MadCatPT

And here was I thinking of buying the editor, creating a save, put all at 1, holiday, check the ca and pa, repeat 5-10 times, start playing with the numbers to see if they work together or not. That is some serious analysis.

I don't think it's the same formation, it's a 4-1(DM)-2(M)-2(Wingers)-1 formation, even if it evolved from what the Assistant suggested it seems OP, of course I will be doing whatever I can to get the best victory chance, most of my players are already on contracts that I can't offer them, so it's going be a fun save, if short, either way. No longer on first also.

I only play the Youth Only challenge normally, never have mode more than 5 Seasons, never been promoted, this year I'm in first with a team that I would expect to be fighting against relegation in the VNS. It's a Wing Play preset of a 4-3-3 DM I tweaked around when I rotated the grays in with a 15 player squad with 2 GK in the first year. I even get ties with several grays in. May be heading into a promoted and relegated and fired next year, but it feels OP.

Here we just click a few times and it's done. In real life changing a system is harder, do you or the coaches have experience in another system? Maybe the youth system has been made to produce players for your current system, do the players you have can play in another system? Maybe the scouting system is also made to get players for the system? In my area for example I use Agile, maybe it would be better to use waterfall for a specific project, if I try to make my team use it they would oppose it strongly because it's old and outdated.

Aren't the positions you get based on the person handling the youth intake favorite formation/styles? What are the ones for the person handling your youth intake?

Good luck. I never went more than 5 season in this challenge. This year I am first at a third of the season in my first year. The start was rocky, was using an assistant recommended preset with the formation my player fit best in. It was not that good, was bailed by a couple of late penalties. With just 15 players and two of them being GK I started to do some small thinkering. Found that Cautious was the best mentality. And in the games I rotated the grays in tested different settings. So far haven't need to deal with it, but when morale gets down due to losses I would choose the game in the calendar against a weak/low form team and do the team meeting before, would make sure my best players would be rested before and set the training to focus on teamwork stuff. Also on the games I rotate before the give it all games I try different stuff. Hope it helps.

@thomas_e A very good post. Some other tips would be to check the set pieces, some of them have too few people staying back, other have the wrong people, like your bricks for feet DM outside the area, and instead of picking a pass, recycling possession or shoot at goal he fails he first touch and the other team gets a free counter-attack, it's crossing to where your worst headers are or having the wrong crosser taking the set pieces. We are intentionally handicapping ourselves to make for a more difficult and more appealing way to enjoy the game, so we should be sure that we don't have extra handicaps.

After some deliberations will start with Weston Super Mare, only 17 players, of which 1 has an offer from another team and another 1 has his contract expiring and feels the squad is not good enough (can't really fault him). Let's hope it's not a short save, Anyone else in England has gotten squads as small?