It's funny how the summer break can completely ruin your team

Win the treble one year. Sell a few players and replace them with better ones.

Next season rolls around and the team are now inexplicably completely useless. Half the team they used to be. Well depressing. You spend the summer finding the perfect targets and making sure everyone is match fit. Then they just all play much worse than they did before.

It could well be that your tactical instructions were very well suited to the exact predicament of the previous season, and not so much to the current one.

How far into the new season are you basing this on? Could be that your new players are taking a little time to settle in.

All the match preparation has gone right down to 0 near enough for some reason. My tactic is exactly the same and my squad is 80% the same.

It's not even as if the new players are making mistakes and that. Before we'd play beautiful stuff and play well. Now we stuggle to create anything and my strikers who are exactly the same are missing a lot of chances. They arent' old or anything. My oldest player in the whole team is the GK who is 30.

How many new players? How about your backroom staff, have they changed?

All the match preparation has gone right down to 0 near enough for some reason.

That will be the problem then. You need to get the squad training tactically in preparation for matches so the bars are full before you see the team play to their potential.

What happens to me is that if I don't bring in new players the old ones are unmotivated and don't play nearly as well.

Then I buy some in January and it's better...Usually when I bring new ones right away the team seems capable of repeating last years succes.

Sell a few players and replace them with better ones.

Selling players hurts the team, takes time for them to recover.

Buying players takes time for them to settle in.

If you overhaul a team with anymore than 2 players it can take awhile for the form to pick up to what it previously was, even if they are better. Assistance Manager > Team Feedback: see how well they have meshed, you wanna aim for 'Would die for each other'.

"Pato acts as if he is used to playing a less direct game than asked to today"

Is this trolling? He played the entirity of last season exactly the same! He's been at the club nearly 10 years!

I've sold 4 squad players, and replaced them with 2 from the academy and 2 from external. All 4 of them have had the entire pre-season of 6-7 games to gel. Not that they should need to. A minimum of 9 out of 11 of the starting 11 is going to be exactly the same, playing the same system.

Was the treble expected, or was it a bit of a shock?

That will be the problem then. You need to get the squad training tactically in preparation for matches so the bars are full before you see the team play to their potential.

This has to be a bug..even a Special Olympics footie club wouldnt completely forget their tactical system over 8 weeks.

This has to be a bug..even a Special Olympics footie club wouldnt completely forget their tactical system over 8 weeks.

This is what I'm interested in. I've noticed that the drop in the bars isn't consistent, I'm wondering whether the drop in the bars happens when the profile of the club has been significantly raised (or lowered), meaning that the way other teams play against you changes.

This is what I'm interested in. I've noticed that the drop in the bars isn't consistent, I'm wondering whether the drop in the bars happens when the profile of the club has been significantly raised (or lowered), meaning that the way other teams play against you changes.

Thats an interesting thought but then shouldnt the changes be centered on the other teams? It takes months to get the bars back up and this penalty really hurts you in early cup games in England.

Was the treble expected, or was it a bit of a shock?

Mostly expected.

League and Cup is definitely.

I thought I'd get knocked out of the Champions League by Arsenal, and then Barcelona because they both have very dangerous teams. But I beat them both comprehensively in the end. As I say, my team was playing great stuff. Now the same players keep doing rubbish things. They just aren't as slick. And make slower, worse decisions. Miss more chances.

Must be because all the bars have gone right down. Bit unfair really I think. Now I have to sacrifice training time to get it back up again.

Thats an interesting thought but then shouldnt the changes be centered on the other teams? It takes months to get the bars back up and this penalty really hurts you in early cup games in England.

It is called 'match preparation' and not 'tactics preparation' though. It is just an idea though, that the bars represent how adept the squad is tactically for the upcoming matches. I'd imagine that if there have been big changes at the club in terms of reputation then other clubs will approach you differently, hence the need for re-training.

The match preparation is just poorly implemented, it contradicts the flexibility of the TC, you don't want to have 3 actual different tactics or gameplans there, you want 3 tactics that cover the largest amount of settings so you can be flexible with the TC.

I would perfectly accept if the bars resetted when you make a lot of changes to your squad, but when you keep the same squad only replacing a couple of backups it's just wrong that the bars reset all the way back, it makes no kind of sense.

The match preparation is just poorly implemented, it contradicts the flexibility of the TC, you don't want to have 3 actual different tactics or gameplans there, you want 3 tactics that cover the largest amount of settings so you can be flexible with the TC.

I would perfectly accept if the bars resetted when you make a lot of changes to your squad, but when you keep the same squad only replacing a couple of backups it's just wrong that the bars reset all the way back, it makes no kind of sense.

agree with this, match prep is a great idea poorly executed. the mentality bar should be removed, goes against the fluidity of the different mentalites in the TC, whats the point in 7 mentalites if you can only be fluid in 3?

Happens all the time in sport. It's that let-down after you win a title. Seems realistic enough to me.

Inter Milan

Happens all the time in sport. It's that let-down after you win a title. Seems realistic enough to me.

When does it happen that any team in any sport will lose their familiarity with the system they played over a break? Why is it that the teams in FM arent aware of their own favored tactics? Why does our ass man and our coaches recommend players that dont play poitions we use in our formation? I play a 4-DM-3CM-2 and these useless excuses for a staff always recommenr wingers and attacking midfielders?

It is called 'match preparation' and not 'tactics preparation' though. It is just an idea though, that the bars represent how adept the squad is tactically for the upcoming matches. I'd imagine that if there have been big changes at the club in terms of reputation then other clubs will approach you differently, hence the need for re-training.

Nah this happens to me (Man Utd) every season without huge changes in reputation. Must be a bug as it didn't seem to happen before 11.3

Inter Milan

Wasn't this Rafa's fault? I doubt the same would happen if Mourinho was still Inter manager.

New players is a big factor.

Pires, Vidic, Evra - all pretty useless until 6-12 months after they signed.

Definitely a case of "rushed new feature interfering with old features"...

If a team has been playing and winning with a 4-4-2 diamond for an entire season, there's no reason for them to completely "forget" how to play just because they went on holiday or because there are one-two new players in the lineup.

I can understand if you suddenly decide to switch to a 3-4-3, but as long as the basic gameplan stays the same, it's absurd having all the good work undone because of some poorly though-out/implemented/tested feature.

Same manager, same tactic, same training regime, same everything... and the game acts as if it's your and the players' very first day at the club?!

New signings? Fine, let's drop the bar a little bit for every new addition to the Starting XI, but no need to consider the U18 prospects who'll barely make it to the bench...

Same manager, same tactic, same training regime, same everything... and the game acts as if it's your and the players' very first day at the club?!

I agree with you to some extent, but it isn't quite as bad as you make out. The bars only drop to about half way, not all the way down. This means that with a settled squad and a good pre season and the right training you can have them maxed out again for the first few league games of the season.

Implementing a new tactic from scratch on your first day at a club seems to take most of the season.

Well dare I ask..?

Why sell your players and get supposedly better one's when you just won the treble. For me, I have Anderson and D. Fletcher in the middle of the park. Not the best individually, but for the team they work very well. I could spend big and buy Pastore and De Rossi, but why change something that isn't broken? (Wrong saying but it applies).

Well dare I ask..?

Why sell your players and get supposedly better one's when you just won the treble. For me, I have Anderson and D. Fletcher in the middle of the park. Not the best individually, but for the team they work very well. I could spend big and buy Pastore and De Rossi, but why change something that isn't broken? (Wrong saying but it applies).

This.

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This.

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Right.....

If you won the treble with a team that was tipped as relegation candidates or such, the other teams will take you much more seriously than last season. In FM2010 I won L1, CH and PL in one go with Southampton, but the fourth season I ended in 6th place because I was taken more seriously and the team wasn't of such quality that it could handle that. The fifth season and counting I won the league again, though.

I've always found in FM that it's a lot harder to win consecutive championships than it used to be unless you're in a really uncompetitive league such as La Liga or SPL.

Well dare I ask..?

Why sell your players and get supposedly better one's when you just won the treble. For me, I have Anderson and D. Fletcher in the middle of the park. Not the best individually, but for the team they work very well. I could spend big and buy Pastore and De Rossi, but why change something that isn't broken? (Wrong saying but it applies).

The majority of the squad is exactly the same. All the key players are. I got rid of the older players that were on the decline, and some of my worst other players.

If you won the treble with a team that was tipped as relegation candidates or such, the other teams will take you much more seriously than last season. In FM2010 I won L1, CH and PL in one go with Southampton, but the fourth season I ended in 6th place because I was taken more seriously and the team wasn't of such quality that it could handle that. The fifth season and counting I won the league again, though.

How on earth did you manage to win the PL,,, without cheating???

He means in separate seasons.