Overmars

Something is wrong with your players. Are some of them new to the team or country? Do you have bad team cohesion? Are your players any good? Are you fining them for poor performance so they push to try harder next match? When your players are in good form, well adapted to the club and country, bonded well with each other, and of a reasonably good talent level then this tactic will play a lot better defensively. And if none of what I said is actually happening then you've just run into some bad luck.

I am curious to see a screenshot of your tactic. I am guessing your players very rarely cross from open play, meaning most of your crosses are coming from corners, where the completion percentage will be much higher. I guess you have play out of defence, very short passing, and work ball into box selected -- and maybe even lower tempo. The stats screens in my game appear believable, although I don't have any pure outliers like you have.

You are highlighting one of my main struggles with FM23. I have used an AF role in that spot with many players and seen them score 5+ goals in friendlies, score a pair of goals in the league, and then go 10+ matches without scoring. I can't really tell if the AF struggles I witness are down to the players in that role or the overall tactic. The xG is fairly low for anyone I play there, which leads me to believe it's the tactic, but when the players are all logging 6.2-6.4 ratings in that spot, I feel like bad player form might also be a factor. A lot of people I see playing this game are now using 4-2-4 tactics to help combat putting all their eggs in the lone striker 4-2-3-1 basket. Having one AF get a 6.2 won't kill you as much in a 4-2-4 since the other striker can pick up the slack. Another solution is to pull back on your lone striker and give him a DLF, TM(s), or F9 role. I'm not a big fan of that in a 4-2-3-1 unless I have monster goalscoring threats on the wings or at AMC. The upside to doing this, though, is that your striker will actually have more than a handful of touches in the match, which can help prevent some catastrophic match ratings and descents into poor form. I'm going to use CF(a) for a bit and see how it does. If that fails then I'll either switch formations or look to sign a target man to facilitate my AML/AMC/AMR. I feel like the better option in this match engine is to use a 4-2-4, but I'd rather remain somewhat faithful to the formations I see most often in real life.

In my experience, the impact of view only leagues is very small and might not be noticeable at all. Playable leagues have a more noticeable impact, and simming a league on full match detail will have a very noticeable impact.

I still aim for the near post, send both my central defenders to that area (one attacking, one lurking), and my team is tied for the lead league in goals from corners.

The decision for me generally comes down to how good my wingbacks are and whether my AML/AMR players are playing as wingers or inside forwards. If I'm playing inside forwards then I want my wingbacks providing attacking width, and so an HB role makes sense to keep a safe back three setup in possession. When I'm using wingers then I can use inverted wingbacks, and then my options for the DM role open up to just about anything. I can adjust the mentality of the inverted wingbacks to compensate for what my DM is doing. If I use a HB then I can use IWB(a). If I use a DLP(s) then I might use IWB(s) roles.

Tactics are only one piece of the puzzle, and often they are inconsequential in comparison to the other pieces (form, morale, talent, luck).

If you are accepting the weakness of having no fullbacks or wingbacks then you have to get something out of that sacrifice. With three central midfielders playing timidly, I don't think you are getting enough compensation for that defensive weakness. What makes this better than a 4-2-3-1? Defensively, it looks worse, and I don't see anyone behind the front four getting up field for an attack. I would want to get more aggressive in the middle. If you are just going to use 2 CAR(s) players then you might as well revert back to a 4-2-3-1 and get proper defensive coverage behind your front four.

I have found more success with DMs than with MCs in FM23. Pushing those two central midfielders back to DM might play better in this match engine.

I am playing a save where I started in Dutch Tier 4. I used Tomijssel's D7 Netherlands download. I am four seasons in, and everything is working well. The only odd thing is the three promotion spots from Tier 3 to Tier 2, so I edited that down using the pre-game editor to limit the number of amateur clubs being pushed to turn pro.

Yes, for those leagues.

To me, where you get the tactic or instructions from is never an issue. Real life managers take inspiration from each other all the time. Where I draw the line is in using unrealistic formations that no one would use in real life. Examples of this are the 4-1-4AM-1 formations and 4-1-3AM-2 formations I saw do really well in FM22 "tactic tests." Even formations with three central strikers feel cheat-ish to me, so I won't use them myself.

Goalscoring on my save using the latest patch looks low in most of the major European leagues. I am simming these six leagues on full detail: England: 2.66 goals per game in FM23 vs. 2.87 in real life Germany: 2.70 vs. 3.19 Spain: 2.55 vs. 2.54 Italy: 2.32 vs. 2.58 France: 2.62 vs. 2.96 Netherlands: 2.53 vs. 3.19 Spain looks great, but some of these other leagues have noticeable differences. I am playing in the Netherlands, and it feels really difficult to score in comparison to prior FM versions.

What is your team good at? Who are your best players? Try to play to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. If you have a big strong forward, use a target man and play a direct style. If you have fast players, you might consider passing into space and playing on the counter. If you have slow defenders, don't play a high defensive line...and so on. With a bad team, my first thought would be a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 formation with a target man striker, runners in behind him at the midfield spots, and good dribblers out wide who can find space for crosses. Even on a limited budget, you can find some good cheap target men to lead the line and knock in the goals. I have had great success with Yaya Sanogo on a lower league save (with an amateur contract), as his strength and jumping reach routinely overwhelms defenders.

My takeaways from many experiments with FM22: Two strikers are often better than one, especially at helping avoid having an out of form striker from sinking your offense Narrow diamond and 4-3-3 are remarkably resilient formations, with the diamond being surprisingly solid defensively AML/AMR inverted wingers and inside forwards will frequently receive mediocre match ratings unless they score or assist, which will eventually sink them into bad form and affect their ability to develop and play well Playing inverted wingers at the ML/MR spots is a good workaround to the issue in point #3 IWB(a) will achieve better ratings than conventional wingbacks, and they deliver a lot of goals from just outside the box Excellent set piece takers will perform great, log great ratings, and always be in form to deliver offense for your team A back 3 can work very well, though I found a back 4 provided better long-term results Roles that often do well: AF(a), IWB(a), CM(a), DLP(s), RPM(s), SS(a) Positive mentality delivers consistently good results, though very attacking is reasonably good when you are desperate for a goal Intense pressing, counter, and counter-press are effective instructions If you get your morale management and squad building right, your tactic can be just about anything. SI did a good job of making it possible to succeed with a wide variety of formations in FM22.

I like the default 4-2-3-1 formation switch to two DMs, but I still see far too many players in FM who are natural at MC but have zero familiarity with the DM spot. There should be very few, if any, midfielders who can play MC but not DM. I have three such players in my first team, and they aren't natural AMCs or wingers either. They're just MCs who can't play anywhere else.

I think it's a simple case of it being too difficult to get CA to bump up a few points. In FM22 and FM23, a 20 year old could play an entire season and not improve at all. I understand them not improving to Premier League standard while playing in lower leagues, but not improving at all doesn't seem realistic either. If you do anything for a year at age 20 then you're probably going to get better at doing that thing. You might not become amazing because your level of competition will likely limit you, but you'd almost have to be better than the 19 year old version of yourself.

Managing in the Netherlands: Late March -- I have 3 scouts, and the board has allowed me to have 3 scouts all season with my domestic scouting package. Early April -- The scounting budget reduces to a negative balance (my chief scout is running that mess and has somehow overshot the allocated budget), and so my domestic scouting package disappears. The board reduces my allowed scouts to 0. Mid-April -- I receive the new transfer budget for next season, which gives me the chance to move some of that budget allocation to the scouting budget and reenable the domestic package. The board now allows me to have 5 scouts. Late April -- I offer jobs to two new scouts. Early May -- One of the potential hires accepts my offer, so now I have 4 scouts. The board then changes the limit to 4 scouts, so my offer for a fifth scout must be rescinded. Mid May -- The board revises my limit of scouts to 3. I still have my domestic scouting package and a positive scouting budget, so I'm not sure why anything should change. All of this is nonsensical. I have never seen this issue pre-FM23.

Denmark is just about ideal for this and fits into that reputation space just below the Eredivisie. You can also load multiple leagues in Denmark to give you a chance to loan out youth domestically if necessary.

Similar experience for me. I am using almost the identical setup I was using in FM22, but the processing speed is noticeably slower.

Totally agree. I wouldn't even colour-code it due to some people being colour blind. I'd just use a number -- something less granular than the old percentages.

Some reasons you can get those horrible underperforming xG statistics are: Talent Deficit -- Your players are worse than the average player in your league. Presented with identical chances to score, you would expect the better player to score more often than the worse player. Simple concept, but it's the main reason why the top teams crush xG while everyone else lags behind. Poor Form -- Your attacking players might be in poor form and you weren't able to shake them out of poor form before they did a bunch of damage to your stats. Warnings and fines are necessary tools to mitigate this. Poor Team Cohesion -- This can lead to a lot of shots hitting the woodwork and general squandered chances. Poor Player Mentality -- Your players might have terrible hidden attributes (ex. pressure, important matches, consistency) and you might be amplifying their anxiety with your interactions and shouts. If someone is always useless in big matches or anxious whenever you need a goal, you probably need to replace them for someone better. New Players -- You might be using attacking players who are new to your club. Unless they have great adaptability, it usually takes time for those players to assimilate and produce up to their talent level. Bad Luck -- And this can quickly snowball into form/confidence issues. Match Fixing -- I haven't seen evidence of this in FM, though it would be a great storyline if it happened.

Managing in the Netherlands with 28 leagues playable: England - 4 leagues Germany - 2 Spain - 2 Italy - 2 France - 2 Netherlands - 4 (expanded database) Portugal - 1 Belgium - 1 Scotland - 1 Austria - 1 Switzerland - 1 Denmark - 1 Norway - 1 Croatia - 1 Czechia - 1 Ukraine - 1 Turkey - 1 Greece - 1 I think player count is mostly a red herring in terms of game speed. Number of leagues seems to have a bigger impact, while number of leagues simming on full detail seems to have the biggest impact. I have the top 5 leagues in Europe + the top 3 in the Netherlands simming on full detail, and those match days are when the game slows a bit.

My experience managing an amateur (and then semi-pro) club has been mostly fun with some annoying bits: We were promoted, turned semi-pro, and my club reputation declined. That made me buy the editor. My non-contract amateur players attract a lot of interest from other clubs, which is logical. What's annoying is that they usually reject those other clubs, so I am getting bombarded with incessant "Club Y make Player X offer" messages followed by "Player X rejects Club Y" messages. Some players have gone through this offer/reject cycle over a dozen times this offseason. It's gotten to the point where I just want to release all of my amateurs and stick with contracted players only. My club turned semi-pro after we won promotion. Every staff member I was allowed to recruit demanded a professional contract, which is logical. What's annoying is that my club offered me an amateur contract renewal and wouldn't entertain the idea of anything more. So now I'm the lowest paid staff member at my club. This is obviously a minor thing, but it's illogical and somewhat immersion-breaking. Boards shouldn't be lowballing successful managers, or worse, making them volunteer while everyone else gets paid.

Agreed. Even if it's realistically difficult, I'd rather not have to manually click on dozens of staff, hoping one of them has low enough demands for me to even offer to them. It's a waste of time. Ideally, the advertise job feature would work, but I feel like that feature has never quite worked properly. In the end, I can see why tons of AI teams have skeleton staffs. The problem is really apparent when you go from amateur to semi-pro status as a club. As an amateur club, I can get famous names in as DOF, assistant manager, and coach. Once I'm semi-pro, even no-name staff have demands beyond my club's means.