Would like you opinion...

Before i start im not aiming to try and make excuses for not getting a long term game rolling but would like to hear your opinions on this...

Ive been playing Football Manager for years now, brought it every year and love playing it. Every year ill have a career that is successful and lasts for about 10-20 seasons.

But with FM 12 ive still not been able to get a game going. The best ive had so far was my Malaga save...

Completed a season and finished 3rd, obviously behind Barcelona and Real Madrid. Had a good defensive record and scored an average amount of goals compared to the rest of the teams in the league. Heading into pre-season i completed all my transfer buisness early:

OUT: Ruud Van Nistlerooy (Free - wasnt first team and scored no more than 5 goals all year)

IN: Javi Garcia from Benfica (£9m) and Labayd from PSV (Free).

Obviously i needed to make no tactical tweeks or changes after my first season, but ended up being sacked in February (season2) lying 17th in the league :S I adjusted things and nothing ever worked, so i dont have a clue what the reason was.

It has been the same with every other saves ive started since...Blackpool, Santos, Leeds, Sheffield W.

So the question is, have you seen yourself do anything different playing FM12...than you did playing FM11? Have any off you experienced the same thing? Or is there something im missing?

Any suggestions welcome.

I can't help but think that in the end it was your tactics and for a start they got exposed followed by the team getting unsettled when you kept changing them. Other reason I say this is because you started with the best young striker on the whole game imo and still couldn't score that many.

The ME has changed from last year so tactics that worked in previous FMs may not work in this one.

Obviously i needed to make no tactical tweeks or changes after my first season, but ended up being sacked in February (season2) lying 17th in the league :S I adjusted things and nothing ever worked, so i dont have a clue what the reason was.

Why did you think this? I'm sure your rep will have grown during the season because you did well. So when the 2nd season comes you would have had different expectations and teams probably didn't play the same way against you as they did in the first season.

Without knowing more details or anything though it could be because a number of factors.

When you was Santos you didn't have any success either? The reason I ask is because Santos is my team and is my long term save on FM12. To see how I set up you can find it all here http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/289528-The-SI-Sports-Centre-All-You-Need-To-Know-About-FM

If you need tactical help have a look in the tactics forum we'd be glad to help you

They worked first season with this Malaga team though, as well as the other teams ive listed. But after about a season nothing clicks.

I did expect other teams to approach me differently. But after playing against a host of Europa League standard teams in pre-season, and playing in the same fashion, i decided against making any changes. I couldnt see much weakness after buying a spanish holding midfielder in Javi Garcia to start taking over from Maresca. I played one up front and had Fernandez and Rondon as my main two to choose from with Juanmi with backup. the likes Baptista and Buonoatte were there if i was desperate too.

With Santos i wasnt always sitting pretty on top but was never lower than 3rd throughout the year.

It looks like you overachieve with a team on the first season, then on the second season the other teams adjust because of the reputation change which makes your current tactic ineffective.

I play catenaccio on this version, which I've never done on any other. But I can tell you, the value of a settled squad is immeasurable.

Why did you think this? I'm sure your rep will have grown during the season because you did well. So when the 2nd season comes you would have had different expectations and teams probably didn't play the same way against you as they did in the first season.

In fairness to the OP, i am very experienced manager and was regular top 10 team in FM Live and i hardly ever change my tactic from game to game or season to season.

To quote a famous legend of the game 'players win you football matches not tactics, so much crap is talked about tactics by people who can barely win at dominoes'

In fairness to the OP, i am very experienced manager and was regular top 10 team in FM Live and i hardly ever change my tactic from game to game or season to season.

To quote a famous legend of the game 'players win you football matches not tactics, so much crap is talked about tactics by people who can barely win at dominoes'

FML was totally different though and not the same at all even though the ME was simliar at the time. Human errors or people who don't know how to use tactics are always easy to play against.

And I never said he had to change tactic I just asked why he thought that. Seeing as his rep and expectations have grown over the season he over achived he is now ranked differently so teams set up to play him a lot different. So if he was struggling (which is the case here) then he needed to adapt soemthing as his current way wasn't working, so obviously it was flawed. In the first season teams would have been more attacking towards him due to their initial expectations. This means he would have had a lot of space to attack against certain teams which might have not been the case in 2nd season.

As for Clough he always claimed he didn't bother with tactics which is a lie if you've ever read about him or seen documentaries. He was always tinkering and adapting but always claimed overwise. He was very tactically astute.

Dont get me wrong, im not saying tactics are useless, but for me there are many types of manager. Some are tactical genius and can turn a game on such changes, others are motivators (like O'Neill) and others like me are more about spotting players with the correct attributes for my team. I guess each manager is a mix of all three but i just think if u have correct players with correct attributes then tactics are less important than some would have you believe.

I have used 4-2-3-1 (with wingers) formation for the last few versions of FM, using short passing, high pressing, balance and attacking mentality and seldom tweak individual settings and i have won many trophies in all different league and achieved things with many different teams.

Regarding FM Live i was just trying to assert that in a game in which you cant paticuarly cheat (eg reloading, genie scout etc) then i was above average player with limitied tactical knowledge. I felt this was better example than just saying 'oh well i won treble with Man City in FM11' or some other meaningless statement.

Anyway back to the OP, i find the biggest thing affecting form is morale, if u can regularly hold team meetings at the correct times and re mould the squad in transfer windows you can keep on a winning trail, just my opinion ofc

I have been trying to get a save going with Man U as of late but NOTHING compares to my Barrow save (10 yrs in) which i keep going back to........Luv the regens once all known faces have retired