I am about 20 games into my first season at Southend in the National League.
I was amazed to see my Head of Youth Development was on 20K per week when the club is broke! Nice deal if you can get it.
A few things I have noticed.
Defending is pretty much non-existent. Opposing players just waltz through while your defenders chase shadows allowing them to score at will. Add man-marking? No change. Drop deeper? Nope. Change mentality? Same deal, defenders running about for no reason or standing like a statue (whichever is most useless at the time). My favourite so far is the CB charging out for a clearing header, missing it completely then running back to try and head it again and miss it completely a second time allowing his opponent to walk past him and score. I checked the vision rating for my defender and it didn't say "impaired" so not sure what was going on there.
Players are again heading for the corner when through on goal. Luckily in FM23 a shot from a tight angle is almost assured to go in. Your goalkeeper is largely window-dressing as the ball just passes through him each time. Even weak passes towards goal just slide on through. Same deal with shots from distance. Take a punt from 20 metres and in it goes. Set up a good clear-cut chance and odds are it'll go into orbit or hit the woodwork. Speaking of...
As with previous versions of FM my teams seem to have an uncanny ability to hit the woodwork. In pre-season I had over 20 shots hit the woodwork in 5 games. Usually when it would be easier to score. I also got to witness the opposing goalkeeper rush out allowing my winger to skip past him only for him to to decide to dink a dribbling pass towards the goal allowing a defender 15 metres away to jog in and clear it. I still think the ball would have stopped before the line so weak was the "shot".
So far, I have to say I'm not that impressed. Everything about the game so far feels like it is just randomly churning out results with no real consideration of tactics or anything. Ridiculous results over and over again. Hopefully when the complete game is released things will improve.