Watching matches

Hello forum members.

I'm not really interested in watching matches in general, since I'm more into buying and selling players, and just want the matches over with.

I do however like winning matches and possibly being promoted to a better league and such. I only play LLM. And this is where it gets tricky, since I mostly end up with some lousy team.

I understand that watching matches can benefit me greatly. My question is:

Can I get enough information by only watching "Extended" or even "Key" or will I have to watch entire matches?

What is your opinion, and how do you play?

I play Key highlights because I simply don't have time for longer matches.

Hello forum members.

I'm not really interested in watching matches in general, since I'm more into buying and selling players, and just want the matches over with.

I do however like winning matches and possibly being promoted to a better league and such. I only play LLM. And this is where it gets tricky, since I mostly end up with some lousy team.

I understand that watching matches can benefit me greatly. My question is:

Can I get enough information by only watching "Extended" or even "Key" or will I have to watch entire matches?

What is your opinion, and how do you play?

Extended is enough to get a good idea of how your players are performing or how a tactic is working. If I'm scouting a player visually instead of relying on reports, I'll usually go and watch him play on full highlights. Once I'm satisfied with my team and tactics, I use Extended or Key (depending on the importance of the match).

I use Key. If I'm winning 2 - 0 or playing crap teams I just do only commentary

I started out always watching key highlights but I found that doesn't give enough information on how players are performing. I find that it helps me a lot to watch matches on full until I'm confident about my formation, what my first and second choice players are, and only cut down to highlights when the season is well underway, then I can go down to extended highlights in general and key for matches I don't care about. Though once the match is effectively over I'll sometimes switch to commentary only at high speed to get it over.

Commentary only, generally. Sometimes I use the 2D match for big games but you can't beat the ol' bar at the bottom of the screen for the bread-and-butter matches! Also, I have found in the past (FM09, 10) that scores are mostly lower when you watch the game. No idea why but I have had games crash after a 4-2 win for instance, replay them on recovery via the 2D and they end up a much lower scoreline with fewer chances. Weird?

Commentary only, generally. Sometimes I use the 2D match for big games but you can't beat the ol' bar at the bottom of the screen for the bread-and-butter matches! Also, I have found in the past (FM09, 10) that scores are mostly lower when you watch the game. No idea why but I have had games crash after a 4-2 win for instance, replay them on recovery via the 2D and they end up a much lower scoreline with fewer chances. Weird?

Since I went to just commentary (loving it by the way) I have had a 5-3 a 7-4 and plenty on 4-2's, you may have a valid point there. No idea why this would be the case though.

Playing CM/FM in the years before the match view/3D feature you would regularly get some hum-dingers for scorelines- 4-3s, 5-2s, even 7-1s etc; but when I started using the option to watch matches when it was included I found the games were generally tepid and quite dull to be honest so I abandoned them and went back to commentary where scoring just seems easier (as does conceding!)