What do YOU do when your tactic "stops working"?

You know that moment, you're team has just gone on a 15 game unbeaten streak, player morale is at an all time high, you have finally got them to play together perfectly...and then suddenly it just stops working. You lose three games by a significant amount even though you have changed absolutely nothing.

So my question is; what do you do when this happens? Do you go about creating a completely new tactic from scratch? Or try and tweak your current tactic? If so how and what do you change about it?

Usually from what I've learned, the tactic "stops working" because either your team becomes over-confident or the opposition has worked out how to play vs your tactic (or both) so how do you change your tactics to tackle these problems?

I whine on SI forums and demand them to sort it out.

Or I look at the match analysis and tweak my tactic accordingly. Creating a brand new tactic is not a good idea because I don't have the players for it. For example, in one season, I altered the basic 4-2-3-1 formation with wingers into 4-2-3-1 narrow with 3 AMC. Or when I played against Barca's 4-5-1 with world class midfielders, I dropped my midfielders back to 2 DMC. Or when I need to defend the wings, I drop my wingers back to midfield so it becomes 4-4-1-1. When I need a goal, I could sub the AMC for a striker, and it becomes 4-2-4. The 4-2-3-1 is truly flexible. Having a versatile squad with players that could play 2-3 positions also helps a lot.

I usually find Deleting all my tactics and starting again helps. I usually redesign a tactic close to the one im using but with a few tweaks which is USUALLY enough in past fm's.

However this one is slightly different and harder. I find it harder to pull out of drops in form.

The AI does not learn and never counters your tactic. So if a tactic has worked fine for a long period, there is no reason to change it even if you have a streak of bad results. What I usually do is introducing hungry benchwarmers to the starting XI or become more demanding when doing the team talks (you can also do that BEFORE you actually lose matches).

Well I hit a bad run of results and after a poor 2-1 defeat at bottom placed Derby I just tried something and told about 7 players in an assertive tone to buck their ideas up. Went out next game and tonked Blackburn 5-0, with dear old Cralton Cole bagging a hat trick after not being able to hit a barn door in previous games!! Maybe name it "Morale Manager 2013" next year!! ;-)

I have a big tweak!

In my current season early on I was demolishing teams for fun, 3-0, 5-0 and so on. After the new year in the re-matches the opposition was defending far more effectively and I was struggling to 1-0 victories or settling for draws. However, I succeeded in guaranteeing promotion from League 2 with 7 games to spare so I took the opportunity to rejig.

I keep the same 1st choice formation (4-1-3-2) but have radically altered the roles and duties on the flanks. From attacking wingers and supporting fullbacks, I decided to experiment with defensive wingers and attacking fullbacks overlapping. It's working a treat, freshening up my own team and discombobulating the opposition. I'm also gradually introducing new (young) faces from my U18 squad (just promoted from my academy) to replace some of the established players who are looking a bit jaded.

I'm not recommending anyone replicate my specific tactic, but it is good to change tactics, roles, duties and personnel so that you are less predictable to the opposition. And that is the key word: your tactics don't 'stop working' as such; you become predictable to the opposition. In particular your attacking play becomes predictable and the opposition work out how to more effectively defend against you, so you need to think of new ways to attack.

The AI does not learn and never counters your tactic. So if a tactic has worked fine for a long period, there is no reason to change it even if you have a streak of bad results. What I usually do is introducing hungry benchwarmers to the starting XI or become more demanding when doing the team talks (you can also do that BEFORE you actually lose matches).

"Usually from what I've learned, the tactic "stops working" because either your team becomes over-confident or the opposition has worked out how to play vs your tactic (or both) so how do you change your tactics to tackle these problems?"

If the tactic stopped working because the team is over-confident, why would you change the tactic? Would you deliberately create a tactic that couldn't possibly work, in order to reduce their confidence to the approproate level? Clearly, if the problem is mental the solution is not tactical.

I don't believe the opposition ever "learns" your tactic, but I do believe that as your reputation improves, teams play differently against you -- and that may necessitate a slightly different approach. Having said that, in 2020, with two league titles and seven domestic cups under my belt, I play pretty much the same tactics I played when I was a newly-promoted team in 2011. The mix is different, though: I play my "expect to win" tactic 20 games a season now instead of two, and my "i have to just keep this close" tactic once or twice instead of every away game and half of my home games.

As some people have said the opposition never "learn" your tactic.

Two things do happen though:

A) Reputation - As your team gets better, lower rep teams will play more defensive against you leaving less space and playing counter attack leading to those threads we see on the forum where people dominate but lose 1-0.

B) Formations - These change over time and when one team has success with a formation others seem to try it as well. Every formation has strengths & weaknesses and a tactic that was working well against one formation might simply be less effective against another.

But if b) was true, wouldn't the dodgy results only happen against teams that either happen to play a formation that exploits inherent weaknesses in your own formation, or alternatively against better teams who matched your formation to hide inherent weaknesses in their own formation? I'm finding no pattern to mine, except that in the first 7 games of the season my formation was utterly useless, and since then it's been fine until my last game against Dagenham?

I accept that freak results happen, witness Man Utd losing to Blackburn and throwing a wo goal lead away (twice) against Everton, but a side that's among the 6 best in the division in terms of stats should finish in the top 6, end of. It's looking likely my side won't make the playoffs because of the horrendous results in August and September, and freaks like the Dagenham horror show aren't going to help that!

It's all about morale and complacency, aka FM's version of rubber banding...

More often than not you realize it's happening when it's too late, but it's quite easy to make an educated guess by looking at the fixture list and at past results...

A long winning streak, possibly featuring impressive and unexpected wins, can come to an abrupt end away to a mid-table club or even at home..

The key is keeping an eye on how players react (or don't react) to team talks and if they're complacent/nervous during apparently easy matches.

If so, the upcoming "we'd win this" fixture will be a nightmare and it's a 50/50 call for the right teamtalk... Being demanding or being encouraging depends on the players' personality, so there isn't a "one size fits all" solution to that problem.

Changing the tactic is IMO a bad idea because it adds another element of confusion... Throwing in some motivated backups is better.

P.S. I really hope that stuff gets toned down significantly in FM13... We don't need Morale Manager or The Sims Football Club..

Buy better players or just wait ;p I typically use 4-4-2 all the time, with 4-3-3 as backup against some teams.

my tactics never stop working

my tactics never stop working

-A- tactic never stops working, unless of course, it is a tactic that doesn't work against everything you encounter. In that case, the tactic weren't working in the first place. And yes there are such tactics.

Just watch the odds before the match - if they creep up too much in your favour, the opponents will try to park the bus and that is a death sentence for many tactics that would otherwise crush them. A telltale sign is that the worst matches are against the worst opponents.

I don't normally experience such things because my tactic is good against everything, although I have seen many tactics that are more fantastic in some situations (but those have all an achilles' heel). When I do, it is because the ten last games of the season brings about confidence upheaval - and then I sometimes just swap to my 5-4-1 ultradefensive tactic and try to grind out a result, damn the costs (the fans and media complains!).

I buy better players

so what do you do when the opponent parks the bus? i play a fairly offensive tactic allready. suddenly i can't seem to score goals.

so what do you do when the opponent parks the bus? i play a fairly offensive tactic allready. suddenly i can't seem to score goals.

You keep possession, are more patient, play wider and draw the opposition defence out of position to open gaps.