Help me steady the ship before I jump overboard!

PLEASE NOTE I AM PLAYING FM 2010

(using a database update - ie. ingame Sep 2009 was the same as Sep 2010 in reality)

Short Version:

I am in the process of a long term career save taking Bath City from the bottom to the top. It's currently 20th September 2016 and I am 23rd in the nPower Championship with a mere 2 points: Pld 9 W 0 D 2 L 7 F 5 A 20. I started the season playing my preferred formation 4-2-3-1 with either Attacking or Counter mentality. In the last 4 league games have abandoned it in favour of a Defensive or even Contain 4-5-1 just to try and stop conceding and get at least a goalless draw but my last 4 results have been straight losses of 2-1, 2-1, 4-0 and 3-0. Is this just the nature Championship? Is my team just imploding before me? Should I just be more patient? Any tips would be welcome.

Long Version:

OK so I have been with Bath since the start of this save and am extremely reluctant to ditch them and move on to bigger and better things, which I could easily do as I have had job offers left, right and centre every season from all over Europe - even Man City have offered me a job. But I want to take Bath to the top and know that it was all my hard work that got me there rather than money.

I began my journey in the BSP and got relegated, which I could except because the team was abosultely poor. 2nd season in and I miss out on promotion back to BSP through playoffs. 3rd season I finish runner up in BSS, finally going in the right direction. Then I got back-to-back promotions from the BSP and nPower League 2. Spent 1 season in the nPower league 1 in which I spent most of it on top of the table only to fall behind in February and again lose out in the playoffs. Next season I start off really badly and eventually climb the table after a 25 match unbeaten run and finish as league champions.

Thus begins my campaign in the Championship. Now I might have got a little carried away with the amount of money injected into the club from TV rights which gave me my first ever transfer budget (yes, I have had a very stingy board - all of my signings in 6 seasons had been on free transfers) of 200k. I also found I could start making money on the players I had carried with me that had shown potential but perhaps weren't quite good enough for the Championship. This leads me to potential problem number 1 - a squad who haven't gelled yet. In terms of 1st team I had 6 out and 8 in.

Essentially I was able to build, what I thought, would be a team to avoid relegation from the Championship, because even though I had won the League 1 title I feel I had massively overachieved with my squad. The reason for this overachievement was down to my defence. My Bath team, throughout their 6 seasons with me have always had a very tight defence and that is what has kept me going - long unbeaten runs and many 1-0 or 2-1 wins. I have never really had a prolific goal scorer or many games where I have scored more than 2 or 3 goals. Now it seems I am really struggling to keep the ball out of the net as well as put it in the opposition's one.

As for my tactics, I had won League 1 using an Attacking 4-2-3-1 with 2 MCs (1 defensive, 1 support) and a Defensive 4-2-3-1 with 2 DMCs (1 defensive, 1 support) and both with AMs on the wings as inside forwards, a deep lying forward on support and a flat back 4 with the full backs either on Attack or Defend. I still used this to begin the Championship campaign as I had designed my team around it. And in the last 4 games I have adopted a very defensive 4-5-1 in order to just stop conceding goals. But it has just not helped.

I am really at a loss as to what to do and am getting very annoyed with the game, which I don't want to stop playing. I definitely don't want to go back down to League 1 as this will be a huge step backwards. Below me are Leicester who have 2 games in hand and are also on 2 points. Above me are QPR with 4 points and 1 game in hand. (Bizarrely Fulham, who are midtable, have only played 4 games due to Europa League commitments - they won the FA cup yet got relegated from the Prem) So please, any advice is greatly appreciated.

Will answer any questions and provide any screenshots if necessary.

I would have stuck to the tactics that got you up to the championship. I think you would pick up more points at least playing the style that got you all those promotions.

Don't fear the championship. If you go down I guess your players arent good enough, you can sometimes climb the leauges and get promoted too fast where you end up reaching a point where your club ends up being too small to compete.

Going down a leauge isnt always a bad thing when you grow too fast, it will make you stronger next season. If that makes sense. (thats if you dont get sacked, which I doubt will happen after you been there a few seasons and are probably expected to get rellegated)

Tend to agree with Born2killzone, in that maybe you have jumped a little too quick. But a couple of other questions

What is your Ass Man saying during matches?

And, what are you then doing ?

Also are you using OI?

I have made the mistake of losing faith in my tactics when I get promoted and have a bad start, and change them without it helping. Then mid way through the season I go back to my original tactics then start picking up points again.

I would have stuck to the tactics that got you up to the championship. I think you would pick up more points at least playing the style that got you all those promotions.

Don't fear the championship. If you go down I guess your players arent good enough, you can sometimes climb the leauges and get promoted too fast where you end up reaching a point where your club ends up being too small to compete.

Going down a leauge isnt always a bad thing when you grow too fast, it will make you stronger next season. If that makes sense. (thats if you dont get sacked, which I doubt will happen after you been there a few seasons and are probably expected to get rellegated)

I am sort of leaning towards this but I felt my team was not good enough back in league 2 but still managed to win it. However, the Championship is definitely a bigger and better league.

@telV7:

What is your Ass Man saying during matches? He is more often than not saying our passing is not connecting, sometimes long range or just in general. Also he is always saying that our forwards are being outnumbered by defensive line of the opposition.

And, what are you then doing ? With regards to passing I always change it, usually from direct to short. And as with my forward being outnumbered I just leave it because I don't want to put more players up the pitch when I'm just trying to plug the hole in my defence.

Also are you using OI?

Yes I am always using 'Ask Assistant' for OI.

What is your Ass Man saying during matches? He is more often than not saying our passing is not connecting, sometimes long range or just in general. .

I think that usually means your tempo is a little too high, or your players are finding it hard to pass to somebody near so they are trying hopeful longballs. I normally ignore him when he says that if my team are still winning. I think your assman sometimes expects way to much with the pass completion.

Don't forget to use your Shouts to, I have found combining these with a change in tactics works quite well.

As an example of what I do,

Ass Man- missing too many easy passes.( I get this alot)

Generally will do about three things, possibly a little over kill

First is I need to drop the tempo= retain possession.

Next play narrower to reduce passing distance.

Lastly change to short passing.

I have also found a rigid, control based tactic works quite well. Not rock solid defensively but not leaky ship either

@Born2killzone:Yeah I am using a defensive mentality anyway so I would have thought the tempo was slow enough! And yes, even though my ass man is always bemoaning our passing I can't say I've seen anything in the highlights to suggest this. There's just been a lot of bad luck and poor performances defensively. Out of the 20 goals I've conceded, 8 have been in the first 15 mins, 2 have been own goals and 2 have been penalties.

@telV7: I used to use the shouts, but haven't done so in this save yet. I will definitely give this a try.

Best of luck with it all then, and hope you can avoid the drop

The advice seems solid, so I have nothing to add, except that one of my favorite FM saves ever was taking Bath to the top on FM 10! Best of luck from someone all too familiar with the challenge!

OK, cheers guys! So far managed a 3-3 draw with Leicester (comeback from 3-0 down!) and a 2-0 loss to Millwall. And teej9 did you find the Championship especially hard?

UPDATE:

Just finished the season and I finished 21st, 3 points from safety!

I did refer back to my old 4-2-3-1 formation which did provide better performances but it was an attacking 4-4-2 (using AMLs) that secured me enough points.