles. Plug in play tactics still work but it’s not as effective as it was in year’s past.

[richard.cheeseman]

It’s not scripted and happens in real life as well.. football is a funny old game 🙄🙄🙄

[SimonHoddle]

I don’t believe it’s scripted but it I do believe it is weighted. It has to be. FM is a series of formulas which add up to a football match. (Getting seriously metaphysical so is everything IRL too).

if it was simply one series of numbers being higher than another, each match would be predictable. So SI have to factor in luck and fate. The anomaly of a team at the bottom winning 1-0 after being battered for 90 mins and the dull line “xxxxxxxx have proven they are no pushovers” They factor it in by weighting the numbers (or some other algorithmic trick). It feels scripted because it’s artificial but it doesn’t mean it is scripted.

I used to concede goals to Man U in FM after the 90th min way too many times. Again it felt scripted. The problem is that (when Man U were the best team in England) IRL if you were ahead or drawing against them your team would get deeper and deeper until Man U inevitably scored. SI can’t replicate getting deeper and deeper as a team on the pitch psychologically goes into defence mode, because it makes us as the manager determine where our team defends. So, stay with me here, FM kept on giving Man U 90min goals despite the fact my team weren’t defending  too deep and getting scared. Man U were weighted to be more likely to score at that point. It feels scripted but it’s just a clunky way of SI trying to replicate the vagaries of football.

I think SI could help the player a damn site more by being much more explicit on tactics, match play, game management etc. FM isn’t real life so we the player shouldn’t have to guess why something is happening. It would make those defeats much less painful if we got the logic. 

Edited February 11, 2022 by SimonHoddle

[markoconnell]

Thank you for the responses and not completely obliterating my guts. Appreciate it. Anyway, after a few hours of respite, here are my thoughts. I'm not looking for us to beat Brentford 4-5 nil but just simple patterns of play that I've set out. Building from the back, working the ball on the left side, overload, before releasing Saka on the right, who would be isolated against their fullback and the rest I will leave to the player's ability to score. Those patterns are what I'm looking to enjoy the game with.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem so. Most of the time, it starts out with Ramsdale, to the CB's and then they give it back to Ramsdale before he hoofs it up, ceding possession, 9/10, resulting in thinking that something has to be FUNDAMENTALLY wrong for that to happen. I've set out OI to force the opposition in to my 3 MC's, I'll put my hands up and say Xhaka can't tackle but everytime he's pulled away? What about his aggression? At least foul the guy. Brentford continues to run rings and more often slot balls in behind my backline with precision. Nothing against Brentford but attributes wise, Tomiyasu has got the ability of keeping up with an average Mbeumo.

I just don't know, I'm completely lost on what works and what doesn't. It just feels like hell most of the time. And the fact that it's making me more agitated mentally, it's worrying. I love this game, I love football. I want to enjoy it. I'm really not asking for a lot. Thanks everyone again for reading.

[duesouth]

4 hours ago, markoconnell said:

then they give it back to Ramsdale before he hoofs it up, ceding possession, 9/10

Maybe change Ramsdale's PI to take fewer risks with his passing?  Also might be worth pausing the game and seeing what passing options the CB's have when they have the ball.  If teams are pressing your CB's, maybe distribute straight to your wing/full back?

If you watch Rashidi regularly, perhaps you can send him your tactic and get him to take a look?

[sporadicsmiles]

It really depends what you mean by scripted. Of course it is scripted in the sense that it is a computer program, so it calculates a result based on inputs. However it is not scripted in the sense that this code will decide the user must lose this game because they won too many.

Sometimes you have to look beyond tactics for why you lose a football game. 

- Are your players complacent? Low on moral? Or something of this ilk
- Have you piled pressure on them in a press conference? 
- Is it an important game that automatically carries pressure (can quality for europe, win the league, avoid relegation, etc).
- How tired are your players?
- Are some of your players out of form? Particularly important for the players in key positions in your team. My team plays crap when my CM(A) plays crap, for example, so I have to monitor how he plays and will drop him for an player who is playing better if needed. Knowing your tactic like this is vital actually, but not much talked about because it is quite intangeable.
- Is the AI particularly motivated for some reason? They want revenge. Have a new manager they want to impress. Have been fired up by the manager and it worked? This is more difficult to spot, but in the same way you can motivate your team to an exceptional performance, so can the AI.

The main thing is sometimes you just have to take the loss on the chin. Sometimes there is nothing you did wrong tactically. Sometimes you get unlucky. Come up against an opposition who play out of their skins against you. Concede fluky goals. There is no point beating yourself up about losing one game. If you are constantly seeing the same thing over and over again, then yes you should probably be somewhat more concerned and spend time to work out what you are doing wrong.

[XaW]

52 minutes ago, duesouth said:

Maybe change Ramsdale's PI to take fewer risks with his passing?  Also might be worth pausing the game and seeing what passing options the CB's have when they have the ball.  If teams are pressing your CB's, maybe distribute straight to your wing/full back?

If you watch Rashidi regularly, perhaps you can send him your tactic and get him to take a look?

One comment here. Less risks could mean more booting the ball away. The least risk is to boot it into the stands, the risky pass is to a team mate. So higher risk might mean longer passing into players in more exposed positions, but lower risk might also mean booting the ball away from the defensive third without concern for where it lands.

I'm not saying your advise isn't right, but it's important to look at risk within context of the situation.

[Johnny Ace]

5 hours ago, markoconnell said:

Brentford continues to run rings and more often slot balls in behind my backline with precision.

Well, are you leaving space in behind your backline for them to pass into? Positive mentality with a higher defensive line would suggest you do, maybe your backline aren't fast enough to track back or smart enough to snuff out the danger against Brentford? With the added Counter Press, it could be disrupting your team shape too much 

As for scripting, I'm sure a lot of managers ask themselves "is football scripted?"

It's hard to tell what's really going on from a screenshot & a couple of posts, but instead or replaying the same match (you'll drive yourself nuts) crack on with your season 

[enigmatic]

9 hours ago, SimonHoddle said:

I don’t believe it’s scripted but it I do believe it is weighted. It has to be. FM is a series of formulas which add up to a football match. (Getting seriously metaphysical so is everything IRL too).

if it was simply one series of numbers being higher than another, each match would be predictable. So SI have to factor in luck and fate. The anomaly of a team at the bottom winning 1-0 after being battered for 90 mins and the dull line “xxxxxxxx have proven they are no pushovers” They factor it in by weighting the numbers (or some other algorithmic trick). It feels scripted because it’s artificial but it doesn’t mean it is scripted.

I used to concede goals to Man U in FM after the 90th min way too many times. Again it felt scripted. The problem is that (when Man U were the best team in England) IRL if you were ahead or drawing against them your team would get deeper and deeper until Man U inevitably scored. SI can’t replicate getting deeper and deeper as a team on the pitch psychologically goes into defence mode, because it makes us as the manager determine where our team defends. So, stay with me here, FM kept on giving Man U 90min goals despite the fact my team weren’t defending  too deep and getting scared. Man U were weighted to be more likely to score at that point. It feels scripted but it’s just a clunky way of SI trying to replicate the vagaries of football

LMAO.

It's the opposite. The game can't make you, as manager, be sensible and take fewer risks to close the game out

But it does know that Man Utd should be trying really, really hard to score if they haven't scored and are running out of time. So the only number it needs to tweak to increase the probability of Man Utd scoring is the aggressiveness of the Man Utd tactic.

And SI chucking the attributes and tactics at random number generators is a lot less predictable than SI having some "algorithmic trick" to make a certain result they for some reason want happen  

 

The weird "it can't possibly be my fault I concede late more than I should do,must be SI rigging the dice rolls at the end of the match" rationalizations people come up with...

[Lewis Stewart]

6 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

It really depends what you mean by scripted. Of course it is scripted in the sense that it is a computer program, so it calculates a result based on inputs. However it is not scripted in the sense that this code will decide the user must lose this game because they won too many.

Sometimes you have to look beyond tactics for why you lose a football game. 

- Are your players complacent? Low on moral? Or something of this ilk
- Have you piled pressure on them in a press conference? 
- Is it an important game that automatically carries pressure (can quality for europe, win the league, avoid relegation, etc).
- How tired are your players?
- Are some of your players out of form? Particularly important for the players in key positions in your team. My team plays crap when my CM(A) plays crap(…)

Great post. Most often we hear „tactic/morale” but actually morale can be high and players can get complacent. Even they happy, they play bad. There you will have some problems. I got a save with Tottenham where they did not support me and they have been out of any agression during the game which led to loosing anything. I haven’t been succesfull to turn it around and gave up on the save.

Of course - there are some moments when such hidden things are too „complicated” - in my current save Ronaldo’s penalties are kept by keepers (5 in the row) or Greenwood missing sitters but I believe this FM is more oriented in team handling.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Lewis Stewart

[Mike J]

A lot of the elements for success are long-term things that are very difficult to change just prior to or during a game. Managing morale, fitness and form, for example, is not something you can easily do the morning of a match. You may be able to alter your tactic against certain opponents but asking your players to completely change how they play at a moment's notice may not be successful. Some teams will have a unique style of play that just so happens to be very good against your team, even when you wouldn't expect them to beat you. Maybe those pre-game elements of morale, form and fitness have been managed so well by your opponent it's going to be difficult to win the game.

The problem is taking a single game and isolating it. Top teams lose to weaker ones all the time but it's the overall performance over many games that determines how good a team is. Sometimes you'll lose to Brentford and go on to hammer Man City in the next game and that's just fine. If you keep losing to Brentford, Norwich etc then maybe it's a tactical issue or you're not managing your team's expectations properly.

[Jtomsett11]

On 10/02/2022 at 15:32, markoconnell said:

I'm sure I'll be told 'it's your tactics' but just hear me out. I'm not an absolute novice at the game. In fact, I've bought almost every version that came out. I recently purchased this year's version and am struggling brutally trying to keep a good run of games despite trawling the forums here on tactical information, even jotting down every word watching @Rashidi videos. I just can't see my game having patterns of play that I want to. It's extremely frustrating. So frustrating that all that time I put into it but always come out of it feeling frustrated, angry.

Here's my Arsenal save. I've restarted and replayed the match with Brentford especially for more than a dozen times and still fell to them dominating, splitting the team apart, even after trying tweaks after tweaks, change after change. This is probably my last straw. Every 'aha' moment from threads and videos thinking some things will work so far has been nothing but pure disappointment. I'm just hoping if maybe there's something I'm missing before I put this aside for the unforeseeable future.

I apologize if this feels like some negative ranting but I just don't see any other way other than maybe expressing how I feel. Thanks for reading.

Have you tried dropping your line of engagement? I've found this works for me most of the time as it prevents my team being pulled apart and conceding from very few chances, especially when I'm the dominant team. Appreciate this isn't tactics section and you may have already tried this.  

[Dotsworthy]

21 hours ago, markoconnell said:

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem so. Most of the time, it starts out with Ramsdale, to the CB's and then they give it back to Ramsdale before he hoofs it up, ceding possession, 9/10

I

As mentioned it could be various other factors, but as you've only provided one screenshot and you have plenty of good partnerships I'm going to assume your in decent form with good team cohesion.

One thing to do is to actually look at the in-game stats. In my current game I was playing a short passing high tempo game with narrow width and starting to run into trouble. I looked at the in-game stats and noticed that players in the final third were only completing 60-70 percent of their passes. It turned out that playing narrow was actually making it harder for my front four to find each other as play was too congested. I also tried standard passing directness to give my team more options with the ball. It worked like a charm.

The other issue could simply be that Brentford have your number. If I remember correctly they play three at the back and quite aggressive in the press, and with one up top you might find your forward is a bit isolated while your backline are under pressure while building out from the back.

Looking at your formation, I wonder if playing narrow is really neccesary considering you have 3 midfielders in the center of a park. I also wonder whether shorter passing is helping you with your overload on the right, as presumably you want to hit a couple of cross field balls for Saka to get on the end of. It might also allow your defenders to try longer passes out of defence in order to get around any pressing forwards, rather than continuously passing back to the goalkeeper to punt it away.

 

[Dagenham_Dave]

On 10/02/2022 at 15:32, markoconnell said:

Here's my Arsenal save. I've restarted and replayed the match with Brentford especially for more than a dozen times

THIS is where you're going wrong. Replaying the same game over and over only leads to madness, and it's all utterly pointless. 

[OxfordUnitedFC]

Are you trying to play the same way, do the same things every time you play them? I’ve had so many games that were clearly going to end in defeat for me but a change in formation and tactics got me the win. I think if you play the same match over and over again it could well seem scripted but the game isn’t really meant to be played that way.

[SimonHoddle]

On 12/02/2022 at 19:00, Dagenham_Dave said:

THIS is where you're going wrong. Replaying the same game over and over only leads to madness, and it's all utterly pointless. 

As a game player that’s not a great thing to do.

as a test case to see how the code works it’s interesting. If you lose 100% of the time with the same tactic, over several saves, then there is a problem. But if it more nuanced than that there isn’t a problem. If you lose frequently but not 100% then your team has several, but ultimately realistic, factors going against it. 

FM isn’t perfect. There was a very embarrassing example posted a couple of years ago when a player put two youth keepers as strikers in the Liverpool first team for an entire season. One of them ended up being one of the top scorers in the league. It will have anomalies and issues. Unless you have found something utterly damning (I don’t think this is) you shouldn’t dwell on it too much. 
 

 

[XaW]

7 minutes ago, SimonHoddle said:

as a test case to see how the code works it’s interesting. If you lose 100% of the time with the same tactic, over several saves, then there is a problem.

I'm sorry, but this is just not correct. In order for this to be correct, you'd have to have 100% control over the variables. And you don't in FM. So for SI to do this with some tools to actually control all variables, yes, for us end-users to do so, no.

[SimonHoddle]

On 11/02/2022 at 10:06, enigmatic said:

LMAO.

It's the opposite. The game can't make you, as manager, be sensible and take fewer risks to close the game out

But it does know that Man Utd should be trying really, really hard to score if they haven't scored and are running out of time. So the only number it needs to tweak to increase the probability of Man Utd scoring is the aggressiveness of the Man Utd tactic.

And SI chucking the attributes and tactics at random number generators is a lot less predictable than SI having some "algorithmic trick" to make a certain result they for some reason want happen  

 

The weird "it can't possibly be my fault I concede late more than I should do,must be SI rigging the dice rolls at the end of the match" rationalizations people come up with...

Haha. At least I made you laugh. 

it’s just a theory. But I used several different tactics and methods to defend leads against Man U and consistently they scored anyway. Which they did IRL. however their scoring IRL was the result of a deep seated psychological group think by opponents when they entered the last 10 mins v Man U. SI cant possibly replicate that. 

If you agree that everything is coded in formulas (which it obviously is). You should be open to the fact that the developers probably have certain coding tricks to ensure results and matches are realistic, I’m not and have never said it’s scripted. But I think it’s naive to say there aren’t little mechanisms the developers use to help the game become more exciting. A good example is the final day of the season when multiple clubs are battling for position, it never goes quite how you expect (that’s been programmed to happen). It’s not scripting but it is gaming the numbers as an attempt to replicate the last day tension. The results usually end up as expected but often with strange paths to those results.

[XaW]

18 minutes ago, SimonHoddle said:

I think it’s naive to say there aren’t little mechanisms the developers use to help the game become more exciting.

When SI themselves state that this is not in the game (the link in my earlier post here), why do you continue to believe this?

[SimonHoddle]

15 hours ago, XaW said:

When SI themselves state that this is not in the game (the link in my earlier post here), why do you continue to believe this?

Fair question. I didn’t know they said that. Well that resolves that then.

mind you they also said that the graphics in 18 we’re better than 17 and that was a huge lie 🙃

but yes I do trust them if they say that

[enigmatic]

Even if they hadn't repeatedly said it I'd have thought it was pretty obvious

They have numbers that govern Man Utd having better players, they have numbers governing Man Utd being a higher reputation team and they have numbers that govern higher reputation teams that expect to win becoming more attacking at the end of the game when they're not already winning. Why would they need an extra kludge to make them have a good chance of scoring a late goal?

And even if "make elite team have higher chance of converting shots at end of game" is the sort of kludge I can just about imagine a developer considering, I can't for the life of me figure out why they would also go to the effort of programming something that made a particular user find Brentford difficult to beat. That's not a "script" that's worth writing.

[Dagenham_Dave]

15 hours ago, SimonHoddle said:

FM isn’t perfect. There was a very embarrassing example posted a couple of years ago when a player put two youth keepers as strikers in the Liverpool first team for an entire season. One of them ended up being one of the top scorers in the league. 

 

Unrealistic input = Unrealistic output, the basic tenet of any code. 

[XaW]

9 hours ago, SimonHoddle said:

Fair question. I didn’t know they said that. Well that resolves that then.

mind you they also said that the graphics in 18 we’re better than 17 and that was a huge lie 🙃

but yes I do trust them if they say that

And a fair answer. I think this quote (from the link I posted over) explains it far better than I could.

Quote

We've made it extremely clear on a number of occasions the game is not scripted. What happens is the match plays out initially based on all the factors present at the start of the game (such as tactics, team selection, weather, referee - everything) then depending on changes made during the match by the AI and user manager, the match is recalculated based on those.

So in theory when you click 'Kick Off' the match has been played through already based on all the thousands of factors which go into the match (so could be that the play-through of the match, the AI wins 2-0) - then based on the changes you or the AI then make to your team during the match, the game is played through again from the point of changes, so is recalculated. Which would then like a 'butterfly effect' change the course of the first 'play through'. So after this second recalculation the initial final score (which neither the AI nor the user can see) can change.

As an example, let's say you went more attacking after 5 mins - the result using these changes alongside all the other factors recalculates the final score as 4-0 to the AI. Or perhaps you go more defensive and bring on a different LB - it recalculates as a 2-2 draw.

[SimonHoddle]

On 14/02/2022 at 23:24, Dagenham_Dave said:

Unrealistic input = Unrealistic output, the basic tenet of any code. 

I saw a glowing review of FM in a national newspaper once. It said the first test of any management sim is to put in a ridiculous formation to test the authenticity of the programme. Their defeat was satisfyingly heavy and proved how robust the match and game code were.

according to your reply, once you play FM the only reason you don’t do the absurd is because it would ruin your personal entertainment…..not the game is strong enough to withstand silly inputs, 

I wonder if SI would agree with that?

Edited February 16, 2022 by SimonHoddle

[YaYa4]

Your tactics make sense to me. Maybe a few tweaks could help it. Pressing in this game is powerful and I think not using it your intentionally handicapping yourself. You do have a press but I struggled until I introduced opposition instructions. I always press, tackle hard on opposition full backs and they’re playmaker. If they have an incredible winger sometimes I’ll just show them onto opposite foot. If a team has a playmaker in the center, think of them as ball magnets. The team likes to look for them, and if you look at stats they have high numbers of completed passes. Mark toghter, always press, tackle harder on these players and you’ll start to see they’re ball possession come down. 
 

Also, you have to keep player traits in mind. I struggled for a long time because I thought ah it’s not a big deal. It’s a good player and he’ll fit in. No. I brought up a winger with great pace and flair, had him develop run down right, try to beat opponent repeatedly and once I brought him in on that right wing my teams form instantly went up. That’s just one example. There’s many others. I think both of these are important to remember. 
 

use oppo instructions to set your pressing triggers, and keep familiar with your players traits. Will help a lot I think. It has for me

[DP]

On 14/02/2022 at 23:24, Dagenham_Dave said:

Unrealistic input = Unrealistic output, the basic tenet of any code. 

Nah. 

[forameuss]

20 hours ago, SimonHoddle said:

I saw a glowing review of FM in a national newspaper once. It said the first test of any management sim is to put in a ridiculous formation to test the authenticity of the programme. Their defeat was satisfyingly heavy and proved how robust the match and game code were.

according to your reply, once you play FM the only reason you don’t do the absurd is because it would ruin your personal entertainment…..not the game is strong enough to withstand silly inputs, 

I wonder if SI would agree with that?

Ah yes, National Newspapers.  I often find that when there's a really complex piece of code that they just don't know what to do with, they call up the Telegraph and ask them to have a look at testing it.

The comment you replied to was fine.  There are millions upon millions of paths through a system as complex as FM is.  They'll try and cover for as many as possible, but it's almost guaranteed that they'll not cover a lot of them, and a lot of those are going to be hilariously unrealistic situations.  In that case, the more unrealistic the input, the more unrealistic the output often is.  That's not controversial, and true for any large system.  

I expect if you asked any SI developer, they'd agree.

[thomas_e]

Could you please upload a copy of the save game? Would like to have a go at the Brentford game with a couple of tactical changes. 

[SimonHoddle]

14 hours ago, YaYa4 said:

Your tactics make sense to me. Maybe a few tweaks could help it. Pressing in this game is powerful and I think not using it your intentionally handicapping yourself. You do have a press but I struggled until I introduced opposition instructions. I always press, tackle hard on opposition full backs and they’re playmaker. If they have an incredible winger sometimes I’ll just show them onto opposite foot. If a team has a playmaker in the center, think of them as ball magnets. The team likes to look for them, and if you look at stats they have high numbers of completed passes. Mark toghter, always press, tackle harder on these players and you’ll start to see they’re ball possession come down. 
 

Also, you have to keep player traits in mind. I struggled for a long time because I thought ah it’s not a big deal. It’s a good player and he’ll fit in. No. I brought up a winger with great pace and flair, had him develop run down right, try to beat opponent repeatedly and once I brought him in on that right wing my teams form instantly went up. That’s just one example. There’s many others. I think both of these are important to remember. 
 

use oppo instructions to set your pressing triggers, and keep familiar with your players traits. Will help a lot I think. It has for me

I think closing down and man marking an opponents AP is an interesting idea if you have a DM. but would you do it in a 4231 with CMs? Otherwise you’re pulling you org out of shape.

[Rashidi]

Frankly speaking a formation won't play exactly the same way against different formations and players.  I find that I usually need to make small changes to team instructions or roles and duties to manage this. 

[YaYa4]

7 hours ago, SimonHoddle said:

I think closing down and man marking an opponents AP is an interesting idea if you have a DM. but would you do it in a 4231 with CMs? Otherwise you’re pulling you org out of shape.

I do still use the same instructions including tight marking, tackle harder if low bravery with my high work rate pressing forward if there playmaker is one of the two CMs in a 4231. To include those same instructions on they’re wing backs. Generally allow center backs to have the ball but mark out the play maker and the two wing backs. I win the ball a lot and have many clean sheets with an overpowrered team but we have had huge consistency in results doing this.

[phd_angel]

I'd bet you are doing something wrong in TRAINING, an area of FM that is hugely neglected by 99% of gamers in this forum...

Edited February 17, 2022 by phd_angel

[fc.cadoni]

39 minutes ago, phd_angel said:

I'd bet you are doing something wrong in TRAINING, an area of FM that is hugely neglected by 99% of gamers in this forum...

“Yeah, just leave it to AM”

While you have processed to next round and see Quickness training a day before the match and fixture scheduling was hectic with 2 games for the whole month. AM is doing a terrible bad job regarding training and developing.

[Rashidi]

10 hours ago, phd_angel said:

I'd bet you are doing something wrong in TRAINING, an area of FM that is hugely neglected by 99% of gamers in this forum...

Training improves attributes and in some cases give you short term boosts for games, ultimately your tactics, choice of players for roles and how you’ve set them up matters.  You can leave your ass man in charge of training, holiday mode a season and win a title if you set up a tactic right. No amount of training can improve a poor tactical system.

[phd_angel]

12 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Training improves attributes and in some cases give you short term boosts for games, ultimately your tactics, choice of players for roles and how you’ve set them up matters.  You can leave your ass man in charge of training, holiday mode a season and win a title if you set up a tactic right. No amount of training can improve a poor tactical system.

Sorry I disagree that it's ok to delegate training to ass man and all should be ok. (I could also say that it's ok to delegate tactics to ass man as there still is good probability you'll come on top - if you are coaching a rich, resourceful, top club).

Both tactics and training are important, and should be managed carefully. It's a mistake to underestimate training. It can equally make or break match performance.

 

 

[Rashidi]

2 hours ago, phd_angel said:

Sorry I disagree that it's ok to delegate training to ass man and all should be ok. (I could also say that it's ok to delegate tactics to ass man as there still is good probability you'll come on top - if you are coaching a rich, resourceful, top club).

Both tactics and training are important, and should be managed carefully. It's a mistake to underestimate training. It can equally make or break match performance.

 

 

You are definitely playing a different game than a lot of other people :-)  It's ok to disagree, but what you say is not factually correct if you know how the training module works, but hey to each their own.

[fc.cadoni]

44 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

You are definitely playing a different game than a lot of other people :-)  It's ok to disagree, but what you say is not factually correct if you know how the training module works, but hey to each their own.

Correct me if I wrong, but are you trying to say that schedules with tactical familiarity which contain Tempo, Width, Trigger Press etc is doing nothing and it's just cosmetic? 

[Rashidi]

They improve a teams tactical familiarity with the system. Whether that system is a good one or not is immaterial. So while it has a direct result of players understanding the system, how they play against another team depends on how that tactic is designed.

[XaW]

@Bielsa1975 - I removed your post. You have been told before about posting in that way, please take that advise on board.

[Loversleaper]

@markoconnell

I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint.  I see the game a lot different than most other viewpoints and in no way am I claiming that my view is better than others. It’s just different and something you can always try just to see if this could be a viable solution. 
 

My first thought is, guessing you are the home team, using the Positive Strategy against a much weaker/lower reputation team can (in my humble opinion) fall short in several ways. If the opposition is weaker and it’s controlling possession, then in my book that means my team is not putting enough pressure on them allowing them to have time on the ball. So in this case I would recommend the Attack Strategy.

 

I personally would also move more players forward in an attempt to overload the opponent who is clearly sitting very deep. That means I would use more Attack Duty players, so looking at your tactical set up > Wing Backs on Attack Duty (maybe have one them have the Complete Wing Back role). Left winger on Attack Duty. I personally would change the Pressing Forward from Attack Duty to Support Duty to get him more engaged in the build up. The right center midfield is good on attack, but on the left center midfield (on support) I would include some type of playmaker to thread balls through to my Attack Duty players. 
 

Another thing is the Team Instructions is something I would change slightly. Playing narrow against a narrow defensive opponent could cram up the game somewhat. I would prefer to be wide so I can exploit the space that the narrow opponent allows because they probably won’t press a superior team (to avoid getting ripped apart by a better team running rings around too daring pressing settings). I would also overlap on both sides and either attack down both flanks or just leave it on ‘mixed’.

 

These are slight tweaks, but would argue you will change the dynamics of the game.

 

Good luck 👍

[CVSeason]

Just throw on a Knap tactic and you'll see it isn't scripted

[saiyaman]

On 10/02/2022 at 21:10, Mr U Rosler said:

Whilst everyone will say its not 'scripted', which it isn't, current form & morale seem to be hugely influential. It can be hard to break a poor run of form, and equally hard to stop winning when in good form/morale.

So your Brentford match does not exists in a vacuum, what has gone before can have a huge bearing on what happens in match. 

I've found a solution to morale in nearly every FM game I've played (12,14,17,18,20,21) where it might not work 100% but it has worked very well.

* Do not let your praise be over the top unless you won by a huge margin (more than 2 or 3 goals) and conceded none. Use the normal "Nice you did well" instead of delighted even if it was against your rivals.

* Always be harsh at half time even if you're leading 3-0 and ask the team to not get complacent. Reserve positive comments for the end of the match. Ignore anyone who gets frustrated because either you babysit one prima donna or you make sure the team wins.

* If it's away, be a little understanding and lower criticism especially if you lost with a goal difference of 1 or 2. At home, depending on how worse it was, you can be angry.

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by saiyaman

[talhak]

No, it is not scripted, my friend. The reality is that there are too many parameters ("every decision counts") that affect the outcome of a match. Hope you continue enjoying the game. 

[Gab 5]

It may not be scripted but the 'not for sale' that the AI has makes for many problems when your players get unsettled by a 0 + rubbish player part exchange from multiple clubs. Or rivals making stupid bids for your players just before the transfer deadline. Or ridiculous spells of injuries or players missing open goals. The transfer set up definitely needs looking at. And my young players all being recommended to be sent out on loan because playing for Curzon Ashton is better experience than playing in the u23 Champions League. Of course it is. Not sure what the point of the youth teams are, some Vanarama regional clubs take all the best players and the worst ones stay to play the youth league. Dumb.