Pre match tactics - assistant....cause of cards??

[ljwjones]

Well I am wondering if the Assistant can make you get more cards. 2 seasons ago my normal Assistant retired and i had to bring in a new guy. And although not complete of 2nd season with him yet I think he is causing us problems.
We have had atleast double the number of reds and same with yellows since he took charge, so is there any chance it is due to his tactics that he applies for the opposition?
If so what should I do, remove him and get a new guy with what attributes?

[achilles-the-victorious]

LOL, I wouldn't let him set the opposition instructions, first of all! What he is doing is setting your team to hard tackle a number of the opposition players, check for yourself after asking him for instructions, see what his instructions are, and toggle those players back to normal tackling.

Not sure what attributes you would look for in a replacement, but I like an AM who can scout ability and potential, train at a good level, has decent man management, is a good (16+) motivator, and then I look at how they deal with the media, determination, discipline, etc. If they are good with the media and motivating then they will do what I ask of them (which is most often a team talk or press conference, when I don't want to). If my team wins handily I will handle the press, and similarly if we play poorly, but scraped victories or 2-0 3-0 type scores I let the AM take over.

[ljwjones]

So do you think it is possible/plausible that it is my assistant causing the cards?

[Dr. Hook]

So do you think it is possible/plausible that it is my assistant causing the cards?

If he is setting your OI to hard tackling on a number of players then yes. As the Achilles said above, check and take off the hard tackling where your own players most likely to tackle the opposition player don't have good tackling ability. The ass men don't check for this, they just sling out hard tackling instructions.

[ljwjones]

I have sacked him and bought in a new guy, hopefully he wont have the same problem.

[BiggusD]

Do you let him take the team talks?

[ljwjones]

No do all team talks myself. Only the tactics pre match as I don't know the opposition well enough.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

There might well be other factors involved but I had an assman who set hard tackling to every outfield player, every match. so I checked his Sportsmanship attribute, (hidden) it was 1. I did a very quick and simple test, I set it to 20 and for the few games I could be bothered to run he targeted only 1 or 2 in each match.

[BiggusD]

The simple answer to these problems is: don't use OI...

[PPPPPPPPPPPP10]

Assistant OI can be a complete disaster, and sometimes the very reason you'll lose games so don't use it, just read up on what the instruction does and do it yourself, it would make a big difference

[SpaceOwl]

I think an assistant manager high in tactical knowledge and especially discipline will help. Sometimes if an ass man sets all the outfield players to hard tackling it will result in unecessary fouls and decreased posession.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

The simple answer to these problems is: don't use OI...

I consider OI's (positional) to be part of my tactic, an essential fine tuning, and wouldn't dream of not using them. (I set them myself though)

[BiggusD]

I consider OI's (positional) to be part of my tactic, an essential fine tuning, and wouldn't dream of not using them. (I set them myself though)

Yes, if your tactic is designed for and fine-tuned while using OI, then by all means use them. However, if the tactic wasn't made while using OI you run the risk of ruining the balance of the tactic, which in some cases can be very volatile. This is especially the case with classic "universal" tactics, and probably decreasingly the case the more you rely on in-match adjustments to whatever the opposition does. But even in the latter case, using OI before you have seen what the AI actually manage to do on the pitch is imho foolish, since you are essentially making a new tactic every game without knowing if the original one handles what is thrown at you or not.

How do you know that your pre-match OI instructions work or make things worse? You don't, especially not if you leave them to the assistant.