rsihn

I've been paying close attention to staff decision making for awhile now and comparing it to the staff attribute weighting chart created by fc.cadoni to try to understand why they make certain suggestions and what other factors besides SI's highlighted stats for the role go into their decision making. According to the chart, the only stats that are given any weighting (importance) for a performance analyst are determination, analyzing data, JPA, and tactical knowledge. Seems simple enough but the weightings are exactly the same for both performance and recruitment analysts. My Technical Director has been frequently suggesting that I transfer one of performance analysts to the recruitment team to become a recruitment analyst despite him having a higher rating in tactical knowledge than JPA and seemingly better at being a performance analyst. He is comfortably our best performance analyst according to his stats which makes this a little more difficult to understand but his tactical preferences are not similar to the way my team plays. This leads to my question as to how much influence, if any, does an analyst having similar tactical preferences impact his work as an analyst? Does his Tactical coaching stat have any influence as the in game description states that it also affects their advice?

I don't have an answer for you then as that playing time shouldn't be high enough to raise his status.

What playing time guarantees did you give him? Giving young players a high guaranteed playing time gives them influence within the locker room and makes them less likely to be influenced by the other players even if they are technically young enough to be mentored. So if you signed this young player and told him he was going to be an important member of the squad, he isn't going to be impressed enough to take lessons from the veteran player who has been at the club his entire career and has a Model Citizen personality but who is only a squad member. Not saying that is what happened here but I tend to be very careful about giving young players a high status within the squad for exactly this reason.

While playing FM, you are basically an old school British type manager who is given full control over all transfer related staff and activities rather than the more common modern type of "head coach" manager who is largely just there to manage the players you are given. I would like to see this change within the game for clubs that don't actually give this sort of absolute power to their managers. The current implementation of every manager having absolute power is both unrealistic compared to the real world and creates a "sameness" when managing different clubs. In my opinion, managing clubs like this should be more similar to the experience of managing a B team as currently implemented in FM. This would also create a much varied experience when applying at new clubs. There could be negotiations over how much power you are given over transfer activities with the possibility to wrest control over future transfer activities after you've achieved the full support of the board. At certain clubs, the DoF should be board appointed and not fireable by you but rather by the board. You should be forced to work with the DoF. This could create increased role playing within the club as tensions simmer if you aren't happy with the job that the DoF is doing. It could also add variety to press conferences with the press acknowledging that you don't have full control over transfers and you blaming the DoF for not getting suitable players or the DoF blaming you in the press for not fully utilizing the players he has given you. To add to this, you might have some say in which players the DoF and recruitment team bring into the club, it could also be implemented that they simply overrule your objections and sign the player anyway as it is too good of a deal for the club to pass up or they simply have a much higher opinion of the player than you do. The DoF and recruitment team should have a much longer term outlook for the club rather than simply appeasing managers who only end up staying at clubs for a couple of years. There should also be plenty of clubs that do not employ this type of management, particularly at the lower levels of the game which give you the "traditional" FM experience of absolute control. This sort of variety of experiences and preferences makes it a much more important decision as to which club you choose to manage.

This could also include promises being made such as agreeing to hire a U18 coach and promising to promote him to U18 assistant manager or manager within the next couple of years or when the position becomes vacant. It would be the same sort of career path objectives and timelines you give young players. This could also add some interesting dialogues and options if a staff member is offered a job by another club and leaves due to you not keeping your promises to him.

The star ratings aren't everything. IMO within the limitations of your allotted amount of coaches, you've made a bad decision in choosing to have 3 of them as fitness coaches. I'd get rid of one of them and hire another general coach who can cover the workloads for the rest of your coaches. I'd also consider getting rid of one of your GK coaches and look for another general type coach who happens to have decent GK coaching skills. There are plenty of them out there and that would also provide you with additional cover for other coaches. Also start training some of your existing general coaches to be good at coaching GK. It is a slow process but GK skills are free for general coaches and management so there are no downsides. Also reduce the size of your squad, as fc.cadoni said. Each player in your squad adds additional workload to your coaches so one coach might have an average workload while singlehandedly coaching 19 players (and also depending on how many training sessions involve him) , his workload might jump to high when coaching 21 players and very high when coaching 23 players. Unless you are a top flight club playing in Europe and fighting for all competitions in your country, you are unlikely to need more than about 20 players and you can always make youth or reserve squad players available in a pinch if you need them for a game or two.

It does not directly take up PA but rather it applies the stat weightings of the new position to the players existing stats. If these weightings cause the RCA (recommended current ability) to be too far above his actual current ability, the game will "rebalance" the players overall stats to bring it back in line with where it is supposed to be. SI have weighted the values of each stat in the game based on their importance for that position so crossing is weighed very heavily for wide positions but it is much cheaper for a center mid as they have limited use for crossing the ball. Same goes for finishing which is very expensive for a forward but nearly free for a CB because they have very little use for it. So the overall answer to your question doesn't have a simple answer as it will depend on which position you are retraining the player in and how their current stats will apply to those new weightings.

Training unit. A mentor will be more likely to influence a young player if they are in the same training unit (defending, attacking, or GK) as they will spend nearly all their training time together.

Weak foot training is the only PPM/trait that eats up CA. It has one of the most expensive weightings of any stat for almost all positions but is particularly expensive for forwards and attacking midfielders. So you have to make the decision as to whether those costs are going to be worth it for a player. If a player starts out with only a 1 out of 20 rating for his weak foot, it might not be the best idea but if the player already has a 7 out of 20 rating then it is probably worth it to max the stat out (9 out of 20 for improving weak foot). I very much value two-footedness in all my players and you can clearly see the effects in the match engine as to what happens when a player is particularly bad with his weak foot but it is undeniably expensive and IMO, it needs to be done when the player is fairly young as it can ruin a player who has already peaked or plateaued in their mid-20s. If done while they are young, their natural development will outpace whatever losses the player would see from it and you likely won't even notice. Link below has a chart with all the stat weightings, including weak foot, by position. https://www.fmscout.com/a-guide-to-current-ability-in-football-manager.html

Something that hasn't been mentioned is your HOYD's coaching style which should be viewed as fairly important as it dictates the type of players your academy will produce. This will sometimes come up in the email on intake day with a blurb about how your HOYD has influenced the personalities of some of the players and his "xxx" training style has rubbed off on them. Training styles include General, Fitness, Attacking, Defending, Mental, Tactical, and Technical. Tactical training style offers no unique benefit and should be considered the same as General for the purposes of influencing the intake players. All of the other training styles will offer a defined template for the attribute distribution for the intake players though. This is quite important as you likely don't want a bunch of the physically biased players that a HOYD with a Fitness training style would produce if you are playing tiki-taka, for example, but you probably would prefer a HOYD with a Mental or Technical training style. You can add a training style column to your staff view pages to be able to easily discern this information. You should probably also take a look at the staff attribute weighting chart in the link below as it shows that despite SI only highlighting "the most important stats" for a HOYD, the game engine seems to view lots of other stats as being quite important for the role as evidenced by how heavily the game weights them.

My advice is that you should use the senior team schedules. Youth team schedules are much more focused on physical development with 2 physical training sessions every week and I find that this can be too much focus on physical development that leaves players weak in their technical and mental stats if you continue it for too long. Unless that's what you want? Promoting players to the U21 squad who have already physically developed creates a good filtration system that allows the rest of your U18/19 squad to continue receiving high levels of physical development while not overdeveloping those players who don't need it anymore.

You should suggest this in the feature request sub-forum as it seems like a solid idea that would make things more realistic. https://community.sigames.com/forums/forum/680-football-manager-feature-requests/

Why does it happen in real life? Pressure, hostile crowds, unfamiliar surroundings. These are the reasons that teams tend to play more defensively in away matches in game and in real life and why teams at home tend to play in a more attack minded way. Are you adjusting your tactics to be more defensive when you are away? Are you making sure your players have the necessary mental fortitude to deal with the pressure of being booed and jeered every time they touch the ball? Are you lowering your expectations from your squad in the pre-match interviews and locker room talk to ease the pressure on the players? If not, you should be as most real life teams are happy to come away with a single point in away matches.

Does anyone know if Ventura is working with FM21 or 22? Someone had said that their version of FM20 didn't work at all and I was wondering if there was a specific cutoff of compatibility?

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking but is there a reason that you have a bunch of players set manually to half intensity rather than setting them to auto to follow your regular auto intensity schedule? All those players that have been manually set to half intensity are training at too low of a level compared to what your physio is recommending (when the Physio Recommendation column isn't displaying anything, it indicates a normal intensity recommendation). Secondly, your top intensity level is likely set too high IMO as your staff are only recommending double intensity for two of your players (likely your GKs) and it is training the rest of your squad above your physio's recommendation. You are obviously free to keep training them above your physio's recs but it will likely lead to increased injuries and fatigue. Along with this, your 2nd and 3rd highest auto intensity settings are probably set too high also and should probably be put on half intensity but I couldn't say for certain without studying it for a couple of weeks.

I generally don't send them on courses at the lower levels because I like to try to use their training assignments to shape the stat allocation to have them favor a certain type of training and their development is out of your control when they go on coaching courses. Eventually, someone else within the club usually ends up agreeing to send them on a course after awhile, despite me being in charge of this. Relationships with staff build over time with them listing you as their favored personnel somewhere between 2-3 years after working with you. In my experience, if they haven't listed you by the end of 3 years, it is never going to happen. Once you've been listed as their favored personnel, they will frequently be willing to follow you almost anywhere, including dropping down a couple of leagues and taking significant pay cuts to do so. So yeah, I love having a group of loyal staff who accompany me during the entire course of my save and it pains me when they occasionally get a much better offer and move on.

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking? If you are asking whether I prefer to develop my own staff members, then yes I do, but this is also a function of playing unemployed, no badges or experience saves where I really don't have any choice other than to develop my own staff. I usually have a very small pool of staff who are willing to sign with my teams in the beginning of the saves. I also like to develop my staff to be very well rounded rather than trying to min-max them to be excellent in only one category but again, that is usually because low level teams have limited staff sizes and budgets so you don't have room for specialist coaches.

I feel the existing system that SI employ is pretty solid, TBH. -Tactical knowledge can improve through coaching courses and over time through experience. -The motivating and man management stats are the only ones that really change out of the mental stats for staff members. All of the knowledge stats can change. All of the coaching stats can change, except for WWY. -I can't think of anything I'd really change about the way coaching courses or a coach's development works. The things I would like to see are more along the lines of your involvement and relationships with your staff members. This would be things like clues about players, or other staff, not getting along with your youth team manager, for example, and you receiving emails from your technical director about this. Players might miss training or matches if they have low professionalism but we don't see any of these types of problems from staff members, at least directly. Also, more clues about the potential of staff members. These types of things could really give the Technical Director a much bigger role to play in the management and they could give ongoing advice regarding the development of your staff members the same way you receive advice about players.

1- Coaching staff tend to gain about 10CA per completed coaching course. While I haven't done terribly in-depth testing on this (though I do log all my staff's hidden stats on a regular basis), it generally seems like staff with a better personality will gain a bit more from courses, with gains closer to 15CA per course. 2- You do not have any input into where the gains are made when a staff member takes a course. 3- WWY is a fixed stat for all staff members that aren't you (your manager) so choose wisely when you hire a staff member as this stat doesn't change. 4- Adaptability, discipline, and determination are also fixed stats (or very very unlikely to change) for staff members so, again, you need to choose your staff wisely when you initially hire them. 5- You need a minimum combined 45 points in determination, discipline, and motivating to ever achieve a 5 star coaching rating in any category and since we've already mentioned that neither determination or discipline improve, this tells you that you need at least 25 points combined in these two stats for any coach you are considering hiring if you ever hope to achieve a 5 star coaching rating for a staff member. 6- Staff members have PA (potential ability) just like players so they have a limit as to how much they can improve. You (your manager) always has 200PA which ensures that you will always end up being the best manager in the world if you play for long enough. 7- Your staff also improve in certain areas through "on the job training" and experience in the particular areas they are given as coaching assignments, provided they haven't hit their PA yet. This tends to be much slower growth than the bigger jumps from coaching courses though. 8- Staff also tend to have development curve similar to players, in that they will start to decline in some areas when they get into their late-50s to early 60s, particularly their motivating stat.

I think this is down to them wanting to make the match engine playable with a larger variety of devices from X-Box to tablets rather than focusing on improving the graphics. They've also mentioned that a lot of people play on old computers and they could potentially lose future sales if they pushed the boundaries too much. But yeah, it is disappointing to see that the graphics have noticeably regressed in the newer games.

Update: Finally got hired nearly 8 months later by S.D. Logrones, a newly promoted team to the Spanish 4th division. Went from finishing 2nd in the EPL and UCL quarter-finals the year before to only being able to get hired by a 4th tier Spanish team after a ridiculous amount of interviews. Never had anything happen like this in game in all of my time playing, even when starting out with no badges or experience. I even got laughed at by the NYCFC supporter's group when I declared interest in taking the job there.

Bringing this thread back from the dead as I'm having a similar problem in my long term FM21 save (currently in 2061). I resigned from Swansea after 14 years there and have been unable to get hired for another job for 6+ months and 50+ job interviews, including teams as lowly as the Welsh 2nd division. My manager is 67 years old. I am frequently touted as the leading candidate but it always goes to someone else. One of the hilarious things is that every interview mentions how I've applied to a lot of jobs while I was currently employed. This happened 35 years ago in game while managing in the N. Irish 3rd division. Amazing the level of background checks with every club somehow able to access this information from semi-pro and amateur clubs they've likely never even heard of and that they've been storing this info for 30+ years.

Only you can judge which unit they need improvement in. I frequently put my fullbacks, and sometimes even my center backs into the attacking unit, to bolster the attacking aspects of my fullbacks because I've noticed over the years that players in the defensive unit don't receive enough attack training like you would normally expect to see in a modern fullback. Likewise, my central midfielders are switched back and forth between both training units depending on the areas that I feel they are weak in. I usually make a certain minimum threshold for my players in most stats and will keep the player in a particular group until that threshold has been reached.

As I said in my earlier post, there isn't one all encompassing answer for you and I listed the reasons that make it so. I'm not really concerned with what a lot of people have to say. You've got medical staff in the game and they give you advice on the Rest page as to what intensity they feel you can safely train your players on a weekly basis and this changes on a near continuous basis. You should be checking and adjusting training intensities on a weekly basis, in my opinion. particularly for players who have just returned from injury as they need to be manually set to Half intensity as the auto settings are not able to capture this unique situation and you don't want the player to be re-injured. To make it easy to remember, just make the training intensity adjustment part of your routine on Fridays when you already criticize or praise training. My question for you is why you are ignoring your medical staff's advice in favor of what some random people say on the internet who as you admit, may be playing with vastly differing quality of staff, players, and facilities?

There really isn't one answer for this because it is going to be highly dependent on the quality of your medical staff, full/part time status, age of your players, and the amount of matches you are playing along with match congestion. Let's deal with these one by one. 1-Quality of medical staff. This one should be obvious. Higher quality medical staff will allow you to increase the intensity of training as they are better able to keep your players healthy and fit. 2-Full or part time status. Part time status allows you to train your players harder since you are only training twice a week rather than every day. You generally don't have to worry about your players fitness as they have a day off between training days and matches for recovery. 3-Age of your players. Older players (30+) struggle with high intensity training and may need more rest days between matches. You may see a steep decline in older players if you continue to push them with heavy training and match load like you do for your younger players. My current team has a number of 30-36 year old players and some are actually improving due to the way I've set up our auto training settings to give a rest day to anyone in the lowest 3 of 5 condition tiers to accommodate them. This might have a slight detrimental effect on the development of our younger players in the squad though but they are still developing satisfactorily. You are going to have to strike a balance between what works for one segment of your squad and what works for the other. 4-Match congestion. This is something that needs to be factored in along with your medical staff's recommendation. My squad will generally bump up double intensity training for our top condition setting during pre-season and during international weeks when no matches are being played while having to drop back down to normal during normal weeks where we have 1 or 2 matches. It is in a constant state of flux and you should consult your medical staff's recs to try to find a balance that covers the largest majority of your squad. There will still likely be some outliers that you might consider setting manually, paying particular attention to older players and players who have just returned from injury.