Extended Assistant Manager options - An idea.

I currently have several saves running at the minute. Two of them are "serious" games, and the 3rd is an experiment that I hope to detail here at a later date.

It's the 3rd game that has given me this thought.

What's bothering me is that occasionally in my experimental game, I holiday a match because either I simply can't be bothered to watch it, I don't have time to watch it, or it holds no real relevance.

So I set my Ass Man to take team talks and holiday the game.

When the game is finished and I check for "Team Talk Reaction", I find that he has said nothing whatsoever to my players. Nothing pre-match, nothing half time and nothing full time. This regardless of how the match is going, what opponent we are playing, what the result was etc etc...

He even, bizarrely, selects individual talks as "None" and leaves the rest as "Team - none". So what he is doing here is saying nothing whatsoever to the team, and then picking out individuals to specifically say "nothing" to.

(He is a "good" Assistant Manager with high mental attributes and good man-management skills)

This has the unwanted effect of leaving the players angered and confused: "Slt - Feels you aren't giving the team enough credit", which in turn unnecessarily damages team morale.

There are people who holiday matches in their "serious" games, probably the last few meaningless league games or whatever and this could be quite damaging.

We should have the ability to tell our Ass Men what to say to the players in Team talks while we are away. Or at least say to him things like "Go easy on them" (difficult match), or "be strict with them" (playing a rival). Or at the very least "Just say something! to them".

Anyone else find this happening? any thoughts on this?...

I think there are two points of note here.

The first is the fact that a good assistant manager simply says nothing to the players during team talks. This is surely an issue in itself and without going into the second idea this should be fixed so that the ass man at least says something and actually attempts to give a team talk.

The second part is a good idea, and could expand nicely on the first part (once the first part is fixed). So if your team are due to play tough opposition and for whatever reason you're unable, or don't plan to, take charge of the team you can indicate that you'd like the assistant to go easy on the players, or encourage them.

The first is the fact that a good assistant manager simply says nothing to the players during team talks

This is the main point that drove me to write this thread. Even a rubbish Ass Man should say something, even if he gets it wrong.

Some more feedback on this idea would be appreciated, s'il vous plait

I suppose that people would say that because you are not taking charge of the game or teamtalk then you take your chances as if it would ensure that your players would never react badly to an Ass Man teamtalk then surely there is no point in having teamtalks as we would all just leave them to him! I however think that it's a bit unfair that he just says nothing and the players cop a strop! If he'd said something and they had re-acted badly then I could possibly accept that!

The ass men are all complete fools. I have no idea how the AI managers ever win anything if this is how they handle their players.

The ass men are all complete fools. I have no idea how the AI managers ever win anything if this is how they handle their players.

Because we are even worse.....

This is a good point. However do you know if this is the same for everyone? How do you know that if I holidayed a game then the Assistant Manager will say nothing to the team?, he might say something something in my game. How do you know this doesn't just happen to you?

This is a good point. However do you know if this is the same for everyone? How do you know that if I holidayed a game then the Assistant Manager will say nothing to the team?, he might say something something in my game. How do you know this doesn't just happen to you?

It would certainly be worth investigating then, Tom.

It's happened to me plenty of times with various saves and with all classes of Ass Man. Of course, I can only speak for myself. Perhaps if some people here would be so kind as to run a little experiment and holiday a few matches to see what their Ass Man says, that might give a clearer idea of how often this actually does happen.

Although I very much doubt I'm the only one.

It would certainly be worth investigating then, Tom.

It's happened to me plenty of times with various saves and with all classes of Ass Man. Of course, I can only speak for myself. Perhaps if some people here would be so kind as to run a little experiment and holiday a few matches to see what their Ass Man says, that might give a clearer idea of how often this actually does happen.

Although I very much doubt I'm the only one.

I agree that it probably happens in everyone's game but to back up your case you need solid evidence from more than one source. I would do an experiment for you but I get my laptop back tomorrow so I can't.

you need solid evidence from more than one source

Agreed.

Hopefully this thread will stay fresh; I'd like a few people to try this out as I'm quite curious now.

I think the AM should suggest to you what they feel would be the most useful team talk strategy. You can always change it if you disagreed. If he is doing the team talk he should use his own suggestions.

An addition could also be to let the captain do the team talk.

the assistant should definetly make some attempt at managing the side in your absence- some assistants get a lot of money so its a bit daft if they are no more effective at this aspect of the job than a no reputation unemployed assistant would be. I mentioned the other day as well, that im sick of going on holiday for a day when getting hammered in a match i just want to end quickly due to not having too long nowadays to play the game, only to find that my assistant has been going around fining people for poor performances which almost always gets them annoyed. Im only away for a day, the assistant should be able to be told not to try disciplining one of my players.

Perhaps the assistant could make reports so that whenever you return, you can see what players he thinks should have been disciplined whilst you were away and the reason for it, so that you can retrospectively punish them if you feel they deserve it

I want a GOD assman who tells me the best tactic to play and the best players to play.

Yeah this has happened to me when i used to let him give team talks, also when i click the button on the actual team talk screen for him to suggest what i should say he sometimes says none. I know that sometimes 'saying less is more' but saying nothing is.. well.. stupid.

I wonder if this has changed much since FM08 where they were very quiet but did say the odd thing now and then. It was very annoying that the team get upset at you for his rubbish team talks but if he said something inspirational to change a game at half time they gave him the credit!

It's especially annoying if you have to serve a touchline ban and the ass man ruins a team talk for a game you couldn't play even if you wanted to.

Assmen don't always just say nothing, they also have a habit of informing the team that they were "Disapointing" especially when the team has played well (good player Ratings), and WON the match too, unsurprisingly this angers/upsets quite a few of the squad.

I wonder if this has changed much since FM08 where they were very quiet but did say the odd thing now and then. It was very annoying that the team get upset at you for his rubbish team talks but if he said something inspirational to change a game at half time they gave him the credit!

That's right, I remember that. What a daft set of circumstances.

At least I see I'm not the only one experiencing this Ass Man silence.

I also think the Assmen give some unrealistic reccomendations when they are asked in games you are controlling. For example: they will give an overall team talk of disappointing, but praise all but one of my players. Does he know something I don't about how to get the best out of my team or is he a bumbling idiot? Also as he has dished out individual talks to 13 of the 14 used players, it takes an age to set these back to team and change it.

Others include him giving a post-match team talk of "for the fans" even when this is not an option in the list.