Jonthedon26

FM06 was probably my favourite, purely because I had a ridiculous Birmingham City team. Beckham and Veron in midfield, Lucarelli and Chevanton up top

This sounds exactly like me haha. After a long day at work, then doing dinner, getting our child ready for bed, putting her to bed etc I just don't have the energy to turn my laptop on, especially having looked at a laptop screen all day. What makes matters worse is the fact that I know if I play for 45mins - 60mins I will barely get anything done in game, so I just put it off to the next day and the same process takes place again.

There is an option in preferences to limit the amount of inbox items that's stops processing through the days, I use that. I also request staff meetings every 2 weeks and just request a summary to my inbox and not read it. I also very rarely use the data hub as I don't get great benefit from it unless I am massively struggling with something. As I only tend to get through about 5-6 seasons per save with one club I also limit the amount of time I spend scouting by scouting positions I need in the transfer windows (or just before), then through the rest of the season get scouts to scout certain nations and keep repeating those assignments until the transfer windows. I know it isn't best use of the scouting system in game, but it reduces the amount of time I spend on that task. Finally, I tend to focus on my team rather than the opposition, so I don't tend to analyse my opponents tactics and what not before a game, I tend to just focus on my own team and when I find a tactic that is working well I will keep it most the season and make minor tweaks here and there. I never alter my tactics to accommodate what the opposition do, again this saves a fair amount of time and I am usually still pretty successful with my team doing things this way so no need to change it. But as I said, doing all that I still only tend to get through about 5/6 seasons per iteration.

I play the same formation with Birmingham City and I am experiencing the same as you.

Out of interest did you pay him the £200k per week?

Yeah I am sure there were some wage rises, and I am sure some people complained or thought they could get more elsewhere. I am not saying it doesn't happen at all. I am just saying in terms of FM. I find it very unlikely that a team will get promoted from L1 to the Championship and demand a wage rise from £5k per week to £25k per week, be offered £15k, turn it down, then the whole squad gets furious. I just don't envisage that happening regularly. Again, maybe with some unprofessional players it might, but this is a constant and regular thing on Football Manager and there is little way to avoid it or safely negotiate your way out of it, again in my personal opinion. EDIT: just had a quick look at Al-Nassr wage structure. 18 of the lowest 19 paid players in the squad are from Saudi Arabia, and their wages range from £9500 - £20k per week. Now I don't know if that is what they were originally on, or if some have received pay rises or anything since Ronaldo joined, but as I stated in my original post, it doesn't look to me like their squad players are all demanding £100k per week because Ronaldo is paid £3.5m per week.

Firstly, a great explanation and hopefully this gives people more insight as to why it happens. Whilst I agree with what you are saying, I don't think it happens in real life as much as it happens in the game, and in real life people have the ability to say "look we are doubling your wages after you requested a new contract". In game obviously that isn't an option. and communication is nowhere near as free flowing in game as in real life. If a club signs a star player on a huge wage, let's take Ronaldo for example when he first moved to the Saudi league although it is an extreme example, when he signed on his ridiculous contract, I doubt all the other players kicked off and starting demanding their contracts go up from £1k a week to £100k per week because the overall squad average had increased as a result of Ronaldo joining. It's always going to happen with some players, and I think it should happen in game with those that have certain personality types (unprofessional players), but the frequency it happens in game and the catastrophic effect it has on the whole squad is too much, in my personal opinion.

I might have to try it that way next time I play against 10 men, see how I get on. Thanks man

Just a quick one on this, I know your feedback focuses mainly on the team talk stuff, but tactically, if a team goes down to 10 men isn't it better to be less patient and move the ball quicker to exploit the space of the extra man? My natural tactic is higher tempo so I never have to change it anyway, but from my experience, much slower possession based football enables the defence the time to set themselves up in a good shape on the edge of their own box to defend. Not saying your tactical decision is wrong and mine is right, I am just more intrigued as I have always played a more higher tempo, direct passing game.

A very moving post! I am glad Football Manager has got you to a much better place.

Yeah him going to Real Madrid is bonkers haha

Miles just confirmed it is today

I signed him for Birmingham City when I first got promoted to the Premier League. He has made a great start to his 2nd season with me, first season he spent mostly injured.

Today is the day, you beta believe it!!!

I don't play like that and I am doing alright. I play a simple 442 wing play with a mid block, classic get it out wide ad get it in the box. I probably could have more success if I used those other tactics, but it is still viable to play a different way in my opinion.

Draft Day Sports football is decent although not great

I have tried to get into HOI4 soooooo many times, it is impossible haha

Stop beta-ing around the bush and tell us if today is the day!! I'll see myself out

Yep, I agree completely. It is the same with practically every annual sports title, they all get hammered by most people. I would be perfectly happy with a database update and updates to match engine, media handling, squad planner, transfer activity and AI squad building etc none of which are "new features" but then people just call it an update to FM23 or FM23.5 or something.

Average rating... as the old saying goes 'form is temporary, class is permanent'. Now that isn't to say that you should keep playing someone if their rating in the last 5 games has been atrocious. But as a measure of how good a player is I tend to stick with attributes/average rating.

I do have to admit, I find the newer versions of FM a lot easier than the older ones. I am a Birmingham City fan and always play my first save with them. For a decade now we have been rubbish and had no money to spend, however, in game I am ALWAYS promoted to the Premier League at the end of the 2nd season in game at worst. Once I am in the PL I never struggle to stay up, literally ever. I want to be relegated sometimes just so I can have that challenge of trying to stop being a yo-yo team, but I always seem to end up comfortable mid table in the first season in the PL and then build from there. I am no expert at this game either, I play a simple 442 wing play system (don't watch the matches as I use commentary only due to time constraints) and year in year out and it always seems to do the trick. Funnily enough I fired up FM09 quite recently, again playing as Birmingham City. We were in the Championship having just been relegated in real-life and had a really strong squad for the league including the likes of Lee Bowyer, Seb Larsson, Kevin Phillips, James McFadden etc, but I really really struggled on that save, almost getting sacked on a few occasions as I sat in midtable. That version had the sliders, so not sure if that is anything to do with it, but it does certainly feel like it has got easier over the years.

Mine is half a star but also not slow. I don't get far enough into my saves for it to really slow down.

Ye absolutely, 100% get what you are saying. I guess that is where I am lucky in the fact that I avoid all of that stuff just doing commentary only! It's a shame though for all those that do want to watch the matches play out, hopefully they get it fixed in the next couple of editions!

I feel like this is an issue with the the new recruitment focuses that I am hoping is ironed out this year. I feel like I have seen hundreds of examples of when a player should have appeared in my scouting reports as they have matched all of the criteria, yet they don't. Maybe it is something I am doing wrong, but I have very very basic criteria for my scouts so I haven't been able to spot what I am doing that's wrong (if anything). Hopefully it will either work better this year or i will understand how it works better this year.

It's interesting how different people's thought processes work! I am by no means saying that what you said is not true or incorrect, as it is obviously what you deem the most important thing, however for me the whole point of the game is almost everything but the matches (how I view them anyway). The last few years due to time constraints I have played commentary only and I think I have a lot more fun than most people on the forums. I enjoy all the other side of things, tactics, stats, transfers, squad building etc. I try to judge how my tactics are working by the stats I see rather than the on field representation. Obviously everyone is different and someone, like yourself, sees it completely the opposite, which is absolutely fine, I just find it interesting how different people can have completely different views. Maybe it is because I grew up playing manager games with terrible or no match engines/graphics, and to this day I still enjoy a lot of manager games with rubbish or no engines/graphics such as Out of the Park baseball, Draft Day Sports basketball/football and World of Mixed Martial Arts.