Management Style - Or lack of

After reading the Fergie interview today in the Herald while playing FM, I realised how little scope you have for management style when it comes to talking to your players. There's a quote in the interview along the lines of you should never try to make your players happy - they should try to make you happy. Using this strategy in FM is really difficult without major fallout, in my experience.

Through both team talks (which I've long grumbled about the ridiculous repetitiveness and impotence of - I dislike the latest CM but it has some pretty great team talk variations and ideas) and the media comments, you can struggle to do anything *but* pander to your players in order to get good performances from them.

Jefferson Farfan (as one example - and I've tried many, many others of varying personalities) has not performed well in over half a year since I told him his 67566 form was 'below par'. Hardly brutal criticism.

In team talks, telling your team you're disappointed with the performance and home win of 1-0 over a team with much less reputation and from a lower league can mostly lead to backlash of either 'unhappy with how you talk to players on matchday' or for the players with high controversy attributes, they tell the media how unhappy they are with your words.

In my experience it's difficult to pull great performances out of players without pandering to them. I would like to see players trying to prove something for the manager, especially if they hold you as one of their favourite personnel. I hope in FM09 to see a greater range of player interaction (because IMO that's a huge part of management) including private talks as opposed to having to go to the media to say you are happy/unhappy with performances; and a hugely, vastly improved teamtalk section. I realise both of these wishes have been made several times on several threads so I know I'm not alone. But the lack of management style is irking me.

Anyone feel the same?

I agree completely, and this is one of my major complaints about the current version (far more than the match engine). There simply is not enough detail /accuracy/feedback to the player interaction/team talk/media functions to make them a good feature. I think these aspects of the game should be vital, equally as much as the tactics. After all, football management is as much about man management as it is about tactical knowledge.

My most recent example of this is in my current Arsenal game with Silva. Now he hasn’t been playing badly as such, mostly sevens and a couple of 6’s. He’s been at the club nearly 6 months and mostly used as a starter at AML. However I bought him as an attacking player and due to his impressive stats, I want him to be creating assists and scoring goals. He has so far only got two assists and one goal (which was a lucky deflection). He has missed many easy chances, and failed to shoot when in good position. Now I know it’s not just “my tactics”, in fact I’m using the same tactics I have with him in other Arsenal saves in which he shone. So, in this situation I chose to use team talks and the media to give some soft criticism, hoping this would lead to an improved performance. But with limited options, I can only say in the media “performing below par”. And his response is “feels criticism is harsh because playing well”. Mission failed.

What absolutely needs to be in the next game is the option to talk directly to your players (not in the media and not just in games) and give specific comments about their performance (in this case, “I want you to be more attacking”, or “I want to see some goals” ). If this area of the game is not massively improved in the next release, I definitely won’t be buying it.

Remember Fergie's: "I think a player like Ronaldo should be getting 10 goals a season". Guess that little media interaction worked! And they had a bet with each other to boot.

I would really like the choice to come out and defend/slag off my team in the media, yet do the opposite in private. Am pretty sure things like this happen IRL all the time.