Playoffs

Maybe its because im a Blackpool fan and im used to seeing my team win in the playoffs but for me on FM they have been impossible to conquer. In my last 5 seasons on the trot i have been beaten at the last hurdle incuding 4 times with Bristol City in the Champsionship in one saved game and 1 more time with Swindon in League 1 on a different save. Obviously with the playoffs it is a bit of a lottery because anything can happen but everytime it seems to be the same thing . No matter what sort of form im in once i get to the semi finals my team will apparently forget how they have been playing for the previous 46 games and come out amazingly average, resulting in a right tonking from the opposition.

In three of the 5 occasions i have a had a player sent off, despite having tackling set at normal and in my last save it was the first red card of the entire season for me. So far then i have played 9 playoff games and havent played good in a single one, and by good i mean up to the teams usual standard, in fact they dont play their usual football at all. A good example of what i mean is that in every season I have had a striker who has scored 20+ goals and in the playoffs they havent scored a single goal. I dont know how much a part pressure plays in the game but you always hear managers saying 'play the game not the occasion' and at the end of the day i dont think its going to help if i suddenly change the way i play if it has been succesful all season because the players arent suited to it.

Really then i have no idea how to stop my 0 - 5 record any suggestions would really help but im thinking now that its just a lottery and ive been really unlucky, in my Swindon save i played a Southampton team i had outplayed and beat 3 times ealier in theseason but the inevitable happened in the playoffs and i got stuffed 4-2 on aggregate.

So if anybody reckons they might have a possible solution I will probably have loads of chances to try it out with the way my FM saves are going and im getting increasingly close to throwing my disk out the window in frustration! If not though does anybody have any worse records than 5 failures in a row or on the other side of the coin has anybody won at every attempt?

5 times is bad luck. I don't have a winning 'catch all' and you will lose some on the way, but....

But the things I do to prepare for the end of season playoffs and finals is to plan ahead.

I only ever buy players with at least 10 on workrate, teamwork and deterimination. End of. I also scout them and work out whether they are bottlers come big games time. No matter how good they look on other attributes.

Also will start working towards the play off's/finals of end of season with 4-5 games to go. That means I want my first X1 at peak fitness/morale come squeaky bum time match(es). I do this by building them up morale wise with pre-game, half time, full time comments to them and private interaction. Knowing what works for your players is key. Bang on high bonuses and a must for me is that I re-new many contracts in the week before a big end of season game to up their morale (why wait until pre-season?).

Don't under estimate morale and a run of 3-4 games prior to the biggies, but dropping them the immediate match before.

As said, not going to work everytime, but works more for me than it does not.

Now you know what it's like to be a Preston North End supporter.