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Well at last the 10.3 patch is here, and its everything I'd ever hoped for. The game has finally been perfected and is fun rather than.....ha ha ha. Oh, I wish. So far this season, I have been tonked 4-0 by West Ham in an even game, had to continually restart against Newcastle and Stoke in the cup after my players refused steadfastly to score for 120 minutes, and generally had the usual infuriating nonsense. I feel like a woman who keeps going back to her abusive boyfriend, I keep making excuses for him and thinking he'll change but all I get for my patience and dedication is a big ol' smack in the face. I may not be an expert at this game (although considering I've been playing them for the last 5-6 years and have dedicated hours of my life to reading tactical advice, I feel I should be) but really, having to restart 3 times to get past Stoke in the cup when you are playing a pretty bog standard 442 with United simply shouldnt happen. And before you asked, yes, I changed my tactics for each game, and each game I was vastly superior, but due to arbitrary silliness such as Ricardo Fuller bursting between my centre backs or Sorensen saving every shot I managed to get on target (incidentally, is there any way to get more accurate shooting? Jesus, if I could figure that one out I'd win every game by 4 goals), I kept losing on penalties. I tried different team talks, after splashing out and buying that Communication and Psychological Warfare e-book to help me decide which ones to use, and I tried different approaches, but each time I got a team full of low 6's and a penalty loss. I only just won the third time after bringing on Rooney and he scored a screamer in extra time. It really irritates me that I cant ever rotate my squad, because as soon as I put in players that arent as good as the first 11 I get crap teams beating me. In fact, this whole game really irritates me. I wish it wasnt so damn addictive. Anyway, I just felt like having a rant about it as none of my friends are online who play it and it was either this or punching my laptop repeatedly. And I like my laptop.

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Yeah, I suppose it is. Then again, I feel cheated when I lose games that I've done nothing wrong in, and am punished on finishing alone. So I feel in some instances its justifiable. Plus, if I played this game without cheating I would have gone on a shooting spree by now, its the most frustrating thing in the entire world.

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Not being funny, but it's not exactly unrealistic to batter a side and lose. It happens all the time. Justify it all you like, reloading is cheating fella :)

I can't bring myself to do it, back of your mind surely you think "I cheated to win this/get that" no other way of looking at reloading.

Ask Arsenal when they got knocked out by Stoke, or Liverpool by Reading.. :p

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Well at last the 10.3 patch is here, and its everything I'd ever hoped for. The game has finally been perfected and is fun rather than.....ha ha ha. Oh, I wish. So far this season, I have been tonked 4-0 by West Ham in an even game, had to continually restart against Newcastle and Stoke in the cup after my players refused steadfastly to score for 120 minutes, and generally had the usual infuriating nonsense. I feel like a woman who keeps going back to her abusive boyfriend, I keep making excuses for him and thinking he'll change but all I get for my patience and dedication is a big ol' smack in the face. I may not be an expert at this game (although considering I've been playing them for the last 5-6 years and have dedicated hours of my life to reading tactical advice, I feel I should be) but really, having to restart 3 times to get past Stoke in the cup when you are playing a pretty bog standard 442 with United simply shouldnt happen. And before you asked, yes, I changed my tactics for each game, and each game I was vastly superior, but due to arbitrary silliness such as Ricardo Fuller bursting between my centre backs or Sorensen saving every shot I managed to get on target (incidentally, is there any way to get more accurate shooting? Jesus, if I could figure that one out I'd win every game by 4 goals), I kept losing on penalties. I tried different team talks, after splashing out and buying that Communication and Psychological Warfare e-book to help me decide which ones to use, and I tried different approaches, but each time I got a team full of low 6's and a penalty loss. I only just won the third time after bringing on Rooney and he scored a screamer in extra time. It really irritates me that I cant ever rotate my squad, because as soon as I put in players that arent as good as the first 11 I get crap teams beating me. In fact, this whole game really irritates me. I wish it wasnt so damn addictive. Anyway, I just felt like having a rant about it as none of my friends are online who play it and it was either this or punching my laptop repeatedly. And I like my laptop.

Ok, I am going to try and split your post up into points.

I have been tonked 4-0 by West Ham in an even game. - Here are some even games which were one sided, all from reality and all recently:

Bolton 4, Wigan 0.

Sunderland 4, Bolton 0.

Everton 5, Hull 1.

Chelsea 2, Man City 4.

Tottenham 4, Bolton 0.

Man City 3, Arsenal 0.

Portsmouth 4, Stoke 0.

All games from the last 6 weeks or so, all of which should have been fairly even, all of which ended with a big win for one team.

had to continually restart against Newcastle and Stoke in the cup after my players refused steadfastly to score for 120 minutes. - First of all, thats cheating. Second, have you never seen cup upsets in real life? Most obvious recent one, Leeds beating Man Utd. It happens, get over it.

Ricardo Fuller bursting between my centre backs. - Did you see his goal for Stoke yesterday? Even an average player can have moments of brilliance.

Sorensen saving every shot I managed to get on target. - This has been seen many times this year in the Premiership, with keepers like Hart and Jensen playing blinders to keep the game to 0-0. Sometimes keepers just have one of those days where everything goes right.

I cant ever rotate my squad, because as soon as I put in players that arent as good as the first 11 I get crap teams beating me. - Really? I am Sunderland in the 3rd season and in almost every match I have had at least one 17 year old from my youth team in my starting XI or playing as a sub for the whole of the second half and it hasn't stopped my team doing well. If you are playing a weak overall team you need to adapt your tactics to suit them.

Also, just to make you feel a little bit worse, here is the league table from my 3rd season with Sunderland.

englishpremierdivisiont.png

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Oh jesus. Playing Man City away. Spend ages before the match boosting player morale and am very careful in the press conference. Go out with a neutral mentality so I dont concede early. Concede from first shot on target. Then concede from penalty. In the first 10 minutes. What the hell do you want from me Football Manager? And as I was writing that, I just conceded a third from a HORRENDOUS defensive error, where a long ball is punted up to my defenders, they both do that weird hesitation thing and Ferdinand hoofs it off Adebayor so he is clean through. As far as I can tell, I did nothing wrong in the build up and my tactics, while maybe not perfect, were set up in a way that promoted cautious play. My reward is a 3-0 tonking. Oh, and the real kicker? I had double the shots they did and the same possession. Oh well, just have to forget about it and move on I suppose.....whoops my finger slipped and I accidentally reloaded.

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Curse all of you and your holier than thou attitudes. I am perfectly aware that cupsets happen and Ricardo Fuller scores the odd goal. My problem has never been with the fact that it happens, but rather the fact that it continually happens to me about 20 times a season, and unlikely events compound themselves in the same match to give me the shaft. I am at a total loss to see what is wrong with my tactics, I use the tactic creator for a base and then use the advice Ive read on the internet to tweak that, as well as tweaking for individual players as well. There must be a tick box somewhere with "play rubbish" ticked, because I cant understand where I am going so wrong. It is for this reason that I restart. Id prefer to restart and win trophies than get a mid-table finish and knocked out of every cup by minnows.

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Curse all of you and your holier than thou attitudes. I am perfectly aware that cupsets happen and Ricardo Fuller scores the odd goal. My problem has never been with the fact that it happens, but rather the fact that it continually happens to me about 20 times a season, and unlikely events compound themselves in the same match to give me the shaft. I am at a total loss to see what is wrong with my tactics, I use the tactic creator for a base and then use the advice Ive read on the internet to tweak that, as well as tweaking for individual players as well. There must be a tick box somewhere with "play rubbish" ticked, because I cant understand where I am going so wrong. It is for this reason that I restart. Id prefer to restart and win trophies than get a mid-table finish and knocked out of every cup by minnows.

I'm not great at spotting where i go wrong tactically, and in previous versions it meant i often relied on downloaded tactics. But with fm 10 i've used only my own tactics the whole time and i've had quite a bit of success. When things aren't going well just try something different. I started one season very poorly with Liverpool, then using the same formation i created a different tactic that saw me end the season with the premier league and fa cup titles and runner-up in the champions league.

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Ok guys, riddle me this. Replaying Man City, take the lead early through Vidic. I switch my approach to counter attacking so I can hopefully catch them on the break. Virtually straight from kick off, a nothing ball is punted up field and Vidic goes to get it. Except he doesnt, and chooses instead to run out of the way of the ball at the last second and allow Tevez to pick it up and run at Ferdinand, who hopelessly misses his slide challenge and lets Tevez in behind for an easy goal. So thats two terrible mistakes by two world class centre backs, one of whom has just scored. Then Adebayor gets the ball, runs past Ferdinand as though he wasnt there, and scores easily. My defence seems to conveniently fall to pieces with startling regularity. I usually have the default centre back instructions with cover and stopper for Ferdinand and Vidic respectively, so why exactly have they decided to play like part timers when I need them the most? Their morale is good and according to the motivation widget, Ferdinand is fired up and Vidic is playing with confidence. Is getting Ferdinand pumped for a match really equivalent to blindfolding him? Give me a break.

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Ok guys, riddle me this. Replaying Man City, take the lead early through Vidic. I switch my approach to counter attacking so I can hopefully catch them on the break. Virtually straight from kick off, a nothing ball is punted up field and Vidic goes to get it. Except he doesnt, and chooses instead to run out of the way of the ball at the last second and allow Tevez to pick it up and run at Ferdinand, who hopelessly misses his slide challenge and lets Tevez in behind for an easy goal. So thats two terrible mistakes by two world class centre backs, one of whom has just scored. Then Adebayor gets the ball, runs past Ferdinand as though he wasnt there, and scores easily. My defence seems to conveniently fall to pieces with startling regularity. I usually have the default centre back instructions with cover and stopper for Ferdinand and Vidic respectively, so why exactly have they decided to play like part timers when I need them the most? Their morale is good and according to the motivation widget, Ferdinand is fired up and Vidic is playing with confidence. Is getting Ferdinand pumped for a match really equivalent to blindfolding him? Give me a break.

First of all Vidic is accident prone :D. But no seriously maybe you just need to change your defensive tactics, morale isn't everything, getting your tactics right is more important.

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Ok guys, riddle me this. Replaying Man City, take the lead early through Vidic. I switch my approach to counter attacking so I can hopefully catch them on the break. Virtually straight from kick off, a nothing ball is punted up field and Vidic goes to get it. Except he doesnt, and chooses instead to run out of the way of the ball at the last second and allow Tevez to pick it up and run at Ferdinand, who hopelessly misses his slide challenge and lets Tevez in behind for an easy goal. So thats two terrible mistakes by two world class centre backs, one of whom has just scored. Then Adebayor gets the ball, runs past Ferdinand as though he wasnt there, and scores easily. My defence seems to conveniently fall to pieces with startling regularity. I usually have the default centre back instructions with cover and stopper for Ferdinand and Vidic respectively, so why exactly have they decided to play like part timers when I need them the most? Their morale is good and according to the motivation widget, Ferdinand is fired up and Vidic is playing with confidence. Is getting Ferdinand pumped for a match really equivalent to blindfolding him? Give me a break.

Pretty much all goals on this version are defensive errors.

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I tell you what this game needs: a difficulty setting. That would solve practically everything. It would stop the polarisation between people like me who rant and rave about every little inaccuracy and annoyance and the people who think the game is perfect the way it is and insist every bad result is entirely the gamer's fault. I wouldnt like to breeze through every game, but it would be nice to win games that I havent spent an hour re-examining every facet of my tactics before hand. I feel that the more you put into this game, the more you get out, and I am just not the kind of person who enjoys spending 45 minutes prepping for a match that should be a walk in the park. The way I feel is that this is a game; it should be fun, and it shouldnt be like an actual job where I have to dedicate myself to it in order to achieve anything. I know that football management is not a walk in the park and that it would be a gross oversimplification, but a difficulty setting would make the game more accessible while still appeasing the hardcore fanbase.

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I tell you what this game needs: a difficulty setting. That would solve practically everything. It would stop the polarisation between people like me who rant and rave about every little inaccuracy and annoyance and the people who think the game is perfect the way it is and insist every bad result is entirely the gamer's fault. I wouldnt like to breeze through every game, but it would be nice to win games that I havent spent an hour re-examining every facet of my tactics before hand. I feel that the more you put into this game, the more you get out, and I am just not the kind of person who enjoys spending 45 minutes prepping for a match that should be a walk in the park. The way I feel is that this is a game; it should be fun, and it shouldnt be like an actual job where I have to dedicate myself to it in order to achieve anything. I know that football management is not a walk in the park and that it would be a gross oversimplification, but a difficulty setting would make the game more accessible while still appeasing the hardcore fanbase.

You don't have to dedicate yourself to it once you understand it. I thought like you when i started playing but now it all seems much easier to me and i can breeze through easy games with a weak team on the field. I played my youngsters in a CL group match and won 4-1.

If you want a difficulty setting may i suggest FIFA?

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I have spent hours and hours reading practically everything on offer about this game, and I still guess I dont understand it. I've been through the Tactical Theorems and Frameworks of the past 3 games, and have read countless forum posts containing advice, and I still cant cut out these annoying games where I dominate and lose, or all my players play crap and I get tonked by some rubbish team. It doesnt happen as often as it once did, but I wish I could call it a rare occurence. There have of course been times when I've won strongly with an average team, but its far less likely to happen than the supposedly inferior team cutting me to ribbons with one touch passing as my players fail to string together two. And thats not an exaggeration. Teams like Stoke and Burnley seem to be capable of playing like Barcelona when it suits them. And it suits them against me a whole lot.

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Oh jesus. Playing Man City away. Spend ages before the match boosting player morale and am very careful in the press conference.

How do you spend ages 'building morale'? What does 'careful in the press conference' mean?

Go out with a neutral mentality so I dont concede early. Concede from first shot on target. Then concede from penalty. In the first 10 minutes. What the hell do you want from me Football Manager?

A neutral mentality in itself doesn't mean 'don't concede'. What was your team talk? What was you overall match strategy? How neutral is neutral? Through the creator or some personal adjustments?

And as I was writing that, I just conceded a third from a HORRENDOUS defensive error, where a long ball is punted up to my defenders, they both do that weird hesitation thing and Ferdinand hoofs it off Adebayor so he is clean through.

Have you made any manual adjustments to the creator settings? Do you have an MC with a defend duty?

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To the questions above:

Ok, poor choice of words, what I meant was I carefully gauged the reactions of my players and was sure to keep their morale up and praise the ones on good form properly. They all responded well to my comments and no one was below superb morale.

My team talk was for the fans, as it was a big rival I was playing, along with some individual team talks such as expect a performance for Rooney, which he usually responds well to. As for the tactics, I was playing a balanced standard 442 using mostly the creator, but most players had their instructions tweaked a little to suit their attributes. I didnt really fiddle around with mentality or anything like that because Im not confident enough in my understanding of the sliders, despite having used them for a long time.

I play with a ball winning midfielder on defend setting (usually Fletcher) and an advanced playmaker with support duty. I havent made vast changes to the creator settings, I usually just tweak the bottom few sliders (through balls, run with ball etc) to correspond with the players' ability. I hated the slider system before, so I try and avoid fiddling with the other ones too much, and tend to trust in the computer to be able to make a reasonable tactic in terms of mentality and stuff. I will move the creative freedom and closing down bars if the player needs it (eg. less closing down for Berba, less creative freedom for Nani with his crap decision making and creativity) but typically I let the mentality and passing style sliders just link in with the type of game im trying to play.

And on an unrelated note, just drew with Chelsea thanks to another horrific defensive cock-up. My defenders need shooting.

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It doesn't seem that you are doing too much wrong. However, the minor manual adjustments you are making could be causing a few problems.

Creative freedom influences flair, not creative freedom and decisions. Nani probably needs to play with a lot of flair, as it is his unpredictability you want to make best use of. Limiting him in this area is probably a bad decision.

Reducing an FC's closing down can result in the opposition having space and time to play balls from the back. Without having any DMCs to cover the back four, you almost certainly need to defend from the front. I'd really look at leaving him on creator settings and pressing quite aggressively throughout the team.

I'd also suggest you don't restrict RWB and TTBs too much. Both of these can help attacks, but also give defenders and midfielders a second method of reducing pressure rather than having to boot it deep. Limiting these options limits how you get the ball out of defence.

Other questions:

1: What is your managerial reputation?

2: How often do you change strategy in/before games?

3: Do you change any team settings i.e. defensive line, width etc?

4: What are the match odds for you in general terms?

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Thanks for the advice, all making sense so far and I'll try the suggestions. As for the questions...

1. This is a new file and Im only about half way into the first season, so it wont be tip-top. I gave myself international footballer as a background though, as Utd players dont like much less than that.

2. I usually stick with 442, but will change my strategy at least a little for every game. During the game, I try and tweak my tactics and give touchline shouts as I see fit, but as I mentioned before, Im not the greatest at spotting where I am going wrong and rectifying it. If my team are messing up crosses a lot or punting it from miles out, I'll tell them to work the ball into the box, and I try to react to what I see happening and give appropriate shouts/make changes. I fiddle about a fair bit in the match and use anything from 2 to 8 tactical shouts in a match. I rarely change formation though, just mentality and style of play.

3. Yes I do, when I feel the need for it. I try and play deeper defensive lines against teams with nippy strikers and lone strikers with attacking mids in behind, and I'll regularly tweak width and tempo according to what I think will work best, aided by my scout reports and pre match advice from staff. The defensive line can be a bit problematic though, I find that even in the late stages of a game where im playing a defensive mentality and a super deep line, I'll still inexplicably be caught on the break and their strikers get in behind. Which REALLY annoys me.

4. Im Man Utd, so im favourite in practically every match I play. I try and stay positive in press conferences and demand more from my players, I am currently reading the Communication and Psychological Warfare e-book that you helped write and thats been pretty helpful in knowing what to say.

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1: Ok, rep should be fine. It will get better, but you shouldn't be having any motivational problems. That means the problem is probably elsewhere.

2: Do you have various touchline strategies for different oppositional shapes or weather conditions? It can be suicidal to use a 4-4-2 against a narrow formation without combating the extra players in the middle (narrower, deeper against a good team). It is also a horrible idea to play fancy football in heavy conditions or fast tempo aggression on hot days. The former is likely to lead to some bad results against sides you shoudl beat; the latter to late comebacks as your team runs out of steam. It seems to me that you have an idea of how to adjust to statistical issues, but not to condition/opposition generated ones.

3: I think you should avoid all manual tweaks to team settings. I dont think you know what you are doing here, which will cause serious issues. For example, going too deep gives up space high, which allows the opposition to play uncontested through balls over the shoulder of your defence. You are interpreting this as not having a deep enough d-line, whereas actually it is not pressing enough and putting pressure on the ball-player. Dropping deeper will cause even more problems. Using the d-line and width shouts to open space (when pushing for a goal) or close it (when trying to hold a lead) should do the job for you.

4: I didn't write any of CPW. They've done a good job, but there's one or two things I disagree with. Most pertinently is the 'For the Fans' team talk. They regard it as only being useful for big matches. I think you should use it as the prime team talk when you have a good managerial rep and a professional/determined squad. It might be that you should use it a little more with Man Utd.

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Not at all true.

1) defender watches as through ball goes past him to striker/winger he didn't feel like marking.

2) Defender gets dribbled past by attacker.

Both = def errors and are the main way goals are scored.

Not really sure how you can disagree.

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I think this is the frustration and brillance of FM10.

Real life is frustrating in football, you batter a team and lose, you concede a silly own goal, a bump on your pitch diverts the ball past your goalkeeper, you are the victim of a giant killing, a beach ball diverts a shot in the goal (hahahahahahah oh god I love watching that goal), etc.

I think FM does it's best to replicate real life in making the game frustrating at times but it also does give you the opportunity as a manager and game player to do the unthinkable with teams.

I think the issue sometimes is that on most games you play them long enough you are an expert and can easily win, whereas with FM although playing it alot will give you a much better chance of winning it still doesn't give you the usual advantages that alot of other games would.

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Pretty much all goals on this version are defensive errors.

Pretty much all goals scored in RL are from defensive errors.

Yes you have the odd wonder goal, or piece of individual skill, but most goals come from an attacker not being picked up by a marker. Or a defender missing a crucial tackle. Or the goalkeeper fumbling a simple backpass. Or the defensive line tried to play the offisde trap, but got the timing wrong. Or a defender cleared the ball, but straight to an opposing forward. Etc, etc..

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Pretty much all goals scored in RL are from defensive errors.

Yes you have the odd wonder goal, or piece of individual skill, but most goals come from an attacker not being picked up by a marker. Or a defender missing a crucial tackle. Or the goalkeeper fumbling a simple backpass. Or the defensive line tried to play the offisde trap, but got the timing wrong. Or a defender cleared the ball, but straight to an opposing forward. Etc, etc..

I hate to quote Wenger but he said something along the lines of there are '6 mistakes made for every goal scored' If he can see them it must be true!! :D

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Wenger saw something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blimey he normally has the worst seat in every ground as he never sees offences by his own team but has the best seat when offences are committed against them!

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Wenger saw something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Blimey he normally has the worst seat in every ground as he never sees offences by his own team but has the best seat when offences are committed against them!

Exactly my point :thup:

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Does the OP want to work at the game and accept being the better side and losing, look at my team Wolves this season, we have been the better side most times including the 5-2 defeat to Sunderland where we battered them for 90 mins or just wants an easy game where he wins every game, hes started as Man United so I think i've answered my own question there.

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Pretty much all goals scored in RL are from defensive errors.

Yes you have the odd wonder goal, or piece of individual skill, but most goals come from an attacker not being picked up by a marker. Or a defender missing a crucial tackle. Or the goalkeeper fumbling a simple backpass. Or the defensive line tried to play the offisde trap, but got the timing wrong. Or a defender cleared the ball, but straight to an opposing forward. Etc, etc..[/quote

sure i wouldn't dispute that most goals are scored because someone did somehting wrong but it's the degrees and repetive nature of the errors that annoys.

I would think most goals irl are scored when there is still a defender goalside whether it's a striker finding a bit of space inside area or a ball passed back/square to a midfielder who scores. Headers and set pieces would also often although not always be scored with someone goalside. This is not the case in fm....there not that many goals going through a crowd of players or where a defender has backed up too much. It generally ends up as some kind of 1v1 however it got to that situation. There's also a lack of goalmouth scrambles/flick ons etc which would make it seems more realistic and less down to a defender making a clear error.

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Thank you ac13, someone who seems to understand where Im coming from a little. My main complaint with this game isnt that it has you lose matches that you should be winning, but the regularity and style in which it does it. 90% of the goals I concede are from defensive errors so bad, you wouldnt see 8 year olds make them. Things like hesitating to make an interception for no reason at all, hoofing the ball out of play under a minimal amount of pressure, and cock-ups between defender and keeper happen far too often for my liking, especially as it never happens with opposition teams. Now I realise that some of this may be down to my tactics, but when you are using default centre back instructions with Vidic and Ferdinand as stopper/cover, I dont feel horrific defensive errors should happen as often as they do. Anyway, since I posted this thread I've managed to put some good form together and have seen less of it, and have gone unbeaten in the league for the last 4 months or so, so thats good. And to clarify, some of you may have gotten the impression that I only want to win and restart every match I lose, which isnt true. I rarely restart matches even when I lose, its just when I feel that I have lost through no fault of my own and it is a moderately important game that I do. As much as I hate it, I usually do choke down unlucky defeats as it tends to buck up my squad a bit.

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And I chose Man Utd because I support them and know the team the best, which I dont think is unreasonable. People play games for different reasons. Some people enjoy the challenge of dragging pants teams up through the leagues, and thats cool, but Ive tried it in the past and it rarely holds my attention for long.

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A thumping is one thing, daylight robbery is another. When you play Bolton, and you have 29 shots on goal and score once, whereas they get a single shot on target and somehow score twice, their keeper plays out of his skin and saves a bunch of one on ones, and the goal you are beaten by is a 30 yarder from a right back, I feel somewhat hard done by. My main complaint with this game has always been how often these games happen. In reality, you can consider yourself incredibly unlucky if it happens to you twice in a season, as typically if you are creating chances with a quality team, someone will score one of them eventually and you can at least get a draw. For me, I consider it a miracle if a month goes by without one of these games. Say what you like about it being realistic, but it happens too much.

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Thank you ac13, someone who seems to understand where Im coming from a little. My main complaint with this game isnt that it has you lose matches that you should be winning, but the regularity and style in which it does it. 90% of the goals I concede are from defensive errors so bad, you wouldnt see 8 year olds make them. Things like hesitating to make an interception for no reason at all, hoofing the ball out of play under a minimal amount of pressure, and cock-ups between defender and keeper happen far too often for my liking, especially as it never happens with opposition teams. Now I realise that some of this may be down to my tactics, but when you are using default centre back instructions with Vidic and Ferdinand as stopper/cover, I dont feel horrific defensive errors should happen as often as they do. Anyway, since I posted this thread I've managed to put some good form together and have seen less of it, and have gone unbeaten in the league for the last 4 months or so, so thats good. And to clarify, some of you may have gotten the impression that I only want to win and restart every match I lose, which isnt true. I rarely restart matches even when I lose, its just when I feel that I have lost through no fault of my own and it is a moderately important game that I do. As much as I hate it, I usually do choke down unlucky defeats as it tends to buck up my squad a bit.

I've found that setting both CBs to defend/defend seemed to help a lot with the defence. My back four generally will hold their own against most teams and are by no means world-class players.

Edit: with reference to your post above this: That definitely sounds like a tactics thing. Imagine if you were Bolton playing Man Utd, you would pack the defence, try and force them into long shots, try and hit them on the break. Their tactic worked well against you. Maybe try changing a couple of things - Set your team to Control. Use the Exploit the Flanks & Work the Ball into the Box shouts.

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I feel your pain, because as soon as the latest patch came out I was conceding blasphemous goals with world class defenders at least every second game. Average strikers would dribble round or through them like they were Messi.

I have got it pretty much sorted now, although it does still happen and once a defender makes his first error and his rating drops to 5 it is very hard to get him back through motivation. He will typically blunder again in the second half for me, the only option is to sub him, but that in itself is hard to do when your attacking players like wingers always get too tired in the second half (or at least they do with my high octane attacking tactics).

Anyway, I'm getting more success by ditching the deep defensive line that I was using from patch 10.2 and pushing them up (first notch or so). There is no longer the danger of constant one-on-ones with this patch like there was with the last, and as long as your defenders have a decent bit of pace you are ok most of the time. It sure beats them constantly getting skinned by opposition strikers in the 18 yard area and they seem to be able to deal with the threat a lot easier if it's mostly through balls being attempted. I also think a problem for me was just setting both centre halves to the Defend duty, so I tinkered and now use a Stopper and a Cover defender in a flat back 4 (despite what yourself and Meestercat are saying, which suggests the D-line is pretty important, but I guess it's all about the context of the whole tactic I suppose). On top of this, I've ditched the straightforward 4-4-2 (it just isn't working great for me anymore, despite all the role changes and other settings I throw at it) and changed to a diamond midfield. I'm finding a Defensive Midfielder seems pretty much essential with this patch, along with a high defensive line it should really cut down the frequency with which their strikers can have the ball at their feet with time inside or at the edge of the box (cue suicidal defending). Seeing as you are United I would suggest Fletcher or Carrick with a Deep Lying Playmaker role, so they can still make use of their excellent passing and help set up your attacking moves.

Attacking-wise; if you aren't scoring enough then you aren't creating enough clear cut or at least good chances. The AMC of the diamond can help with attacking options and having one of 2 strikers with a Support role can pay dividends to set up some nice flowing attacking football. Headers inside the box (if they aren't actually cleared first) are very likely to just end up sailing over the bar or saved with this patch for me (no matter how good a header the striker is), unless they have a free header (then they actually seem to head like you'd expect them to most the time), but you won't see very many of these unless you can find a way of pulling opposition centre backs away from the danger area (which is never going to happen unless the opp CB's are on some crazy closing down setting). Therefore, you could try to be a bit more creative with your wingers and not just look for them to pump balls into the box that probably aren't going to result in a goal, like playing right footed wingers in the left wing slot and getting them to cut inside, or use them as Wide Midfielders and play short/direct passes along the deck instead of crossing.

I think the lack of faith in your squad players/youth is because your better players are the ones saving you by scoring with long shots, or at least that is pretty much how it was for me. Once you get a decent tactic on the go things should change for the better and you probably won't be scared to put them into games anymore.

As I said at the start of this rather long post I've been where you are, and although I think this match engine really has its problems, you kind of forget them when you are no longer playing like crap against teams you really should be beating on a regular basis. It can be really frustrating when the match engine changes so much from one patch to another and you suddenly think you have no idea how the tactics work anymore, especially when you have been playing the game for years. If you still find nothing you try works, then I'd suggest checking out the Tactics forum, downloading a few tactics people have had success with on this patch and then studying what makes them so good from their settings.

A thumbs down for the amount of trolling in this thread btw and I'd wager a large amount that the holier than thou ones harping on about cheating have done so themselves in the past.

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Right, I've figured out what is the main problem with this patch: the defending is broken. My defence is utterly abysmal, against strikers with any sort of quality and they spend the entire game being turned inside out, and letting people in behind. Even if I put on cautious tackling or tell my players to stand off, my defenders regularly get turned with consumate ease, and once theyve gotten past one defender its a one on one. The computer doesnt miss many of those. I am having game after game where I am the superior team, but every time they get a chance they score it due to the utter ineptitude of the defending in this. My defenders might have averaged somewhere around 6.8 since the new patch came in, no matter how deep I play the opposition will get in behind and no matter how tightly I mark a player, he will be the one scoring an unmarked tap in. Even if I am winning a game late on, and am playing defensively with the touchline shout drop deeper on, my d-line still ensures I can be cut open with one pass for an easy one on one, and I am absolutely hemorraging late goals. I am seriously contemplating playing a 0-5-5 as defending in this is so utterly woeful. I have been advised to start playing a DM instead of a defensive MC, but when you have to completely overhaul your tactics just to get around the fact that your defenders cant come out on top at all against good players. I have just lost games against Barcelona and Man City that I should have, at the very least, drawn due to horrendous defensive mistakes and I am at my wits end. I have tried blasting my defenders in the media, all manner of supportive, angry and happy team talks and have tried to fiddle around with the defensive settings a bit just to experiment and see if there was anything wrong with the instructions, and Ive come up with nothing. Playing stopper/cover or defend/defend doesnt do anything, although I dont think Ive ever seen Ferdinand drop in behind and go after players who have beaten Vidic so I guess cover just doesnt work. I know this is probably the wrong forum to ask questions like this, but does anyone have any idea how to stop opposition forwards rinsing past my centre backs like they were made of marshmallow?

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Jesus, this game is so bloody unfair. Just lost a final to Chelsea after having superior everything, and they had 3 shots on target. They score a pot shot from 25 yards, I assault the goal for 120 minutes and score once, and then I lose on penalties. It happens ALL THE TIME. Nothing has been fixed with this patch, the one on ones are just less frequent. I wish I could say the same about the terrible misses. Its pretty difficult to win when the computer can score on a whim and every single shot of theirs has around a 300% higher chance of going in than one of yours. Oh, and when you are crossing the ball in and getting on the end of them time and time again, it would be nice if at least one header was on target. The heading in this game is so laughably bad, it virtually cripples all wing play. Its so damn annoying watching your wingers roast their full back, put in a perfect cross, only for another tame header to float over the bar from 6 yards out. I am thoroughly fed up at reading how unlucky I was in the post match report after failing to convert any chances. I cant improve finishing, and when I am creating several clear cut chances per game more than the opposition, and they tend to outscore the number of ccc's/shots on target they have in total, it makes for one hell of a biased game.

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only thing hes doing wrong is playing on 10.3 where stoke can play like brazil in the 70's, do urself a favour uninstall ur game and apply 10.2 and i bet u any money u will enjoy the game, i just won the treble with r.madrid first season on 10.2 currently loving it and its a network game, convinced my treble wouldnt have been possiable first season on 10.3 legit unless u cheat, cause 10.3 is way to unpredictable.

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I said push the defence up, not drop them deeper, that's just asking for them to rip you to shreds more. A covering defender with a decent bit of pace should help to cut out a lot of the through balls they try to play past your high defensive line so long as you aren't pushed too far up. Whatever you do, you shouldn't be tight marking quick forwards if you are, because that's also just asking for them to skin the defender with a good first touch. Also, playing a diamond midfield isn't completely overhauling your tactics, it's just a slight change from the MCa/MCd setup you were no doubt using before. It will help provide a solid wall of bodies around the centre of the 18 yard box when the opposition attack, forcing them to try and pass through it or playing it out wide rather than trying to skin your centre backs.

Also, try laying off the 'Closing Down' Opposition Instruction, I've found I get torn to shreds far less not using this at all. I don't actually use any OI's with this patch other than hard tackling, which is a first in a long time.

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I have a question, i just downloaded the 10.3 patch but now my game wont start its saying to put in a license key but evry time i put in the box registration key it says activation failed error 1003.

any ides???

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