Overall Guidance Wanted...

Hi all, I hope you're all well.

Ok, here's the deal.

I've been playing Football Manager games for nearly 20 years now. Starting with Premier Manager '97 way back when... and I've been playing FM for about 4 years. But here's the problem...

...I'm absolutely woeful at Football Manager.

Apart from one save in 2012 where I took Stockport County from the Conference to the Europa League in 7 seasons, and then got offered the England job, every other save I've had has been horrendous. Normally summarily dismissed after less than a season in charge after not meeting expectations, or alternatively having to resign after being relegated from the basement division (owing to the fact that the club either won't renew my contract, not because they don't adore me obviously :-/ , but because the game doesn't allow me to manage any lower in the pyramid...).

So, I'm reaching out to the wider FM community for help. I don't want you the play the game for me. But it would be good to know what things I'm doing wrong. But more IMPORTANTLY, WHY they're wrong, or WHY something else would be better. I don't want to just take a load of instructions from someone. I want to understand the game (or probably more accurately football) better.

So, here's a brief overview of what I do upon joining a club, and you can give me your opinion. All opinions welcome:

I always play Bottom Division or Conference clubs. I don't know why but the romantic in me just finds this more entertaining.

The first thing I do is sack all the staff (unless they're actually quite good). I then hire the Assistant Manager available with the best Ability and Potential Judgement stats, so that he gives me an assessment of the team's strengths and weaknesses. Then I hire the best Physio and Scouts that I can. That's pretty much it. Most LL clubs won't let you have much more.

Then I look at my squad and sort them by ability, and I create a formation that utilises as many of my top 11 players as possible - unless my top player is like a random AM® with no secondary positions and I don't have any cover for him, in which case I'll either re-train him or release him.

This is a very hit and miss approach. I had a stormer of a season with Buxton FC with this approach, playing a 4-3-1-2 attacking formation or a 4-1-2-1-2 Diamond Wide Counter, but then the following season I have no idea what happened, but I ended up in a relegation scrap and got the sack. I only changed 3 players...which makes me think that the formation wasn't what brought me success.

As far as actual tactics are concerned, I literally have no idea what I am doing. I don't know what possible motivation I might have for being rigid or fluid, wide, narrow, route one, direct, exploiting the flanks etc.

If I have a good header of the ball up front I float the crosses, and if I have someone pacey I make it route one...that's the sum total of my expertise.

Ok, team...go! What am I doing wrong. And feel free to say everything. Just at least give me some alternative. Please?!

Alternatively you can always tell me that I'm a lost cause.

Many thanks,

Chris

As always, the best course of action is to create a thread in the tactics forum detailing your tactics and way of playing..

BUT as a bit of general advice..

My first step would be to ask what reputation you as a manager have? It can have a great effect on how your team's morale and form plays out...

Secondly, i'd say, don't make wholesale changes.. it really does disrupt the whole team..

Tactical Familiarity is key for me, concentrate on getting that to 100% ASAP.

I'd also keep tactics really really simple, particularly with the level of players you have.. Simple formation, simple roles and barely any TI's will keep you on level ground.

You suggest you have difficulty understanding whether to go rigid or fluid, wide or narrow. I can't stress strongly enough that you check out the tactics forums..

I don't think you are doing too much wrong in general, you just need a little more understanding and focus on one area.

I don't sack anyone when I take over a club but as long as you are replacing them with better then it doesn't make much odds.

You are looking at your squad, identifying the strong areas and finding a shape that fits the bulk of them so again no problem.

It then all comes down to what happens on the pitch and the choices you make. You need to able to identify when your "strong" formation/tactics aren't working and have alternative options when facing opponents with certain shapes. Reading your OP it sounds like you have issues when you come up against defensive teams who don't give you space to attack. You need to think about how to break them down while still protecting your own goal from counter attacks.

The tactics forum is a good source of information and you would probably benefit from reading a few of the threads in there. They should give you a better understanding of what is happening and maybe some new ideas as to how to approach a match.

I think part of the problem why you're finding things difficult is because I think you're starting at the hardest level possible. I always used to be the same and constantly got the sack. I think the problem is that starting at the bottom you have very little room for manoeuvre. If you want to start at the bottom, I would look for a team that has the potential to do well. Basically a big fish in a small pond. For example Portsmouth in League 2. I haven't played as them but I think if you were to choose a team like them to start with, you may give yourself a better chance of success.

My advice is simple: Watch as much of a match as you can, at least initially when you're setting up a tactic. Secondly, keep things simple. You can always add instructions as you see you need them.

The Conference is a very hard league, with only one going up automatically and one going up through the playoffs. Typically you won't have much cash to play with so make use of the loan market as best you can.

I think there's a tendency for people to overthink things, tactics-wise. For example, you don't need to choose between stay on feet and get stuck in - just leave it alone if you don't need either. Just because it's there, doesn't mean you need to use it.

As others have mentioned, the tactics forum is fantastic for understanding the game better. I was rubbish at the game until I spent a couple of hours reading some of the articles on there. It will help you understand what each role does, what mentalities are best for big matches, etc.

As a more general note, I find it quite important to have at least two, or preferably three formations that you're very familiar with. At a lower level with a smaller squad it's trickier to just slot different players into existing roles/positions - can be a lot easier to just change the formation.

This is a very hit and miss approach. I had a stormer of a season with Buxton FC with this approach, playing a 4-3-1-2 attacking formation or a 4-1-2-1-2 Diamond Wide Counter, but then the following season I have no idea what happened, but I ended up in a relegation scrap and got the sack. I only changed 3 players...which makes me think that the formation wasn't what brought me success.

As far as actual tactics are concerned, I literally have no idea what I am doing. I don't know what possible motivation I might have for being rigid or fluid, wide, narrow, route one, direct, exploiting the flanks etc.

If I have a good header of the ball up front I float the crosses, and if I have someone pacey I make it route one...that's the sum total of my expertise.

This is your problem. Tactics make a huge difference in this game, if you don't understand what you're doing you're going to struggle. Moreover tactics these days are notoriously difficult, changing a couple of settings or even switching a couple of players for a couple of others that aren't as well suited, will make everything crumble apart.

I think the first thing you need to do is stop making up completely different tactics every time you move or start a different career. Now whilst it's a nice concept to adapt to your situation (and it makes sense), the reality is that getting a tactic right is a process that might take a while, and if you start everything from scratch again you're going to throw away all of your progress.

Then the easiest way is to first figure out how do you want your team to play, and then watch a couple of matches and tweak things to make it more like what you imagined. If you're not much into tactics you might not have much of an idea, but you could start by something simple that works in real life. Examples:

a) a simple attacking flat 4-4-2 with wingers, you'll want to play fast football and cross the ball into the area for your 2 forwards

b) a possession 4-3-3 (DM, MC, MC, AML, AMR, ST) or 4-2-3-1 (MC, MC, AML, AMC, AMR, ST) which is all about retaining the ball and passing around it slowly and patiently until a break opens up. You can also bring down the AML/AMR players into the ML/MR positions which works well in this version as it'll help you defend, and might even make these formations more suited to a counter-attacking style.

c) a narrow 4-3-1-2 or 4-4-2 diamond, this is just like the above where it should be all about slowly passing the ball until a break opens up, except you need to be very careful not to be attacked down the wings as you'll have a player less there.

Side-note: I see you tried a formation like this but on attacking mentality, I don't think that's a good idea as attacking will make your team punt the ball forward quickly; when your strength in numbers in this formation is in the midfield and it's much better to pass the ball around in-between them, and wait for a break. Incidentally you also mentioned you tried a counter-attacking WIDE diamond, this is a bad idea, a wide diamond is a completely different formation that has nobody in the centre of the pitch, it's a terrible formation for playing on the counter as counter is a bit defensive and you don't have the players in a good position to play defensively (your midfield shape is completely open). Honestly it should've been the other way around, a wide diamond is much better for an attacking way of playing, and a narrow diamond or 4-3-1-2 is much better for a patient style, perhaps not on counter, but maybe on standard mentality or control mentality with lower tempo.

d) a defensive 4-5-1, 5-4-1, 5-3-2 where you try not to concede too many goals, then hit the opposition on the counter-attack

etc. Start with a simple idea then work into it. Don't use too many team instructions or player instructions, start with like two of them at most, or even none; and add them after watching the matches if you think they'll help you. And be patient and don't panic, sometimes you'll be playing well and still concede an unlucky goal, don't throw everything apart when that happens, wait for the game to play out a bit then change things if a bad pattern happens.

If you need further help refining your setup, you can post in your tactics forum.

Hi again all,

Thanks very much for all your contributions. It's not been as bad as a response as I was expecting. I was fully expecting to be asked which asylum I had recently been discharged from.

Form the face of it, it seems that a) I'm changing too much and b) I'm trying to be too complicated from the off.

I'm also going to mosey on over to the tactics forums now and have a browse.

Once again, many thanks for taking the time out to give me your opinions and advice.

Cheers,

Chris

noikee's post is brilliant advice!

I'd also add that while your approach to picking an initial team is similar to mine, it needs a bit of refinement.

I would advise not just picking the best 11 players based on star ratings. While this will usually be your best 11 players overall, that doesn't mean they'll be the 11 most effective in a given formation. By all means, keep these 11 players in mind (I usually select a bench, too, during this process so that you can switch a few players out if needed), but here's how I do it (disclaimer: I'm not amazing either, but I can usually at least challenge for a playoff place by the second season in the Conference):

1 - Decide, in broad terms, HOW you want to play. This might be dictated somewhat by the board if you play a more 'roleplay' style. For instance, do you want a defensive, attacking or counter-attacking tactic (clue: You do not want a defensive tactic)? Do you want to pass, or lump it upfield? Is your attack going to be dictated by a big target man, or speedy wingers?

Some of these will have to be compromised to start with. If you want to play with a big target man but don't have one, for instance, you'll have to either get one, or change your approach to begin with. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, compromise on the PLAYERS. Compromise on the TACTIC. What I mean by this is; that 5'9, 6 Heading, 16 Pace striker is not a target man. Do not force him to BE a target man. This will go badly. An Advanced Forward or Poacher may not be what your tactic calls for, but it will almost always work better than forcing a player into a role he's not suited for. This then has knock-on effects. If the rest of your tactic is geared towards lumping balls forward to a big target man, the DLF you've got playing up front instead isn't going to get much service (EVEN IF he's a player that would actually be decent as a target man but is playing DLF).

2 - Start simple. As others have said, don't use a team instruction unless you know why you need it, and at this level basically ignore player instructions entirely. Instructions should be used like seasoning. You season food because you've tried it and determined seasoning is required, NOT just because it's on the table so you feel you should use it. As with food, if it tastes bloody awful, a bit of salt isn't going to help anyway.

3 - Stats over Stars! That AMR you've got might be a 5* CA player, but if you're playing with wingers that bomb down the wing and cross the ball frequently, and he's got 6 Pace and 2 Crossing, he's probably not going to do well in your system. You might be better off playing that 2.5* backup who has the footballing intelligence of a mushroom, but is fast and can cross a ball. At the conference level of football, you generally only need players that can do one or two things well, and to put them in roles that take advantage of those skills.

Pay attention to individual player's skills. At this level, having above 10 in a Technical stat makes you pretty good at it, and not many players will have multiple useful stats above 10. Take advantage of the stats that are good and try to exploit them as much as possible. This also means you might have to tweak a player's role when you make a substitution (you can set this up automatically in Player Instructions (yeah, the ones I told you to ignore earlier, they're useful for this one specific purpose). You can add players to each position and have them automatically use a specific role when they play there. But make sure that the role they're using still makes sense for the overall tactic.

Examples: Good: You've got a player who can't pass well, isn't great off the ball, and is generally pretty football-stupid, but can finish really well and has pace. If you normally use an Advanced Forward, he'd be mediocre in that role because he's just not good enough at the fundamentals of football. But playing as a Poacher he doesn't really need to be. So he could bag a load of goals just hanging around waiting for people to pass to him. As the Poacher and Advanced Forward both generally do the same job (they're both advanced strikers who hang around up field), the change won't cause a huge issue with the team, but it would help the poacher out immensely as he won't be expected to get involved in the buildup play much, which he's not good at. You probably won't create as many chances overall, because Poacher guy isn't helping to create them, but when he tried before he just gave the ball away most of the time anyway, so it shouldn't make a huge difference.

Bad: You've got an Advanced Forward whose Finishing isn't great, but he's wonderful in build-up play. You decide to drop him back to a DLF, to take advantage of this. Unfortunately though you haven't considered the impact on the system as a whole, and now nobody is actually up front trying to score goals. You DLF is getting the team into great positions, but there's nobody to actually make the final pass to, so he goes it alone and misses a lot due to his inferior finishing. The better thing to do here would be to either recognise that, as a STC with poor finishing, there's no place for him in your team. Or tweak the system to play two up front with a poacher or Advanced Forward alongside him so that he has someone to link up with.

4 - Season to taste. If you've got your system set up, and it's not working, investigate why. Your wingers play loads of quality balls into the box, but nobody is scoring? Can anyone actually head a football? If not, switch to Low Crosses, so that they don't have to. Likewise, if your striker(s) are exceptional in the air, but have the technique of Neil Ruddock, use Float Crosses so that defenders have their work cut out for them with every cross. Sticking with Mixed Crosses in these cases just means that roughly 50% of your crosses are useless as your players fail hard at scoring from low/high ones. If you've got players who are good in the air and on the ground (like in most cases you will have), then leave it on Mixed Crosses. There's no reason to change it if you don't need to (see #2!).

5 - PA. What has it done for you lately? At a lower league club, you can basically ignore PA until at least League Two, if not higher. The players you're signing now probably won't be good enough when you get promoted, they definitely won't be good enough when you get promoted a second time, and if they were they'd be signed by a higher level team for about 12p and a packet of Haribo before they ever got chance to mature. CA is the only thing that matters. How good is the player NOW? You might be lucky and find some 3* CA, 5* PA players. That's great. They'll grow with you (or get stolen). But 1* CA, 5* PA players might as well not be in your team. They're taking up vital wage budget and you're more than likely training up someone else's player of the future, for which you won't be compensated anything like what it's cost you in time, wages and transfer fees for a replacement. Until you get to around League One level, stick to signing players who're good enough NOW, and get new ones in when they become surplus to requirements. Sadly, this even applies to that 32 year old captain who's been with the club since he was six months old and been up and down the leagues with them.

Hope that helps a bit! But yeah, the tactics forum is the place you need! They can help refine your existing tactic much further than I can.

What I've learned during my years of playing FM is - never, ever, EVER underestimate the role of team talks, good morale and motivation. Getting your team morale up, praising for good match helps your team to keep up their good form, and holding heads up after defeat helps avoiding downward spiral.

Learn to know your team, their personalities - what player needs stricter approach and who needs encouragement.

Whenever I start a new version of FM I will always have a few trial runs with some big teams, to test things out. Sure, it is not so thrilling to win with Chelsea or Real Madrid, but at least these are squads where you clearly know who is who, and what is what. There is no having to learn players, no real need to learn what they can do since you very likely already know pretty well.

This then allows you a bit of freedom tactically to play around. See what works, see what does not. Most importantly, to see what different tactical instructions do. Explore the differences between fluid, between counter and attacking, between having different players in different roles and with different duties within the same formation. This will allow you to settle on the type of football you want to play, and let you work out how to implement it. It is a daunting task, but a worthwhile one. You can also go read the superb threads on the tactics forum that detail so much how how to set teams up to play in this game, and to ask for help (if you follow the guidelines for asking for help, you will get good help every time).

And do not underestimate the difficulty of what you are trying to do. Taking a random team from the Conference is hard, being successful with them is also hard. There is so much to get right; player recruitment, tactics, finances, squad management, etc. Do not be disheartened!

mate, this will explain everything you need