What have I done wrong?

I am playing as Crewe and have got them to the premier league and to my suprise managed to finish 8th in the first season using the Kimz tactic. Now I find my team have turned rubbish we didnt win for the first 8 games of the new season. The transfers I made were pretty good I replaced an old slow winger with Sergio Mota bought in a new striker to ease the pressure off of Stancu and also got a new decent defender. The team are on a downward spiral so I changed tactics to a more defensive one and got some good results and then it started to happen again. If this continues Crewes new stadium will be opened as we are relegated. This is not having a go at the game I know its most likely something I am doing. I mean did my team just play far far above their ability to finish that high and are now down to the reality of being a rubbish team or what? I just do not understand it at all.

I had similar with Whitley Bay back in FM06 - finished something like 8th first season, then won the EPL 2nd season there and then began a long term slow demise to finish 5th, 5th, 10th and then down to 20th, 10 points adrift at Christmas the following year, despite having a team I felt were amongst the best in the world and should have been finishing 2nd. It was a fantastic challenge though to turn around a club that had apparently just gone rotten at the core for no obvious reason.

If you are using some tactic from elsewhere then why not just go to the tactics forum and ask them?

Seems like the obvious thing to do but I was too angry to think of asking in the tactic thread lol. Sometimes this game is the worst gaming experience I have but I keep coming back for more.

I know the feeling. I took Scunthorpe up to 9th into December in my first season over the weekend, having just bagged our first away win at the 10th attempt. Stupidly I started to think we might be able to have a bash at the playoffs if we could keep our home form and improve our away form. Instead we lost 8 on the trot through Christmas and New Year which slightly took the edge off our tilt at the play-offs

actually I have always found the 2nd year following promotion in the EPL a lot tougher. It maybe your players are getting used to it and not as willing to give it all as the first year? Who knows? But i usually changing tactics to see if it makes a difference. It usually does. Good luck anyway!

It puzzles me that we a sitting low in the league lost 6 in a row and then beat Chelsea 1-0 and no just beat PSG 7-4 on agg to get to the quarter finals of the UEFA Cup. Seems like my boys only care about looking good in europe god damn them.

I think it could that in the first season teams will attack you due to a low reputation for a PL club. When you finish 8th then the next season team will treat you more cautiously and will sit back more and try to hit you on the break. The AI clubs play different tactics against you due to your increased reputation.

It's second season syndrome. Reading suffered from it last year, and West Ham the year before that. My understanding of it is that the opposition are aware of what you can do the second time around and you are no longer an unknown quantity. I suggest alterung your tactics to keep them guessing.

Generally, I feel that changing tactics towards a more "slower" tempo and instead of attacking, go play normal. Start adapting a counter-attack behavior and your players might feel a bit more at ease, knowing that the pressure is not on them.

Changing your formation helped me as well, as they themselves get shaken up and some regulars are losing their positions, while fresh blood may help in getting a lot of new creative actions people don't expect.

But as said, the tactics forum might be a better place. I just hope this might help you that tiny bit to keep you up for the time being ;-)

Managed to stay up changed from using the Kimz to something else and I was losing switched back to it and picked up a few wins to finish 13th not too bad in the end. Lets hope next season will be better just wish I could find a decent formation with 2 attackers.

My logical guess is; After finishing 8th(or similar) team reputation increases which makes opposition teams to prepare and play more seriously towards you. Especially if your tactic relies on counter-attacks or fast attacks then opposition tactic is as decisive as yours.

Also I heard from many FM expert players that " even the best tactic and line-up worn out after a while and has to be changed " . This may happen due to many reasons, there is even a chance that game tracks your tactics and if you keep using the same one for very long then they introduce some flaws in the execution just to force you change it. After all it will be quite boring if you find that perfect! tactic and proper 22 players then the rest will be just replace injured ones and keep playing.