How on Earth do you make a team successful on this game!?

Seriously, on all of the saves I've had on this game, I've never been able to do what I want to achieve. I have had success on all previous versions, but here it seems overly complicated. I've built teams that man for man, are better than the majority of the rest of the teams in the league, yet when it comes to play the 'smaller' teams, I get thrashed.

I use what were sound tactics in previous versions of FM, and even change them around a hell of a lot but I can't get any of my teams to play good football, passes always go astray, there appears to be a lack of commitment to players making challenges and when a goal scoring opportunity does come along, the player either smashes it over or just plays it straight into the keeper's hands.

This is really starting to get to me as I don't feel there is much point in continuing as there is no enjoyment in it for me. I was wondering if anyone had any advice for any of the above? Am i missing something blatently obvious?

1 - Sign the right players.

2 - Use tactics that best fit your team.

Most important:-

3 - Crack the team talk code.

Well I sign what I believe are the best players for the job, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be successful, after 3 years of playing in the same team all of my players misplace passes in every game, they just don't seem to be able to read each other movement.

As for team talks, whoever can crack that code is quite frankly a genius lol tell a player you're happy with them it seems to mean 'you don't need to try as hard in the second half', tell them to keep it up and for some reason they get offended :s

1. Keep the tactics simple. I'm currently having success (finished 3rd, predicted 14th) with a 4-2-4 tactic converted to classic where every slider is in the middle.

2. As for the team talks:

As for team talks, whoever can crack that code is quite frankly a genius lol tell a player you're happy with them it seems to mean 'you don't need to try as hard in the second half', tell them to keep it up and for some reason they get offended :s

There's a brilliant post in the tactics-forum. Click here. The theory says that you have to talk differently to players with a different character. I believe this is the main point why many people struggle with the team talks and many others claim that 'None' is the best team talk.

3. As you can see above, to have the best players is less relevant than tactics and team talks.

Hope that helps

Use individual team talks more than you think.

I've actually taken a break from FM due to being too easy. I played with Barca, yes of course too easy, but I never even had to struggle with any team to win the league by 20+ points and maintain 3.3+ goals average per game. I'll start again with a lower div team when 10.3 comes out =p

morale and team-talks play a key role as well

imo in this version the importance of team talk is way over exaggerated and if you say the right thing to the right player they will easily score hat tricks regularly.

Thanks for the advice guys, but these aspects are the least of my worries, my main gripe with this game is the fact that the match engine just doesn't seem to work as well as the last one, sure its prettier, but the effects of pace and accleration don't seem to apply, and when a player makes a tackle the ball ends up behind him, so the opposing player just picks it up and continues on his merry way

I know its all probably down to tactics/team talks etc. but for me it seems much harder to correct than in previous games.

But what I want to know most is how to beat the weaker teams, for some reason they always play near perfectly against me, in reality I should turn them over but they put me under extended pressure for the duration of the game with quite frankly some appaling players on occasion, again evidence that stats matter little in this game.

Sorry to moan but I need to get this off my chest

I think beating so called weaker teams has always been flawed in lots of versions of FM.

I had 35 shots with maybe 20 on target, and a hell of alot of CCC's, whilst the opposition had 2 shots with no CCC's. They were bottom of the league and I was top...can you guess the outcome?

1-1.

I should also mention that all my players were motivated and that this isn't a particularly rare occurence, and has happened to me many many times, on all different versions of FM. Basically, I will see the fixture that I am clear favourites for and I will automatically assume that it's points dropped. However, I always win the league so it doesn't bother me that much and I'm so used to it now.