Overmars

For human-controlled clubs, no. I would guess that the overwhelming majority of people playing this game want to handle transfers themselves rather than be dictated to by a board or director of football. I think I'd go crazy if I had to beg the board or the DOF to make each transfer that I wanted.

Wingbacks -- Playing them in the back line makes them have to run more than usual, and I find they don't quite get forward as often as I would want. I see them being more effective out of the DM strata. The downside is that positional familiarity can sometimes be tougher to find in this spot, but I'm usually willing to take the hit in order to get them producing more offense. Midfielders -- I would rather use a triangle than a flat 3 option. The flat 3 is okay at providing support to the front line but doesn't do a great job of shielding the defense. I find the 2 DM + 1 AMC option works great. I like that the AMC provides a third attacking presence, better pressing, and an easier link-up to a DLF or TF. Another triangle option is 1 DM + 2 MC, and that also works well. The 1 DM can serve as a key link between defense and attack, while the 2 MCs can be mezzalas, floating into open spaces where appropriate. In general, I like how DMs work in FM23 much better than MCs, so I prefer the 3-4-1-2 option. Attackers -- I like the TF idea. If you're going to do it, I would want a fast strike partner with him and maybe even an on-rushing AMC. My favourite thing about TFs is that they you can find some really cheap ones in the game with incredible aerial attributes, which is nice if you're on a budget. You also get an extra set piece threat in case your central defenders aren't aerial beasts.

It's been happening to me on 2D too. Pretty frustrating since this has never happened to me on prior FMs. Hope FM24 doesn't have such issues.

Yo-yo clubs. There are too many of them. AI clubs tend not to evolve over time. 20 seaons from now, I still expect Bournemouth to be bouncing back and forth between the top two tiers of England, while few clubs rise up or drop down multiple levels. I would love to see AI clubs become a bit more volatile to make the game less predictable.

AF is the way to go and has been for a while with FM. If you are going to use an AP at AML then I think you need a CM(a) in midfield or an inside forward getting into the box on the right side.

3060 here, but I have the same issues. I spent a few days exploring possible fixes, tried a bunch of things, and then just gave up on it. I didn't buy the game to troubleshoot it. I save much more frequently now and endure the annoying crashes.

In my opinion, individual player form is very powerful in this game. If a player goes 6.3-6.4-6.5-6.3 then you know his next match is most likely to be similarly poor, no matter what his attributes are. After years of complaining about it, I've learned to just go with it and select my team primarily based on form. I really wish player performance from match to match felt more random.

One little thing I'd like to see improve is for players who are "Extremely interested" in joining your club to actually be willing to join your club when you put in bids for them. I'm not sure why the filter exists if it's just going to be completely wrong.

It probably isn't tactical. I would guess that either your GK is poor for the level or dropped into some inexplicably poor form for an extended period of time. It also could just be bad luck, though that differential is very high. Keep in mind that you scored 23 more goals than xG would imply you should have scored. Your goalscorers are probably well above average, and you probably had your fair share of good attacking luck.

Even if I disagree with fining players in real life, this is a game mechanic that if you don't leverage will really cost you. Nearly every player will drop into a run of poor form in a season, and verbal warnings are generally met with no improvement. So unless you like watching players drop a 6.3-6.4 for a month of games, you are encouraged to use the fining system to "solve" the problem.

You have three options here: Use the pre-game editor and edit advanced rules for the nation and leagues in which you want to play. This takes a bit of work to get right, especially if you start from scratch, but there is usually someone out there who has an edited file to share that can serve as a great starting point. Then you simply need to edit the squad registration rules of that file as you see fit. You can choose to manage in nations with few (if any) squad registration rules. The top leagues in Portugal, the Netherlands, and Denmark come to mind. France, Spain, and Germany are also very loose with their rules. The only challenge you would then have is registering enough players for international competitions such as the Champions League. Accept the challenge and prioritize home-grown talent in your transfer dealings.

It's true. We can be paralyzed by the overwhelming amount of variety of setups. I think the biggest issue, though, is that the game itself provides feedback in the form of stars and estimated game speed -- and it's inaccurate. My half-star setup this year is much faster than any 2 or 3-star setup I've had in the past. I'd like to see that feedback adjusted for FM24 so that it factors in amount of playable leagues instead of relying so heavily on player counts.

I have seen FM streamers championing the idea that you can load a handful of leagues and 100k+ players with full expectations of a realistic game world. I dsagree with this notion because: I want my AI team opponents to participate in the transfer market without me pushing them to do so. I want my AI team opponents to be as competitive as possible for my international club competitions (ex. Champions League). I want statistics in other leagues to be comparable for scouting and curiosity purposes. The game world feels more realistic when you can see fixtures, promotions, relegations, etc. in my opinion, AI teams are virtually useless and their players exist in a hidden alternate universe if their league isn't playable. For my European saves (usually with a club from one of the top 7 nations), I use the following setup, which ends up loading approximately 100k players: Playable Leagues: England x 4 France x 2 Germany x 2 Italy x 2 Spain x 2 Netherlands Portugal Belgium Switzerland Austria Greece Scotland Ukraine Turkey Croatia Serbia Czechia Denmark Norway Sweden Poland View-Only Leagues: South America Rest of Europe Any other league I maintain a tiny bit of curiosity about (ex. Mexico, USA, South Korea, Russia) Additional Players from all Continents: Current International players Continental reputation players National reputation players Players from top clubs (optional - adds another ~20k players depending on other settings) Additional Players from my Chosen Nation: Players of that nationality Additional Players from Other Nations (optional): if I was managing in Portugal, I would load players from the top 3 leagues in Brazil and all players from other Portuguese-speaking nations of Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Timor-Leste, Macau, and Sao Tome & Principe. Full-Sim Detail: World Cup Euro World Cup & Euro Qualifiers (optional) Other big continental competitions (optional) All leagues and the biggest cup competition from my chosen nation Top league from each of England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France Champions League Europa League I have a new-ish computer that makes the full-sim detail option worth it. My processing times only really slow down on transfer deadline day. The first thing to go if I needed more speed would be some of the full-sim detail options of leagues outside of my nation. If I still needed more speed, I would remove some of the lower rep playable leagues (ex. Sweden and Poland).

Yes, but if you want to get through multiple seasons then offloading a lot of the day-to-day tasks to your backroom staff is the way to go. Training, scouting, and press conferences can all be offloaded. That would leave you managing matches, setting up tactics, and overseeing the transfer market. I would also recommend managing in a nation with short seasons (ex. Sweden).

Some ideas: Try 2 DM spots instead of CM. I find they position a lot better. A SV(a) with the right attributes (especially physical ones) will pop up in the box for 10+ goals a season. Pairing an A(d) with the SV provides nice balance and enables you to use an aggressive WB(a) or CWB(a) role on that same side. I would use an AP in the AMC spot if using a SV/A combo. Give your fullback(s) cross more and dribble more instructions if they are good at it. I've never had luck in FM23 with the winger role. IW and IF seem to deliver better results, even if playing on the same side as their preferred foot. I like to have the IF/IW players "sit narrow" to help get them into the attack. Offsetting the AMC and ST can help create more movement and uncertainty for your opposition.

I tried an asymmetric 4-2-3-1 (AMC on the left, ST on the right) in the pre-winter patch and it worked great -- although about the same as a conventional 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 had been working for me. I didn't view it as unfair to the AI. The formations I find unfair are formations with three central strikers, since no one really plays like that in real life and the match engine can't really cope with multiple AFs.

The improvement from pre-patch is appreciated, though. I just checked my pre-patch European save with 25+ leagues active and 8 of them on full sim. Man City has an average first team age of 32. Liverpool, Barcelona, and Chelsea have an average of 31. Seeing people's post-patch tests with these numbers in the high 20s is a good improvement, even if it isn't ideal. Improving loan behaviour was the right approach, but I think the game still slows down the speed of development too soon in a player's career. Shifting the aging curve even by just one year might fix everything. I wish this is something we could help SI test for FM24.

I am simming through the 2030 World Cup in my save, and the English national team has zero newgens in its starting lineup. Nine of these players are 30+ years old. England lost the quarterfinal on penalties, so the game does still feel real in that aspect. Alexander-Arnold was the sole penalty miss. Here are some other World Cup squads with zero newgens in their starting eleven: The Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Bosnia, and Poland. The only newgens playing in the tournament seem to be from nations whose leagues I have not loaded.

You don't need to turn on the leagues to buy players from those locations. I have never loaded any Colombian leagues, but I have been inundated with Colombian wonderkids in my current save. Serbians, Croatians, and Czechs can also be found for very little money, though the absolute game-changers will likely be from South America.

I can understand elite clubs favoring established veterans, but the biggest problem to me is that medium-sized clubs and feeder clubs keep favoring veterans too. A team such as Vitesse is playing in the Dutch Eredivisie and not competing for silverware, yet they don't bother developing young players in FM. In real life, Vitesse's average first team age is 23.6. In 2030 of my Dutch FM save, Vitesse is still in the Eredivisie and has just one first team player under 24. Their average first team age is closer to 28. There are plenty of other examples of these sorts of clubs sticking with veterans. So where are the breakthrough prospects? Vitesse has some of their own, but they are all vastly inferior to the veterans on their squad. Anyone decent is being bought by the big clubs who then destroy those kids' careers by: Not playing them Expecting silly monthly loan fees which stifles the loan market Maintaining a ridiculously high transfer fee expectation so no other team can buy and rescue the kids' careers Prospects are getting funneled too soon to teams they can't play for, and the loan market just isn't able to remedy the situation on a large enough scale. There are lots of young Dutch players with high potential, but most are rotting in the Ajax, PSV, and Feyenoord reserves instead of playing for smaller clubs such as Vitesse.

The match engine feeds chance after chance to advanced forwards latching on to the end of long balls. While common in real life, it does seem much more common in FM to have these sorts of chances, which is part of the reason why strikers score a higher proportion of total goals in FM than they do in real life. If you ask inside forwards to sit narrow then they too will experience some of the benefit of this match engine favoritism. Playing them wider or even using wider roles such as winger and inverted winger will yield fewer scoring chances for those players. They should still be able to contribute with plenty of dribbles and playmaking. A lot of their assists will be feeding the striker, which means that when AML/AMR players get big match ratings, they will amost invariably come with big ratings from the striker. Strikers, however, can score big ratings without AML/AMR involvement, so they tend to get higher ratings over the long run. But you can get an inside forward to score plenty of goals in FM. You just need to get a player who is miles ahead of his league peers, and he can dominate games. If your wide players are only league average then it becomes much harder to expect them to score. This is similar to real life where elite AML/AMR player such as Salah and Saka can score plenty of goals, while lower table clubs usually get very little from those spots. Another thing that can lead to better AML/AMR performances is to get taller players in those spots. They will win 6-10 headers per match, which is an odd FM quirk. You can also instruct them to tackle harder and press opponents, which will lead to a few clear cut chances from such pressing.

My best defensive season came with three CD(d) roles in my back 5. I messed around with the WCD role but didn't love the positioning. In all of my FM years, I never enjoyed a stopper/cover mix since theoretically I wouldn't want them mucking up an offside trap.

Start by dropping your defensive line. I am finding the "lower" or "much lower" defensive line instruction helps prevent some of the shockingly bad central defender behaviour in this match engine. You just can't afford to encourage your opponents to attempt direct passes over the top in FM23. Any team of reasonable quality will thread the needle a few times per match.

My preference would be to make the right back more defensive -- either a FB or IWB on support or defend duty. I would also consider using a defend duty for the left-sided DM. You can always adjust these as the game progresses if you need to take more risks. I really like having at least one of the DMs on defend duty or else they tend to push up too far in attack and expose your central defenders to many counterattacks. If you want to stick with two wingbacks and only one holding midfielder then you can just use a 4-3-3 which feels better-suited for that purpose.

In real life, top teams are averaging under 30 total headers per match. In my FM save, my games have anywhere from 60-120 headers per match. That's at least twice as many as real life. To me, that's a startling difference that is impossible to ignore. This is especially true when I have diminutive inverted wingers attempting 8-10 headers per match.