Managerial Expectations - new features ideas

I've just seen an excellent post about the transfer market and styles of play and it reminded me of two specific areas that I'd like to see added to in the game. This one is about Managerial Expectations, my other one is about Contracts (in another thread). Oh, and before anyone points me in the direction of the Wishlist Thread, that's for "list" ideas - this is about a whole specific topic.

So, we all know the Confidence area needs reworking, so this isn't a rant about that, although I will touch on how it can be improved. I have to say, I love the Confidence feature, and when it works properly I think it'll be fantastic. I'll start with how to improve what we've currently got, then I'll go on to new features:

Finances: I took over Gillingham who had a balance of -£250K. I managed to get them up to -£60K and the board said "we are dissapointed with the state of the balance". Well, that's fine, but how about some recognition for what I've done? How about: "We are pleased that you have improved the state of the balance, and we hope to be in the black by the end of the financial year (April)"? Too much stick, not enough carrot currently.

Competitions: Currently my expectation is to reach the second round of the Carling Cup. I lost away to Southampton in the first round where I had one man sent off. The board say "We are disappointed not to have reached the second round". How about "The board appreciate we had a tricky draw in the first round so are not too disappointed about failing to reach the second round. We recognise the league is the priority and trust you will ensure we perform well in the league". Or words to that effect.

Signings: Rather than fans reserving judgment on that 17 year old free transfer signing (or worse - judging him as crap after he's made 4 sub appearances), why not have the fans say "we recognise that player X has been bought for the future", or something? Also, fans don't always have to see a player play to have an opinion. Let's say you've just smashed your club's transfer record to sign a new defender: "Fans are excited at our expensive new signing". After he's played a few games: "Fans feel Player Y is justifying his huge transfer fee" or, "Fans are beginning to question GillsMan's judgment, as Player Y looks poor so far", and so on.

Matches: It's too cut and dried. If I draw, fans should be marginally happier if I equalised, than if I took the lead then gave the game away. A recent FM example: I drew 3-3 away to someone in the league. I was 3-0 up until the 81st minute and drew 3-3. The fans were "pleased with the amount of chances I created". In my opinion, they should have been "furious we couldn't hold on to a 3-0 lead". I drew 1-1 at home with a 94th minute equaliser. The fans were "dissapointed with the number of chances created by the opposition". They should have been "relieved with the last minute goal", with the green bar, being just indicating "pleased" or something.

Anyway, new features:

Style of Play: Some clubs, such as Newcastle, West Ham, Real Madrid, crave attractive football more than results. Some clubs, such as Chelsea, and Man City, crave results before attractive football. Some, such as Chelsea have the fans wanting one thing (results) and the chairman wanting other things (attractive football). I'd like to see this in the game. Open, expansive football is to be applauded. Winning 1-0 should not!

Priorities: I'd like to prioritise the competitions I enter. I want to tell my chairman that I'm using the Johnson's Paint Trophy to play my reserves and kids. The chairman can then adjust his expectations accordingly. I want to take over Newcastle and say: "I'm going to win you a trophy first and foremost", by making the cups my priorities!

Plans: What is this "two year plan" I keep hearing about? I've never seen it! But I'd like to; heck, I'd even like to write the damn thing. So, I take over a struggling League Two club. I want to have a three year plan: By the end of it, I want to be challenging for the play-offs in League Two and I want to have turned the finances around. Or I can come in and say: within five years we will be in the Championship, or within 10 years we will be in the Premiership. It happens IRL, I'd like it in the game. How about: "I'm going to revamp the youth academy", and I can do that by raising money to improve the youth academy, and by playing youngsters. Fans appreciate it, and so does the chairman.

Interview: This is linked to the above. Currently, I assume chairmen just hire the guy with the highest reputation. This is largely good, but I'd like to add another element of a job interview. This links in with the above, and I'd like to have the opportunity to tell the chairman where I want to take the club. If I take over Crawley Town in the BSP and say "We'll be in the Premier League within six years", I don't think I should get the job; the chairmen should say that's unrealistic (that is back-to-back promotions almost, after all). But if they like what they hear, e.g. "I want to play football the right way and play our way into League One within five years", or "I don't care how we do it, but I want to win, even if it's always 1-0" then they can consider me for the job.

Anyway, that's enough from me. I'd be grateful for your thoughts, both on my ideas and, more importantly, with any ideas of your own! Cheers!

(Other ideas are here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=37061 and http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=37375)

I think these are all really good ideas and would really improve the game a lot

Yes, especially the suggestion about priorities, because long-term tasks are always connected with league. Also the point about tricky draw. If I am Shakhtar and have to face Inter, Chelsea and PSV in CL group stage...

All good ideas. The improvements have been mentioned before but I really hope they make it in FM09. Especially when facing a tough opponent. If I get Man Utd away, the board should not be unhappy I didn't reach a certain round, unless I'm as big as Utd.

Thumbs up from me. I've mentioned a job interview and telling the fans what to expect from a new signing a few times and hopefully there will be something along those lines in FM09.

Good work. I also agree with you.

The things I liked the most are new features about finances, signings, competitions and matches.

Spot on!

Everything I wanted to say, you said it. Especialy this about losing a 3:0 lead in last 10 minutes, and fans being pleased with it.

Cool, I'm glad people agree. Hopefully some of these will be in FM09, because I'm sure some people at SI have thought of some of these suggestions long before me! But I hope SI will bear some of these points in mind for future versions!

yep some quality ideas in here, lets hope theyve already been thought of and are in fm09!!

That's a really good post GillsMan.

Competitions: Currently my expectation is to reach the second round of the Carling Cup. I lost away to Southampton in the first round where I had one man sent off. The board say "We are disappointed not to have reached the second round". How about "The board appreciate we had a tricky draw in the first round so are not too disappointed about failing to reach the second round. We recognise the league is the priority and trust you will ensure we perform well in the league". Or words to that effect.

Matches: It's too cut and dried. If I draw, fans should be marginally happier if I equalised, than if I took the lead then gave the game away. A recent FM example: I drew 3-3 away to someone in the league. I was 3-0 up until the 81st minute and drew 3-3. The fans were "pleased with the amount of chances I created". In my opinion, they should have been "furious we couldn't hold on to a 3-0 lead". I drew 1-1 at home with a 94th minute equaliser. The fans were "dissapointed with the number of chances created by the opposition". They should have been "relieved with the last minute goal", with the green bar, being just indicating "pleased" or something.

These two bits in particular are ideas i would love to see implemented.

some mentioned before yes but still great ideas whom should be implemented in the next release

Interview: This is linked to the above. Currently, I assume chairmen just hire the guy with the highest reputation. This is largely good, but I'd like to add another element of a job interview. This links in with the above, and I'd like to have the opportunity to tell the chairman where I want to take the club. If I take over Crawley Town in the BSP and say "We'll be in the Premier League within six years", I don't think I should get the job; the chairmen should say that's unrealistic (that is back-to-back promotions almost, after all). But if they like what they hear, e.g. "I want to play football the right way and play our way into League One within five years", or "I don't care how we do it, but I want to win, even if it's always 1-0" then they can consider me for the job.

That reminds me, some chairmen actually don't want you to promote ten times into the major leagues. They prefer staying in the current league, or one up, but aren't ambitious. So if you come up and declare you want to revamp the Youth Academy and need x million in order to sign new players and yell that you will get them 3 leagues higher in 3 more years, then for sure you'll be shown the door.

How often haven't I seen the 'Slight concern': "Doesn't believe the board has the same ambition as he does"? This might just be related to that. So if you incorporate Job Interviews, please take that into account.

I can imagine some chairmen or players/managers also have a preference for a particular cup. Just like how some teams are always doing better in a particular cup, getting to the semi-finals or even winning them, while they are somewhere in the bottom-half of the league. If you have that preference, perhaps the chairman has them as well and actually hold grudges against you if you don't do well in his cup (e.g. a factor 1.25 or 1.5 higher in terms of expectations).

Just a little addition from me ;-) What do you think about it?

Sounds good.

Nothing worse than the board being upset at your domestic cup competitions when you view them as a day out for the kids.

nice post! im with you

That reminds me, some chairmen actually don't want you to promote ten times into the major leagues. They prefer staying in the current league, or one up, but aren't ambitious. So if you come up and declare you want to revamp the Youth Academy and need x million in order to sign new players and yell that you will get them 3 leagues higher in 3 more years, then for sure you'll be shown the door.

How often haven't I seen the 'Slight concern': "Doesn't believe the board has the same ambition as he does"? This might just be related to that. So if you incorporate Job Interviews, please take that into account.

I can imagine some chairmen or players/managers also have a preference for a particular cup. Just like how some teams are always doing better in a particular cup, getting to the semi-finals or even winning them, while they are somewhere in the bottom-half of the league. If you have that preference, perhaps the chairman has them as well and actually hold grudges against you if you don't do well in his cup (e.g. a factor 1.25 or 1.5 higher in terms of expectations).

Just a little addition from me ;-) What do you think about it?

Yes, again this kind of ties in to my point about expectations. What I don't want is for anyone who goes for the obvious "I'll give you maximum success within minimum time" option to automatically get the job!

All these ideas are marvelous, I'm all with you on this matter!

Splendid stuff here.

My only concern would be how difficult it would be to implement. If the very very basic confidence feature is flawed in 08 making a more complex version must be tricky.

My only concern would be how difficult it would be to implement. If the very very basic confidence feature is flawed in 08 making a more complex version must be tricky.

It'll probably be the new parts integrated into it which will most likely have some flaws.

Furtunately, most of the above mentioned ideas are all flaws of the current confidence. So I hope all of those will be fixed ;-) Then I can live with a few minor flaws in the later ideas, although flawless would be nice too, I don't count too much on that. After all, it's a huge lot of new code.

The draws- a "tricky" draw what have to be determined on rep. There should be a scale of 1-10 of how tricky the draw is.

1- You have a far superior rep, you're Man U, they're FC United.

4- slightly superior rep, you're Norwich, they're Forest

5- roughly equal reps, you're Hull, they're Stoke.

6- slightly inferior rep, you're Forest, they're Norwich

10- far inferior rep, you're FC United, they're Man U.

The larger the number, the less dissappointment the board have if you lose.

Penalty losses should also be less dissapointing.

You should be able to say "I will play kids in this match"- that should increase the number by 2 (or 1 if you're already at 9...). You should also be able to say "I will play reserves"- this increases the number by 1.

A similar system could be in place for the CL groups.

Keep in mind that the basic confidence feature in 08 was pretty much the first try at using it like this. Having dwelled upon that for a year and hearing all the criticism, surely the next version will have an improved confidence thingy. I'm not saying it'll be flawless, but seeing how we're now a year further, it'll at least be greatly improved.

It'll probably be the new parts integrated into it which will most likely have some flaws.

Furtunately, most of the above mentioned ideas are all flaws of the current confidence. So I hope all of those will be fixed ;-) Then I can live with a few minor flaws in the later ideas, although flawless would be nice too, I don't count too much on that. After all, it's a huge lot of new code.

My fingers are crossed.

All sounds fairly good.

One thing I would add that I feel needs removing are some of the over the top expectations the manager can choose when asked to pick a budget. The board always have a minimum expectation that you can't go below, but there is never a cap on maximum expectation. Whoever you are and whatever club you are at the board are willing to just accept your claim that you think you can win the league and give you a bigger budget to achieve it.

I just started a new game with Scunthorpe United in the Championship - the media have us favourites for relegation yet the board appear quite happy for me to claim I will win The Championship and they are willing to give me a transfer and wage budget to try and do that which is totally unrealistic. Needless to say I didn't select that option, but it just shouldn't be there at all realistically

^^

It should be there as an option in the job interview and the news report afterwards should read that you were laughed out of the office.

Good thoughts here.

The thing which is missing from how confidence is marked is context. For example, if a 17 year old player is of squad status "hot prospect" they shouldn't expect so much of him.

Good thoughts here.

The thing which is missing from how confidence is marked is context. For example, if a 17 year old player is of squad status "hot prospect" they shouldn't expect so much of him.

Exactly, I made this suggestion in my interaction wishlist ages ago.

New Signing Expectations

Give the fans an idea of what you expect from the player (squad status would play a big role in this) thus stopping the disappointment with back up loan signings.

Example:

1. Expect the player to have a big future at the club.

2. Player has been brought in to add depth to the team.

3. An excellent young prospect/see the best in 2 or 3 years time

Speaking of which...very slightly off topic, but why is it that AI teams can indicate what role they expect a loan signiing to play when they make an offer, but a human manager can't. When I've been managing two clubs and one of my clubs makes an offer to loan a player from my other, my second manager gets told that club X have made a loan offer for player Y and then it tells me what the expected squad status would be yet my manager making the offer had no say in this at all!

what a fantastic post GillsMan - i cannot fault a single word of it, its exactly what i would like to see and doubtless many other FMers, hats off for constructing a large but logical post which will no doubt improve the game massively if implemented.

This could be helped by an actually useful piece of media interaction by when you sign a player you comment on what you expect of them, this will give improve the confidence feature because the fans will not be disappointed if your new 18 year-old striker hasn't scored after 4 sub appearances. This could also mean the fans appreciate the fact you are building for the future or unhappy that you are not assembling a squad capable of competing for short-term honours..

Speaking of which...very slightly off topic, but why is it that AI teams can indicate what role they expect a loan signiing to play when they make an offer, but a human manager can't. When I've been managing two clubs and one of my clubs makes an offer to loan a player from my other, my second manager gets told that club X have made a loan offer for player Y and then it tells me what the expected squad status would be yet my manager making the offer had no say in this at all!

Exactly! I've found this hugely, immensely and extremely annoying for a couple of months now!

In summary to all of the above, I think that with Managerial Expectations improved, the game would be fantastic (well, it already is, but you know what I mean).