nms1987

Agreed, they play good football. Good results and nice to watch. @RDF Tactics on Youtube has done great breakdowns of Amorim's tactics I think every year for the last 3 years. I recommend, I took a lot from them, both in directly aping the Amorim's tactic and as well as adapting some principles from it to modify a 4-3-3 I was using

1. What is the deal with staff meetings sometimes recommending a mid-season captaincy change? Why would a team ever strip captaincy in March, barring maybe a terrible locker room atmosphere and the incumbent captain having a dust up with the manager or something? Incredible that I can be having a great, overachieving season and my staff is telling me to strip the captaincy from my star striker and put it on some other bum. Like many FM features, a good idea that SI didn't bother to make actually work well at all. 2. Maybe, if free spots do not exist on your coaching staff, think about not having staff meetings recommend hiring staffers with lower ratings than my current staff members. IE, if I have 3/3 Physio spots filled with guys at 15 or better Physio, why does my staff tell me every week to hire a guy with 12? Make it make sense!

I understand its frustrating, and I'm sure real life Vanarama teams curse their luck if they draw away a few times in a row. That money matters. But there is no reason to think a stretch like that is at all unusual. Look at this sequence of coin flips, imagine if heads was away draws.

As per my earlier original post.... Often a first team tactic of a good squad is built around certain special players, in roles not suited to most players ... like Complete Forward, or Regista. My youth teams are often not going to have guys capable of playing those roles well. I'd be much better off playing guys as basic DMs or AFs and letting them develop from there. Good clubs also often develop more good players than they will ever use in their main squad. Better to develop a guy into a good BWM and sell him than have him spend 3 years playing Regista poorly. I also frequently tweak my first team tactic, or even change between a couple formations, based on an upcoming match or to get something else out of my squad. If you do that with your first team you then have to go in adjust lineups of your youth teams to make sure they still make sense after a change, its tedious. And, since I might be changing formations or tactics 3 years from now I don't need a 17 year old to be playing any specific kind of ball right now. Better to make him a good player and then he fits in for me when he is ready in a few years. Additionally, if you've got a B team you need to keep them in their league or, hopefully, get them promoted. While development comes first you might be trying to win some games there too, so it would be nice to tweak as needed. In real life, many B and reserve teams operate with different tactics to their main squad. I also don't find it takes that long to bring a guy up to tactical speed with my main club, it certainly doesn't take years. I'd rather develop him as a good player and then once he is ready bring him into first team training, give him a role and bring him along. Pro footballers often play for 2 or even 3 coaches in the same season, often with different philosophies and figure it out just fine. My youth teamers don't need to learn only one specific way of playing ball

I think I'm leaning this way as well - I appreciate all the responses! Very helpful to see outside opinions on this, I like that the responses are as divided as my initial assessments of the players. As for personalities, that is a good thought. But to reinforce the idea that these guys are actually just clones of each other, they both have Fairly Ambitious personalities, both have Plays With Back to Goal traits (O'Donnell also has Plays Short Simple Passes), and both have flags of "could have trouble adjusting to a new country at young age"

Both had 3.5/4 star potential.

Crowd sourcing some advice here... Which enormous Scottish striker do we like best? I've been running a direct, counter 4231 with some nice quick young wingers, and my current striker, while young and talented overall, has 6 heading and has been useless lately. So I think I need a big lunk who can get in the box and head in a cross. My scouts give both of these big lads 3.5-4 star potential ability. I would probably be using them an AF, maybe poacher or target. I'm also playing with the idea of running a 442 or 424 to get one of these guys on the field with my current striker the same time. Basically, Clark is younger and has better all-around game, but O'Donnell is a little quicker and has a big edge in finishing (and for an Advanced Forward quickness and finishing count for a lot...) Please help, I can't decide!

Even if I take control of youth training (as I usually do) I can't find a way to customize my youth tactics. The youth is locked into whatever my first team is running. Same formation, same roles, same instructions. It's maddening.

But in the rest of the world, both in game and IRL, players can do and move wherever they please when their contracts are done, no? Argentina, Japan, Australia, ect. Your contract ends, and you go sign with whoever you want, no fee needed. In another save, just the other day, a guy's Colombian club demanding a big fee for a guy in the last year of his deal, so I waited it out and got him for free as soon as his deal ended. No transfer negotiation.

Caveat off the bat, I'm playing with Master Igor's nations packs and @Daveincid Realism mods. I'm playing in Iraq of all places. In other saves I have noticed that it is impossible to sign out of contract (and still with their club on month-to-month deals) youngsters from Africa for free. I assumed that was tied to compensation, since all of these guys were at the club they trained at. I don't think I have seen this issue from other continents, so I figured it was maybe a continental regulation. However now, in Iraq, I am trying to sign a 27 year old Nigerian who played at a different Iraqi club last year... so training compensation shouldn't be an issue. The club is still demanding a fee, and I cannot go ahead and negotiate a contract with him. He should be allowed to negotiate and sign for free, no? Am I missing something or is something bugged, and if something is bugged do we think it is from FM, or the Igor nation packs or Daveincid's realism mods? Has anyone seen this demand for a transfer fee for an out of contract player while playing an unmodified FM? Thanks for the help!

When I simmed to Sept 1 this issue went away, still frustrating and bizarre though

Thanks for clarifying that!

By the way, if you terminate the newly hired guy it will almost immediately hire a new guy after that. How do I make this stop? Am I going to have to fire B team managers every week from now on?