Massive Noob Questions

Morning all. Consider this a long essay post, there's a tl;dr summary at the end.

Back in the day, I played Premier Manager 3 on the pc. Particularly old football management game where you *had* to start in the Conference League (as it was known back then) and build your way up. I always played as Halifax Town or Woking (because they had the best strikers) but I digress. Playing that game has always made me want to start at the absolute bottom of the football game, and work my way up slowly, maybe taking a scalp here or there in a cup match and even managing to get promoted (god forbid), but I have a whole boatload of questions I hope people can provide answers to.

I bought FM10 when it was on sale during the World Cup thinking "i'll give this a try, I used to like CM01/02", but dear god, its complicated. Examples of my failings are discussed below.

1 - First time I ever played FM10 I went Workington Town as its a team I've supported for quite some time and I used to go to a few of their matches. Positioning/tactics for the team were totally messed up (i remember seeing all the red dots in the tactics section) and I lost my opening match to the reserve team 2-1. Fair enough, my tactics were pointless, I really had very little idea what I was doing, and I lost a lot of games. Failing = justified.

2 - After this first failing, I googled FM10 and found a number of interesting websites/blogs/forums which gave help and advice and recommended starting at Leeds (for a league one club, I still wanted some aims for promotion/playoffs). Won the first six games, woo for me, manager of the month and players picked for weekly "awesome league team", more woo. Then the team suddenly started playing very poorly, with no noticable reason. I plummeted down from first to seventh with mostly draws and losses to teams which "i should have been beating" (according to the media). I changed my tactics, rotated my players, gave different team talks, even bought in one or two new players that were scouted as "good for the team". I kept losing matches. The huge upset was *just* beating Morcambe in the johnstone paint trophy second round on penalties 7-6. Leeds are a better team, but couldn't score for toffee. Confused at my failing...

3 - Having learned from my first two errors, I started again as Workington Reds. Woo, first two games won! I am a king! Then totally out of the blue, more draws and losses. Six games without a win made me think "eh?" Still rotating team/changing tactics. Confused at my failing...

4 - The biggest failing was last night, starting at AFC Telford (predicted to come first in Blue Square North). I lost all of my friendly matches (including pointless friendly matches played against PREMIER LEAGUE TEAMS). Morale was at rock bottom come the start of the season, I had five long-term injuries (ranging from 2 months to 6 months) and my team lost the first two games. I almost felt like a massive rage but I didn't...

So, here's a massive list of questions which I need help with.

1 - Why do lower league teams play friendly matches against Premier League sides? AFC Telford played against Wolves and Tottenham and got absolutely creamed. Is this for money? Or for experience? Because I'd rather not play Premier League sides, get beaten, and lose morale. Is there any way of cancelling these friendly matches or do I have to wait until next season and just pick and choose my friendly matches against similar strength sides?

2 - "Pre-match advice meetings". This advice sounds lovely! "We are better at headers than team x", "We are better at dribbling than team x". Awesome, thanks guys. Now, if you just show me how to make my team do more headers or do more dribbling in a match, that would be particularly useful... How do you set your players to actually follow this advice? Can you do it as an overall setting or do you have to select individual players and then make them do more headers, or do more dribbling.

3 - How do you increase the morale of players? Do they have to win a match and then feel happier? As its a bit of a catch-22 situation. They lose matches, they lose morale, they cant win matches, they lose more matches, they lose morale, continue ad-infinitum.

4 - "Player x is having trouble blending into the squad" "Your players aren't working as a team"... how do you get players to blend into the squad? Is it just going to take time or is there some specific way of doing it?

5 - Training. I assume its not good enough to set everyone to "general" training. Do you have to pick and choose training schedules for each player based on their position? Are there training schedules you can download from anywhere which help noob managers like me to get a decent training schedule without having to spend an hour or so every couple of matches fine-tuning the training for all the players?

6 - I see so many lower league teams getting players on loan from higher teams. I've found a way of searching for players on free transfer, is there any way of searching for "loan players available" from larger clubs (say, league one and higher for BSN/BSP teams)

7 - I'm guessing that getting your assistant manager/coaches to pick your team for the next match is pretty stupid. What attributes/traits do you have to look for in each of the players you want on your team? Defenders/Midfield/Striker etc

tl;dr: do I need to be totally obsessed and know football in and out and obsess about stats to be successful at this game? Were my failings part of my own or were they "just football". I *want* to play this game and at least be semi-successful, but advice is always good. And I don't want to start with the best team in the premier league and always win, I want to have some aims/goals.

Thanks for any help you can give

First, no you don't have to be obsessive. I will say that you have picked very hard teams to start off with. Have you considered Real Madrid or Man City unto you get the hang of the basics? When you get bored,then you work your way "up" to Halifax and Woking.

1 - for the money. Personally, getting stuffed 7-0 just before the season starts is a big no-no.

2 - Look in the "tactics & training" forum. All the answers are there. "Float crosses" will aim high crosses to your powerful strikers. Note: you must HAVE powerful strikers.

3 - This amounts to "how do I play the game?" Offering contracts, praising in the media, giving positive team talks after a defeat. In the long term, you have to keep winning. Of course, then you get OVER confidence.

4 - When you're winning, everyone's happy. Real trouble makers have to be loaned or sold.

5 - "Tactics & training" again. Tugg's training is the most popular. I use a modified version of that.

6 - Yes. In the "filter" select "transfer status" as listed for loan. I recommend getting your assman to recommend players, not all candidates are listed. Big clubs can easily be persuaded to loan out youngsters for first team football.

7 - Sorry, THIS amounts to "how do I play the game?" The tactics editor highlights the key attributes for each position.

(all the above: IMO.)

1 - Why do lower league teams play friendly matches against Premier League sides? AFC Telford played against Wolves and Tottenham and got absolutely creamed. Is this for money? Or for experience? Because I'd rather not play Premier League sides, get beaten, and lose morale. Is there any way of cancelling these friendly matches or do I have to wait until next season and just pick and choose my friendly matches against similar strength sides?

You should be able to cancel them in fixture screen. BUT think of losing money by playing smaller teams. A mix is good

2 - "Pre-match advice meetings". This advice sounds lovely! "We are better at headers than team x", "We are better at dribbling than team x". Awesome, thanks guys. Now, if you just show me how to make my team do more headers or do more dribbling in a match, that would be particularly useful... How do you set your players to actually follow this advice? Can you do it as an overall setting or do you have to select individual players and then make them do more headers, or do more dribbling.

I ignore pre match advice play my own game - let them worry bout me!

3 - How do you increase the morale of players? Do they have to win a match and then feel happier? As its a bit of a catch-22 situation. They lose matches, they lose morale, they cant win matches, they lose more matches, they lose morale, continue ad-infinitum.

Win games and also use team talks to get morale up. Check out Tactics Forum for specific thread on Team Talks

4 - "Player x is having trouble blending into the squad" "Your players aren't working as a team"... how do you get players to blend into the squad? Is it just going to take time or is there some specific way of doing it?

Takes Time

5 - Training. I assume its not good enough to set everyone to "general" training. Do you have to pick and choose training schedules for each player based on their position? Are there training schedules you can download from anywhere which help noob managers like me to get a decent training schedule without having to spend an hour or so every couple of matches fine-tuning the training for all the players?

Look for Tugs Training – Tactics and Training forum can download

6 - I see so many lower league teams getting players on loan from higher teams. I've found a way of searching for players on free transfer, is there any way of searching for "loan players available" from larger clubs (say, league one and higher for BSN/BSP teams)

Look for teams who have players listed for loan and make some offers

7 - I'm guessing that getting your assistant manager/coaches to pick your team for the next match is pretty stupid. What attributes/traits do you have to look for in each of the players you want on your team? Defenders/Midfield/Striker etc

Can be usefull to get ideas but then its up to you. It yours team. Check out Tactical Theroms 10 – Tactics forum. Bit heavy but good advice

tl;dr: do I need to be totally obsessed and know football in and out and obsess about stats to be successful at this game? Were my failings part of my own or were they "just football". I *want* to play this game and at least be semi-successful, but advice is always good. And I don't want to start with the best team in the premier league and always win, I want to have some aims/goals.

Trial and error might work. Its all about learningwhat works and what doesn’t. Check out LLM for starting at bottom or give a big team a go just to get used to winning. Knowing football helps but just have fun its only agame

Thanks for any help you can give

See the answers in bold , might help

1 - Why do lower league teams play friendly matches against Premier League sides? AFC Telford played against Wolves and Tottenham and got absolutely creamed. Is this for money? Or for experience? Because I'd rather not play Premier League sides, get beaten, and lose morale. Is there any way of cancelling these friendly matches or do I have to wait until next season and just pick and choose my friendly matches against similar strength sides?

For money ... playing at home to a Premier side will usually fill the stadium and give a very nice income boost that sometimes can last a whole season.

You can cancel friendlies at will. There is a cancel button at the bottom of the Fixtures screen.

2 - "Pre-match advice meetings". This advice sounds lovely! "We are better at headers than team x", "We are better at dribbling than team x". Awesome, thanks guys. Now, if you just show me how to make my team do more headers or do more dribbling in a match, that would be particularly useful... How do you set your players to actually follow this advice? Can you do it as an overall setting or do you have to select individual players and then make them do more headers, or do more dribbling.

Pre-match advice is most of the time useless (to me) ... so I never bother with it.

You use the tactics screen to set individual roles and settings. You can either use a pre-made tactic, or you can create your own, and tweak settings for each player.

3 - How do you increase the morale of players? Do they have to win a match and then feel happier? As its a bit of a catch-22 situation. They lose matches, they lose morale, they cant win matches, they lose more matches, they lose morale, continue ad-infinitum.

Well victories certainly help ... but you can also help morale along with player interactions, press releases and (very important) team talks. Check this thread on team talks: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/182360-Teamtalks-if-you-are-clueless-...

4 - "Player x is having trouble blending into the squad" "Your players aren't working as a team"... how do you get players to blend into the squad? Is it just going to take time or is there some specific way of doing it?

It will take time. Having 16 new players with 12 different personalities are probably going to need some time adjusting to each other.

5 - Training. I assume its not good enough to set everyone to "general" training. Do you have to pick and choose training schedules for each player based on their position? Are there training schedules you can download from anywhere which help noob managers like me to get a decent training schedule without having to spend an hour or so every couple of matches fine-tuning the training for all the players?

Some use the General one. Some tweak training schedules to each player, and some download schedules others have made already. You can check here to find some pre-made schedules: http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php/18-Tactics-amp-Training-Tips

6 - I see so many lower league teams getting players on loan from higher teams. I've found a way of searching for players on free transfer, is there any way of searching for "loan players available" from larger clubs (say, league one and higher for BSN/BSP teams)

You can setup the filters to search for pretty much anything. Try setting the condition to 'Transfer Status is Listed for Loan'. Then you can filter for specific types of players.

7 - I'm guessing that getting your assistant manager/coaches to pick your team for the next match is pretty stupid. What attributes/traits do you have to look for in each of the players you want on your team? Defenders/Midfield/Striker etc

Depends very much on your tactics and how you want to play. It is way too broad a question to answer here and now. I would say, try it out with different people in the positions and see which gives you the better results. You can also check some of the threads on pre-made tactics in the Tactics forum (I linked to it in answer to question 5). They usually also write what attributes are important for each position to get the most out of the tactic.

Thank you for the help everyone, i'll take a look around the website and see what I can find. I feel a bit happier now i've ranted yet people have been friendly and given good advice!

*edit*

I agree that I've chosen difficult teams to use at first, so I'll give Man City a try and see if I have any success tonight. I've found Tugs Training and i'll download it now and try to implement it into my game

Before I start, I was kinda glad and surprised that someone actually chose Workington. Well, I randomed and got that club. I have to tell you that it isn't easy at all. Obscure reputation with a 2200 seater stadium. My 1st season I had like average attendance of 100. And everyone refuses to come.

I am in my 2021/2022 season and I just won the Premier League last season. I hope it is some sort of motivation to you.

1. Not for experience. More for the money. Yes you can cancel fixtures at the fixture screen. Usually that you can do is play against big premier league teams. Get whooped and play a few easy games to boost morale before season starts. Alternatively, you can just field all your reserves + kids to play against those huge teams while your Senior squad plays only against small team to keep injuries to a min.

2. You could play players who cross better or head better to exploit the weakness but usually I realised that it doesnt do much for me. So I usually just ignore the tactics and play my own game.

3. Win games, and new contracts gives morale. The teamtalks are a big part of this game and knowing how to use the right teamtalk can get you pretty good results. There are a few good posts on it you can check them out.

4. Just wait it out.

5. There are specific training schedules tailored to the couple of usual positions. You might want to check it out.

6. You can go to their team and click on the button for get loan availability report in which your ass man will compile. But I found it to be useless. What I do is to go through all the Premier League reserves 1 by 1. Sort through their list to see which players are listed for loan and start to offer to loan them. Most will reject me, even those that get accepted by the club, will get rejected by the player because Workington is a painfully small club.

7. The ass man picks them.. well.. randomly sort of based on certain criteria. It is a good gauge to start from if you are starting to know a club with all these new players. But after a while, you pick players to play in that position. Or should I say, you buy players / loan players who fits with your playstyle. I use my own tactics .. it isn't the best looking at those crazy results those tactics in the tactics forum give. But I think it is realistic. I play a attacking 4-4-2 with fullbacks and wingers. 1 playmaker and 1 normal central midfielder. 1 adv forward and 1 poacher. Obviously this wasn't the tactic I started off with at the start of the game but it was still a 4-4-2 then.

No hard and fast rules but recommended attributes for me are as follows:

Centrebacks - Jumping, Concentration, Strength, Tackling

Fullbacks/Wingbacks - Acc, Pace, Tackling, Marking, Concentration

Midfielders - I tend to favour 1 with tackling and jumping to get aerial control in the middle

Playmaker - Creativity, Flair, passing, workrate, decisions

Wingers - Acc, Pace, dribbling, crossing

ST - Composure, Finishing, Acc, Pace, off the ball (if he lacks acc/pace, I would prefer if he has other attributes to make up for it like jumping, heading, passing etc)

I favour high determination in all my players.

-----------------------

As much as knowing football helps. You need to learn how the game mechanics work as well. You will learn alot about the quirks of the game as you play on. And it is normal to lose. In my 1st season, my Workington finished like 15th I think when it was predicted to have a 10th finish. At the lower leagues it isn't so much as to find the players to play your style and formation. It is more like, fitting your formation, style and tactics to your available players.

Oh by the way, at lower leagues, you can restrict their creative freedom and adopt a rigid shape since they aren't very skillfull.

Morning all. Consider this a long essay post, there's a tl;dr summary at the end.

Back in the day, I played Premier Manager 3 on the pc. Particularly old football management game where you *had* to start in the Conference League (as it was known back then) and build your way up. I always played as Halifax Town or Woking (because they had the best strikers) but I digress. Playing that game has always made me want to start at the absolute bottom of the football game, and work my way up slowly, maybe taking a scalp here or there in a cup match and even managing to get promoted (god forbid), but I have a whole boatload of questions I hope people can provide answers to.

I bought FM10 when it was on sale during the World Cup thinking "i'll give this a try, I used to like CM01/02", but dear god, its complicated. Examples of my failings are discussed below.

1 - First time I ever played FM10 I went Workington Town as its a team I've supported for quite some time and I used to go to a few of their matches. Positioning/tactics for the team were totally messed up (i remember seeing all the red dots in the tactics section) and I lost my opening match to the reserve team 2-1. Fair enough, my tactics were pointless, I really had very little idea what I was doing, and I lost a lot of games. Failing = justified.

2 - After this first failing, I googled FM10 and found a number of interesting websites/blogs/forums which gave help and advice and recommended starting at Leeds (for a league one club, I still wanted some aims for promotion/playoffs). Won the first six games, woo for me, manager of the month and players picked for weekly "awesome league team", more woo. Then the team suddenly started playing very poorly, with no noticable reason. I plummeted down from first to seventh with mostly draws and losses to teams which "i should have been beating" (according to the media). I changed my tactics, rotated my players, gave different team talks, even bought in one or two new players that were scouted as "good for the team". I kept losing matches. The huge upset was *just* beating Morcambe in the johnstone paint trophy second round on penalties 7-6. Leeds are a better team, but couldn't score for toffee. Confused at my failing...

3 - Having learned from my first two errors, I started again as Workington Reds. Woo, first two games won! I am a king! Then totally out of the blue, more draws and losses. Six games without a win made me think "eh?" Still rotating team/changing tactics. Confused at my failing...

4 - The biggest failing was last night, starting at AFC Telford (predicted to come first in Blue Square North). I lost all of my friendly matches (including pointless friendly matches played against PREMIER LEAGUE TEAMS). Morale was at rock bottom come the start of the season, I had five long-term injuries (ranging from 2 months to 6 months) and my team lost the first two games. I almost felt like a massive rage but I didn't...

So, here's a massive list of questions which I need help with.

1 - Why do lower league teams play friendly matches against Premier League sides? AFC Telford played against Wolves and Tottenham and got absolutely creamed. Is this for money? Or for experience? Because I'd rather not play Premier League sides, get beaten, and lose morale. Is there any way of cancelling these friendly matches or do I have to wait until next season and just pick and choose my friendly matches against similar strength sides?

It won't result in much of a drop in morale as you are expected to lose heavily so its not really that upsetting when you get thumped. It gives you the chance to earn a decent amount of money and to test your players in difficult circumstances. I know that I have found players who have performed brilliantly in pre-season games against big teams and so have got a place in the first team despite not being the most technically gifted player in that position, they can give you a good idea of certain players hidden attributes and give you a better understanding of how a player handles big matches.

2 - "Pre-match advice meetings". This advice sounds lovely! "We are better at headers than team x", "We are better at dribbling than team x". Awesome, thanks guys. Now, if you just show me how to make my team do more headers or do more dribbling in a match, that would be particularly useful... How do you set your players to actually follow this advice? Can you do it as an overall setting or do you have to select individual players and then make them do more headers, or do more dribbling.

I tend to ignore most of it. The only bits I pay any attention to are when you are told that your opponents struggle against a certain formation, tempo or defensive line, although I still take this advice with a pinch of salt.

The most important thing to look at before a match is the size of the pitch you are playing on and adjust your tactic depending on the pitch size. For example, if your home pitch is very narrow then you can get away with using a narrow tactic, but if you then play away on a very large pitch, a narrow tactic will leave you too exposed down the flanks so you might want to tell your team to use a bit more of the pitch and play wider. Basically just adjust your tactic a bit according to the size of the pitch you are playing on.

3 - How do you increase the morale of players? Do they have to win a match and then feel happier? As its a bit of a catch-22 situation. They lose matches, they lose morale, they cant win matches, they lose more matches, they lose morale, continue ad-infinitum.

As others have said there are several ways of improving morale. Winning matches, interacting with players correctly (for example if somebody has had a few decent games but has low morale then you can praise their form and it will raise their morale a bit and hopefully bring even better form) and by getting your team talks right, which can provide a huge boost to your team at the start of a match.

4 - "Player x is having trouble blending into the squad" "Your players aren't working as a team"... how do you get players to blend into the squad? Is it just going to take time or is there some specific way of doing it?

There isn't really a trick here, it takes time for a team to gel and start playing as a unit rather than 11 individuals. In some cases if you have just brought in a foreign player who is struggling to blend into the squad then you can bring in a second player of their nationality and it will help them blend in quicker, but usually the only solution for this problem is to wait and over time they will start fitting together better.

5 - Training. I assume its not good enough to set everyone to "general" training. Do you have to pick and choose training schedules for each player based on their position? Are there training schedules you can download from anywhere which help noob managers like me to get a decent training schedule without having to spend an hour or so every couple of matches fine-tuning the training for all the players?

The best training schedules in my opinion are Tugs, you can grab them here. Just click the Readme link for instructions on how to get them into your game. There is a different schedule for every position and are designed so that each players training focusses on the key areas for their positioning.

6 - I see so many lower league teams getting players on loan from higher teams. I've found a way of searching for players on free transfer, is there any way of searching for "loan players available" from larger clubs (say, league one and higher for BSN/BSP teams)

Yes, on the Player Search screen you can apply a filter for their Transfer Status and select Available For Loan. The way I tend to find players is to then arrange them by value and look a bit further down the list and generally the higher a players value, the higher their reputation, and a player with a high reputation won't go on loan to a poor club, also target younger players for loans. One other thing you may be missing is that some of the clubs with good players on loan may have decent Parent clubs who have sent them players on loan. You can ask your board to search for a Parent club from the Board Room screen and once they find a club for you they will often send you some players on loan.

7 - I'm guessing that getting your assistant manager/coaches to pick your team for the next match is pretty stupid. What attributes/traits do you have to look for in each of the players you want on your team? Defenders/Midfield/Striker etc

If you go on the tactics screen and fill up all the positions in your tactic with players, then click on a position on the pitch on the right side of the screen and it will show you the attributes of the player in that position on the left side of the screen and the key attributes for that position and role will be highlighted. You can then compare all your players who can play that position and see who fits the role best.

tl;dr: do I need to be totally obsessed and know football in and out and obsess about stats to be successful at this game? Were my failings part of my own or were they "just football". I *want* to play this game and at least be semi-successful, but advice is always good. And I don't want to start with the best team in the premier league and always win, I want to have some aims/goals.

Thanks for any help you can give

Hope this helps.

On your 1st Team Screen click [Assistant Advice], then select "Find me a loan player" and pick the position you want, he'll takes a few days and then give a list of results (if any)

Gelling takes time, expect 10-16 matches worth for an 'average' player.

Training is no longer the only way to ability increases in your players, and now only gives marginal returns on the investment, playing experience (match time) gives higher CA gains to players in comparison to training.

If your building a tactic using the wizard, options like fluid and pressing require players with a bit of skill, and player positions like Box to Box Midfielder, Complete Forward, Treqwhatever also require players with skills in multiple areas.

Check out LLM for starting at bottom

Theres no help/advice in the LLM forum. Just spelling and grammar nazis, and lots of "See how amazingly crap I am" (Bragging) threads.

As others have covered all the questions you've asked, I thought I'd just throw out some general thoughts which might help a new player.

Regarding what team to play as, my personal recommendation is to find a comfortable mid-table team in whichever league you want to play as. In general, they offer the most freedom to make mistakes and learn the game. You haven't got the pressure of either needing promotion or struggling against relegation. And on a related note, don't expect to achieve mroe than that mid-table finish. While doing better is certainly possible, when you're new, it's better to keep you expectaions low as, as you've seen, things can go bad quickly.

Success in general comes down to three things. Players, Tactics and Motivation (well, there's a 4th, luck, but you can't control that, so I'll ignore it for now). In general, I feel that to do well, you need to achieve the required level in at least two of these areas. For example, if you're looking for that mid-tabel finish I talked about, if you've got good players and you've kept them motivated, you should be OK unless your tactics are truly horrendous.

Getting good players is probably the most strightforward. The one thing I've come to believe over the last couple of years is that mental stats are key. I'm quite happy to take a player with low techincal and/or physical stats if the've got good mental ones (IMO, the perfect example at the top level is Steven Defour. I'd say he's one of the best creative midfielders in the game, yet if you have a look at him, his technical starts aren't anything special. On the otehr hand his physicals are good, and his mentals phenomonal)

Motivation and morale can be a tough one. In general, you want to praise your players when they're performing well (both in team talks, and using the "interact with player" option) and sympathise when you're not doing well. Save harsh criticism for really really bad times. A little trick to boost morale if it's falling is to arrange a friendly with a weak team (eg your U-18s), as beating them well help cheer your players up. On the subject of friendlies, when I'm playing as a low level club, I tend to start each pre-season with a couple of money-spinners against top clubs, then follow up with 4-5 games against realy bad opposition to get my players morale up. For more details on motivation, look at guide's such as wolfsong's

Tactics are the area with most depth and complexity, but there are some things you can do to get you into this side of the game. Assuming you don't want to download tactics (which can definitely be something worth considering - getting a good tactic will allow you to focus on learning other areas of the game, then in the future you can come back and try to make your own), the best thing to do at first is to keep it simple. Stick to the tactics wizard, and on top of that, stick to the more basic roles. If it's got a more complicated name, it generally is more complicated and so needs a more specialised player. As you get a feel for how everything ties together, then start trying out other roles, or tweaking the settings using the advaced control.

In terms of how to set up the players, try to think about how they play. One of the big mistakes many people make regarding the way the tactics creator works is to assume that, say, "my strikers are there to score, so I'll give them both attacking settings". In reality, this is very rarely the case. One striker is more of a goalscorer while one is more focused on creating the chances for his partner. In FM terms, this means having one on "attack" and one on "support". Role wise, a simple setup would be to have them as "poacher" and "target man" respectively. The ball is played up to the big guy, who flicks it on to his partner to score. The same tends to apply to midfielders. Even if you're not using a dedicated DM, you still probably want one of your midfield to take up a defensive role to cover while his partner moves forward.

Finally, I will actually come back to that thing I said I'd ignore: Luck. Somethimes s*** happenes. You play well, have 20 chances to you opponents' two, and they win 1-0. It doesn't neccesarily mean anything's wrong, just that you got unlucky (if you're consitently getting results like this then there probably is something wrong). 'course, sometimes you get the luck yourself.

I started as Charlton Athletic (recently relegated from Championship) and last night I hit the heady heights of 19th in League One. Everyone hates me but I'm not going to start a new game. I'm probably going to get sacked (or resign, if I can find the option for it) I'll try to find a decent tactic on the forum and download that to see if i have more success tonight. Thanks again

Must remember its a marathon, not a sprint. A terrible first season may transform into a storming second season. I've downloaded some tactics so I'll report in if I have any success!!

Must remember its a marathon, not a sprint. A terrible first season may transform into a storming second season. I've downloaded some tactics so I'll report in if I have any success!!

Argh! No! Don't give in to the Dark Side!

It can take a lot of time. I've been playing since 2005 and only this version have I finally won the Champions league. I almost cried. Almost.

Argh! No! Don't give in to the Dark Side!

Just to give myself a helping hand! I played half of a season with the downloaded tactics and I had a late surge from 18th to about 12th in the league! Still in all sorts of financial trouble though (after selling a few players) and needing to promote reserves/youth team players to the senior squad. Also, three games played in the new season, 2 draws and a loss (and out of the league cup too ) but i'm not panicking yet!

Just to give myself a helping hand! I played half of a season with the downloaded tactics and I had a late surge from 18th to about 12th in the league! Still in all sorts of financial trouble though (after selling a few players) and needing to promote reserves/youth team players to the senior squad. Also, three games played in the new season, 2 draws and a loss (and out of the league cup too ) but i'm not panicking yet!

Its definitely more fun when you play your own tactics really. If you don't even create your own tactics then it is just a game about trading footballers. Just experiment with what works and slowly you will start to modify your tactics until they work decently well.

Playing the LLM can get you to learn alot but the LLM ethos involve no tipping no naming and no bragging so I am no sure what help you can get in those forums. The only thing I can say is that with those crappy players you have to adapt your tactics to fit the players and not the other way around.