That dreaded time when teams take you seriously

I am lousy at Football Manager. I've never had a long term career, and I haven't been able to play a version properly since about 12. However, with FM16, and some brilliant advice on T&T, I found myself enjoying a decent run in FM for the first time in years. Until now.

I got my team, Wrexham, promoted from the Vanarama National into League 2. Total shock, we were expected to be mid-table. Now in League 2, my odds are 80-1. Using similar tactics to last season, which effectively destroyed the league, I took the 16 of the first 18 points and am top. As someone said in another thread, it's highly likely that for those 6 matches I was seen as the new boys, the 80-1 relegation candidates you can take it easy against, try new players, etc. I understand that. However, teams have now woken up, it seems.

I confess to having now rage quit four times. I've played matches 7-11 five times now. That's 25 matches. And I've won 1. Lost 24. Barely getting a shot on target, losing to the only shot my opponents have. Tried different tactics, different formations, different set ups. I know this isn't the way to do it, I know it's not likely to give me 'accurate results', but it does indicate the sudden emergence of a pattern I've not seen before. In short, everything that drives people insane about this game. I'm not asking for help in my game. I know it's my tactics, I know it's my inability to read the game, and I know some of it is probably down in some way to luck, and I know that the solution is likely staring me in the face. Tomorrow I'll give it one last shot with T&T. But, having never had real success before from which to fall, I'm just wondering if this spectacularly instantaneous collapse is normal for a very low level team when teams start taking you seriously...or is there some other factor at work? It seems to be the...if I'm reading other peoples problems correctly...usual drying up of chances. Players are getting into the box and missing from 2 yards, either into the side netting or across the face of goal...these are players who last season, during the friendlies and the first 5 matches of the season were really prolific. Teams have definitely tightened up, I'm often counting five, six, seven outfield players in and around the area when I'm attacking...but then my 6'4 TM is losing headers right, left and centre so pumping the ball into the box doesn't work. I've watched more goals than I can remember where the opposition have literally passed the ball through my entire team, from their box to mine, without any of my players (who are on tight marking and get stuck in) even attempting a tackle. My players are playing ok...I'm still getting regular 6.8-7.4 performances through the team, it's just that my attack has completely dried up and my defence often simply doesn't, well, defend.

Like I said, I'm not seeking tactical help....I'm well used to walking away from FM, and am perfectly happy to do so once again. I'd just be interested to know if what is happening is what I think it is...teams tightening up in defence and simply upping their game in attack. At least knowing my enemy will give me a chance of fixing the issue.

Thanks

or is there some other factor at work?

There are no nefarious FM-gods who will the AI teams to suddenly improve, or force your teams to lose. Or your players to play poorly.

It is that the other teams are taking you as a serious rival and you need to plan according to that

Thanks, David...that's what I feared! Wasn't sure if it would happen to quickly or so brutally. I didn't mean 'nefarious FM Gods'...though I believe in those the same way I believe in ghosts, I'm not entirely convinced they don't exist, but not sure they exist either lol. What I meant was, could it be my players not coping with the speed or pressures of a new league, or becoming complacent after 5 wins, something like that. In hindsight, I've done what I said I would...I've sat back and re-examined my tactics and realised that I've stupidly messed up....I made tiny adjustments for certain matches and situations, and forgot to undo them. Cumulatively, they've wrecked my tactic so that, not only are teams now taking me seriously but my tactic that was so devastating last season has been almost completely compromised and shorn of it's fluency and attacking intent. Luckily that can be easily dealt with...the teams upping their game, not so much. Nor getting back into the game after such a stupid reaction. I hate when I rage quit, but just can't stop myself sometimes. I do it every version, and I confess I never learn. I think what I'm going to do is, make the adjustments I've identified, then go on holiday for those 5 games I rage quit and take whatever I get from those.

i can't get my head around what sigames consider to be 'clear cut chances' in games you dominate but end up losing or drawing when the opposition have there usual single foray into your box, shoot from anywhere and it just magically goes in every time, i've heard people say it could be down to the moral of your strikers etc, but surely a clear cut chance is a clear cut chance regardless, defensive teams could use a monkey up front with 1 for finishing and they would still score with there solitary effort on goal everytime, very hard to understand you have a poor tactic when you limit the opposition to 1 shot on goal and yourself create 5-6 clear cut chances every game, far too much bias for defensive teams in this version

The clear cut chance statistic is quite wild and, as others have said on these forums, they'll avoid using it. Watch the shots that count as a clear cut chance and then decide for yourself if you think they are, or are not.

Example: Cross comes in, 5" 2' striker heads it and keeper pulls off a save. Counts as a Clear Cut Chance. What that doesn't tell you is, how powerful was it headed? Where was it headed to? How good is the keeper? Was he already positioned correctly to save it?

The clear cut chance statistic is quite wild and, as others have said on these forums, they'll avoid using it. Watch the shots that count as a clear cut chance and then decide for yourself if you think they are, or are not.

Example: Cross comes in, 5" 2' striker heads it and keeper pulls off a save. Counts as a Clear Cut Chance. What that doesn't tell you is, how powerful was it headed? Where was it headed to? How good is the keeper? Was he already positioned correctly to save it?

Yeh, i would agree, its almost nonsensicle to actually watch the game anyway in the 2d or 3d engine, watching your world class strikers miss ridiculous sitters all game and then the opposition

will have one attack and never ever miss, ever, it's like it's a **** take to make you deliberately pissed off with the game, probably better off reverting back to text, at least then you wont see

the same old thing happening game for game

Yeh, i would agree, its almost nonsensicle to actually watch the game anyway in the 2d or 3d engine, watching your world class strikers miss ridiculous sitters all game and then the opposition

will have one attack and never ever miss, ever, it's like it's a **** take to make you deliberately pissed off with the game, probably better off reverting back to text, at least then you wont see

the same old thing happening game for game

Surprising to see you banned once already with just three posts.

I have to disagree. I'm the first to admit, I'm absolutely terrible at this game, always have been. But recent posts on T&T have helped me to my best season ever, with 126 goals in 53...there's definitely no bias to the defence. However, it's a known fact that teams do tighten up when they realise you're more of a threat than they thought...believe me, the first 6 games of the season were 'easy' for me, and then it literally fell apart overnight. However, I know it's a tactical issue....as I said earlier, I've messed around with my tactic too much and completely wrecked it. It can be incredibly annoying....I'm still trying to work out how to get back into it after really mucking it up, rage quitting etc, but I know the most important fact....it's not the game, it's me. Accepting it is the next step, then moving forward, re-assessing and if necessary rebuilding your system.

Yeh, i would agree, its almost nonsensicle to actually watch the game anyway in the 2d or 3d engine, watching your world class strikers miss ridiculous sitters all game and then the opposition

will have one attack and never ever miss, ever, it's like it's a **** take to make you deliberately pissed off with the game, probably better off reverting back to text, at least then you wont see

the same old thing happening game for game

I'm not sure you understood what I said.

Yeh, i would agree, its almost nonsensicle to actually watch the game anyway in the 2d or 3d engine, watching your world class strikers miss ridiculous sitters all game and then the opposition

will have one attack and never ever miss, ever, it's like it's a **** take to make you deliberately pissed off with the game, probably better off reverting back to text, at least then you wont see

the same old thing happening game for game

Its almost like you've never watched a real match in your life.

Here I am watching MK Dons v Chelsea & 26 mins in I've already seen Oscar & Costa both miss open goals while Hazard & Loftus-Cheek have had one on ones saved.

I don't know if it's the case with OP, but I've found that rotation is extremely tricky to get right.

What if one team starts their season with a winning streak - how long can they go? IRL they should be model professionals, not to lose concentration and motivation. That's why rotation is the key. Shuffle some players. Show that there's a competition to places. Give a chance to substitutes/youngsters. That + right team talk should keep your form high.

But do it too much and it can backfire very easily. Some players get nervous, some lost their rhythm. Your fluid teamwork looks suddenly clumsy and everything falls apart. And fail to motivate your players before match - a huge impact to their performance.

Its almost like you've never watched a real match in your life.

Here I am watching MK Dons v Chelsea & 26 mins in I've already seen Oscar & Costa both miss open goals while Hazard & Loftus-Cheek have had one on ones saved.

yeah, because of course when Chelsea play MK dons , every single game will end up 1-0 to MK dons with chelsea missing 6 clear cut chances

5-1 Chelsea now, as if that would ever happen on this edition of the game, lets be honest about it now, to score 5 goals in this version you need to create about 75 clear cut chances

yeah, because of course when Chelsea play MK dons , every single game will end up 1-0 to MK dons with chelsea missing 6 clear cut chances

5-1 Chelsea now, as if that would ever happen on this edition of the game, lets be honest about it now, to score 5 goals in this version you need to create about 75 clear cut chances

Only if you are a TacticalMoron

The bottom line is good tactics & choices deliver results whereas poor tactics & choices get punished. If you feel like you get punished too often then you need to review the choices you make.

yeah, i never said they didn't, what i am saying is the games statistics are complete nonsense and a 'clear cut chance' is actually nothing of the kind, teams who player on the counter attack have an absurd shots/goal ratio, and that's fine, you can accept that to an extent as to an extent, in real life it's true, although not to the extent it is is this version of the game and in reality it depends entirely on player quality, but you can't accept that the 'clear cut chances' you create putting teams under pressure are infinitely 'worse' than one off shots on the counter that 9 times out of 10 just fly in at any distance or angle

I don't know if it's the case with OP, but I've found that rotation is extremely tricky to get right.

What if one team starts their season with a winning streak - how long can they go? IRL they should be model professionals, not to lose concentration and motivation. That's why rotation is the key. Shuffle some players. Show that there's a competition to places. Give a chance to substitutes/youngsters. That + right team talk should keep your form high.

But do it too much and it can backfire very easily. Some players get nervous, some lost their rhythm. Your fluid teamwork looks suddenly clumsy and everything falls apart. And fail to motivate your players before match - a huge impact to their performance.

I think you make a really good point! I'm not totally convinced tactics are the key to everything. Obviously they play a major part. But I do think that as soon as your squad hits a bad patch and you need to rotate players it can be incredibly difficult to turn things around. I know in my game i've over-achieved with Valenciennes and took them to the Europa League. I did ok in Europe but the amount of games really took it out of my squad and I managed to stay in Ligue 1 on the last day of the season. I just couldn't string good results together in the league at all. Whereas in the previous seasons I really over-achieved. I put my bad season down to the team losing its rhythm because I had to rotate so much. I actually went from the team who used the least number of players to the team using the most! So in some respects in not too unhappy i'm not in Europe this year!

yeah, i never said they didn't, what i am saying is the games statistics are complete nonsense and a 'clear cut chance' is actually nothing of the kind, teams who player on the counter attack have an absurd shots/goal ratio, and that's fine, you can accept that to an extent as to an extent, in real life it's true, although not to the extent it is is this version of the game and in reality it depends entirely on player quality, but you can't accept that the 'clear cut chances' you create putting teams under pressure are infinitely 'worse' than one off shots on the counter that 9 times out of 10 just fly in at any distance or angle

Well most of us know that the definition of CCCs in FM is relatively poor so we work with what we see.

In terms of talking about statistics if you want to be taken seriously you need to provide actual figures from within a save and then match that up with real life stats.

The bottom line is that many of the users that have issues manage their team poorly, tactically they give little thought to defence which often leaves AI teams with good counter attacking opportunities and probably a higher conversion rate compared to RL because of the user choices. In terms of attacking the story is much the same, many users play kick & rush football (Maybe due to other football games like Fifa/PES etc) and expect the same sort of conversation rate as you get on those games with little thought as to what happens IRL. On top of that they then don't even bother to watch the match sticking it on key highlights & max speed so they can blast through seasons in a matter of hours therefore missing 99% of what is happening on the pitch.