14 days without a match then 7 in 21 days . . .

[stockwellpete]

This is in October/November in the Championship (UK). Ridiculous. Please sort out for FM24. 

[forameuss]

What, you mean like the fixture list for the English Championship in real life is like with the two two week breaks in October and November?  Are you aware International football exists?  There will be no games in October in the Championship between the 7th and 21st, then what looks like 6 matchdays before they stop again on the 11th of November until the 25th.  Then they'll probably play even more because it leads into the festive season.  Not really sure what there is to "sort out" if it's mirroring real life.

[stockwellpete]

Of course I am aware of international breaks, but there  is no need to re-arrange all these matches in the same month. They could be spread out a bit more evenly across the season as a whole. Of course, in real life clubs don't have defenders that cannot get through a match (even though they are full fit and not "tired"), unlike in FM23 where the poor dears start getting knackered after about an hour. There is a real weakness in this game relating to excessive stamina drops for players combined with fixture congestion. With injuries on top I am going to have to promote half a dozen U21 players for this period. They are League 2/Vanarama National standard mostly. This is not realistic at all.

[stockwellpete]

For last season (22/23), for the months October, November and December, these three Championship clubs played the following number of matches . . .

Millwall 7-3-4 = 14

Cardiff City 7-4-4 = 15

Birmingham City 7-4-4 = 15

 

My club in the game, Sheffield Wednesday, are being asked to play 5-6-6 = 17 with players who cannot last 90 minutes even when fully fit and rested.

[forameuss]

But the fixtures are specifically realistic.  The other stuff around it might need addressing, but they're not going to make one thing more unrealistic to try and make another component slightly less unrealistic.  If you were going after an issue in fixture scheduling, there's far more glaring ones later in the season with clubs in all competitions, rather than something which is largely mirroring real life.

[stockwellpete]

No, they are not. You seem to be unable to tell the difference between 14, or 15 (as given for real life Championship clubs in 22/23), and 17 (which I am required to play in FM23). I have not been able to find a real-life example yet of a club being asked to play 7 games in 21 days in the Championship in the autumn. Perhaps there is one? The fact that there are fixture scheduling issues later on in the season for some clubs suggests to me that the game hasn't got this quite right. Btw the stamina drops are just bonkers and this just compounds the issue. And now, in my game, just before I started this sequence of 7 games in 21 days, my main striker has got injured and will be out for 2 months. So I have only one other fit out-and-out striker for that whole period. He typically lasts about 65-70 minutes before being knackered. This is a game-breaker for me and I shall probably resign this game now. I will need to know that this has been improved before I buy this game again.

[turnip]

Have you considered giving your players off training? It's the best way to keep players fit for matches when fixture congestion gets stupid.

[stockwellpete]

29 minutes ago, turnip said:

Have you considered giving your players off training? It's the best way to keep players fit for matches when fixture congestion gets stupid.

Yes. What I usually do is give each player in the team 2 days rest so they stand a chance of being fit for the next match in 3-4 days time. It is very tedious to do though each time. Any tactical adjustments go out the window (i.e. specific training sessions) when you have 7 games in 21 days and all you are doing is picking those who are not "tired", or at very high risk of getting an injury. It is very boring gameplay. As you say, the fixture congestion does get "stupid" because the stamina drops for some of the players is very unrealistic. Defenders can play 90 minutes without being at the point of collapse. They can mostly do extra time too, if required. Midfielders, (complete) wing backs and forwards are more likely to tire during 90 minutes than centre-backs.

[Wavelberry]

The stamina loss is tactic related because I'm the opposite. My CDs cannot play two in a week with my tactic without severe rotation but my front 4 can just keep going and going and going.

[stockwellpete]

5 hours ago, Wavelberry said:

The stamina loss is tactic related because I'm the opposite. My CDs cannot play two in a week with my tactic without severe rotation but my front 4 can just keep going and going and going.

I think we might be writing at cross-purposes. I am saying that in the game my central defenders are getting tired after 60-70 minutes - when, in real life, they would get through 90 minutes with no problems. They could also comfortably play twice a week too, unless there was an underlying fitness issue, or maybe if they were well into their 30s (some veteran players retain their fitness very well though). 

 

The stamina drops lack nuance in the game and spoil the gameplay because you are constantly having to prioritise whether your players can still actually run ahead of any subtle tactical adjustments you might wish to make. When you get a period of extended fixture congestion (and then some injuries on top) it breaks the game, in my opinion, as you have to promote U21's who are just not ready to play at that level (Championship, England, in my case).

[MrPompey]

If you make statements like this you need to contrast it with real life. Does this happen in real life, it certainly does in L1 and I often read Premiershop managers making similar statements at certain times of theay. Can because the team is a victim of its own success

[stockwellpete]

9 minutes ago, MrPompey said:

If you make statements like this you need to contrast it with real life. Does this happen in real life, it certainly does in L1 and I often read Premiershop managers making similar statements at certain times of theay. Can because the team is a victim of its own success

Please read the whole thread. I have already dealt with this objection. These 7 games in 21 days were all league matches in the Championship - in the autumn. Nothing to do with my club being successful towards the end of a season.

[MrPompey]

12 minutes ago, stockwellpete said:

Please read the whole thread. I have already dealt with this objection. These 7 games in 21 days were all league matches in the Championship - in the autumn. Nothing to do with my club being successful towards the end of a season.

This is my point, maybe consider making the first post  with a better explanation 

 

Edited July 7, 2023 by MrPompey

[MrPompey]

Looked at Pompey's fixtures in Autumn 2022, 6 matches in 24 days so it happens in real life 

[stockwellpete]

21 divided by 7 = 3

24 divided by 6 = 4 (actually it was 25 days) - or 29 divided by 7 = 4.14

 

So your example is quite different to mine. In addition, Portsmouth were not asked to play a match between 7/10 and 14/10 or between 14/10 and 21/10, so there were two longer recovery periods which were not available to me. In addition, in the game the stamina drops are fairly ludicrous (particularly defenders mostly not being able to cope with 90 minutes), so the effect of fixture congestion is really quite exaggerated and unrealistic.

[stockwellpete]

"Wide midfielders and strikers in particular tend to be rotated more frequently during periods of fixture congestion. But central defenders tend not to be subbed off. This may be due to the fact they typically cover less distance and less high-intensity actions than other positions, but that does not mean they are not susceptible to tiredness and injury arising from fixture congestion."

 

Fixture congestion forcing players to pace themselves, says new football study - University of Huddersfield

[stockwellpete]

And,

“There aren't any differences in total distances covered between a congested period and a non-congested period,” says Dr Harper, Senior Lecturer in Sport Exercise and Nutrition Sciences. “It seems that players can maintain that physical performance in terms of distance covered no matter how many games they've played. 

“But total distance is just one gross measure of performance. Sprints and high intensity running – typically considered as over 15 km/h – are usually linked to notable actions in a game, with a German study showing that 45% of goals are preceded by a sprint. It seems that players perform fewer high intensity runs when they only have three days between games. There’s more walking and jogging.” 

 

Fixture congestion forcing players to pace themselves, says new football study - University of Huddersfield

 

So this is suggesting to me that players should not be considered "exhausted" at the end of a match, whether they are playing just once a week, or three times a week, because "exhausted" suggests (IMO) someone approaching a state of collapse. What seems to happen instead is that players adopt coping strategies and reduce their high intensity efforts to situations where they feel they have some chance of success.  So, for example, pressing strategies will become much less effective unless fresher players are brought on; recovery runs will not always be done as diligently, and so on.

 

Typically, at the end of a match in this game, I will have 4 or 5 players whose stamina has reduced to either "poor" or "very poor", even though I have used all 5 substitutes (usually brought on between 60 and 75 minutes).  If I still have an available substitute my assistant will tell me so-and-so has "given everything" (they probably haven't because I have never seen a player carried off the pitch exhausted). So I think this is wrong and it grossly exaggerates the effects of fixture congestion. To tip my argument on its head for a moment, if football (in real life) was a game where most players were "exhausted" (however defined) after 75/80 minutes, either football authorities would not be arranging fixtures so that clubs have to regularly play twice a week, or they would be reducing the duration of a football match itself to address health and safety concerns.

[iAlwaysWin]

To much Focus on Fitness, Match Fitness is way more important, players can still easily perform under 80% fitness as long as there are at max Match Fitness, also the Ai will also be struggling through this period for fitness not just you, its an even playing field no matter what way you look at it.

Edited July 9, 2023 by iAlwaysWin

[stockwellpete]

1 hour ago, iAlwaysWin said:

To much Focus on Fitness, Match Fitness is way more important, players can still easily perform under 80% fitness as long as there are at max Match Fitness, also the Ai will also be struggling through this period for fitness not just you, its an even playing field no matter what way you look at it.

I thought this was meant to be a simulation as much as a game. Stamina drops are badly wrong at the moment and seem to take either little, or no, account of players' individual coping strategies i.e. what is often called "game management" these days. Because nearly all my substitutions are forced on me because stamina levels have dropped to "poor", or worse, I get a much reduced chance for tactical changes in a game. 

[sedge11]

@stockwellpeteIf I read correctly, you said that was in the 22/23 season, well that will be because of the winter world cup. Your fixture congestion may have been made worse by other teams progressing in the cups, meaning games get moved and potential for games to be re arranged. You will no doubt find the following seasons, the fixture congestion won't be as bad.

Edited July 10, 2023 by sedge11

[stockwellpete]

34 minutes ago, sedge11 said:

@stockwellpeteIf I read correctly, you said that was in the 22/23 season, well that will be because of the winter world cup. Your fixture congestion may have been made worse by other teams progressing in the cups, meaning games get moved and potential for games to be re arranged. You will no doubt find the following seasons, the fixture congestion won't be as bad.

Yes, I get that, thanks. But I am trying to make the point that there are two variables here that come together to seriously unbalance this game/simulation. The fixture congestion would not be so bad, in itself, if the stamina drops of players was more realistically portrayed. Players do not run until the point of exhaustion. What happens is, at varying points in the second half, they start to get "tired" and cannot implement the team's tactics as effectively as they were doing earlier in the game (e.g. gegenpress). The manager then has a choice to make. Keep the player on because he/she might still impact the game, or substitute them with someone who will be more efficient at implementing the original game-plan. Players adopt coping strategies when they start to feel fatigue and reduce the amount of high intensity running they do. Recovery runs are sometimes missed, or started too late to have an impact; misplaced passes from team mates are not pursued in the off-chance of maintaining possession; and so on.

 

Actually the biggest problem I had was with postponements due to international call-ups. I had a lot of African players in my team and they were always getting called up e.g. Ghana and Nigeria. The game seems to look for the first available free date to re-arrange the match, when they could just have easily been re-scheduled for March or April.