Do you arrange friendly during the season ?

In order to get your players in shape, do you arrange friendly matches to get rid of the "several lacking in match fitness" or you do it by just playing the league matches?

I arrange friendlies for my reserves in which my first team and youth players that arent playing. Play, thats why I dont enter a youth team or a reserve team in the leagues.

Pre-season of course, I do like 4-5 friendlies to get the team into shape.

If there is a 2-3 week stretch without matches I might set one up if there are a lot of new players and the team is still trying to gel or to keep there fitness from dropping.

I was once playing with Watford in the Championship, on a push for promotion but suffering from a bad run of results and low morale. In a controvertial and experimental move, I decided I would arrange a mid-week friendly for my first team against Swindon Supermarine to raise morale. I thought to myself a nice 12-0 thrashing against non-league opposition would build everyone's spirits before an important league game.

Unfortunately I forgot that I had ticked the "assistant manager takes control of friendly matches" option... who still fields a full strength team but somehow gets beaten 3-2.

Cue a team full of downwards red morale arrows, and an unemployed assistant manager...

Set up friendlies for reserves if they aren't in a league, then 'move to reserves until match fit'.

I just make them available for reserves until fit.

I'm on a very tight schedule most of the time, and my part-timers seem to easily drop below 80%, so no way I can do friendlies in the middle of the season.

I was once playing with Watford in the Championship, on a push for promotion but suffering from a bad run of results and low morale. In a controvertial and experimental move, I decided I would arrange a mid-week friendly for my first team against Swindon Supermarine to raise morale. I thought to myself a nice 12-0 thrashing against non-league opposition would build everyone's spirits before an important league game.

Unfortunately I forgot that I had ticked the "assistant manager takes control of friendly matches" option... who still fields a full strength team but somehow gets beaten 3-2.

Cue a team full of downwards red morale arrows, and an unemployed assistant manager...

That isnt his fault, thats yours but he takes the blame.

never in season. if you want your out of fit players to play, send them to reserves for a couple of weeks

That isnt his fault, thats yours but he takes the blame.

I know, it was a moment of madness. However it did give me a chance to bring the mighty Nigel Gibbs back to Watford as my new assistant.

I havent tried this since but do you think this type of mid season friendly would work as a tactic for raising morale if it all went to plan?

And what's the best way of copping with a 4 months mid-season break ???

I'm currently playing my 5th season in Denmark and it still gets me mad.

And what's the best way of copping with a 4 months mid-season break ???

I'm currently playing my 5th season in Denmark and it still gets me mad.

I'd play a few friendlies towards the end of it as I'm pretty sure that's what clubs actually do.

As for friendlies in the normal season, I never do it since I enter a reserves team and use it when I need it.

Only when managing in Germany during the winter break. Otherwise I won't jeopardise my lads' fitness.

I do it if my team are playing poorly and have poor morale, i like to play a poorer team so that my boys can kick the sh*t out of them. Tends to do their morale well

i did it when i was playing in the Ukrainian First League because there's about a 3 month gap in the middle of the season with no matches.

Depends really, if I have a 2 week gap with no fixtures, and with no players away, I may put my team up against a real minnow, give some less experienced players a run out, get some match fitness behind those lacking etc.... Usually a morale boosting thumping too.

As Celtic. for my first team I usually only have friendlies in the pre-season. I arrange about 6 or 7 of them before the season kicks off. If there is a two week gap between fixtures for the first team (once the season as started) I don't arrange friendlies as usually a lot of the players are away on international duty so come the time for the friendly I'd hardly have any players available for the match. For my reserves team I look ahead a couple of weeks or so in the fixtures and if there is a bit of a gap like two weeks I'll arrange a friendly usually to keep the fitness levels up and get guys that maybe haven't played for a while into match fitness as well. Also to hopefully attract anyone wanting to buy any of my players that I don't want anymore. I noticed that if I'm wanting to get rid of players if they don't play then they don't attract interest I do the same for my youth team also as there can be quite a gap between league and cup fixtures sometimes. Again, I do this to keep the players playing and match fitness up but with youths as their fitness and stamina levels are still developing I need to be wary that it's not overdone so players don't end up picking up injuries.

I Havent done it with fm10 yet but with fm09 I did this with Dundee. When they were knocked out of all cup competitions I had plenty of free space so arrange some friendlies during the season for my first team against some pretty large european sides and actually made £3m which for club like Dundee is a fortune that they would quite hapily accept irl.

I sometimes do during international fixtures

I arranged a friendly during the season because i was losing so many games so i thought playing a really poor team would help. But it didn't carried on losing until i could buy players in January

never do this tbh