Oh my god

Am just in absolute shock after blowing a nine point lead with 5 games left to play to miss out on an automatic promotion spot. Playing as Sheff Weds in league one I reached the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final, and after falling behind to a first half goal produced a stirring fightback to win 3-1. Pleased with this turn around, naturally I told my players I was pleased. From then on, disaster.

At that stage I still had designs on the title, having scored more goals and conceeded fewer than the team in first. In the end I picked up 2 points from 5 matches, drawing with a side that got relegated the following game and my final two matches being against the teams in third and fourth. In the penultimate game, after going a goal down early on we fought back in the second half and equalised, and were pummelling the away side with ten minutes to go. Southampton in third were drawing 0-0 away, but I decided not to rest on my laurels and pushed forward for the winner. Nothing happened in my game but Soton found a winner in the third minute of injury time, meaning I needed a point away to Soton to go up in the final game.

We were getting battered during the first half but rode our luck and were ahead at half time thanks to a long range screamer from Marcus Tudgay. My game plan was working perfectly when Soton get the equaliser with 25 mins to go then get a second within 10 mins, and predictably we lose. Now I'm in the play offs with my team morale completely shot. I don't know if I can bring myself to play the play off games, let alone my team. And all because I didn't tell my players not to get complacent after the JPT final...

;(

chin up, it will all be fine

chin up, it will all be fine

No, it definitely isn't fine, that save is ruined for me now. On the plus side I only wanted a short game before starting a proper career game on 11.3, looks like I got my wish. Only a month or so to wait then...

No, it definitely isn't fine, that save is ruined for me now. On the plus side I only wanted a short game before starting a proper career game on 11.3, looks like I got my wish. Only a month or so to wait then...

why is the save ruined?

why is the save ruined?

I can't cope with the immense disappointment of being in the top two all season, then pi55ing away a huge lead with only a few games left to play all because I made a slight error on one lousy team talk. How harsh is that? I've had some bad beats on CM/FM before but this is another level. All my plans for next season were based on being in the championship and I just have no motivation to get out of league one again having done it once already only to have it cruelly snatched away at the last minute.

Play the play-offs and stop being a drama queen. The players probably lost confidence when they saw you strutting around in your high-heels.

Man-up and be inspirational to your team. I usually find talking to the press definitely has a positive effect on the players.

I took over Lazio when they were near relegation and I had no assistant manager so I went to the press conference and I said they had to work hard but we had the quality - yada yada yada - not putting them on a pedestal and not belittling them.

Went on to beat Inter, Roma, Ac Milan in a row by 2 or 3 goals each, in my first 3 games in charge.

Try not playing players that have low-moral either. Play the players that are good and have good moral.

I can't cope with the immense disappointment of being in the top two all season, then pi55ing away a huge lead with only a few games left to play all because I made a slight error on one lousy team talk. How harsh is that? I've had some bad beats on CM/FM before but this is another level. All my plans for next season were based on being in the championship and I just have no motivation to get out of league one again having done it once already only to have it cruelly snatched away at the last minute.

i would highly doubt you lost the league because of that particular team talk, your team might simply have lost the bottle come the crunch time in the season, analyse your team and see which players let you down the most and get rid of them, it does mirror real life, come crunch time there are few teams who will pay well at that point in the season with that much at stake, i have struggled a few times at the crunch pointl. That is part and partial with football im afraid, not everyone who looks like they are going to get promoted actually does it, i would suggest your next season could be better, you now have the challenge of picking the team up from a massive disappointment, you will have to make changes and man mange a few disappointed players much more interesting than just walking the league on a canter.

Its your tactics(since no one else said it). :-)

Seriously though, thats harsh but at least you still made the playoffs. I've noticed that these occurrances don't happen often, which is good as I can only remember two instances in reality. The Toon in the 90's & Arsenal both threw away 12+ point leads at the top. Needless to say Man Utd were crowned champions at the end of the season both times.

On my current save i completly dominated and won my Division then lost on the promotion playoff(on the portuguese 3rd tier winning the division doesn't guarantee promotion) i was completly gutted specially because i demolished my division and though i wanted to give up i gave another go on the next season.

I won the division again(it was a lot closer) and won the promotion play-off.. i'm now on my first season on the second tier battling to avoid relegation(mid-table at the moment) but i have a very young team with some promising regens.. losing some games due to my squad inexperience but things will only get better as time goes on.

It's the save i'm enjoying the most so far though i didn't have success right away.. so i'd say try to stick with it, it will only make it sweeter on the end.

Ohhh we have another Keegan in our midsts.

Blew the lead, then blew his top.

Play the play-offs and stop being a drama queen. The players probably lost confidence when they saw you strutting around in your high-heels.

Man-up and be inspirational to your team. I usually find talking to the press definitely has a positive effect on the players.

I took over Lazio when they were near relegation and I had no assistant manager so I went to the press conference and I said they had to work hard but we had the quality - yada yada yada - not putting them on a pedestal and not belittling them.

Went on to beat Inter, Roma, Ac Milan in a row by 2 or 3 goals each, in my first 3 games in charge.

Try not playing players that have low-moral either. Play the players that are good and have good moral.

I saw this coming after a couple of strangely disjointed performances where we had several clear cut chances but didn't even hit the target with any of them. I had 90 points with five games left to play, to put that in context IRL Norwich, who were runaway leaders for most of last season, won the league with 95 points. Leeds got promoted in second with 83. My goal difference is +50, I had lost 4 league games up to that point but lost 3 of 5 in the run in. As an aside, Peterborough who won the league, finished with a ridiculous 108 points. I used the press and private chats to improve my players' morale (which was largely good throughout), I changed several players during this run including playing ones who didn't play the JPT final and should be immune from any negative team talk affects. Nothing worked.

I've had some bad beats on FM before after fantastic semi final performances in cup competitions and perhaps gone slight OTT with praise, so I thought moderate praise for a good second half fightback was reasonable, apparently not.

it does sound like your team just bottle it, they couldnt handle the pressure of what was expected of them, it happens, you really have to get over it and rebuild.

Teams over the years have lost good leads in the league to end up getting pipped for titles/automatic promotion.....although it is extremely frustrating it is football.

Try to look at it from a different perspective, it adds to the challenge when you don't win everything and the disappointments should inspire you to do better in the future.

I've had some bad beats on FM before after fantastic semi final performances in cup competitions and perhaps gone slight OTT with praise, so I thought moderate praise for a good second half fightback was reasonable, apparently not.

In fairness you were 1-0 down and came back to 3-1. If I did that in Sunday league football and the manager said something non-praise worthy about the team performance I'd be a bit down beaten too. Like saying "it was alright not your best performance" would really **** me off.

It's a bit drastic how the team talks can affect the team performance. Even comments in the media upset players too much.

Best to just try win the play-offs and move on.

And I also notice that the teams around you mimic your points. You could be setting a league record for points and you'd have 2 or 3 teams waiting to snatch 1st place away. Fair enough 1 team beating the previous record - but 3 teams on the verge of it is a bit naff.

In fairness you were 1-0 down and came back to 3-1. If I did that in Sunday league football and the manager said something non-praise worthy about the team performance I'd be a bit down beaten too. Like saying "it was alright not your best performance" would really **** me off.

It's a bit drastic how the team talks can affect the team performance. Even comments in the media upset players too much.

Best to just try win the play-offs and move on.

And I also notice that the teams around you mimic your points. You could be setting a league record for points and you'd have 2 or 3 teams waiting to snatch 1st place away. Fair enough 1 team beating the previous record - but 3 teams on the verge of it is a bit naff.

My team morale is understandably completely destroyed, we have absolutely zero momentum so I think it would be just going through the motions. Play offs are all about momentum, the form side usually wins whereas sides who are unhappy about being in the play offs generally fail. As for it being my team being mentally short rather than the team talk, while I acknowledge based on RL there are question marks against the squad's mentality there's a clear suicidal plunge in my form curve immediately after the JPT Final, and based on previous FM experience it can't be a coincidence. I might play the play offs in a few days when I'm less annoyed, but I'm absolutely gutted as this is the end of my first season which I've been playing since close to release day, so that's nearly three months of play wasted all because of one massive over reaction to a post match team talk.

3 months for one season?

My team morale is understandably completely destroyed, we have absolutely zero momentum so I think it would be just going through the motions. Play offs are all about momentum, the form side usually wins whereas sides who are unhappy about being in the play offs generally fail. As for it being my team being mentally short rather than the team talk, while I acknowledge based on RL there are question marks against the squad's mentality there's a clear suicidal plunge in my form curve immediately after the JPT Final, and based on previous FM experience it can't be a coincidence. I might play the play offs in a few days when I'm less annoyed, but I'm absolutely gutted as this is the end of my first season which I've been playing since close to release day, so that's nearly three months of play wasted all because of one massive over reaction to a post match team talk.

what is wasted? There is not set rule which said you had to be promoted, i dont see why you are getting so angry, like most people have said, thats football.

Look at Chelsea. Running away at the start of the season. Hit some bad form and now lying in 5th (I believe) and Anceloti has said the title challenge is gone.

Happens to the best and the worst of managers in the game and in real life.

Come on you saints!

ack its not that bad, picture an 8 point lead at the top of the german league and in the last 6-7 games p***ing it away and just needing a draw on the last day, 0-1 in the last few mins

fast forward to the first champions league final against barca after beating teams like lyon(who are immense in my game) inter, real, man utd, barca in the group stage too. lose that 1-0

but i won the german cup, ehm ..yay \o/ lol

Look at Chelsea. Running away at the start of the season. Hit some bad form and now lying in 5th (I believe) and Anceloti has said the title challenge is gone.

Happens to the best and the worst of managers in the game and in real life.

Yeah, I bet Ancelotti is just shrugging his shoulders right now and thinking 'that's football'...of course I'm annoyed, I've been in the top two virtually the whole season and couldn't have thrown away promotion any worse if I'd actually tried. I could've played the U-18s and probably picked up more points, at least that way they would've got some first team experience so then it wouldn't be a complete write off.

3 months for one season?

Yes I get quite involved, hence the annoyance. That and I don't have as much time to play these days...