NineCloudNine

For all my grouching I do understand that conversational logic is not easy to program. However, it is a glaring omission that we cannot use the actual reason the player asked to leave as an explanation for why they were sold.

When I get a really silly tantrum combined with a class of toddlers demanding that I let our best player go mid-season, I just use the in-game editor to ‘remove all unhappiness’. I feel no shame doing so. A new twist on this recently was when I did let a player go on the insistence of the squad, and a bunch of them then got grumpy about a lack of squad depth, including the player who was now a first team regular as a result of the departure.

Lots of chat about this here:

Players choosing “bigger” clubs or leagues is not in itself a problem. Leicester’s title-winning team was dismantled. Players move to City to warm their bench. And FM does get a lot of this right. Young players will turn down moves if it isn’t right for their development. But as said above, FM does also offer up some mad stuff. I had Gianluca Mancini kick off at not being allowed to move to Juventus when the Roma team he was in were 21 points ahead of them in January and cruising to Roma’s first title in 23 years. But Juve were in the Champions League! And of course half the team were outraged that I refused to let our best defender leave mid-season. Reputation is important in football but it is too crudely important in FM. And it doesn’t change fast enough. I was still losing players from Roma after 3 Serie A titles and 2 CL’s in a five year stretch. It’s like those wins never happened.

There is more to it. The player might be offered more playing time elsewhere. In this case the agent dislikes the manager, which doesn’t help. The player’s ambition, his CA and his PA all matter, as does the personality of the agent. But all these are overwhelmed by reputation. This is also why your players are keen to sign for a “bigger” club in the middle of the season even when you are three time defending champions and 20 points ahead in the league.

As this thread’s resident Mourinho-hater, I agree with this analysis. He seems to go looking for fights. That worked when he was a brash upstart taking on the old-school (Ferguson, Wenger) but everyone is just tired of it now. I think it is a shame because in fact he WAS tactically innovative once, able to nullify tiki-taka (Inter), create an impregnable defence (Chelsea) or score record numbers of goals (Madrid).

This is largely based on your club & league reputation. The agent is demanding what they see as a reasonable wage for your club/league. Since PSV (or Feyenoord - which is what it says in the screenshot!) have a lower reputation and play in a lower reputation league, they are not expected to pay as much. The module logic treats each club discussion as a separate negotiation event and doesn’t seem to “know” that your offer, while lower than the agent demanded, is higher than PSV’s. It makes no sense and is an example of the crude use of reputation throughout the game. As you say it has been like this for years so I assume SI either don’t see a problem or (I actually think this is more likely) don’t know how to solve it since reputation is so deeply embedded in the game that it can’t be easily changed.

Um, why?

Just quoting to emphasise this. A young player/regen is worth investing time in almost irrespective of skill if they have the attributes you list. If they have good natural fitness as well then they are almost certainly going to be useful. I like this structure as I think it fits very well with real life. Highly skilled kids are two a penny. Highly skilled kids who are physically well developed make it to age group teams. But it's the ones who have the mental side as well who make it into the adult game.

I didn't suggest you play a mid-block or or use that radically different formation. You've had a few suggestions here. You haven't said thanks and you don't seem to like what's been suggested, so bye and good luck!

You cannot prevent them being selected for those matches while they are part of the B/U21/U18 squad and another staff member is managing that squad. You have to either promote them to the first team or take control of the youth teams yourself. If they are part of your first team squad then you have the option to make them available for the junior team, setting play time limits if you want, and there is also an option to make the manager ask you every time if you are happy for first team squad members to play. You can also move the youngsters back to the youth team any time. I have never had a problem moving players between squads at will.

A tight match and a tight result that could have gone either way. I cannot see why you think this makes FM ‘ridiculous’.

I was looking at the tactic in the post a couple above mine, which has a DM-D, BWM and CM-A. Overall I think that to defend better you need to be more proactive, not add more D duties, and to look to be more compact, leaving less space and being harder to play through. You have a high and aggressive press, including pressing the GK, plus counter. All this pulls your team out of shape and makes you vulnerable to quick, press-resistant teams like the better ones you are struggling against. You may still lose to top teams anyway. Chelsea are a long way off the best teams in the PL at the moment and your experience reflects that.

Having a GK-D, two CD-D and a DM-D might look like it should be defensively sound but in practice this is a very passive defence. They will also take low risk options which might well mean punting it long and giving possession away. As RL Chelsea discovered this weekend, top teams will find a way past a deep, passive defence eventually. Rolling ball out also means you are giving the ball to defenders who are being told not to take any risks. Either remove that instruction or make at least one CD a BPD, IMO. On the other hand you have a very attacking front 4-5, but no playmaker, and you’re telling the team to run at defence. They are likely to be giving the ball away a lot and then getting counter-attacked through an empty midfield. I would remove that instruction. Having a W-A and a CM-A on the same side is likely leaving a large gap down your left side. I personally don’t like W-A because it is very one-dimensional (run to byline and cross). Also seems a bit of a waste of Cole Palmer’s all-round game. I’d swap him and Sterling and make them both IW-S.

I have never seen a press question or other in-game reference to a family relationship. I suspect it treats it the same as any other connection. All relationships are set the same way in either editor.

This is completely normal and working as intended. Getting to 150 would make him a ~3.5 star player for a top division team. But there is no way a coach can know to that level of precision how good an 18-yr old might become. Over time the coach’s view will become more accurate as the kid plays more. Right now there’s a margin of error of 1 star either way (which is pretty accurate in fact). It’s mildly amusing that you have sought to demonstrate what you see as the poor state of the game by picking on something that it actually does really well. Good job!

I have no idea why you are arguing with me. I agree with you!

There isn't. You didn't ask me for that, you asked for an example of mentality in real life football, which is what I gave. I agree with you that this isn't what mentality means in FM - I said so in the paragraph you didn't quote .

I think this has improved somewhat in FM24 - my DMs at least are getting better ratings just for doing DM stuff - but overall I agree with you that the rating system remains too heavily weighted to goals and assists. I get that it's the scorers who win MOTM and player awards, so I'd not change that, I'd just like to see more of the nuts and bolts stuff - such as you describe - recognised.

I agree with you, though in fact 'female' is not available as a filter in the pre-game editor. To get female staff you have to select 'is not' and 'male' for gender. Which is a bit weird.

"Right lads, we're going for the win here so I want us to attack from the off. Bob, that means you getting forward right up against the opposition full back; Johnno I want you running in behind every chance you get; press them high and don't give that fancy lightweight winger of theirs a moment's peace." Mentality first -> instructions follow. Makes more sense than the Manager giving out a list of instructions and the players adding them up and concluding that we're going to be attacking today. But that's the real world. In FM the interaction between overall mentality, TIs, PIs, roles and duties is like a five-dimensional puzzle box. On the face of it the TIs are modifiers to the mentality (since all sliders are relative to the mentality) but in practice players set how they want to play (the TIs) and then use mentality as a modifier in matches. All of which you'd only properly understand if you've read a 3,000 word explanation by Rashidi because absolutely none of it is clearly described in-game

You are correct about the importance of mentality in football. Unfortunately mentality in FM doesn't mean what you understand it to mean. It dials TIs up or down in ways that aren't always clear or predictable and which can have effects contrary to what you'd think the word means. Players have their own mentality, based on position/role as well as team mentality, which you can't change and which doesn't always match the team mentality. Certain team instructions change the mentality of some players in ways which aren't explained and are hard to spot. There are long guides to this by experts like Rashidi which will leave you thinking "how was I supposed to know or find out all that?". It's too complicated, too opaque and too confusing. Mentality IS important in football but mentality in FM doesn't work like the real life examples you gave, nor even like the in-game descriptions suggest it does.

What was his PA in the new game? Did you check?

Look at your squad and decide where you think you need to improve. That might be overall quality in a position, depth, a particular role or player you’d like to have as an option, some experience, or a player with something your squad lacks (eg pace, free kicks, anything). Also have a good idea of the sort of character and attributes you want. Personality matters. Do you look for determination, workrate, teamwork? Do you need stamina? This helps you narrow the field. You can use player search with various filters to identify players. The players there depend on your scouting range and knowledge, so you can think of it as ‘all the players my scouts have heard of’. Sorting them by reputation will give you a crude starting point. From there scout players individually to get a better idea of personality and a clearer view of their attributes. Look for a player’s squad status. A fringe player at a bigger club might move to you for guaranteed playing time. Clubs are more willing to sell players with less time left on contracts. Asking a player’s agent about interest gives you a good guide on whether they would sign, how much for and on what money, but be honest about your level of interest or you’ll annoy the agent.

I thought of these discussions while watching that game as well . I think the Chelsea players were exhausted, plus City’s bench is far stronger. That said, if Chelsea had tried to defend that way from the start they’d have lost by a lot. Instead, they did what any team needs to do facing a high press, which is direct passes and fast counter attacks into the wide open spaces behind the defence.