One huge flaw I've seen in the game

You won't get anywhere on this game with a very strong, physical side in almost any league, however, get in 2 or 3 players with pace and especially in lower leagues you can coast through at a canter. An example of this in the premiership I've seen is, simply put Stoke, West Broma and Hull, Hull have a few good players who are older, so don't have the pace but this experience counts for something at times and they can usually finish 17th at best on my games. West Brom, usually end up mid-table in the premiership (this is in 4 different games, not all with me in the premiership just letting it run with me in a lower league etc) and Stoke, almost always finish rock bottom due to a lack of pace.

I've looked at the teams and you see in order for these sides play exactly as roughly the amount of pace they have in their side. Obviously you can argue its down to tactics etc, but it seems no amount of stamina, resilience and ability to defend etc can compare to the effects of a single pacey player upfront. West Brom have luke more and ishmael miller up front, 17 and 18 pace respectively, Hull's strikers are a bit behind fagan on 15, king reasonably pacey etc, and Stoke have a single striker with 14 pace, then the others slower than that.

As you look through the teams its a recurring theme, and after holidaying through a season on my experimental game, Stoke scraped survival (I'm quite shocked, but they bought a pacey striker which paid dividends), Hull went down, and at February in the second season, West Brom are 9th (only a few points away from europe) and these sides have little changes in them from the beginning of the first season.

This is only a small test, but is confirming what I've suspected (which is more beneficial my LLM game I'm gonna start shortly lol) a team with pacey players is going to succeed even if it lacks the technical ability of better, slower players. I'm going to start a similar game in the lower leagues just to see if this theory stands up in weaker leagues but it seems as though some of the true essence of football is ebbing away, after all, how many times have you seen bolton regularly go down in past versions etc due to a lack of pace in their team and what not?

Can't agree. In my game stoke are 15th hull 14th and west brom 17th

Odd, this is the 5th game I'm experiencing similar results where I'm not involved in the process with these teams and no involvement at all in the game thus far. I suppose it depends on injuries etc, this was the first time in outside of my own stoke/hull games where Stoke finished above Hull.

In my game (as of January 09) Stoke are 19th, Hull are 15th and West Brom are 11th.

Edit: And Spurs are 4th (!) with Man United in 8th (!!!)

"oh santy, oooohoohoh"

It is true pace is one of most important attributes in FM. But the example which was used in here is not a good one but for example in FM08 I was moving up through the leagues and when in conference found a striker with 19 in both Pace and acceleration. He was my star player and the reason why I was promoted to championship in straight year. The guy was able to score few loads of goals as I was hitting all the teams on counters. Nobody in lower leagues seem to have defenders able to catch him.

I remember from the same game I had two full back one not fast but good at crossing, tackling and other was exceptional for pace. the latter one used to play much better too.

But this was in FM08 notsureif it issame in FM09 though.

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