Hope to stop a slump in form??

Hi,

This season (I'm Chelsea) I had amazing form up until early December... lost once in about 25 games or something... but recently my team has self destructed and I've lost 5 of the last 7 matches or so... including getting knocked out of the League Cup by Wycombe and losing to teams in the lower reaches of the division. My defenders can't defend, my keepers are playing like they have butter on their gloves and my world class strikers are shooting with all the power of a 5 year old girl.

The thing is this type of thing happens every season!! Normally I ride out the poor form by changing tactics... but it still results in poor form... just means instead of losing every game I manage to scrape draws here and there. But what can I do to maintain my amazing form - any ideas please?

Cheers,

Salad Daze

try having a team meeting

Keep morale up when you do win games.

Use the "analysis" to praise or criticise players on their shots/passing/tackling.

Thanks guys.

Thread title should be "how to stop a slump in form" not "hope".

please read some few posts from today where we talk already about player form. IF you team encounter trouble in form, it's due to wrong player management who lead to bad form.

Try to adapt to the circumstances; make sure to use the team meeting feature, as it can help to boost morale. Also, if you team is going through a bad patch, reacting angrily all the time is not likely to yield positive results. The players underperforming at a grand club like Chelsea will undoubtedly experience huge pressure to turn their game around -- reducing this pressure by calming your players can be fruitful. Also, use the match analysis tool to detect any recurring patterns; perhaps one of your midfielders is being consistently wasteful. In the case, do not hesitate to drop him for a couple of games. Another source of bad form can be overreliance on one player. My Lokomotiv Moscow side is incredibly reliant on the firepower of Caicedo; when he struggles, the whole team efficiency is noticeably lower.

If you don't rotate enough, the Christmas holiday season with like 6 matches in two weeks will ruin your first team and your backups won't be up to the challenge since they aren't in good form.

Any one player will experience at least one form slump during a season, so it is very important to have a replacement who is also in good form when that happens. In your case it likely happens because of overconfidence after an amazing first half of the season, and an inevitable loss which will become a major problem if the next match isn't a win. From then on you are in bad form and need to turn it around.

What most people do is that they boost morale after every win, and then when the inevitable loss comes, they slam the team (often getting a positive response, firing up the players for the next match). This puts a lot of pressure on the team, and if this is not alleviated by a calm or cautious team talk the players will be nervous if they are favourites. The chance of another loss is therefore very high if you tell them that you expect a win or do an assertive/passionate For the Fans. After loss #2 in a row, all semblance of form is lost and you need to start from square one again, but most people don't do this either (and certainly not the Assistant).

Personally, I rarely put even half the amount of pressure on my team as the assistant does. I aim at avoiding nervousness rather than accomplishing motivation, so I am mostly calm or assertive in the pre-match team talk. For the Fans is not a very good team talk before your whole squad loves the club and you are loved by the fans and the team, so I tend to avoid it if i don't see signs of overconfidence.

At half-time, I can be more assertive and even aggressive. I have had no problems with players reacting with anger to my team talks at half-time so far. Again, unless the risk of nervousness is worth it (I need to pull back on a lead or need a miracle), I tend to avoid putting pressure on the players. I also avoid being pleased at half-time if I am the favourite to win and when I play at home.

As said above, slamming the team after a poor performance will fire them up but put ample pressure on them towards the next match, so be aware that the post-match team talk is the first team talk of the next match!