I'm just wondering...

...I was speaking to my friend, who also plays the game. We were discussing tactics over a pint (sad yes, bored no!) and he always gets his Assistant Manager to control friendlies. I personally don't, because I like to try new things and youth players etc, and I am wondering if anyone else does this and why do you do it?

always the assistant for me, i'm too busy hunting for players/eating dinner ; ]

I get my assistant to look after my first set of friendlies because I just want to get to the competitive games. However, after my first season, I always look after them.

Always play my own friendlies.

I always get my assistant manager to do the friendlies as I find that they don't give that great of an indication to how your season will go. Managing Watford, I've won by a large amount in all of my friendlies and then messed the season up but I've also lost all my friendlies and then finished top or 2nd.

for me pre season friendlies are vital as your team needs a while to get used to playing together and in the formation youve made

i also like to arrange a game with awful opposition, like my under 18s or a lower league side, so everyone gets their confidence up and bangs a few goals in before the first game of the league

I let my assistant do it for these reasons:

I find that he knows better than me who needs to play to get them to optimal fitness.

He might stumble across something I may have overlooked ( tactically etc)

I heard that the great Brian Clough never got involved with training etc as it heightened his impact on the team on matchdays.

I only play 1 or 2, usually play none at all and found it benefits the team. Or I'll field my reserve/youth side of promising kids like I do in both domestic cups.

I always take control of friendlies - I like to get a feel for my players - And more importantly I need to try out tactics and formation in pre-season.

I take control of my friendlies. I have a habit of making unneeded wholesale changes with players every season so they need time to gel.

I always play the friendlies myself because I always want to play friendlies for different reasons and therefor want certain players to play longer. I'm in Sweden and usually have a European knockout game in Feb / March, which is 1 month before the season, so I have 5 warm up games and like to play the entire first team for 90 minutes in the first two friendly games.

I like to play my pre-season friendlies to get my team gelling with each other and getting used to the formation my team are playing. I find that watching the highlights aswell lets you get a good idea if your formation is working and if you need to tweak it in certain areas.

Depends how bored I am. I'll usually play my first two (11 players one half, 11 different the second) against very inferior opposition, then let the ass man play my mid-range opposition, then I'll put out my strongest team for 60-75mins against two superior teams and play those. Usually.

I wish I could talk to my mates about FM over a pint. Whenever I try and do that they just look at me as if I'm speaking a foreign language and tell me to shut up. I went as far once as to install an old version of CM on a mates laptop so that I could talk to him about it. It kind of back fired though when he started doing better than I was, ****ed his GF off too, they broke up not long after

I am not keen on my assistants selection process, so i often take control of friendlies. I like to make sure that my preferred starting 11 are all match fit by the time the season starts and for some reason, my assistant likes to watch the reserve players have a run out. I might let him take charge of the first one or two if i don;t fancy it, but the later friendlies are all me.

i always let my assistant take control, to busy looking for the next wounderkid.

Always take on my own friendlies. I like to get both my first eleven and second eleven up to match charpness. The old assistant only takes care of the first eleven!

I let my assistant control them but always check up on who has played well and whos scored etc.

Always let my assistant take control, check the scorers afterwards but too busy looking for new players and trying to keep hold of my good ones.

I play them - need to carefully manage how much playing time everyone gets.

I take nothing to do with friendlies, pre season is for player signings only and I usually holiday to the start of the season.

...I was speaking to my friend, who also plays the game. We were discussing tactics over a pint (sad yes, bored no!) and he always gets his Assistant Manager to control friendlies. I personally don't, because I like to try new things and youth players etc, and I am wondering if anyone else does this and why do you do it?

It depends what is the weekly day and time.Between Monday - Friday i would probably give the monkeyjob to assistant. But if it is Saturday or Sunday morning and big cup of coffee under my nose, i would do the friendlies at my own and suddenly wake up at 2pm when the lovely fiancee calls me to dinner and still not played any official league matches.