How exactly do you win?

This is more of a rhetorical question rather than a plea for help. I have noticed a disconcerting trend that WSM is getting harder and harder. I'll be the first to admit it; I'm not very good at the tactics. I don't understand how to apply what I see on the pitch to the sliders, nor do I think SI does a very good job explaining how to prevent against certain reoccurances (IE you give the ball away too much or the AI beats you consistently on through balls), but this was never a problem. The reason for this was because other people actually knew what they're doing and put their tactics on the boards! That way, I could actually have fun with the game because the tactics worked and the best team usually won.

Naturally, I expected Patch 9.02 to be the same but, oh my, was I wrong. I've tried essentially every single tactic on the forums and none work with any consistency. By "work", I mean "win", because I am nearly always the better team, yet I do not win.

Here's why:

1. Cannot put away surefire opportunities. Now, my strikers are Pandev and Robinho who are supposedly pretty good, right? Yet they manage to screw up 95% of 1v1 opportunities. Why? I usually get something like 7 shots on target, and 15 off target. And it's not because the are low percentage shots. Pretty much everyone on my team cannot hit the target.

2. Superkeepers. The AI keeper makes miraculous saves. Or maybe my shots aren't very good. Probably both. Scott Carson's face has the permanent imprint of a ball on it every time I play West Brom but he always stops the 1v1s or point-blank headers.

3. How the hell are you supposed to be defense? The AI wingers are faster than my fullbacks (Srna and Zhirkov) no matter who they are. The AI always has unmarked players on crosses. The AI always gets breakaways and counterattacks. The AI gets a few CCs every game; the only difference is that they convert them. I don't.

4. Holding leads? It's actually better in this game, but I still get the feeling that if the AI feels like it wants to score, it will. Sometimes, they toy with me; they fail miserably shooting from 2 feet out, have the 1v1s saved, but then that George Boateng or someone unprolific like that will smash in a 30 yard screamer.

I get pounded by the big 4. I pound everyone else but still can't win. I'll dominate the key highlights and the AI keeper will make save after save after save until some stupid clearance goes to Koren who passes it to Ishmael Miller (who has like 30 goals, I think pacy strikers are still imbalanced) who runs down the sideline, makes an impossible 90 degree angle turn to go around my defender, rounds my keeper (my players never try it even though I've retrained all my strikers to do it), and passes it into the net. I'm pretty sure I caused myself braindamage punching myself in the face after that one.

Please SI, I don't think I'm going to continue playing this if I can't win. Make 9.03 beatable. I will never be able to do it, but I think it's a sign that the game is too hard when none of the downloaded tactics allow me to win.

I stopped reading when I saw superkeepers. Sorry, and you make some valid points, but that myth has been debunked so many times it's ridiculous to keep it going.

this is just a suggestion but why don't you try to amend one of the tactics that you have downloaded. I did this with one of my 4-4-2's due to my strikers not scoring and now have the 3rd best striker in blue square south.

We all know about the 1 on 1's and clear cut chances being missed but lets be honest if SI made the game so that you can win the league with any team they would lose more respect from fans worldwide.

Also have you made so many signings that your squad hasn't gelled yet and players who were originally at the club are nervous that they won't be able to get a game?

I think keepers in general away way too good, but I always have more chances than the AI and therefore the AI keeper makes more miraculous saves than mine does and thus gets a higher rating and more MOTMs.

EDIT: I've tried to amend tactics but I don't know how, the Assman tells me what's wrong but I don't know how to fix it. "your strikers are being outnumbered by the defensive line"- what the hell do I do about that?

Also, I'm Man City in March. I haven't made any major new signings since summer. During the warm-up, usually only 2 players have problems blending into the squad? Is that a problem?

Out of the 63 games i played in 1 season (Prem, European Cup, F.A. cup, League cup and charity shield) a massive 23 games the oppostion goal keepers got Man of the Match against me. This is stupid and certainly does NOT happen this much IRL. I think this should be addressed in the next patch. :confused:

ive scored 48 in 21 games in the league, pretty regular usual FM scoring, no problems with "super goalies", maybe twice has a goalie been on really good good form and kept out lots of shots, but then again you see that in the premiership in real life quite reguarly

EDIT: I've tried to amend tactics but I don't know how, the Assman tells me what's wrong but I don't know how to fix it. "your strikers are being outnumbered by the defensive line"- what the hell do I do about that?

I'm fairly sure my assman is telling me this but due to the fact that I don't bother with the feed back I ignore it. I made a 4-4-2 attacking into a 4-4-1-1 with slightly more attacking and now score 2-3 goals a game regularly. Just keep plugging away at it and it will eventually come good. Also I'm playing as AFC wimbledon.

ive scored 48 in 21 games in the league, pretty regular usual FM scoring, no problems with "super goalies", maybe twice has a goalie been on really good good form and kept out lots of shots, but then again you see that in the premiership in real life quite reguarly

Gotta agree with ya wheelerdealer keepers do have terrific games in the EPL just look at Fulhams keeper against Liverpool at anfield earlier this season

The illusion that keepers are too good comes from the wrong attacking tactics. If you customize your tactic to your team and use the sliders to limit play and work positions together then your on the right track. I have 3 mentality systems in my tactic. defend support and attack. i designed it so that everyone works together and defenders can set up goals and so on so it all flows perfectly, I won the blue square north in season one and am top of the league in my 2nd season at christmas. In my experience it is all about getting set positions to work together as units within the team. spend some time and think about how you want to play and this what if he loses the ball who will back him up and you will work it out on your own .

You win by scoring more goals than the other team;)

You win by scoring more goals than the other team;)

I didn't want to say that

I've found for my team to succeed at this game I have to play a defensive formation and counter-attacking tactic under two circumstances:

1) When I'm on the road against a similar or better team

2) In the last 10 minutes of a game at home against a similar or better team

Almost any time I attack on the road against a decent team, I get thrashed. And in the last 10 minutes of the game, if the AI is losing, it goes attack crazy.

You should especially use 1 & 2 if your team is supposedly having gelling problems, or if the team is supposedly "over-confident". Go for draws on the road, and attack for wins at home.

im playing an attacking 4-4-2 with good wingers bombing forward and good right and left backs doing the same, it works mainly because my 2 star strikers are 194cm and... 185+cm and have very good stats in heading and jumping so i score a lot of headed goals but not all, infact, my left back is a young roberto carlos! 28 games 11 goals lol, he just pops up in the box! crazy guy but i dont mind if he scores that many lol, strikers are on 21 from 35 and 19 from 32 with good contributions from lots of other areas of the pitch, centre mids almost have 10 teach, freddy adu on the wing has 6, you just have to tailor your tactic to where your strength is, mine is in the air so i use that most

Well Said Scott1990. It can be difficult to explain the sense of frustration when you can't understand why your team is underperforming. I usually go through a stage like that every year with FM. Then I lower my standards or...... keep plugging away at the tactics. But it does end up like work a bit often.

I have played half a season with Ajax. I tend to get myself involved deep, so I manage all teams from first team to U-19, so this half a season actually means a lot of games.

I haven't seen any superkeepers as described above. I would rather say that my problem, when it comes to scoring, is too few chances in some games. Usually there's not very many 100% scoring chances in one game. There's few, and usually team is able to use around half of them, which is also quite realistic - if you watch IRL football you'll see how many chances world class strikers actually blow away.

Which is also quite realistic is that those 100% chances don't always fall to strikers. And if my CD takes a furious strike from the corner of the area I would say it's more logical that he's not gonna score. Strikers are good at finishing and other players just not so much.

Again, if you watch IRL football, you'd see that most of the shots are off target. Usually 25-33% of overall shots are on target. Over 50% is already very good.

Some of the on target shots are anyway not dangerous to any decent keeper. Soft headers, long range free kicks etc.

The key thing that the OP said was "How to apply what the assman says to the sliders". I agree completely, i have also said in other threads the same thing. Dont get me wrong, im having a lot of success so far, but its the newer generation of players i feel for. Not all of them (especially Americans, sorry) really understand the nitty gritty of the tactics side of things. They may see it on TV and think it looks like a good game to play (IRL and in game) but if you dont have an in depth kowledge of tactics from the start then i can see how the game can frustrate.

The TT&F document, we know the one, the 18,000 word document you have to read if you want to fully understand the game, is very good and informative. Its great credit to whoever wrote it , WWfan i think? But the people on these forums are only a small percentage of actual total FM gamers making this document a bit redundant. If people need this document to help them understand how it works then why not include it in the manual or as a file on the DVD so it can be read by everyone? This would help a lot of the newer gamers, and some older ones, and there was also an idea a few weeks back about earning your coaching badges, and how it could be used as a tactical tutorial which i personally thought was worthy of another look.

Anyway, to the OP, good luck, keep trying, dont get over frustrated and you will get there in the end!