most frustrating fm/champ ever

i have played fm/champ manager since CM1 and i have never found it so frustrating...i cannot find any form its ridiculous so many times i have 12 shots in first half go one up then 44th min concede and either draw or lose.

I play as gillingham and media prediction is 3rd have west ham as a feeder club and got some fantastic players like frank nouble my squad is amazing but why cant i win on this one is anyone else having major problems as i have never ever struggled before...what has changed on this game that it is so hard now???

please help its hard enough supporting gillingham at least on fm i could pretend we were good!!!

Hi mate I am struggling to at the moment lol, I would say its more me tho but It's bloody hard

Well the Match Engine of course changes alot so your tactics you know worked on FM2010 dont necessarily work on FM2011.. well at least thats my problem, so I'm on a mission to create a new tactic that will work

i was having troubles. I am in the BSN but i just got promoted in the 2nd season when i was tipped to finish 22nd! What tactics are you using? Also what tempo, passing etc might help to see where you are going wrong.

agreed, my laptop is so close to goin out the window, ive been looking at my stats and im having like 5-9 clear cut oppurtunities a game just cant take em yet my strikers have got a lot of quality...need to turn them into goals

agreed the game is harder than before. I had my worst start ever on an FM/CM game I just could not get my strikers to score goals. Even when I bought what I thought were some decent ones. But with perservation and tweaking of my tactics I have manged to find some form and have gone from 11th in the league to 4th with two matches left to play. Hopefully I will meet my target of continental qualification.

agreed the game is harder than before. I had my worst start ever on an FM/CM game I just could not get my strikers to score goals. Even when I bought what I thought were some decent ones. But with perservation and tweaking of my tactics I have manged to find some form and have gone from 11th in the league to 4th with two matches left to play. Hopefully I will meet my target of continental qualification.

correct. Scoring seems to rely heavily on your tactics this year. It seems that if you dont have it right they will miss chances that they should score, maybe this is a bug? I dont know, but i went from 19th to 2nd in 1 season, granted a bought an entire new squad of free transfers in.

agreed, my laptop is so close to goin out the window, ive been looking at my stats and im having like 5-9 clear cut oppurtunities a game just cant take em yet my strikers have got a lot of quality...need to turn them into goals

have you got them training on attacking movements in match prep?

Yeah I'm really finding FM11 annoying. Way too difficult, i've never found any previous FM so frustrating. Might take it back to the shop and carry on playing FM10.

correct. Scoring seems to rely heavily on your tactics this year. It seems that if you dont have it right they will miss chances that they should score, maybe this is a bug? I dont know, but i went from 19th to 2nd in 1 season, granted a bought an entire new squad of free transfers in.

I also think the match prepation screen plays an important role. My form also got alot better the more 'fluid' my team got with my tactics. Which I suppose is true to life, when a manager arrives at a club it takes a while for the players to get to know how he wants them to play

Yeah I'm really finding FM11 annoying. Way too difficult, i've never found any previous FM so frustrating. Might take it back to the shop and carry on playing FM10.

dont give up on it, keep working on it! Its not everyone's cup of tea but maybe look in the tactics forum for some help?

I also think the match prepation screen plays an important role. My form also got alot better the more 'fluid' my team got with my tactics. Which I suppose is true to life, when a manager arrives at a club it takes a while for the players to get to know how he wants them to play

completely agree, i added that just after in my other post, since spending time on that my BSN team look like a team kind of, not like the bunch of plumbers and bricklayers that they really are

I'm finding it really frustrating as well, my team can be great one game and then struggle badly the next. I find myself sitting there just wondering why I'm struggling against a team with lesser players so badly. It seems to me as if the key is not understanding how football works or understanding tactics, but finding out out which tactics the game "likes." I know there has always been an element of this to FM but it seems that this year's game gives you no room for manoeuvre.

Ok then.. I'll retry the last match again.. Man Utd, away to Bolton..

After analysing their strengths and weaknesses, I set my Match Prep to 'defending set pieces' mainly because of the threat from Kevin Davies and Zat Knight.

Their weak point in defence is Sam Ricketts' quickness. He plays at right back, so i've put Obertan at AM L (pace 17, acc 18) and team instructions set to focus passing down the left flank.

Bolton are playing with two MC's, three AMC's and a lone striker. I'm going to play a high defensive line and MC's with defensive mentality to give their AMC's as little space as possible.

I'll report back shortly...

I'm finding it really frustrating as well, my team can be great one game and then struggle badly the next. I find myself sitting there just wondering why I'm struggling against a team with lesser players so badly. It seems to me as if the key is not understanding how football works or understanding tactics, but finding out out which tactics the game "likes." I know there has always been an element of this to FM but it seems that this year's game gives you no room for manoeuvre.

But isnt this how the game really is? Exhibit A: Liverpoo. Excellent 2 matches ago; crap yesterday.

We are playing a game though. There has to be some sort of reward for the time you put in. I'm afraid SI forget that sometimes.

agreed, my laptop is so close to goin out the window, ive been looking at my stats and im having like 5-9 clear cut oppurtunities a game just cant take em yet my strikers have got a lot of quality...need to turn them into goals

These are the things I'm not getting... I have a striker with 14 finish and only 10 composure, he gets lots of 1-on-1's thanks to 18 pace and he's got 8 goals 5 assists in 12(1) league matches plus 3 goals and 3 assist in 3 cup matches. This is a player that I couldn't get rid of fast enough in FM10 but now he's leading my team.

Do I see lots of bad misses? Yeah, but these are also strikes with the weak foot or choke shots right at the keeper as I'd expect from the low composure. But in FM10 90% of the time this same player put the ball right off the keepers chest, now he's getting it around and placing shots more. There does seem to be a LOT less shots straight at the keeper compared to FM10 from what I've seen.

But I have said in other threads that there seems to be a massive difference in long shot success between my team and opponents, mine are literally never on target (which makes sense because they aren't good at it) but seems like 50% of the goals I concede are long shots, even from players with worse long shot stats then my top long ball guy, who as i said has yet to even put one on net, let alone score one.

I had a bad start lost 5 on the trot but had signed a lot of players (freebies) then played about with my tactics and have created a great tactic and have moved to second place in the Blue Square South, currently unbeaten in 10 matches.

Bolton - Man Utd

6 MIN - Bolton score from a corner. Not directly (ie. not crossed in and a headed goal) but from a resulting goal mouth scramble when my defence failed to clear the initial corner.

16 MIN - Great solo goal from Rooney. Cuts in on his right foot and curls it into the top corner from outside the box.

58 MIN - Our second goal was a counter attack. Ricketts was marauding forward for Bolton and got tackled by Evra just outside our box. Evra passed to Obertan who played a high ball towards Rooney who had drifted out to AML. It looked like Cahill was going to head it clear but it went over him (or he missed the header), Rooney ran onto it and squared it for Berbatov to tap in.

90 MIN - Ball over to top of Ricketts and Nani runs onto it. Clear through on goal. Hits it wide. Should have been a third goal.

Hmmm. Maybe I was just so used to being successful on FM10.. And it seems there have been major changes in this version so you need to put a bit more thought into each game and your opponent.

We are playing a game though. There has to be some sort of reward for the time you put in. I'm afraid SI forget that sometimes.

Want some Cheddar with that?

Seriously: if a game isn't "easy" enough for some people these days, it's not "fun" for them. That's pretty silly. Where's the accomplishment in doing something easy?

As far as I'm concerned, the game is much too easy. It's wayyyyyyyy to easy for a new manager to come in, totally change things around (usually by bringing in quality free agents), and end up getting promotion, even if you are playing under rules like "sign only those you scout", etc. I'd much prefer that to be more difficult. If you want something easy in the game, simply take over a team like Chelsea and play with them.

Bolton - Man Utd

6 MIN - Bolton score from a corner. Not directly (ie. not crossed in and a headed goal) but from a resulting goal mouth scramble when my defence failed to clear the initial corner.

16 MIN - Great solo goal from Rooney. Cuts in on his right foot and curls it into the top corner from outside the box.

58 MIN - Our second goal was a counter attack. Ricketts was marauding forward for Bolton and got tackled by Evra just outside our box. Evra passed to Obertan who played a high ball towards Rooney who had drifted out to AML. It looked like Cahill was going to head it clear but it went over him (or he missed the header), Rooney ran onto it and squared it for Berbatov to tap in.

90 MIN - Ball over to top of Ricketts and Nani runs onto it. Clear through on goal. Hits it wide. Should have been a third goal.

Hmmm. Maybe I was just so used to being successful on FM10.. And it seems there have been major changes in this version so you need to put a bit more thought into each game and your opponent.

And think how much more satisfied you will be at this win, having properly diagnosed the relative strengths and weaknesses and designed a game plan to make it work.

Of course, if you want to know if your plan really was the turning point, run the same game over and over about 100 times and study the statistics on the results.

Also finding it really hard to find a good tactic. Tryed a few different now. Not in the same game, but starting over when I see that my tactic is crap. First I scored a few goals, but my defense was leaking goals. No good scoring as many as Chelsea, Utd, Arsenal and City, when i concede as many as west ham, stoke and Wigan.

Now I have a tactic that I have played for 5 PL games, 5 EL and 1 LC games. Concede 4 in PL. One penalty, one from Essien (unpressed at 18 meters and longshoot). one set piece from West Brom, and one cross from West Brom ( slid in front of Skrtel to score from a cross) also concede 2 in the EL qualifier against Stabæk. (Not my best starting team). But my problem now is that I don't seem to be able to score.

Stats:

In 11 games I have 17goals in 165 shots.

Torres is the worst with 3 in 32, but the worst part is that he hits 22 of 32 shots on goal. The best in my team. Either the keepers are super or he shoots straight at the keeper( looks like it in the highlights) he won't listen to me and place the balls in the corner.

I have 8 clean sheets in 11 games and have conceded 6 in those games.

But when I look at the fixture list I realized that I was perhaps looking at a more realistic result. 1-0, 2-0 more often then 3,4,5-0.

In the stats it should be a stat over the clear and half chances. Not all off the 165 shoots are real chances.

But i fear that if Torres don't start to hit some goals soon, I won't be saved by the miracle strikes from Meireles and Gerrard from 25-30 meters. Gerrard and Meireles are my top scorers with 4 each in 11 and 10 games.

Want some Cheddar with that?

Seriously: if a game isn't "easy" enough for some people these days, it's not "fun" for them. That's pretty silly. Where's the accomplishment in doing something easy?

As far as I'm concerned, the game is much too easy. It's wayyyyyyyy to easy for a new manager to come in, totally change things around (usually by bringing in quality free agents), and end up getting promotion, even if you are playing under rules like "sign only those you scout", etc. I'd much prefer that to be more difficult. If you want something easy in the game, simply take over a team like Chelsea and play with them.

Really comes down to feeling grinding, which is far from anything accomplished.

I had 2 good first seasons with ATM, the 3 has started worse than I hardly ever recall, well I do, so back to struggling for a dynamic tactic that last 10 games.... then back on the horse again. I don't find that either hard or easy, I find it pure nonsense. How many teams do you know that changes tactics every so often, they might adjust slightly but what happened to having a philosophy. The only thing that changed is that I bought a few players, who where suppose to do well, they have played like pure rubbish. so if it's the match prep that fails here, I will have to pass on the monkey to the assistant.

Okay maybe I exaggerated a bit, lost one and had a draw.... lost a CL match as well, I get pretty worked up if I don't win them, if expected.

Rewamped the intire tactic based on style, I refuse to change from 5-4-1.

I just adopted the same approach against Roma as I did earlier against Bolton.. and I won 3-1

Crisis over

I am more than happy with the difficulty of the game so far. Challenging but ultimately doable. Sheffield wednesday is my save. And looks like this.

Season 1 auto promotion league one finish 2nd

Season 2 narrowly avoided relegation. Bottom at xmas yet 3 wins and a draw out of last 5 and finished 20th

Season 3 Finished 14th.

Season 4 Finished 5 and secured promotion through playoffs (was top of the league for entire season until last 11 games but ultimately made it anyway even though had a terrible end to the league.

Season 5 Premier league to come..... but been robbed of 40mil which diddnt show up in my bank that i was told was television rights.

As Tottenham i have beaten Man Utd and Liverpool at home, 2-1 and 3-1 respectivley, and sort of yo-yo from 2nd to 5th in the league due to the tightness of it, yet i have lost 4 times in the league by X-mas, against Bolton, Stoke, Wolves(all 2-0) and hammered 3-0 by Chelsea.

I also lost 4-2 to Sunderland at home in the league cup, with a weakened yet still decent team. I beat AC Milan 1-0 at home etc etc...

It's a mixed bag. Just when you think it's too easy, you get sucker punched.

I just adopted the same approach against Roma as I did earlier against Bolton.. and I won 3-1

Crisis over

And now I'm 4-0 up against Fulham in the 27th minute..

You really do have to make slight modifications to your tactic nearly every game. Swap your DC's around so the fastest one is up against the opponents fastest one, etc etc.

Now I see the logic, it's not quite as frustrating.

It's a mixed bag. Just when you think it's too easy, you get sucker punched.

So true, in the second season I won the Spanish cup, and lost to Lyon in the CL final, not bad at all. Though the disappointment is hard to shake of at first.

Well Seems like I'm back on track after my shock start, the tactic seems to work a lot better in the defensive department... Just conceded 2 goals and draw ed a ( 2-0 FH )2-2 after Almeria was trying to find out what year they was in. Apparently they got some solid EPO in the break. Lost 1-0 to Barcelona on a standard situation, they had 10 shots, one on target. Besides that I won 5 out 7 and had one draw, and theres still room for consolidation regarding the tactic.. The moral went through the roof at a point. Facing Inter now in a drama to survive in the CL group, Galatasaray, Blackburn, Inter, and Atletico Madrid Kinda rough group.

And now I'm 4-0 up against Fulham in the 27th minute..

You really do have to make slight modifications to your tactic nearly every game. Swap your DC's around so the fastest one is up against the opponents fastest one, etc etc.

Now I see the logic, it's not quite as frustrating.

Just takes a week, for match preparation, I can't find the patients to do that.