Top Tips

Leave your top tips here (mainly for a new game)

Mine would be... keep the starting squad and add loanee's to it (just two or three mind) in order not to unsettle players. Transfer listed players can be grabbed cheaply and looking through squads such as united's for players such as macheda (if you're a championship team) is a cracking business! If you find someone with huge potential try negociateing a fee to grab him during the loan period if he impresses.

Over and out... get tipping

What I usually do at the beginning

*Hire new scouts, send them to various regions + youth competitions of top leagues.

*Put starting11+subs in tactics screen. Note down weakest positions that should be strenghtened through transfers, for example, write ''MC FS DRsub'' on a piece of paper.

*Find the players in my team which have good potential but aren't in 1st team yet. Loan them out.

*Set the training schedules.

*Look for the first transfer targets.

*Set the set-piece takers.

Press -Space-

What I usually do at the beginning

*Hire new scouts, send them to various regions + youth competitions of top leagues.

*Put starting11+subs in tactics screen. Note down weakest positions that should be strenghtened through transfers, for example, write ''MC FS DRsub'' on a piece of paper.

*Find the players in my team which have good potential but aren't in 1st team yet. Loan them out.

*Set the training schedules.

*Look for the first transfer targets.

*Set the set-piece takers.

Press -Space-

exactly what I do

I have a look through my first team, then pick the first 11, and select the subs, i then move onto picking who will take the FKS, corners and so on.

I then look through my reserve team and see who sould be sold/loaned out or promoted to the first team.

Had this thread started on this same subject earlier today.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/219875-A-Hundred-Little-Things

There's also another thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/125560-If-you-could-give-one-small-tip-that-changed-you-managing-for-the-better...

There is this other major thread with future ideas by the way

I think Talent Scout is looking for tips for a new save, not suggestions for future FM versions.

Something I have recently learned: If you design a tactic with the designer, try it out before making your own alterations to it. These tactics are okay most of the time and if you're not a tactical genius, you might downgrade the tactic.

And another thing: If you wonder why you're player's passing is so poor: I kept searching for the one thing that corrupted my tactic and wondered why my players didn't play the short passes I told them to. I found it in the starting strategy - it was on overload.

I think Talent Scout is looking for tips for a new save, not suggestions for future FM versions.

And the two threads linked will cover that. No need to start a new thread when there are 2+ ones already there on the same subject.

Leave your top tips here (mainly for a new game)

Mine would be... keep the starting squad and add loanee's to it (just two or three mind) in order not to unsettle players. Transfer listed players can be grabbed cheaply and looking through squads such as united's for players such as macheda (if you're a championship team) is a cracking business! If you find someone with huge potential try negociateing a fee to grab him during the loan period if he impresses.

this is the best thing to do but i can never do it. i have to sell players if i see teams interested in them no matter how important they may be. the reason why i do it is because i know i could probably find someone who is equally as good or better for free or a small fee.

I would say stay mentally positive, even when things aren't going quite your way. Too many times, people start going ballistic and dwell into some bizarre conspiracy theories of a cheating AI and such, whenever they loose a game or concede a goal from a bad mistake.

Mine are all based on youth as this is how I play the game:

- When the new intake of youths come in (about 23rd June) each year, take your time (I usually do it for a good hour) to hunt for good prospects. If you are big club go a bit mad and buy quite a few.

- When selling on players that don't quite make the cut try and put a 'Recieve 50% of next transfer fee' clause, you will often get some suprise income when they are moved on at alater date.

- Use your scouting network, don't underestimate how useful they are (combined with user know how), set them to look for under18s or under 21s so you can snap the good/great young players up early.

- Make sure you keep all your coaches up to date, by signing the best possible and maxing out how many tou are allowed if you can afford it.

- Get decent affilate clubs (eg, Championship Teams if you are in the Premiership) so you can send your players out on loan to a decent standard of football.

- Unless they are really relly amazing try to sell players when they are 28-30 so you still get massive value for them. This is assuming you have good stram of youth to come in.

- Try and have 3 generations of players, your youth team, 18-24 y/o as your backups and rotation players, with 25-30 being you first teamers. Assuming you have good enough replacements you can sell one of your top player and bring in a one of your 2nd tier player to then be replaced by a youth player. This isn't a strict rule as obviously you sometimes have 17 y/os who are good enough for first team football. Just adapt it based on each individual.

- When offering contracts, NEVER offer what they want, go quite a way under. You can often get 30-15% off thier demands (sometimes more), young players are often even more suceptible to these lower offers.

keep the starting squad and add loanee's to it

i can't say i agree. this should happen only in very small clubs with low budget. what would real madrid get out of this for example?

What I focus on is picking a formation right from the start and sticking to it regardless of what happens. Then sell any players who don't fit into that formation, regardless of how good they are. For example recently I have been sticking to 4-3-3 and as such have no need for wide midfield players, it can be a great way to make money and prevents making signings only to want to change systems which means the new guys don't fit in.

i can't say i agree. this should happen only in very small clubs with low budget. what would real madrid get out of this for example?

A stable squad maybe. We're talking FM here though and it helps to get to know who you need and don't need over a season. You can't just go in to a club and sell players based on real life knowledge! With my Everton game, players like jose baxter and seamus coleman were valuable squad players for a few seasons

A stable squad maybe. We're talking FM here though and it helps to get to know who you need and don't need over a season. You can't just go in to a club and sell players based on real life knowledge! With my Everton game, players like jose baxter and seamus coleman were valuable squad players for a few seasons

Yes you can. Its my opinion that Blackpool's squad is nowhere near good enough for the Premier League. Now if I started with Blackpool and I had the chance to sell half the squad and get better players in, I would do.

Your advice is only applicable to certain teams. That is why I would say that bit is not a Top Tip. A Top Tip to me is something you can use regardless of what team you are.

Yes you can. Its my opinion that Blackpool's squad is nowhere near good enough for the Premier League. Now if I started with Blackpool and I had the chance to sell half the squad and get better players in, I would do.

Your advice is only applicable to certain teams. That is why I would say that bit is not a Top Tip. A Top Tip to me is something you can use regardless of what team you are.

In real life Berbatov isn't a prolific goalscorer, on the game he is. Players have very difrent values to teams on the game as opposed to in real life

One thing I always do is as follows:

Open up notepad (or simply get a piece of paper), and for each position decide which attributes you want the player in that position to have and then note down those attributes for each player in that position.

This makes it very simple to compare all of the players who can play in that position, and you can easily weigh up their various attributes against one another. Then give each player in your squad a nickname based on their position and their "rank" for that position.

For example, in my current Stoke City game my 2 left backs currently have the nicknames "Fabio (DL1)" and "Danny Collins (DL2)". I also add a / after their position if I think they are not good enough and I need to sign a player in that position, so for example if I decided that Collins wasn't good enough then I would change his nickname to "Danny Collins (DL2/).

Its also a good idea to have something different for youth players who are not good enough for all games but will feature a bit, so for example I could have "John Smith (YST1)", which means that John Smith is my best youth striker.

This allows me to very quickly glance through my squad and see what positions I need new players for. It also makes it very easy to quickly make substitutions or change your starting lineup for cup games or if players are injured, as you can very quickly find your 2nd best player in that position or your best youth in that position, and very easily change your team to fit your needs.

Make sure all four defenders, your central midfielders, and at least one striker are all good in the air.

If you have doubts over signing a particular player, always walk away. No player is one of a kind.

For one moment there, I saw the thread title "Top Tips" and immediately thought of Viz.

Get rid of the assistant manager thats currently at the club (unless he's world class or your a big club) because you should be able to get much better than what you currently have. Get a couple of very good fitness coaches. This will help with preseason fitness and help make sure you dont get quite so many major injuries (i.e 5 or 6 1st team players out injured) so close together.

In real life Berbatov isn't a prolific goalscorer, on the game he is. Players have very difrent values to teams on the game as opposed to in real life

Wrong! Berbatov wasnt a prolific scorer, since joining Man Utd. Something just isnt clicking for him, that doesnt mean his ability has changed.

Praise players at the right time.

Go to squad page set all to 'form', click on players whose ratings look okay, good or great and make the appropriate praise comment (player interaction). This will boost the players morale example : ''determined to play well so the manager lavishes more praise on him'' etc...

This is best used when you got a tough match coming up.

Your player/players must of played enough recent games for you to get the options but if you make a wrong decision it could temporarily upset the player.

It's pretty straight forward, just like when you get hang of the boring basic media comments feature you know exactly what to press.

Wrong! Berbatov wasnt a prolific scorer, since joining Man Utd. Something just isnt clicking for him, that doesnt mean his ability has changed.

Please read the statement and ur reply again... ur contradicting yourself and backing up my statement without noticeing. Thanks though

My top tip would be to be very stingy with wages and force other clubs to pay a portion of the wages if they want to get rid of that player.

During a quick game with Sheff Wed, I've saved loads of money by having richer teams pay a portion of the wages of a player I want. I signed players from Spurs and Man City and both the players demanded around 25k to move to my club. I wasn't really prepared to pay more than 15k so I started with low offers (around 9/10k). I got Joe Hart from City, I'm paying him 14k p/w and City are paying him another 13k. I also got Jame O'Hara from Spurs, I'm paying 12.5k p/w and Spurs are topping his wages up with another 14k.

Of course, you can only really do this if you're the only team going for the player otherwise you're likely to miss out.

Please read the statement and ur reply again... ur contradicting yourself and backing up my statement without noticeing. Thanks though

Im not at all. Your saying he's not a prolific scorer IRL. Im saying he is and has been. He's just not at the moment for Man Utd because something isnt clicking. He still has the ability.