SoW's Seasonal Guide.

SoW's Seasonal Guide

I see some people, saying they have taken maybe Weston Super-Mare to Champions League glory, and it gets me thinking, how?

My biggest achievement in FM2008 was winning the Uefa Cup with Bristol City, and that was in 2012-2013, fair enough a half decent achievement. However, its the final hurdle which is hard. Winning the league or the Champions League. I had a strong squad with players like Stancu, Obinna, Vidal, Jefferson Etc. Now in 2009 I have made Montrose into a SPL side in 5 years from the 3rd division, but what I needed, as do many others, is the push to finish the task.

But on the flip side, lets forget about the final hurdle, lets concentrate on how we actually jump the first one.

The first and second seasons are the hardest, no questions. We have the first season for seeing how well a team can perform, and when we do find that out come May-June, its time to start preparing for the season ahead. Which your second season could show you a few things:

• If you survived relegation, could your team take it to the next level and be up there next season.

• If you just missed out on Promotion, can your team make that last step towards glory.

• If you were promoted, can you stay up, which will, in turn bring us back to the first bullet point.

For many people, its tough. Getting the final team in time for your expectations that season. So as Football Managers, lets share and discuss, the many things we all do, before, during and after the season, which will help us finally get our team to the place they should be.

I'll start by adding my opinion on how I opperate the season as a whole.

Pre-Season

Everyones favourite time. The transfers are in full swing and we have arranged glamour ties, to test our teams metal.

• Friendlies. Arrange some friendlies, depending on time, i think about 6 is a fair amount. Focusing on not only a chance for teams to impress but also how it will effect the team morally and physically. Glamour ties are great, but not to many. Only maybe two out of 6 should be, as against big teams, your team will physically detereorate faster due to the better opposition and if you are on the end of a thrashing, moral could take a skydive, so keep the glamour ties appropriate to your club. For example, don't go try arranging a friendly against Real Madrid if you are Yeovil, chances are you will lose. You could arrange one against a relitivly well known foriegn team like Osasuna or even a team from the same country like West Brom or Fulham, where there is a better chance of comming away with a hard earned draw or victory. on the contrary, teams of lesser known reputation should also be played. If you are say, Roma in Italy, you could arrange a tie with St Johnston from Scotland. A win would increase moral. Not only that, you may want to take on a team who play in certain ways. For example, Spanish clubs and known to play at pace and Scottish clubs are more physical. A good mix for fixtures should help in the long run.

• Signings, in my opinion, should be made as fast as possible. This will give the team more time to gel and settle, and be able to take part in pre season. Also you could sign players in the previous January and arrange for them to join the club when the season is over, that way, if you want him to be playing at the level he is at the now and join the club fresh for the new season, they will join as soon as the Window opens in the second season in summer. If you are struggling to find anyone who looks good enough to bring in long term, you can now ask your Assistant manager to send you a report containing players availible for loan, which can also help short term. Like friendlies, players should be signed from different countries, as well as the home countries. This way you have a variety of cultures and playing mentalities. If you are slack for money and not being able to afford players with everything you are looking for, you could sign two cheap players with attributes which differ from each other, but are both important for that roll. For example A target man with good headering and strength and a pacy striker, with pace and dribbling. The same applies for all positions. This will give you great variation throughout the season.

NB. It might be handy to try and unsettle any future targets right now, by declaring your interest, this may make it easier to sign your targets in the long run.

• Tactics are important. I'm not a pick as you play type manager. I tend to find a tactic that works well and not change it unless its not going good in match play. So its always a good idea to have tactics of different types availible through out the season, like Defensive, Attacking, Shut up Shop, Counter attack, Ultra Defend. However some managers do it differently, and hopefully they will too explain why in this thread. Im not a believer of change your tactic to suit your player. I'll buy my players to suit my tactic, again some managers do it differently. Whether, you make your own tactic or download other peoples and see if it's suitable is up to you, but the majority of tests should be done pre-season, so you can tweek as you play.

• Feeder/Parent teams are important now. If you are a small time team you want a parent club, as you could get a lot of useful loans from it, who could become vital to your season. Many times I have had players who have came on loan from my feeder and then wanted to make it permenant. Again on the other side of the coin, a feeder team is useful here as it gives you the chance to loan your future stars now and see the benifits when you get them back, a year later. So getting a feeder/parent club at the start of the season could potentially be the difference between you acheiveing your expectations or failing them badly.

• Training. It's never been one of my strong points. But there are a lot of useful training schedules and guides how to do your own. With decent enough coaches, even for a Striker, moving from 14 to 15 for finishing, could be the difference between winning a crucial game or losing a crucial game so, get your players on a good training regieme as soon as possible.

• Staff. Staff are important in the game, because they all have different rolls. Assistant manager, Coach, first team coach, youth coach, scout, physio, fitness coach, goalkeeper coach. Each have there own responsibilities as a part of your backroom staff so getting a good team behind you is a great start to any managerial career. You know why they can be important by now. A scout is your ticket to the potential 30+ goal scorer which Man Utd missed out on. As for your Physio, well, he could just get your wonder goalkeeper back before the big match, when the previous physio with lower attributes, might not deem it possible. Now in 2009 the Assistant manager has a lot more input, with his abilty to show where the tactic is going wrong, or who he reccomends you bring in to slot into a void in your team. So many vital responsibilities for your staff.

So as you can see, a huge amount has to be covered in the month or 2 before the big season kicks off. Its now which will be the vital foundations to a success story or a forgetful fable.

Mid Season

This is your last chance to strengthen your squad for the final run in, and review the 6 months previous.

• Signings. Like I said, last chance saloon to boost your squad before the run in. Again, to make them as soon as possible is a bonus, as you have games that month so, the sooner the better. However dont rush and buy players you arent sure will benfit the team, you still have a wage budget and to blow it on a player who could flop could be disastrous financially come the end of the season, so be wise. Injurys or suspensions are most likely at this point of the season as we are half way through so, even signing good short term fixes could be a good idea, regardless of there age. Sometimes the experience is what you need, so do not reject a player because of his age. You could say "if he is good enough, he is young enough". It might be very useful to check expiring contracts and free transfers about now. Some clubs let go some half decent dead wood, which you could pick up for free and have it a few days later, or you could agree a contract and get them for the summer/start of the new season. Like i said at the start, buying in January could be useful, that way the players will be there for pre-season

• 6 Month Review. It is important that you look at the 6 months previous at this stage as it could tell you where you are going wrong. If you have been playing poorly away from home and conceding a lot, then if might benifit from changing tactics now for away games. As I said further up, you should already have a set of tried and tested tactics for this type of situation so, its imporant now, more than ever, to start getting the draws or wins you need. Also, you should be looking at your players training and seeing where it has been taking dips and leaps. If you see he has been training well in aerobics, but poorly in attacking, you might want to lower aerobics a few notches till the end of the season and raise attacking, that way his attacking attributes will improve.

• Targets. By now, you should have a clearer picture of where your team might end up finishing in the league. You have to question if its better, worse or where you thought they would be at this point. It is important you know where your going, and you have to know where you are at before you know where you are going. So mid season targets could be helpful here, as at the end of the season you can look back and see where it started going right or wrong and fix that for the season ahead.

• Parent/Feeder. Again it's around this time when ,depending on when you asked for the last one, we can get another Feed or Parent club. Like before this can be useful as you can get a loan from your Parent club who has a half decent Midfielder in their reserves but, could be a star if they were to come on loan to your club. So again, requesting a Parent or Feeder club now could be benificial for the last 5-6 months of the season.

• Contracts. It might also be a good idea now to look through your players contracts. If a star players' contract is running out, you might want to get him signed up, before someone else notices it first. Keep your best players. This also intertwines with contratc mentioned above. Get some players snapped up for January. Most of the time, you will catch them with 6 months left on thier contract so, if you sign them now, you have them for pre-season.

• The Future Star. Here would be a good time to have a scout for some future stars. If you can find some great potential players, you could hopefully agree a price and make them come at the end of the season. The youngster will need the experience and sitting in your U19's or reserves wont be THAT much use. Leave him where he is to train and get more first team games, and get him in the summer. That way, he will be more experienced albeit only 6 months more but thats potentially between 10-20 more first team games, that he might not get at your club.

• Finance. Just a small note. It could be handy to check your finances to see if they are rising or falling. Maybe releasing or seeling a few players now could be useful in terms of finance. Your team needs money to get better so a good financial control is vital, especially this time, as it's the last chance to sell or make any dramatic change.

• Your own youth. Many times I have brought through players from my ranks into the first team, just to see how they would do, even if the coach report says they are garbage, and they have turned out some good performances. Have a check in your youth squad, and pick out any stand out performers, they might be ready for the reserves now. The training will be harder and the games will be harder, can he cope? Only one way to find out. These kind of moves could become vital if an injury crisis was to occur. It might be the difference between safety and relegation or 1st and 2nd.

The Conclusion

Everything revealed. Now you know what went good and what went bad.

• The Season Review. No matter where you finished, you have to look back and find out the positives and the negitives, and there will be lots. They way teams play, how to counter it. Stand out performers, how to control them. Finiancial aspects. Nearly everything from the 6 month review should be considered here, only difference being that the 6 month review gave you the chance to make some month long changes. But the season review doesn't. It's over. You either followed it and got the benifits or missed bits and paid the price. This review should be done the first 2 weeks after the season finished. After that, you are back to the start. The seasons go on.

• Frustrations. At this point there should not be many. If anything wasn't done at the Pre-season and start of the season, it should have been done in mid season. You should, if you were careful have:

- A healthy bank balance.

- A decent squad.

- Renewed Contracts.

- Potential Stars.

- Signings comming in the Summer.

- Good staff.

- An insight on how teams play

- An insight of the quality players in your league.

- A well tweeked, reliable Home and Away tactic.

- A list of potential teams to play for pre-season.

These factors are vital in becoming a top class Football Manager. In FM2008, I managed to guide Falkirk Football Club to back to back SPL winners and the Uefa Cup Final, in 5 game years and in FM2009 I have guided Montrose into safty in the SPL fom the 3rd Division in 5 years.

I hope this guide helped and If you have any questions or anything please feel free to either PM me or post on this thread, and I will get back to you ASAP.

Feel free to redistribute, but please give credit to the writer.

Great post mate! Enjoyed reading through it over coffee ..

I agree with the variety of opposition and matching it to approximately what you are going to be facing in the upcoming league, especially tempo during pre-season friendlies.

Kudos for proper punctuation and spelling as well .. really good read.

Thanks a lot mate

Brilliant read. Agree with everything said in the post.

Great presentation. I think this should be read by every member new & old.

Fantastic guide

A very nicely written guide and to the point. Everything was well put together and I enjoyed reading as it was easy and doesn't throw the reader off with huge blocks off text.

A very interesting post, indeed.

Thank you for sharing.

A great read and very interesting!

Thanks for taking the time out and typing this up and posting it.

Thanks all lads. Any questions or anything just ask

That has to be simply the best post I have read on genaral discussion since I joined in november. If something like this was included in the manual it would make the game alot easier for new starters to pick up and for existing playings to refresh there skills of the seasons ahead. Mix this is in with a simplified version of the tatics guide and you FM down to a tee!

Worthty of massive :thup: and should become a sticky for these forums IMO:)

Great guide, well done mate .

Nice guide fella

Great post and well presented now off to get promoted:p

Thanks for all the comments guys

Friendlies - I'd not look at these necessarily to get results but if as lower placed/rated team to either gain money by having them played at home against bigger sides to boost finances with gate receipts and as a way to judge your players and any new youth/reserve players you are thinking of miving into the first team

Coaches Judgements - yes do beware. Sometimes the "good" rated player you have if played consistently and young enough to still develop can end in the future being rated as a quality player and with a high proce valuation, and most importantly an improved player that previously you may not have considered. As you say, don't always rely soley on what the coach says, use your own judgement

As brief summary what you have written in general is good as it sounds enthusiastic, informative and reads well in terms of its presentation.

I suspect many newer players of FM have not read the manual fully, this is a good overview

Thanks for your input mate.

That has to be simply the best post I have read on genaral discussion since I joined in november. If something like this was included in the manual it would make the game alot easier for new starters to pick up and for existing playings to refresh there skills of the seasons ahead. Mix this is in with a simplified version of the tatics guide and you FM down to a tee!

Worthty of massive :thup: and should become a sticky for these forums IMO:)

Im glad the effort and hard work is appreciated by other members of the forum. Thanks HuwFlet