do you listen to your assistant manager during a game?

do you listen to your assistant manager during a game? Do you think he make good sense or is just more cosmetic ? I suppose highly rated assistants should give better advice than weaker ones. What happens when you ahve 2 assistants?

do you listen to your assistant manager during a game? Do you think he make good sense or is just more cosmetic ? I suppose highly rated assistants should give better advice than weaker ones. What happens when you ahve 2 assistants?

I find my assistant's advice absolutely priceless. I pause the game on 15, 30 halftime, 60 and 75 minutes to see what he has to say and act accordingly.

His advice on closing down and showing players onto their weaker side I find especially helpful.

Don't know about the 2 assistants though, not tried that yet. Didn't even know you could have two?

Two assistants? Interesting..

I too find the advice quite priceless, and he has often "won me the game" because he points out things that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

I listen to him to a certain extent. Like who to target on hard tackling, but I ignore the blanket "There's too much space between defence and midfield".

I listen to him complain, but I usually wouldn't have a clue as how to remedy the issues he has, so I largely ignore him

There's something I don't understand about the advice.

The assistant loves to suggest that you "show some player onto their weaker foot". Wouldn't you always want to show players onto their weak foot? Is there a negative consequence of doing this?

Thanks!

i ignore it

Nope. I listened to him for the first couple of runs through the demo, then realised he just says the same stuff all the time (close down onto their weaker foot whilst laying in some crunching tackles) so now I entirely ignore him.

Plus of course the game goes slow enough now as it is without stopping every few minutes to see if he has changed his mind about the gap between midfield and defence.

VB

There's something I don't understand about the advice.

The assistant loves to suggest that you "show some player onto their weaker foot". Wouldn't you always want to show players onto their weak foot? Is there a negative consequence of doing this?

Thanks!

if a player is two footed and you assign that instruction it can cause problems for your team.

Also if you do it with a central player it could encourage them to pass toward a key member of the opposition.

I don't mind that the game is slower when you check assman's advice. He's gotten me out of a fix one or two times when i was out of ideas.

I enjoy looking at his performance analysis but don't do what he suggests about my tactics, maybe I should start

Overall, it is a great feature

Don't know about the 2 assistants though, not tried that yet. Didn't even know you could have two?

Villa have two assistants.

I listened to him until i noticed he was eaither repeating himself game in and game out or pointing out stuff i already know like giving away the ball cheaply and not having great possion.

edit: It would also be nice to see different quality advice for different assistant manages I've managed Arsenal, Luton Town and currently Manchester City and the advice is the same almost word for word. Better assistant managers should give you more indepth information imo.

Two assistants? Interesting..

I too find the advice quite priceless, and he has often "won me the game" because he points out things that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

In some countries you can have 5 or 6.......

For the most part, yes. I never get any mention of too much space between midfield and either defence or attack with my new tactic, but things like a certain player's having too much time or it'd be useful to show them on to their weaker foot is quite useful.

I must admit though, sometimes he says we're misplacing too many short passes or our long passes aren't connecting, and other than changing tempo and passing instructions (which doesn't seem to help) I don't know how to fix it.

For the most part, yes. I never get any mention of too much space between midfield and either defence or attack with my new tactic, but things like a certain player's having too much time or it'd be useful to show them on to their weaker foot is quite useful.

I must admit though, sometimes he says we're misplacing too many short passes or our long passes aren't connecting, and other than changing tempo and passing instructions (which doesn't seem to help) I don't know how to fix it.

Sometimes i'm sure thats just down to your team having a bad day. However it could be due to your players being closed down or marked tightly, but no, aside from what you mentioned, there aren't really any changes you can make to change that.

I think Paul said in the patch that his suggestions will be updated properly, so he doesn't keep telling you to close someone down or show them onto their weaker foot even though you're already doing it!

At half time sometimes , and if I am gettin hammered (which is my case is quite often)

I listen & act accordingly - and will do until I think I know best! Would love confirmation of this though, is the advice generic (ie a genuine guide to sort out weaknesses, created to help like a help file - always giving the best advice) or is it Ass Man specific (ie takes into account Ass Man tactical preferences). Also how accurate is the advice?, eg an Ass Man with almost 20 for key stats would give great advice, an Ass Man with low stats (the sort you get lumbered with in lower leagues) may give duff (poor) advice. And if that is so, if you took on an Ass Man with 1 as his tactical / technical stats and then did the opposite that he advised would that then become "right" due to his shortcomings? Hope that makes sense.

I don't listen to him whatsoever. I didn't start winning until i stopped listening. Thanks to that i completely ignore him

I ignore him.

He says almost the same things every match,but helping me out in the substitution part is good

And,if you offer a retiring player a ass man contract,you will not have to cancel the contract of your current ass man,leaving you with 2 of them

i usually listen to him and see what he has to say about stuff, usually its about the teams passing and fatigue, tactics wise he seems to like my tactics so never had a problem there

i like it, probably my favourite feature at the moment because it brings the ass man to life and makes the match much more realistic. i only really use it for opposition instructions and team talks (if a player looks over-confident and cocky)

I don't listen to his advice all the time, but I do act accordingly if I see that he says something which might be worth taking into consideration, even if I have the upper hand in the game.

I guess there is some way to showcase the assistants advice whilst watching the match? I dont want to keep pausing the game and checking for his feedback - its clunky as hell. So I just see pre/mid and at the end of matches.

NO! in a word - if i was very successful on all other versions of FM with no assistant telling me what to do, why on earth should i listen to him now?

I guess there is some way to showcase the assistants advice whilst watching the match? I dont want to keep pausing the game and checking for his feedback - its clunky as hell. So I just see pre/mid and at the end of matches.

You can have an assistant advice widget on the tv view, or you can put his advice up in a window on the split screen in classic view.

NO! in a word - if i was very successful on all other versions of FM with no assistant telling me what to do, why on earth should i listen to him now?

He has a point...

I listen, ocassionally.

sometimes but if he was THAT good then he'll be manager not me

I'll only listen to him on whether my crosses are connected or not. Otherwise, it's no biggie.

I take his advise on board, but depending on my current match situation I would act accordingly.. So really depends on how my players are actually doing..

I do take his advice on player fitness, like when he says “player X looks exhausted and we should think about subbing him”

But overall the Assistant can play a key role and some of his advice is very good especially for weaker teams. (that’s what I think anyway)

You can have an assistant advice widget on the tv view, or you can put his advice up in a window on the split screen in classic view.

Hmm, I might try this even if I dont like the sound of a widget appearing on-screen, feels too much like opening folders in Windows

Would be nice if it was properly integrated somehow. E.g. Message icon at the bottom, clicking it displays latest note/notes from Assistant.

I see what he has to say but i won't change anything unless i notice it i set show onto weaker foot for most players and have hard tackling on flair players or ones with lower condition, they always repeat themselves on goalkeeper conceiding posession

Does the quality of Assistant Managers determine the kind of/level of feedback they provide in-game?

In some ways that'd be great, but on the flip-side it might result in some players not being helped enough and I think SI introduced this feature to help people.

He talks too much! When I heard about the assistant manager feedback I thought it would be something that you could call upon, so if during the match you're struggling to score/getting battered, you could 'ask assistant' and he'd come up with like a one or two point bullet list - 'defend deeper/get x on now/get x off, he's rubbish' - that kind of thing.

Instead we just get this news reel of comments that are sometimes too hard to follow - if it was real life, you'd turn around to him and tell him to shut up!

This is a useful feature, but it would be good if the assistants comments automatically scroll down to show the newest item of text rather than switching back to the top all the time (As it is I have to manually scroll down quite often just to see if there's anything new).

Sometime I find the assistant contradicts himself by saying so and so is not playing well in the feedback and on the overall the player gets a good review.

I ignore him, he is a tit.

He always tells me that there is to big a gap between my midfield and defence, and my midfield and strikers.

So just to shut him up I once played with no midfield.

I tend to ignore it, especially when he tells me the bloke who signed for the club earlier that morning is having trouble communicating.

Of course he is, he'd never been to england before in his life!!!

Villa have two assistants.

Can you actually sign a second one though, or just have 2 if they are already at the club. In FM08 I tried signing another assistant then when he accepted I was gonna sack the old one, but it said "the contract for the assistant manager has been cancelled because you already have an assistant manager".

This is a useful feature, but it would be good if the assistants comments automatically scroll down to show the newest item of text rather than switching back to the top all the time (As it is I have to manually scroll down quite often just to see if there's anything new).

This. Another thing SI didn't really do a usability test on.