players completely ignoring instructions

as above

I've set my stoke team's tactics to fairly direct passing, like they do in real life

however whenever we seem to have the ball at the back or midfield, instead of getting the ball to the strikers quickly like i instructed (also a quick tempo) they are fannying about with it playing short passes around the middle of the pitch?

what's going on with the game that players seem to not react to my tactics?!

Too much freedom?

i have very little creative freedom due to the lack of flair players at stoke

Perhaps too low creative freedom -> players are not adventurous enough to play direct balls to the strikers. They are restricted to playing short, SIMPLE passes.

If results are ok just ignore the match engine because sometimes it's just plain stupid.

How far up do you have direct passing set? You said fairly direct so it sounds normal to me that they are trying to keep possession at least some of the time.

It's mostly only effective on the counter, so unless you have a big target man and play to his head then your players are unlikely to punt it at every oportunity - and would you really want them to anyway?

If that's what you want then put it all the way to maximum with a target man and you should see a difference.

You also need to look at where your strikers/attacking players are.

If your midfield has no options they'll play the simple sideways ball rather than just lumping it upfield to the opposition.

When they're playing short passes to each other, pause the game. Take a good look at where the players you want them to pass to are. If they're well marked then you need to tell them to do something different.

its about halfway between normal and long ball. i didnt think the strikers position would be too important because the idea (like real life stoke) is often to lump it towards the target man, wherever he is.

i chose low creative freedom because i thought high freedom would mean they would expand away from my tactics more, so really expecting them to play the way I tell them too. it's frustrating, because even late on when i am desperate to score and want them to lump it into the opposition box and put them under pressure, the midfield and back four still want to tap it around at the back.

i didnt go for full long ball because i wanted them to pass it on the floor when necessary, but they do it all the time and rarely look to get it forward quickly.

would ignore the match engine but ive drawn one and lost 4 after 5 league games, scoring only three times and not looking remotely like scoring very often. even got taken to penalties by huddersfield in the league cup

I'm sure you are aware Stoke don't actually play that way for 90 minutes.

Unless you are watching the full game, you can't know how many times they punt it forward because around 90-99% of the time it leads to nothing - possession conceded - and of course the ME is only showing you the build up to key moments or goals depending on the setting.

So basically, they might well be lumping it forward but because nothing comes from it you are not getting to see it. CB punts the ball -> opposition CB heads it back -> CB punts the ball -> op CB heads it back -> etc -> fascinating stuff.

Not really related to Stoke, but I have to agree that the players seem to ignore most/all instructions in FM10 - When you want to waste time and keep hold of the ball they go running down the wing and punt a cross in! When you instruct the goalie to distribute to a full back he'll lump it up to the opposing defenders! When you set throw ins to short the player decideds to throw long (even when they have terrible long throw stats)!

I know that in real life players get creative and go 'off plan' a little, but these are the most simple of instructions they are ignoring. Makes you wonder whats the point of setting up a tactic because will just go out and do whatever they like.

In one of my games, I got like 8 red cards already halfway through the season and I already set the tackling to more cautious.

Almost as fun as setting people to mark the posts on corners and freekicks, and finding them wandering off somewhere else.

Almost as fun as setting people to mark the posts on corners and freekicks, and finding them wandering off somewhere else.

Yeah thats a good one. Or setting a defender to stay back for corners, only for him to jog up when get one.

I set my 3 strikers to closing down full and tackling hard but they never seem to even close down players who are next to them.