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Ridiculous mid season slump


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its your tictacs....

Seriously here, I like to mix things up if I get a bit of a slump. I look where I can take my tactic to counter whats been going wrong then go back to it after a few games. I also take games against 'unbeatable' or 'easy win' opposition as a chance to change tactics and play in a different way

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Happens to some teams IRL, especially those who play short passing games in lower leagues once the pitches get ruined and more matches are played in the wet muddy conditions. If that is the cause, then playing more direct could work, but if you have players more suited to short passing on good pitches, you might be stuck.

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Superb/Very good morale + "playing with confidence" = complacency. Especially when you're the favourite.

Also, when you are doing well, the match odds changes to make you the favourite and then the AI autoresponds with a more defensive strategy and tactic.

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I had a shocking run in my last season. Was challenging for the title at Christmas despite being considered lucky to finish in the top half.

Then went from January to late March without a single win. Luck went against us big time, every time I was going into a match that we should win I'd either get an injury or an early red card, also had a run of 5 games which was Villa, United, City, Chelsea and Liverpool.

It's the worst slump I've had in any save of FM, nothing was going right. It was such a huge relief to finally get a win, I'd started to go into every game with certainty that something would go wrong, it was really difficult in press conferences and team talks. That slump lost us a Champions League spot.

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Okay, to explain a little what I mean, I will quote a friend of mine, an unrecognised FM tactical genius who opened my FM Doors Of Perception called Teutomatos, as you, people, when I begin in FM, I meet always a bad form during the season but since he explained some logical things, I avoid this bad period now :

The attributes of your players are changing along your season (due to training, age etc.), for IA opponents also. IAs can change their coach, their players, their tactics.

Your tactical choice is made in 2 steps : First, with the exploitation of the best part of your players(best qualities, best position etc.), and second step during match where you need to make correction according to the opponent reaction that can be measured by stats and Zonal Action view.

If your shoe is no more fit to your foot, you walk with a limp.

I take an example with a finishing problem(you will find tons of posts about that here) who came often from a poor strategic choice. If by luck the ball reaches the front line, it is not in the best situation. The player is badly positioned, or in a bad dynamic to shift from opponent. So he does wrong, he does things too predictable, or with the cost of big efforts that make him miss the last action, or do not surprise the opponent.

The trouble for us come from it's difficulty to see those troubles in the 3D match. But fortunately we have the statistics !

There may be some mental attrition who may also affect the performance of a player under the increase or decrease of his

reputation, the evolution of salaries of other players, also hidden elements that build personality (That's why they do not

react all the same way). Sometimes signing new players with a certain salary, other player can feel a kind of inequity in

your team...The factors are many.

I can explain also the bad form with the overuse of players by too many matches in a row,(that can be managed through

Natural fitness attribute) and poor management of his condition. A bad training given the previous months or year to the

player which you lost some complementary qualities that enabled him to perform well. Having 20 in an attribute is often

misleading, he need others physical/mental and complementary techniques to perform well.

You can search also from training program, perhaps some players are reached their maximum in some attributes to training,

the workload is now perhaps too heavy and become an unnecessary addition charge to just maintain these attributes

achievements, which lead to overload the player too early ?

Did your players get individual training, or did they shared with another? Because if you shares training it becomes

impossible to manage their condition before match for example.

All those explanations, are a possible illness for a team who become to perform bad. So you need to improve your management,

It will not necessarily a great revolution to the way you manage, but the difference is on the details. That's the way how

FM works, on details.

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Same thing happened to me. I'm Arles manager for 3 years. First season I finnished in the mid table of League 2, second season as a League 2 winner and League 2 manager of the year. Third season started very well, won Bordeaux and Lyon away and after about 20 games that was that. After that we lost all the rest of the games and finnished second from the bottom. I tried everything I could, switching players, switch tactics, having team meetings, tried to sign some players but the problem was 4M€ budget I had at summer transfer window. I tried to ask for some more funds wages or transfers and no board didn't gave me anything.

I can't say that it wasn't annoying because since our first losing game almost every game started by conceding a goal within 10 min no matter how did I arrange my defence.

Now my both goalkeepers are leaving because Butelle wants the salary I can't offer and Petit (second goalie) wanted more games.

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Same thing happened to me. I'm Arles manager for 3 years. First season I finnished in the mid table of League 2, second season as a League 2 winner and League 2 manager of the year. Third season started very well, won Bordeaux and Lyon away and after about 20 games that was that. After that we lost all the rest of the games and finnished second from the bottom. I tried everything I could, switching players, switch tactics, having team meetings, tried to sign some players but the problem was 4M€ budget I had at summer transfer window. I tried to ask for some more funds wages or transfers and no board didn't gave me anything.

I can't say that it wasn't annoying because since our first losing game almost every game started by conceding a goal within 10 min no matter how did I arrange my defence.

Now my both goalkeepers are leaving because Butelle wants the salary I can't offer and Petit (second goalie) wanted more games.

I am sorry but what you say here is just evidence of poor management, and is just how football is for small clubs in top divisions. It is difficult to turn poor form around, it is difficult to strengthen poor teams with no money and it is necessary to rotate to keep players happy. Why are you surprised?

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I am sorry but what you say here is just evidence of poor management, and is just how football is for small clubs in top divisions. It is difficult to turn poor form around, it is difficult to strengthen poor teams with no money and it is necessary to rotate to keep players happy. Why are you surprised?

I'm not that suprised after all. Same destiny can happen to much bigger club aswell. I'm learning all the time and after I got rid of "all the stars" I have about €3M to spend even my squad is pretty good at the moment. After that I felt like Wenger who is real money maker for Arsenal. :) My team is building better training facilities for first and youth teams. We are developing and it's nice to have this big confidence from a chairman because there were some moments where he could fired me.

It's pretty much harder (to win trophies with division club) then in previous FMs (~2010) but for me that's just good.

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form? i am managaing stockport, scoring 3-5 goals every game.. bam a 0-0 then a 1-1 then FA cup game go from 3-0 down at half time to 4-5 AET then another 1-1, then i beat league 2 team in FA cup.. then another draw.

so yea, they happen. my last one at united was end of season, half of defenders are injured slump

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As a manager you are responsible for the changes to arrest a slump, but there are some things you can't control. For example, in the first season I had a beast of a forward - top scorer, fan's player of the year, had all the qualities to excel at the next level. Second season maintained the same form until November, and then .... totally lost his mojo. No reason - nothing happened to cause it. I had a couple of kids waiting for their chance and they fitted in resulting in a second promotion, but for the rest of the season every time I gave this fella a starting place or subs appearance - nothing. He's not even unhappy with himself or me. I have decisions to make - stick or twist; he's already a club icon but I can get a good price for him. Will the kids be okay at a higher level or do we need his experience? Will his mojo return as mysteriously as it disappeared? Management is all about how you handle these difficulties; it's not ridiculous - it's football.

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i would love to control it, but when rooney and henandez turn into a real life heskey and torres and miss everything..

whats more frustrating about these slumps are the random results. as united was having a slump, few 1-0's a couple of draws, drew with spurs, beat chelsea 6-2, back to low scores. almost got knocked out of the FA cup (90+2 goal for replay).

annoying but just about managable.

i do have issues with players having a goal drout when the computer ones never do though.

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I've had this problem in varying degrees since FM10. It usually starts around late January/ early February. Some seasons it'll be a couple of games, some seasons it'll be a campaign-destroying run and sometimes it doesn't affect me at all. I think I'm just about learning to cope with it now after 3 years. It definitely helps to tweak your tactics. It hasn't often taken a massive change, sometimes not even a formation switch, it could just be switching a few player roles or a few team instructions and it defintely helps get things back on track. Failing that I just switch to an ultra defensive formation and try and limit the damage if things are really bad.

What makes it a little less frustrating, though, is that most seasons some of the AI teams around me seem to struggle as well which means that it doesn't feel like the game cheating me out of points, more my tactical ineptitude and general laziness when it comes to changing things.

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Same thing happened to me. I'm Arles manager for 3 years. First season I finnished in the mid table of League 2, second season as a League 2 winner and League 2 manager of the year. Third season started very well, won Bordeaux and Lyon away and after about 20 games that was that. After that we lost all the rest of the games and finnished second from the bottom. I tried everything I could, switching players, switch tactics, having team meetings, tried to sign some players but the problem was 4M€ budget I had at summer transfer window. I tried to ask for some more funds wages or transfers and no board didn't gave me anything.

I can't say that it wasn't annoying because since our first losing game almost every game started by conceding a goal within 10 min no matter how did I arrange my defence.

Now my both goalkeepers are leaving because Butelle wants the salary I can't offer and Petit (second goalie) wanted more games.

Constantly changing tactics is just about the worst thing you can possibly do in FM. I NEVER deviate from my main 3 tactics throughout the season, and any changes I make are tiny. Changing tactics regularly is a 100% guaranteed way to have a mid-season slump/loss in form. It's never, ever worked for me. No matter how bad things are going, the tactics should be the last thing you change (unless they really are shocking, but then you should have worked on them harder at the begining of the season if that's the case!).
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To me was the other way around. I got to a team that was in the below-half of the positions and I reached mid season 9th. Now that the other half started, I tied the first and won the other 2, one of them was against a big team of the division 2-1.

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Constantly changing tactics is just about the worst thing you can possibly do in FM. I NEVER deviate from my main 3 tactics throughout the season, and any changes I make are tiny. Changing tactics regularly is a 100% guaranteed way to have a mid-season slump/loss in form. It's never, ever worked for me. No matter how bad things are going, the tactics should be the last thing you change (unless they really are shocking, but then you should have worked on them harder at the begining of the season if that's the case!).

When I test a new tactic, I always start a new game. I change things around in order to find out if it works or not. Regardless of how it goes I always quit that game after a while and start again, now knowing that I need this type of player and not that type of player and that sort of thing. I won't continue a game where I spent all my transfer money on a player I can't use after tweaking the original tactical idea!

In other words, I never start a new non-test game without a tactic I -know- works. The reason for this is that once I have lost or struggled to win the first 10 matches, the season is going to be a horrible struggle and it is impossible to know whether it's the tactic that's at fault or something else (even if I get it right!). The tactic either "clicks" or it don't, and I don't bother forcing it when things are already bad.

So no, don't change tactics. If it has worked once, it works and thus it is something else that is at fault.

Note: when the AI figures out that you're actually to be reckoned with (easy to spot: the pre-match odds start to tilt your way!) they play more smartly against you and then there are certain types of tactics (read: 1-on-1 w/keeper through-ball exploits) that will struggle overnight.

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Constantly changing tactics is just about the worst thing you can possibly do in FM. I NEVER deviate from my main 3 tactics throughout the season, and any changes I make are tiny. Changing tactics regularly is a 100% guaranteed way to have a mid-season slump/loss in form. It's never, ever worked for me. No matter how bad things are going, the tactics should be the last thing you change (unless they really are shocking, but then you should have worked on them harder at the begining of the season if that's the case!).

I've tested 2-3 different tactics and end up that 4-2-3-1 is working the best. So I mean 4 defenders 2 DMC:s left "ball winning" right "low lying playmaker", 2 wingers and one AMC how is helping my target man.

eg. Cardiff and Algerian national team wanted me but I refused their offers.

ps. I got fired from Arles after 3 years. We played to many draws and at the time we were at lower half of the table in Ligue 2. :(

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I've often found amazing form in February. Not so much now, but in seasons where I've been struggling to avoid relegation or achieve promotion, I'd have a terrible season until February and then find a fantastick run of form from early February, securing promotion or avoiding relegation. Many times. No idea where the form came from, it was just there.

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