How do you develop a losing mentality?

Yes, I've reached that point where I just can't get any kind of handle on FM08 tactically so I'm wondering how do people (most obviously LLMers) develop that attitude of being able to have fun playing the game when you are constantly losing?

I hear plenty of LLMers saying how they've manage to relegate 7 teams in 7 years (ok so I exaggerate, but you get the idea) and are having great fun, but I just can't find the enjoyment in doing really crap with my team

I guess the biggest factor is that I look at my players and I believe we should be doing far better so that it is down to me being unable to find a tactic that works successfully - that is really frustrating. I've managed really crap teams in the past where I didn't mind losing so much and enjoyed the challenge, but that was because I knew we had really bad players and were expected to lose every match rather than it just being me who is naff.

Maybe I am just over-estimating my players a little...after all I am managing Scunthorpe in the Championship and we are predicted to finish 23rd and have the smallest attendances, but I am quite happy with the players I have, they just don't perform.

So basically I admit I'm a crap manager, but I want to know how people manage to keep enjoying playing the game when they are clearly not good enough at it?! I've won 4 titles in 3 and a bit years at Werder Bremen in FM08 so I'm not totally inept, but apart from a strong showing and 1 trophy with Hibs in 2 seasons that is the sum total of my successes in FM08

Maybe LLM's develop a losing mentality because they only ever manage rubbish teams?

As you've said there - you won a few titles with Werder Bremen, and as such you have enjoyed success.

Once you get a taste for success you subconsciously want it more and more.

When you then make the step down to Lower-leagues (although Championship, according to LLM forum rules is "having a laugh"), and struggle, it becomes a nuisance and therefore "Un-enjoyable".

It's just a guess really, Glamdring, as I will be the first to admit that I do not have a losing mentality, as I'm not cut out for LLM in the slightest.

I usually find when I am going through the phase of not winning any games and shipping goals left right and centre that I need to shore up the defence. After that as long as I am not getting hammered in most games and I am making the same amount of chances or more I know I am on the verge of turning it around. It only usually takes a few wins and you're off.

One thing I do not do if I am a rubbish team and trying to stay up is pass it short, I do long ball with a formation of 4-1-3-2, keeps it tight in the middle and protects the back four. I find it works with most teams I use and gradually change the style of play when I can get a better calibre of player in.

Aye, I've tried all manner of tactics under the sun, I've tried changing things around loads and I've tried keeping a consistent tactic, but results are so inconsistent I can't be bothered any more! We win games I expect us to lose and lose games we should win without me doing a huge amount different. And I stress the I in the previous sentance - these are not games that the AI expects us to win so it's not as if I'm just having trouble breaking down stubborn teams, we are just ludicrously inconsistent all over the shop! We get on losing runs very easily, but our winning "runs" rarely last more than 2 games

Funnily enough though we aren't especially shipping goals, we lost one game 3-0, but almost every other defeat has been by a single goal, just to rub salt in the wounds!

Btw, when I mentioned LLM I'm not saying I think managing Scunthorpe is LLM in any way shape or form, just that I need to develop that mentality of being able to still take enjoyment from managing a team that is not doing well!

Speaking from a modified LLM perspective, I enjoy the "realism" of the game. By realism, I mean, the struggles and trials of being a "real" manager. The reward is in the journey, not the results. It sounds cliche', but I can't think of a better thing to say off the top of my head.

Speaking from a wanting to win perspective, I've found that emotions/morale plays a huge role in FM. More so in this edition than ever before. I've spent all my energies focused on keeping morale up through player interactions. You can read about my results in the Training and Tactics forum in the experiment I conducted. The suggestions in that thread might help you.

I think you lose, that's why you create a losing mentality.

the main difference i find between LLM and managing Liverpool, is, being a Liverpool fan, i have hard and fast ideas about who we should be beating, and by how many goals, whereas in LLm, i dont. this, for me, is the key thing. my liverpool gaems very often get frustrating and annoy me, as the team dont perform to the level i expect from them. when in llm, im more inclined to accept odd defeats here and there, and not get anywhere near as worked up about it.

the main difference i find between LLM and managing Liverpool, is, being a Liverpool fan, i have hard and fast ideas about who we should be beating, and by how many goals, whereas in LLm, i dont. this, for me, is the key thing. my liverpool gaems very often get frustrating and annoy me, as the team dont perform to the level i expect from them. when in llm, im more inclined to accept odd defeats here and there, and not get anywhere near as worked up about it.

That's why I never manage the team I support, it annoys me to see them lose, IRL or in game.

That's why I never manage the team I support, it annoys me to see them lose, IRL or in game.

i find it increasingly difficult not to, if i start off managing a lower league team though. im always keeping an eye on their results and progress, and more often than not, end up "multi-saving" so i can leave current club and help liverpool out, but at the same time, keep a career game going...

i find it increasingly difficult not to, if i start off managing a lower league team though. im always keeping an eye on their results and progress, and more often than not, end up "multi-saving" so i can leave current club and help liverpool out, but at the same time, keep a career game going...

Set yourself a challenge to only take over when/if they get relegated, that means you're free to browse the world of management, but still have the chance to go and become the messiah

Set yourself a challenge to only take over when/if they get relegated, that means you're free to browse the world of management, but still have the chance to go and become the messiah

lol i reckon ill have to.. so many creer games have gone down the toilet because i hate to see em suffering... either that or just find enjoyable games outside of england...

lol i reckon ill have to.. so many creer games have gone down the toilet because i hate to see em suffering... either that or just find enjoyable games outside of england...

Well that's another option, I rarely manage in England because it just feels wrong to be in charge of anyone else. However, I limit myself as well, because I hate La Liga and Serie A.

On topic, I have no idea how anyone can stick with LLM, it drives me mad. Perhaps i'm just a glory hunter , but I just don't have the inclination to put so much effort into the game tbh, i've tried with some NI teams, but i'm just far too crap at it.

i think the challenge od LLM is taking a small team and going through the divisions. When that success leads to a a better job offers it is very satifying. Knowing you worked your way up from the bottom is very entertaining. Where as if you start off at chelsea I find you can get very bored of it rather quickly.

I've done similar in the past, although there are so many teams that I like that I almost always end up with multiple managers because I get tee'd off with the AI manager butchering a club I like so I add another manager. In my long running FM06 Whitley Bay game I finally lost my rag with the AI manager who had managed to guide Derby County to the bottom of League 1 so I took over turned them round easily (shows more how bad the AI manager was with a good squad than that I was in some way brilliant) to win the title despite being bottom and adrift after 10 games. We then shot up through the Championship and established ourselves as the 3rd best team in the country. We played such wild football that we were never going to win a trophy (apart from 1 league cup that we somehow managed), but I adored that team.

Of course that was FM06...if I see a team I like struggling in FM08 then I stay clear because I reckon I'll do an even worse job than the AI manager

Speaking from a modified LLM perspective, I enjoy the "realism" of the game. By realism, I mean, the struggles and trials of being a "real" manager. The reward is in the journey, not the results. It sounds cliche', but I can't think of a better thing to say off the top of my head.

Speaking from a wanting to win perspective, I've found that emotions/morale plays a huge role in FM. More so in this edition than ever before. I've spent all my energies focused on keeping morale up through player interactions. You can read about my results in the Training and Tactics forum in the experiment I conducted. The suggestions in that thread might help you.

I've always tried to stear clear of the Tactics/Training forum because I want to achieve my success or fail on my own merits which I've always managed to do in previous versions and it is very hard (I imagine) to pick out the threads that give just good solid general advice in that forum from those that would spoil my "fun" by pointing out some loophole or killer tactic that would mean I'd never enjoy winning again.

I spent 2½ years (maybe more, I can't remember) managing Caersws in FM07 with the stipulation that I wanted a local team of only players born within 30 miles of Caersws (which is a village essentially in the middle of nowhere in mid-Wales so within 30 miles just meant 3 very small towns and some villages!). We had a very young team (mostly youth team products), but I really enjoyed the challenge - I just began to feel after 2½ years there that we were getting worse rather than better and that my dream of winning the Welsh Premier League with this team would never happen. I do occasionally return to that save though to bash out a few more games!

I've always tried to stear clear of the Tactics/Training forum because I want to achieve my success or fail on my own merits which I've always managed to do in previous versions and it is very hard (I imagine) to pick out the threads that give just good solid general advice in that forum from those that would spoil my "fun" by pointing out some loophole or killer tactic that would mean I'd never enjoy winning again.

I thought that as well for far too long.

Take a look at the "Unofficial Tactics Bible" sticky at the top of the Tactics forum.

It gives links to different threads discussing different areas of the game.

A bit of reading will probably show that certain sliders/instructions/choices don't do what you think they do, at least thats what I've found.

I used to get frustrated that my players weren't doing what I wanted them to do but now after reading the threads I have a better understanding of the orders and can express my tactics in a way that the match engine understands.

I guess I'll give it a try then...certainly if sliders and instructions aren't even doing what I think they should do I've got no chance since my understanding of some instructions is a little sketchy in the first place!

The "What the sliders do" thread would be a good place to start.

Glamdring - I think you'll find wwfan's approach quite amenable to your way of thinking (in the T&TT series). He explicitly set out to model a "realistic" 4-4-2, rather than a "Win everything" tactic .. focused very much on "how do I develop a tactic?" rather than "here's the right tactic". I found it gave me a great foundation for inventing my own tactics - and now I start every game by loading up a default AI tactic and begin adjusting it to suit the team that I have.

As for "How do I develop a losing mentality?" ... I think its "Set a goal that is realistic for your team." If the media are predicting you to come 23rd, expecting promotion is probably unrealistic .. so you set yourself other goals: avoid relegation. Face a Premier League team in the League Cup and F.A. Cup. Get my 19-year-old striker sufficient playing time that I can rely on him as a starter next year. Turn a profit.

I've gotten more enjoyment out of *almost* avoiding relegation with the worst team in Croatia than I did out of winning the C.L. with Manchester United; my all-time favorite game was one in which my Conference team was hemorrhaging about 1M per-annum, and I was only able to stay alive through repeated injections of cash by the board and sale of my best, most-promising players. I spent years tenaciously fighting mid-table with them .. and was both a bit disappointed and a bit elated when I finally started turning a profit and earned promotion.

I don't see the point of managing lower league clubs. By the time you've got promoted and a good reputation all the awesome players like Ronaldinho, Kaka etc are too old or have aged and you miss out on managing them and building an awesome team.

I always start with a prestigious team like Barca, Inter, Milan or Man Utd.

I don't see the point of managing a prestigious team like Barca, Inter, Milan or Man Utd. Its too easy to sign all the awesome players like Ronaldinho, Kaka etc are too old or have aged and you miss out on the pleasures of earning promotion and grooming great young regens into world-class players.

I always start with lower league clubs.

(To each his own, Hagi!)

...but I want to know how people manage to keep enjoying playing the game when they are clearly not good enough at it?!

If winning championships and being promoted isn't in the cards for you, set other "challenges" for yourself. Work to be a great feeder club, developing players and selling them on to higher league fame and fortune. Use only domestic players (or foreign players). Work on upsets in your country's cup. Make your team rich.

Glamdring - I think you'll find wwfan's approach quite amenable to your way of thinking (in the T&TT series). He explicitly set out to model a "realistic" 4-4-2, rather than a "Win everything" tactic .. focused very much on "how do I develop a tactic?" rather than "here's the right tactic". I found it gave me a great foundation for inventing my own tactics - and now I start every game by loading up a default AI tactic and begin adjusting it to suit the team that I have.

I'll make sure I take a look at that then. So long as I feel I am doing a decent job for the quality of the players I have I am happy - it's just recently I've had that feeling that it isn't the fact we are the smallest team in the division or a lack of quality in my squad or anything like that that is causing us problems, just my ineptness as manager! Even at that Werder Bremen team were winning the Bundesliga ahead of Bayern was one of my best achievements in CM/FM I seem to have totally lost confidence after an appalling title defence and a start to the season after that which is no better when I had supposedly strengthened my squad

As for "How do I develop a losing mentality?" ... I think its "Set a goal that is realistic for your team." If the media are predicting you to come 23rd, expecting promotion is probably unrealistic .. so you set yourself other goals: avoid relegation. Face a Premier League team in the League Cup and F.A. Cup. Get my 19-year-old striker sufficient playing time that I can rely on him as a starter next year. Turn a profit.

I've gotten more enjoyment out of *almost* avoiding relegation with the worst team in Croatia than I did out of winning the C.L. with Manchester United; my all-time favorite game was one in which my Conference team was hemorrhaging about 1M per-annum, and I was only able to stay alive through repeated injections of cash by the board and sale of my best, most-promising players. I spent years tenaciously fighting mid-table with them .. and was both a bit disappointed and a bit elated when I finally started turning a profit and earned promotion.

My goal for this season was a little optimistic perhaps, although as ever I have a few goals - the one I hoped was realistic was to edge into the top half of the table, my (very) optimistic goal was to try to grab a playoff place, my minimum goal was to finish 16th because it is where we finished the previous season when predicted 24th. Funnily enough we went on a barnstorming run in the league cup, winning away to a superior Championship team and with 10 men at home to a Premiership team from 0-1 down with 10 minutes to go, but the thrill of that was somewhat squashed by our bad league form!

The dream I always have is to develop a team of local players (or at least, players through the club's youth system), but my youth system never seems to produce players that I could throw into the first team. I'm not expected world class players, but I wouldn't even throw any of these players into a League 2 team Hopefully the improvements to regens (or whatever they are called nowadays) will make it slightly more possible. I wouldn't mind getting relegated with a team of local lads so long as I keep my job

I don't see the point of managing lower league clubs. By the time you've got promoted and a good reputation all the awesome players like Ronaldinho, Kaka etc are too old or have aged and you miss out on managing them and building an awesome team.

I always start with a prestigious team like Barca, Inter, Milan or Man Utd.

I always have more than one savegame active, each with different goals and even often multiple managers in one savegame. I'd get bored of an "awesome team" very quickly though. You can keep your Kakas and Ronaldinhos - watching Diego and Juan Roman Riquelme play for my Werder Bremen team is more than enough for me when it comes to top class players

I've been using the same tactic since FM05! Whenever I load up the game for the 1st time I open the previous game and set my tactic the same, I always have to tweak it a little to make it perfect for the next game but in reality I have used the same tactic since FM05 and achieved success in every edition at every level, I have once brought Eastleigh from the BSS up to the Championship before taking over at Southampton and guiding them from L1 to the Prem in 3 seasons!

I have to say i have always enjoyed managing lower league sides and when in 2005 the conference north was added to the game it made it even better with the fact i could start being my team barrow afc more. It is more of a challenge, working on a shoestring budget, finding players that want to play for you and also the worries that you have that "gem" of a player that will have no doubt league clubs sniffing around them. I managed to get Barrow into the conference premier at the 1st attempt however then spent many a season at the foot of the table, 3 seasons on the bounce avoiding relegation on the last few days of the season before finally getting a lucky break one year and having a good run in the fa cup beating burnley in the FA Cup 3rd round and taking aston villa to a replay in the 4th. only to fall at villa park to a 2-1 defeat. I managed to climb the table and finished in a play off position, winning the playoffs and taking barrow into the football league.

I find that its easy to take over as manager of a premiership club and starting from there but you cant beat a proper career scenario and starting from the lowest of the low and building them up from there. especially if its something that you dream about in real life (i.e Barrow getting back in the football league for me)

On older versions LLM had a chance but now its much more difficult, you end up signing regens with great potential or top players on the whane, irl this woudln't be a financial option.

im still doing it now though.

I'm currently barrow manager in league 1 having been promoted twice on the bounce having survived in the conference for 4 years,

I suppose it maybe different for me as me managing barrow is like some1 managing there fav premiership club as i go home and away with barrow therefore know the club like the back of my hand

I had great fun managing Whitley Bay in FM06, but I was fairly successful on the whole, averaging 2 seaons per promotion up to the Premiership. I'd be perfectly happy to take longer (although on my slowish laptop I'd probably never get there if it took many more seasons!), but that game was mostly really enjoyable. Most interesting perhaps was what happened after I won the EPL title 12 seasons in. In easier past versions it was pretty much guaranteed that you would challenge for the title every season from then on, but I finished 5th the next two seasons (missing Champions League spot on final day both times), then descended the table the next season to finish mid-table and by Christmas the year after we were 10 points adrift at the bottom of the EPL - now that was fun and unexpected too!

I tried managinig Whitley Bay again in FM08, but I think I included players from too many nations or whatever because it was too slow to be enjoyable - when you start that low you want a game that will move at a decent speed really!

Even though I have never gone to watch Whitley Bay, unlike you with Barrow I did enjoy that game especially because they are my local team (I did have to move them to Conference North using the editor though) and probably the most pleasing aspect of it all was having to regular members of the England starting 11 who were born in Whitley Bay (~18 seasons into the game) and had come through our youth setup

well i have won 0 trophies in 2 years on my current arsenal game (come down to last day of the league season both times) and i finally realised my issue, and it was the tactics which worked so well on previous games that just didnt work now, so i changed them again, making alterations and my team already look far more dangerous

Maybe you need to accept your situation as it is. You are managing Scunny, so just to stay up is a great achievement, one you can be proud of. Thing is, if you finish 4th from bottom, although you'll have achieved the success of staying up, you'll still have lost a lot of games, and probably not had that many wins. But try to build on that, year on year build up a squad if you can, whether with youngsters or bringing in experience, whatever it takes to keep improving.

If you manage a top team (or one that is expected to be near the top in their league) then you put greater expectation on yourself, and every loss is unexpected and dis-heartening. But if you are constantly the underdog, think of that glow of smugness you can get when you perform better than everyone said you would.

I guess with lower teams, you need to adopt a long term view, don't get too down if go on a long run. Keep fiddling with tactics, swapping players about, trawl the free transfer lists, but remember success may not come quickly, but when it does it will be that much sweeter. try to keep that in mind when you are on a heavy losing streak, and maybe you'll start to enjoy it a bit more, and relish the challenge of turning it all around.

P.s. I'm crap at tactics too so I feel your pain

Trouble is the media prediction and too many other expectation-based things are based entirely on club reputation. Maybe I am wrong in my assessment of my players' abilities, but irrespective of my own ability as a manager this team is not the 2nd worst set of players in the league. Finishing 4th bottom would perhaps be an achievement, except that we finished 16th last season and I told the board I expected similar this season (rather than simply fighting to avoid relegation)

Funnily enough, in the run of 4 straight defeats we have just had we created more chances in each of the first 3 then pretty much any other game this season, we played really well and I was happy with that, we just happened to lose them all So I kept the same tactic for that 4th match and then got a news item about fans not being happy with me being unwilling to experiment with tactics as we slumped to a 4th straight defeat...pfft! What do fans know?!

Before I buy the game I make sure I understand that losing is all part of the game. That is what makes football, and most sports for that matter, so entertaining. There's no guaranteed result and it's exciting

If I always won then I'd get bored. If I always lost I'd be frustrated but when I finally did win it would make it all the more sweeter because I came through the bad to get to the good

That's what I love about FM, the experience of highs and lows it puts you through, and to me the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as fun without the losing

Before I buy the game I make sure I understand that losing is all part of the game. That is what makes football, and most sports for that matter, so entertaining. There's no guaranteed result and it's exciting

If I always won then I'd get bored. If I always lost I'd be frustrated but when I finally did win it would make it all the more sweeter because I came through the bad to get to the good

That's what I love about FM, the experience of highs and lows it puts you through, and to me the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as fun without the losing

well said. I go through phases where I just can't be bothered with football manager becuase i am bored. I will think for days about who to manage and I usually decide on a lower league mid table team manage. It's a great challenge not knowing what is going to happen and when are successful I have the urge to move onto a bigger club. It's more satisfying in my eyes earning a move to a big club rather than just going a big club.

Before I buy the game I make sure I understand that losing is all part of the game. That is what makes football, and most sports for that matter, so entertaining. There's no guaranteed result and it's exciting

If I always won then I'd get bored. If I always lost I'd be frustrated but when I finally did win it would make it all the more sweeter because I came through the bad to get to the good

That's what I love about FM, the experience of highs and lows it puts you through, and to me the experience wouldn't be anywhere near as fun without the losing

I'd agree completely with that so long as I can feel as though the winning and the losing are a result of my decisions and abilities etc rather than just feeling as though my input is almost superfluous and that the team is just winning and losing games fairly randomly - clearly that is not the case, but at times it feels like that and my current season at Scunthorpe is one of those times. I'd love to have taken credit for a great 0-1 win at Watford, but I did very little different to when we lost 3-0 at Plymouth or when we lost at home to some other team!

Glamdring - Your tactics were good enough to win the Bundesliga. Your tactics were good enough to win the EPL in '06. ... so maybe the problem isn't tactical? A couple of things come to mind the more I hear of your story: consistency, "gel", and man management. I'll try to keep this post low in spoiler content, but high in ideas for you.

First off, some players are just more consistent than others. I've got one striker on my squad who is massively inconsistent: some days he'll bag three goals, and some matches I won't see him at all, even on "Extended Highlights." He can't seem to get a touch. I have a different striker who is extremely consistent: every match, he's causing trouble for the defense. He tends to only score one goal in a game, but he does it much more often, and plenty of times I see chances caused by his precise passing or simply an unselfish run which opens space for a teammate. He's consistent. The kicker? The first guy has better numeric attributes .. the second guy is the first name on my teamsheet every time out. It may be that you have an inconsistent team, especially if you have a lot of younger players.

You'll know all about team gelling, of course - basically, the more you disrupt the team with new signings, the worse you do. My current season, I took over a team predicted to win promotion from Conference National. I brought in a lot of new faces, older veterans and talented loanees. We struggled badly out the gate, dropping as low as 12th before going on a 7-game winning run in October to go top around November 1st. For that, it wasn't anything tactical that I could do - the new players just needed to get used to my approach and gel with the existing players.

The last thought is on Man Management - I think that the psychology aspect of the game is growing and has become much more important. Comparing FM'05 to FM'08, for example, the former you can just slap a tactic out, slap out the best players, and expect to win .. in FM'08, if you botch a team-talk, you can throw away a match .. and if you have a habitual error in your team-talk approach, you can make it difficult to get results at all. You can also use the pre-match questions to your advantage, and use the Praise/Criticise Player functions to your advantage.

The trick is, every player has a different personality, and those have become distinct enough that you need to take different approaches with different players. I had one striker on a past save-game who simply needed a "No Pressure" and he'd respond with a great half, bagging a couple of goals! .. but if I told him "No Pressure" at every team-talk, he'd disappear entirely. .. I've had a 36-year-old who did great with "Expect a Performance" and "Expect to Pick Up Where You Left Off" .. basically the opposite, crank up the pressure on him and he did his best! .. somebody recently posted a screenie of having used the "Criticise" to pick on three of his star performers, and had them each respond with a string of 8's and higher over a five or six-match winning streak. For the most determined of players, a simple "Below Par" or "Acceptable" may anger them enough to spur better performances out of them!

Its a high-risk, high-reward game; you'll have heard horror stories of people who don't seem to enjoy it and say "No comment" all the time because they're afraid of the downsides. I used to feel the same way - I thought it was too hit-and-miss, personally, and too much like a guessing game. Then I read the "Communication and Psychological Warfare" article on FM-Britain (I think they've got it over in T&TT now, too) and "Wolfsong's Guide to Team-Talks", reading them for the *theory* under them rather than taking notes on specific things to do at specific times. Once I internalized it .. WOW! Now I find the Psychological stuff much more like playing a musical instrument. I get it "right" more often than I get it "wrong", and when I get it right its a true delight. When I get it wrong, I usually know what I did .. or had made a conscious choice to gamble on an approach and am willing to accept the backfire as the price of my bet. I've even gone on to find things which, for example, Wolfsong says never to do, but work *in specific situations* which should have been clear from the underlying theory.

So, yeah, work on your tactics .. but if you feel like your tactics should be about right, and you honestly feel like you simply aren't getting as much out of the players at your disposal, maybe these are things to consider?

(From another thread)

When I have a player with poor morale in the team (I end up dropping such players often since morale is pretty poorly implemented in the game and has too big an effect and doesn't change sensibly enough) I will often give a "Have faith" peronal team talk before the match...most of the time it makes no difference and he still plays appallingly

I guess my situation was quite similar to real life though - Diego is my playmaker at Werder Bremen and when he ticks Bremen tick and when Bremen tick he ticks (probably a bit of cause and of effect in both directions) - when he doesn't tick though the whole team often fails to perform to a standard too. From what I've read of Bremen in real life some of their players have said they rely too much on Diego so that when he doesn't perform the team doesn't either.

I've had mixed results with my man management of him though - occasionally it worked spectacularly, other times it didn't work at all - I'm not all that convinced it isn't just very random how a player reacts.

Okay, just saw this, now I'm perfectly convinced that its a man-management thing going on for you.

First off, I'd have written the exact phrases you did - I think "morale is pretty poorly implemented in the game and has too big an effect and doesn't change sensibly enough" may be a direct quote of mine, as is "I'm not all that convinced it isn't just very random how a player reacts."

All I can say is, I've been converted. I think, now, that I was wrong when I held those opinions.

There is sense to it, and you can learn to play the instrument, too.

1. Communication and Psychological Warfare

2. Wolfsong's Guide to Team Talks

3. Lyssien's Player Personality Guide

Some people say that they find Wolfsong's Guide a bit too formulaic : if X, do Y .. and consequently a bit "spoiler" ish; I'm typically of the LLaMa mindset, I want to discover it all myself, and didn't consider Wolfsong's a spoiler for me. But, to "cushion" it, I read it while at work, and hours removed from both my previous and my next FM session, so that may have helped me take it as a gestalt rather than a recipe.

I don't think that the other two links will be spoilers for you at all.

I think you'll enjoy the game a lot more when you've mastered this aspect.

Oh, and regarding Diego .. for all that there's plenty of good info in these, I'm not sure anything can overcome an extreme lack of consistency for a given player. Like I said earlier, I've got that one striker who just seems to disappear for matches on end despite anything I give him. At this point, I figure its him, not me.

I enjoy the challenge that comes with managing a poor side. When I lose I enjoy trying to figure out I can fix what is going wrong. It is the realism that I find most enjoyable, the fact that I know I haven't got a good team and still sticking at it.

I don't get enjoyment out of playing as Manchester United and winning every match. I enjoy being tested, I believe that playing LL is the best way to show your abilites on football manager and it shows that (don't mean to brag) am a shocking manager and should go and play CM where I will win!

**realises what he just said and goes and washes his mouth out**

Two more thoughts, g -

First is, "Morale Has Too High of an Effect" .. I thought that this was true until I realized that its linked with age. Young players are much more susceptible to:

- poor performance due to poor morale

- big morale drops due to a loss

- taking a team-talk badly

- feeling too much pressure to perform

- having low consistency

So it has me wondering, what is the average age of your starting XI?

When I was building young teams, my performances were very streaky - I'd go ten games unbeaten, then seven without a win .. and I thought that Morale had too high of an impact.

When I started layering in veterans - age 29-36, especially at key positions up the middle (GK, DC, MC, ST) I started getting much more consistent results. Now, a single defeat doesn't hammer Morale enough to cause a long losing run.

Second thought - obviously, considering my post in the "Longest Without Winning" thread, there's no "magic bullet". That experience with Vinogradar, in fact, was one of the best in terms of Man Management, for highlighting both how it worked, and the power of it. Despite that 20-odd losing streak, I managed to keep Morale at the club in the Good or Very Good range - and our performances on the pitch were usually good, we only got "blown out" once or twice, and obviously worked hard throughout. I can't count the number of times I got the Commentary lines which indicate a successful team talk (playing with real fire in his belly, looks really fired up, somebody must have had a word with him at halftime, etc) .. and we were still losing so often that occasionally I was Delighted with a tie.

Thanks for all the advice - I'll try to find time to take a look at those threads (I only have internet access at work). I was very much amongst those who didn't wish to reed Wolfsong's team talks thread because I didn't want a formulaic totally deterministic method for team talks, but maybe I'll take a look at it in the way you say. My opinion on team talks has always been that they are either too unpredictable or that there is a formula for always getting it right and that in either case they are a pointless addition, but maybe I'll change my mind

Average age of my Scunthorpe first team squad is 24, but I'm not sure about my starting 11 - probably slightly lower since I have a couple of oldies in the squad who are a bit past it really (pace-wise) and only make the odd appearance. I've always liked a young team so that is definitely one of the things that will cause me some inconsistency. I've added a few players to my squad, but the core of the team has been fairly consistent now for the last year so age is a bigger factor there I think.

With individual team talks I've always either not given one or gone for the fairly obvious options of being disappointed/angry with a player on high morale, but low performance and encouraging/having faith with those on poor morale (or pleased if they are on poor morale, but putting in a good performance). My problem with pre-match media though is that if I select the "We can win" or similar option I always get a few players who bottle it (in their "PR" response) as well as some who get revved up so that I then have to hope an individual team talk can pick up those who lost morale, but the same players lose morale before every game that I say that so I never use that option and always go for the "We mustn't get complacent" option because it usually has a more positive effect on most players.

One of my biggest issues with morale is players who are not in the first team - sure they lose morale, fair enough, but currently I just don't feel I can ever re-integrate them into my team unless I'm desparate because they carry their low morale into the game and play really badly. What should happen is that when a player who is unhappy at a lack of first team chances gets the nod to be in the 1st team he should get a temporary morale boost for the game because it is unrealistic that a player would blow his chance in the 1st team just by sulking about having not beein in it before.

FM08 does have that strange effect on me though - so often I close it down in disgust and vow never to return, but I always do because that tantalising challenge is always there that I keep being determined to get the better of. Just sometimes I get home from a hard day at work and I don't want to have to go 27 rounds with FM08, I just want to be able to send my team out, with a few tweaks here and there and watch them win, draw or lose games in a manner I feel seems vaguely appropriate to their status!

Regarding the individual player consistency, viz Diego, there are two types of inconsistency really - there's "consistent inconsistency" which is what I take a player's hidden Consistency attribute to relate to - i.e. a player who has low Consistency will be inconsistent on a game to game basis. Then there's "inconsistent consistency" which is what Diego tends to suffer from in my games and which points more to a morale, man-management issue because it is the case where a player plays to a really high standard for a run of games and then has a run of games where he just doesn't perform at all and so on, so he's consistent game to game, he just suddenly loses form and then becomes consistent again, but in bad form

Well, after reading through the stuff in the first of those links I've reached the conclusion that my approach is a bit like what Eric Morecambe once said about playing a piece of music - "I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order"

Here's hoping the others work for you as well .. but even if you just stop at the first one, it should make a big difference for you.

A couple responses to specifics:

I've always liked a young team so that is definitely one of the things that will cause me some inconsistency.

I feel like I'm talking to myself! I always preferred a young team and bringing up through the ranks, too, but I've begun to rely more and more on veterans lately. My leading scorer is a 36-year-old striker with 5 for pace, and my top DC is 36 as well .. between the two of them, I've always got one veteran on the pitch to captain the younger players.

My problem with pre-match media though is that if I select the "We can win" or similar option I always get a few players who bottle it (in their "PR" response) as well as some who get revved up so that I then have to hope an individual team talk can pick up those who lost morale, but the same players lose morale before every game that I say that

Those players don't handle pressure, so they'll respond well to a "No Pressure" individual talk .. but more to the point, I don't tend to keep them very long. (If they're young, high-potential, you might want to try and tutor them towards a better response, but my mileage has varied with that.)

My current squad has about three players who respond to me with a "Fired up" PR, and no negative responses, thanks to aggressive pruning of the guys who tend to wilt.

My opinion on team talks has always been that they are either too unpredictable or that there is a formula for always getting it right and that in either case they are a pointless addition, but maybe I'll change my mind

I think it hits a nice balance. I've gotten to the point where I rarely get them flat-out wrong, but can't deliver the perfect team-talk every time. (Low-risk, low-reward) ... but when I do, its a real joy!