''You don't know what you're doing!!''

Any Redditch United fans singing this to me after my most recent defeat, this time a tame 1-0 home loss to Northampton in League Two (my sixth season there), would have been spot on. For the first time in years of playing CM/FM, toiling through decades of crap teams, rubbish players and relegations, I genuinelly feel, now, like I haven't got a clue. I don't know whether this is what real management feels like, and if it does then SI have given us a very realistic insight into management, but I'm completely at a loss with the team and my game now and I've now given in (to the point where I can't be bothered with tactics/signings anymore, I'm just playing the same team week in week out hoping something clicks).

For these six years in League 2 it's been the same every year. I'm quite good at home but can't beat sides in the top 6, while I win the odd one away but generally lose. I struggle to score goals and will draw quite a lot 0-0 and lose 1-0, my 'goals for' column will always be the same as teams who finish about 6 or 7 places below me in the actual table, balanced out by the fact that I've always had a solid defence. Stupidly, this has been the case even when I've tried to go gung ho. A whole host of attacking tactics - 3-4-3, 4-3-3, 3-4-1-2, 0-0-11 - none of it works. It's like the game has a pre-set result for me and me playing with my tactics is a colossal waste of my own time - honestly, I couldn't concede 3 goals if you paid me a grand to do so; I couldn't score 2 if you paid me a million. I'd love nothing more than to lose 6-3. But what happens if I go all out attack? I lose 1-0. So yeah, I've just given up trying. 4-4-2, no extremes on the tactical stuff (passing style, mentality, creative freedom - the bar can sit smack bang in the middle for all of 'em) and I'm most definitely never tinkering with the individual acts of players ever again (''you lurk outside the area for corners'', for eg - pffft, it does more harm than good all that).

In addition, this whole second season syndrome thing has taken unrealism to a new level. I noticed it a few seasons back when a defender who'd got an average rating of 7:04 the year before started to constantly mess up/give pens away and had an average rating of close to 6.30 by Christmas. 'Quite cool', I thought, 'that happens'. But a few years on and it's happened to about 8 more players. Aaron McLean scored 25 goals in 40 appearances last season - a year on, no great decline in ratings, he's got 3 in 20. What this means is that I can't even keep the same team anymore. I have to change players every season because anyone who played last season has contracted a severe case of wankaditis and now plays like a drunk 4 year old.

Injuries are stupid but I've learnt to live with that now. Teamtalks no longer matter - the 'I want to see more from you' used to draw a positive response in the second half every once in a while but these days the game just peters out everytime. 'Angry', you'd expect, would result in either a resurrgent attitude or a 'f*ck him, let's capitulate and lose 4-0' attitude but neither happen - I just lose 1-0 regardless of what I say. There are usually about 3 'key highlights' chances a game - 2 for them, 1 for me. Who finishes what determines the scoreline.

It's a bit of a poorly constructed rant (it's not even a rant, there's no swearwords or capitals - it's just a depressing description of the realities of a game that was once fun) but I had to get it off my chest. I'm sure I can keep faith in the knowledge that this will lead to a brilliant response of something very close to the beautiful 'It's your tactics'.