I'm Sure I'm Not the First Person to Come Here Saying This...

I've been playing Champ/Football Manager since God knows when, and I've always been pretty good. However, since FM 2009 (or maybe 2008) I've not been able to win a thing. I'm on my third game of FM2010 and they've all been the same. For example, I'm managing Man Utd in my current game. Since I had no success elsewhere, I thought I'd go to a top club with top players and see how it went. I'm currently playing 4-4-2 with the following team:

Van Der Sar, O'Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Di Maria, Scholes, Fletcher, Valencia (or Ballotelli), Rooney, Berbatov.

The full backs have pretty much neutral settings all over, zonal marking. Centre backs have arrows dropping off, man marking. Wingers running with the ball, lots of crosses. Scholes with a bit of creative freedom, slightly more attacking, Fletcher with less creative freedom more defensive. Berbatov less attacking, holding the ball up and Rooney more attacking, running with the ball, etc.

The whole team are set to slightly attacking, more direct (but not too much), quick tempo. Should be fine and should be challenging.

I'm 5th in the league, miles from the top. 40 points from 24 games. I just lost 2-0 at home to West Ham, and quite often outplay the opposition without managing to score (though I have been outplayed, for example, by Blackburn recently, who were 19th in the league at the time). Scholes and Fletcher (and anyone else I choose to play in midfield) are consistently average or poor, and Rooney's form is all over the place. The wingers are similarly inconsistent.

I honestly just don't get it and have tweaked everything you could possibly tweak. It's always the same. Honestly, is this how it's designed to be? I just get the feeling that there is a magic combination of slide tactic thingies that will unlock the game and suddenly your players play to their potential.

I haven't posted this in tactics because, unless the game is startlingly ridiculously mental, I can't see how tactics would affect Rooney's ability to finish, or Scholes' ability to play football when placed in centre midfield and allowed to play his normal game. Most of the chances are one on ones that are saved or blazed over.

Help. Please. I like FM and actually want to be able to enjoy this game.

Do you change your team a lot?

Every now and then to see if I can change anything. On the whole it makes no difference. Owen and Macheda play the odd game. Carrick in for Fletcher, Gigges for Di Maria, Fabio for Evra, etc. I've tried a midfield diamond (I've just bought that Dutch bloke who moved to Spurs from Real - name escapes me) but that was awful.

Well firstly teams are gonna play defensive against you as you are Man Utd, meaning you will be playing deep narrow defences aiming to put bodies between you and the goal. That means lots of space in the wide areas to exploit.

Playing at a high tempo will mean your players have a little less control on the ball so slow it down a bit. The opposition will not be pressing you all over the park so give your creative ball players time to work and fashion openings. To create those openings though you will need to draw the opposition out so maybe playing a bit deeper or with a more defensive mentality (normal, for example) would help with that.

try posting in the good team and player thread, heres a link to the man utd thread for you to get some help there.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/154049-FM10-Official-Manchester-United-Thread-Rooney-s-the-main-man

good luck in getting some silverware soon xD

I tried slowing it down, and got drubbed 5-1 by Sunderland.

Just to note - I've also tried using the templates in the game for player instructions, but this didn't seem to help.

I would imagine you need to be quite adventurous/intense, especially when playing at home as teams will try to sit back and soak up the pressure. You need to keep the ball and keep asking questions of more inferior teams. Maybe play quickly but give you creative players high creativity.

As man utd I would have my 2 central midfields in a 442 with medium to high creativity,no runnign with ball, running from deep and through balls often. get your quick and talemted wingers to run with the ball and whip balls into rooney as a target man.

Defensivley I would play man for man, with all the back 4 playing strictly. Maybe fullbacks playing more direct?

Could be worth a try

I think I've found this to be one of the easier versions of FM.

Once you get a tactic that works and know how to manage the players fitness it's pretty plain sailing.

I find that if you start off with a big team and you are a new manager it is safer to play a rigid counter-attacking game for at least the first season until the team gets used to you and each other. Then you can tear it up in the second and third season. I find that after a couple of successful seasons with more pragmatic styles I can start using a fluid 4-2-4 without much trouble.

When you say 'you have tried the presets', does that mean the Tactics Creator or the drop down presets in the classic tactics/sliders? Sounds like you are using the sliders but aren't really sure what you are doing, leading to disjointed performances. A badly constructed tactic can still do OK if you have good players, as they can win you matches on their own. However, it won't produce any consistency as it will fall apart against good sides or when your players aren't having a good day (which can be often if you aren't very good at man/media management).

My first question would always relate to mentality setup: are you using the same mentality for every player or do you have big gaps?

Secondly, do you have an idea of what type of football you want the team to play? From your OP and your slider talk, it seems you don't and are hoping to fluke on a magic combination of sliders rather than design and follow a coherent playing strategy.

dude send or load your save and i will virtually gurantee i or someone else will vastly improve your team performances.

I don't have big gaps - the team are set up to play slightly attacking and only scholes and rooney are pushed on as being more attacking. fletcher and the centre backs are more defensive.

I'd like to play a patient passing game (slow play, short passing) which I would have thought I have the players to do. The game disagrees, hence the 5 - 1 drubbing. The more direct football is not ideal and doesn't suit my players, but appears to be the only way for me to get the odd result.

I accept that, perhaps, I am missunderstanding some parts of the game, but don't simply want somebody to take my save and make it work. I want to understand how the hell you could go about this in the first place and work from scratch myself. Honestly, I think that those players in a 442 would perform irrespective of minute instructions given to them, but would like to understand the thinking behind the tactics on the game so that I can actually get somewhere with it.

If you're desperate then cheat if you must. Use FMRTE and give yourself 150 million pounds to spend and use it each matchday to give your 1st team 100% fitness and to inspire them. Always works

If you're desperate then cheat if you must. Use FMRTE and give yourself 150 million pounds to spend and use it each matchday to give your 1st team 100% fitness and to inspire them. Always works

dude send or load your save and i will virtually gurantee i or someone else will vastly improve your team performances.

c'mon lads you can do so much better than that (not to mention giving you that much transfer kitty will likely screw you finances no end). Give the guy a hand, and as mentioned above you should check out the Man U thread in the GTPG forum as linked above by Carmi, should give you a good starting block, and some responses from those familiar with United in the game

The thing is, I've had the same experience with lower league teams. It's not just a problem in this game with Man Utd.

The thing is, I've had the same experience with lower league teams. It's not just a problem in this game with Man Utd.

well for me you have just answered your own question,you have mentioned you have lost the league already so why not try other formations(tactics) of your own making or download one

The thing is, I've had the same experience with lower league teams. It's not just a problem in this game with Man Utd.

Then at the risk of sounding like a forum favouritequote, it could be your tactics....although to be honest on the sound of it it doesnt sound like you are doing anything majorly wrong.

I would advise setting up your setpiece takers etc as these can bring additional goals that would other wise be overlooked.Other than that just persevere. the more you get used to your team hopefully the better you will become

Always create a tactic from the back. When you are in an attacking position, have a look at your defensive players and see what are they dooing, if they are in the position you want them to be. Once you get the defence to work like you want, you can move to your attacking players.

Here, take a look at each player what he does when he has the ball, does he do what you want him to do? You always need to have the right amount of defensive, support and attacking players. It is very important that the team has the right balance of duties depending on the match strategy.

I'd say watch a few games. Really watch them. Identify what you feel your players are doing that isn't part of your game plan and consider how you could adjust your instructions/formation to rectify them. I really think people underestimate simple observation, perhaps because it takes some time to watch a few games on full detail. wwfan's last two sentences are spot on IMHO; it's really hard to "fix" a tactic without a clear idea of what you want the players to do.

I don't have big gaps - the team are set up to play slightly attacking and only scholes and rooney are pushed on as being more attacking. fletcher and the centre backs are more defensive.

I'd like to play a patient passing game (slow play, short passing) which I would have thought I have the players to do. The game disagrees, hence the 5 - 1 drubbing. The more direct football is not ideal and doesn't suit my players, but appears to be the only way for me to get the odd result.

I accept that, perhaps, I am missunderstanding some parts of the game, but don't simply want somebody to take my save and make it work. I want to understand how the hell you could go about this in the first place and work from scratch myself. Honestly, I think that those players in a 442 would perform irrespective of minute instructions given to them, but would like to understand the thinking behind the tactics on the game so that I can actually get somewhere with it.

What the development of the TC has done is to make slow or short relative terms. Although teams can still play at a slower tempo, it moves up and down with their stategic shifts. Hence, an attacking strategy will always be played at a higher tempo than a more defensive one, even though the overall flavour is still a slower tempo. What you seem to be doing is playing a short-passing, slow but aggressive strategy, which opposing teams will be able to disrupt pretty easily. You might also have a number of other structural weaknesses, but with so little detail, I can't make any useful analysis.

If you are only building a single tactic and then tweaking it through the sliders, you are also putting yourself at a massive disadvanatge. All the AI sides have access to the seven basic TC strategies, plus the extreme variants in the shouts. You are trying to develop a single tactic that can cope with all these strategic shifts, formation changes and player quality differences. Unless you go down the ME exploitation route, this is an exercise in futility.

My advice to you is to embrace the Tactics Creator and see how it sets teams up. To start with, avoid making any slider changes and only use the role/team adjustments and shouts to see out matches. Keep it simple at the beginning and use the strategy shifts to chase a goal / protect a lead. As you get more comfortable, begin to experiment with different shouts to exploit opposition weaknesses or adjust to the conditions. Think about how you want the team to play. Early on, you might have to be flexible and either adapt the team strategy around the players at your disposal or shoehorn players into roles that don't really suit them. Over time, however, you can develop a squad that fits your tactical vision.

For a more detailed breakdown of how the various tactical options work, I suggest you read TT&F10.

If you're desperate then cheat if you must. Use FMRTE and give yourself 150 million pounds to spend and use it each matchday to give your 1st team 100% fitness and to inspire them. Always works

People actually do that? sad.

WWFan's advice is excellent and should really help you OP.