Huge Loss Of Form?

Right very strange issue, on a network game as Valencia, won league two season in row, up untill march looked set for 3rd in row, we had something like 70 goals for and a 10 pt lead over 2nd, my star ST had 35. We had been winning matches quite comfortably 3-0, 4-0, 5-0 etc.

Then all of a sudden we stopped scoring, we had a run of 4 games without scoring. But it wasn't like a normal period where the team plays well just doesnt score. The whole team sudenly acted like they didn't know how to play football, didn't gel at all. Before this we were playing really good football, moves were good players passing. After though the team were shooting for themselves from afar out. Its wierd and to me its not a normal form slip. Is this a bug or is there something thats gone wrong? I should add we've had a takeover going on since December and were a game from the end of the season and about 7 pts down on the leader in 3rd place.

Thanks

Players getting complacent probably. Could be that teams are used to your tactics now or a combination of things like team talks.

I've had this happen before and i had a takeover that was on and off for about 1 and a half years. i was unable to improve my team and sell a player that wanted 'a new challenge' and that eventually destroyed the team's morale. The next season, we finally got taken over and we were very rich, i then regained the title . So really you just have to keep playing and you will eventually get through it. I would suggust trying to sign a player off your sriker's favoured personal list, as this has helped for me in the past.

This happens to me virtually every season, sometimes in november, but always horrendously in february. now when I see the performances start to slip then I change up the formation a bit and rest players who might be getting complacent.

Its not just like a month slip. It has been 2 and a half months. I'll see if I can grab a screenshot of my results later as to me this isn't a normal slip up.

Ask your captain to call a team meeting. Its in Players Interaction. Having high Influence captain helps a lot. Hope this helps.

Rooney had a real bad season on mine out of nowhere and then got good again. Kinda real life tho seeing as rooney has been poor since the end of last season.

Have you tried checking player motivation as you are playing games. Are they complacent or are they nervous. Also check your assistant manger feedback pre-match as they can give you some clues as to who is feeling over-confident.

Also, are you now heavy favourites for your matches now? I imagina you would be after 2 league titles. If so teams are going to play more negatively against you , packing the middle of their defence so you may need to drop back a little in your own teams mentality to draw them out a bit and give your creative players more space to work in.

Erm Fairly heavy favourites most games played a wide range of opponents from Real and Barca to Rayo and Almeria to Man Utd and it was the same problem in all of the games players just weren't connecting passes and moves kept being broken down either by the player running into the opponent or shooting himself from 30 yards. I haven't checked Ass-man's feedback though will do. Season's over now so gonna get them some good friendlies in the summer see if I can get some confidence back.

Whats bugging me is I really want to know the reason we went downhill so I can learn from it and try prevent it in future but I really have no clue as to why with this one. I know it could be a combination of other teams tactics and stuff but I have a feeling its something wrong with our side more so as the football I was seeing wasn't what we used to play. Would a takeover effect players that much? I have got a player who wants out but wouldn't accept a contract from Juventus to move in January and hes UNH but had been since August?

Thanks for the help though guys.

Well in my game Im Derby in Coca-Cola league 1 and am hot favourites for promotion and I found that when i played easy opponents at home I was usually getting beat. I tinkered with the tactics a little and found I was able to get few low scoring draws when I decreased my mentality and played a little deeper. This caused my most creative midfield player to have more influence on the game to play great through balls through to my strikers as he had the time and space to use his creativity to good effect.

I still wasnt winning though so I checked my teams motivation during the game and got feedback from my assistant before the game to see if he saw any players who were looking complacent before these matches. The complacent players I basically asked more from than the rest of the team which seemed to improve their motivation.

I have a young squad and during these games against weaker teams I found alot of the players were actaully nervous, perhap due to the expectation to win. Normally if the match odds are stacked in my favour I try and increase the pressure on the players to avoid complacency using something like "we should win this match" or "do this ofr the fans" as my pre-match team talk. To fix this I used the "we can win this" team talk much more and found the players more relaxed going into these "easier games" and we started to pick up results and im finally top of the league with 8 games to go although only by a point.

So yeah, try that out and see how it goes. Im no great manager but it helped me out thtas for sure. Also try the Tactics and Training Tips forum as they will most likely be able to help you out better.