Back Room Staff: What They are Good at and How to Use Them.

Before I start let me apologise for the length of this post, and the rather rapid conclusion. I could write much more on this particular topic, but even with the rapid conclusion this is still one of the longer posts you are likely to read on these forums.

That said I hope it is of use and interest to those reading it.

Backroom Staff

Backroom Staff have received quite an overhaul for this edition of FM, not only in what they offer to a human player but also in the ease of use and ease of understanding for the human player. Still, if you do not understand what they are useful for, what they offer you in the first place then this additional ease of use and ease of understanding is still pretty useless.

Backroom staff and staff in general are a support system for the human manager. They have a wide range of abilities that can enhance the working of a club and enhance the performance of a team or even the performance of the manager. They are also relatively complex individual characters with their own personalities, and although nowhere near as complex as players, they still work away in the background of a club interacting with players and ideally enhancing or atleast modifying, the day to day function of a club.

The list of potential enhancements staff members can provide for a club are vast, ranging from the simple improvement of training, morale, scouting knowledge and injury recovery right up to the complex enhancements of additional tactical suggestions, man management suggestions and techniques, enhancing squad relationships and player to club relationships, right up as far as being able to actively compensate for key deficiencies in the human managers ability which themselves can range from tactics to motivation to transfers to even counter-balancing deficiencies in the human managers personality.

The right team of people working inside the club as staff members can have a huge impact on the overall efficiency and function of the club in many numerous ways. Ways perhaps many people do not realise, and do not take advantage of. Getting the wrong staff can have an equally powerful impact on your club, but in a completely negative way. The right and wrong staff for the right and wrong roles might not be as easy to spot and know as you might think, especially when taking into account the very nature, style and ability of the manager. You may consider yourself a kind, amiable, friendly chap but if the players think you are an ogre and you have a dry, unapproachable tactician for an Assistant that controls Youth Team and Reserve Team matches, and a team of brutal slave drivers taking training then it will not take long for your club to spiral into dressing room turmoil. In contrast to this approach you could employ the cheeriest, happiest group of smiling faces to see around your training ground and club facilities, but if they don't help you get the results you need you will be looking for a new job in short order.

It is important to understand what it means for your staff to be a support network, a team working for the improvement of the club. It is one of the toughest management challenges to understand what exists and what is missing from the infrastructure of your club, to understand what you need but also what you can get. For every manager in every club there is a different set of strengths and deficiencies in the infrastructure of your club, and also different sets of limitations. Manage these issues effectively and every other management challenge you face becomes all the easier to deal with.

Staff Profile

Before being able to discuss what the backroom staff can do for a club, what myriad roles and functions they can perform for the club, players and manager, it is important to first find out and understand what staff members can do and how they work as individual characters. Only when we build up an understanding of a staff members profile can we really understand what he will bring to a club, to a role.

Here we have Valter Di Salvo, an ex-Manchester United and Real Madrid Fitness Coach, ex-Real Madrid First Team Coach, now come full circle and continuing the ascent of his career as Assistant Manager at Manchester United. This man is one of the hottest properties in staff in the world today and his career record says precisely that. Infact if it were not for his relatively poor Tactical ability (and his rather weird Hidden Tactical Preferences) then he would surely be one of the top Managers in the game. Luckily for me he has never been approached by a side to become their manager and he does have rather poor tactical attributes while this is his first job as an Assistant Manager, meaning I got him easilly and should be able to keep him for a while.

So what does his profile tell us about his abilities?

I will have to place a disclaimer here and state that although the exact breakdown of attributes that contribute to 5 star coach ratings have been discovered and posted, I do not know them off hand and do not know where to find the post at short notice. If someone knows where it is for me and would like to post it that would be great. There is also the second point that some of what I am about to say is unproven assumption and is purely how I view and understand the function of certain attributes.

Valter Di Salvo is a 46 year old Italian Assistant Manager with a World Class Reputation. This means that he has a long career ahead of him as a staff member, but unfortunately is widely known, highly recognised and likely to be intensively sought after in coming years. His high reputation means he is only likely to accept large contract offers from the top teams in the world.

Attributes

His Coaching Panel tells us that he is an excellent Physical Coach should I require him to fill that role. He will able to radically increase the rate at which Physical Attributes in the Physical Training Categories gain CA through Training, meaning better results in a shorter time or with less of a Category Workload Intensity. His Attacking, Defending, Goalkeeping and Technical are quite poor so he would not do so well training Categories that involve these attributes.

His Man Management, Mental, Tactical and Working with Youngsters are areas of interest. As I understand these attributes they either do not apply directly to training improvement "speed" or they have secondary functions ontop of training improvement "speed".

Man Management determines how this Staff Member gets on with players and people around him, but also how well is able to Manage their happiness/Morale or offer advice on how to manage their happiness/Morale. He is nigh on perfect when it comes to dealing with players, when it comes to forging strong relationships, when it comes to keeping them happy and being friendly as they interact with him, when it comes to spotting issues that might make players unhappy, and when it comes to taking actions or offering advice on how to deal with player situations that reduce their happiness. It also means he is able take a firm line with players over certain issues and produce the best results, such as Contracts, Media Interaction. This is a massive attribute in terms of Managing Individual players.

Mental is another key attribute as I understand it. As I understand it, it may well correspond to the ability to train Mental attributes, but as I understand it it also serves the function of defining how well a member of staff understands the Personalities of players, or the hidden Mental Attributes of players. Because this Staff Members Mental is at 20, he is a perfect judge of a players personality and their hidden mental statistics. Combined to his Man Management score of 20, this Staff Member will not misjudge a players personality and decide upon the perfect Man Management technique based on an imperfect judgement leading to inferior or downright bad end results, he will apply perfect Man Management Techniques to perfect player Mental Judgement for perfect results.

You can no doubt see a trend forming, a trend of potency and powerful implication for the function of my entire club and my own personal management techniques and ability.

Next up is Tactical. While Tactical does have an impact on training Categories that have Tactical elements, there is crystal clear evidence that it also defines the ability of a coach to offer Tactical advice and understand Tactical trends. Infact it is the coach with the highest Tactical attribute that offers Tactical Backroom advice. Clearly this attribute is not "Tactical Knowledge" in the sense of having access to a vast repertoire of Tactical "tricks" but is instead Tactical Intelligence, the ability to spot tactical problems and tactical issues and tactical trends and details and offer up accurate tactical advice based on these issues. Clearly this guy is rather poor at this aspect of the game.

Next is Working With Youngsters, the longtime bane of human managers when it comes to figuring out what coaching attributes mean. I simply do not know for a fact what it does, so I will offer a simple possible option that I play by, and that is that Working With Youngsters is a modifier of final "success" applied to all situations when dealing with players under 18. So when judging the personalities of youth and applying man management techniques and training youth players, this coaches final "success" rate is reduced by just over 1/4 or 25%

In other words Valter Di Salvo is just under 75% of perfect at Man Managing Youth and training their physical attributes. He is just under 75% of mediocre at training their shooting, and just under 75% of terrible at training young goalkeepers. That is my assumption and untill someone comes up with a better interpretation, I am sticking to it.

Next up is his Mental Panel. These tend to describe a staff members ability at choosing the right option for X understood scenario. Whether this is the right teamtalk, the right quantity of "stars" when comparing ability, or the right "Shout" for X match condition.

Adaptability is all about speed and ease of adapting to new clubs or roles. The higher this attribute is the less likely that there will be any problems for a staff member moving to a new club or a new role, and indeed the speed at which he adapts. Valter Di Salvo's high Adaptability has meant he has quickly settled in a completely new role at a new club with minimal fuss, but has also come to have a perfect knowledge of the players at my club in only 7 months.

Determination defines the will to succeed. In a staff member it has one clear function and several other possible functions. The clear function is the speed at which a staff member gains CA (yes staff members do have CA and PA and do improve and decline with Age, and this has massive repercussions for backroom staff as you will see later in this post), while the possible functions is to define the quantity and quality of staff member events. High Determination Staff Members may provide more advice, better advice, better training. Infact I think that Determination is a key attribute in achieving 5 star coach ratings for training which supports this assumption for the function of Determination.

Judging Player Ability/Potential. These attributes have the crystal clear function of reporting levels of CA and PA. In my opinion however it is very likely that they combine with the Mental attribute of Staff Members to produce an accuracy/ability level when it comes to reporting key "Hidden Attributes" of players. High JPA combined to high Mental will produce an overall ability level for reporting key player Hidden Mental traits such as Injury Proneness, Professionalism, Consistency, Important Matches etc. If you simply want a "Star Comparison" then simply look for JPA or JPP. If you want an accurate report on Hidden Mental Traits then look for JPP/JPA combined to the Staff Members Mental Attribute, and possibly Determination. That is just my opinion again, but from what I understand of the complexity of other areas of the game I would be surprised if this was not true.

Level Of Discipline. Level of Discipline is one of those "obvious" attributes that doesn't show up ingame in any obvious "cause and effect" pattern, so the exact function is entireally speculative without rigorous testing. That said the entire function of the game throws up some reasonably obvious functions for the attribute. The first "obvious" function would be define how much a Staff Member especially an AI manager takes a "hardline" approach when it comes to Disciplining players for actions that can be Disciplined. In an AI manager it seems completely logical to assume that it determines the level of discipline they apply to misdeamenours. For coaches however it is my opinion that this attribute functions to define the quality of training, i.e. factors into the end result of Training output calculations, with increasing end result coming at the expense of player morale, and eventually player-coach relationships. As you will see later it is my opinion that this functions in a similar way to Motivation in terms of quality of end result, but carries the opposite consequence for players.

Motivating. The straight up function of this attribute is to define how well the AI chooses Teamtalk options in response to match events, match pressure and player personality. A perfect score in Motivating will ensure the Staff Member chooses the perfect Teamtalk option for his "perception" of a context. However as said before, the Mental attribute will define a coaches ability to accurately know a players personality which is vital to select the "right" teamtalk, and it is more than possible that Tactical or Tactical Knowledge or some other set of attributes functions to define the Staff Members comprehension of a match context. In other words there is absolutely no point being able to choose the right Teamtalk for your players in X context if you have absolutely no understanding of your players personalities or absolutely no understanding of X context.

In my opinion, there is a second function to this Attribute that I assume is similar to Level of Discipline. The secondary function is to define the quality of the outcome of a certain process that players and staff are involved in, Training or Physiotherapy etc. yet instead of producing a superior outcome at the cost of player Morale and player-coach relationship, a high score for Motivation produces a superior outcome with a benefit to Morale and relationships. In other words a high Level of Discipline produces a superior outcome at the expense of Morale and relationships as the coach forces his players to succeed, while a high Motivation produces a superior outcome at zero expense of Morale and Relationships as the coach encourages the players to succeed through positive techniques.

However Level Of Discipline would seem to be key to the development of Staff Members themselves, while Motivating is not. There is also the issue that Level Of Discipline would seem to be key in the Star Rating of Coaches while Motivation is not. This could mean that Level of Discipline improves results at the expense of Morale/Relationships, while Motivating achieves no superior end result but improves Morale/Relationships. This would also hold for Staff CA development.

Pay close attention to Level of Discipline and Motivating. Irrespective of which way these attributes work, they both do work in clear ways of impacting Morale/Relationships while Level of Discipline is certainly involved in superior end results from Training/Physiotherapy etc.

Physiotherapy. While the current concensus is no clear judgment of improved injury recovery, yet a concensus on superior judgment of injury timespan, I find it completely impossible to accept that Physiotherapy does not have an impact on injury recovery. No testing to my knowledge has been done, or atleast produced on this website, so you may think what you will. For me however my understanding of the complexity of this game means I find it incomprehensible to imagine Physiotherapy does not impact Injury Recovery.

Tactical Knowledge. As I understand Tactical Knowledge it is not so much a skill at tactics as it is a knowledge of when to apply Tactical "ploys". In other words Tactical Knowledge would define the quality of Tactical Choices made by a Staff Member during the course of a match, according to the basic AI programming. With the TC in function for the AI in FM10, I find it likely that Tactical Knowledge represents either the quantity of TC options available to the AI, or represents the likelyhood of the AI employing a "coded ideal" tactical change to a particular match situation.

Tactics, Contract, Staff Roles and Knowledge Panel

These are for the most part self evident apart from a few key details.

In the Tactics Panel we have a basic explanation of his preferred tactical style, but we also have his "Coaching Style" which is Fitness. It seems to me that "Coaching Style" simply states what area of training he is best at, and tells the AI how to use him when choosing Coaches for Training Categories.

Staff Roles are a combination of Ability and Role Experience. Much like player Positions. As players play more regularly in certain positions so their Position Experience increases. As a staff spend more time in certain roles so their Role Experience increases. Crucially for this Staff Member his Tactics and Tactical Knowledge is very low, so irrespective of his experience in a role, he will never become perfect in the Assistant or Manager roles. This does not mean he is not absolutely amazing and better than anyone else on the planet for the job as MY assistant, it means simply he will never be the perfect assistant according to the games point of view. It is another one of those features more useful for the AI than the player, although it is still shown to the player and can still give general information to the player, assuming they want it.

The knowledge panel describes this Staff Members knowledge of players from specific countries. It means two things, the first that his knowledge will be "given" to the club and will make up the clubs knowledge, therefore your knowledge, of certain players from certain countries. Secondly it means this staff member will be able to provide superior knowledge on players from these specific countries untill such time as a better scout achieves a similar level of knowledge.

Personal Profile

Perhaps the greatest Backroom Staff improvement, including the much revamped and extended system of advice, is the simple bar graph display of key staff abilities. Neither direct advice in any quantity, nor the subtle background effects of staff on your club, is in any way usable by any manager without a means to judge the accuracy, meaning and effect.

While FM10 gives us vastly expanded sources of knowledge and advice and information, most crucially it gives us a vastly expanded means of both judging the degree of accuracy, and judging the exact impact and function, of Staff attributes and abilities.

Dealing with the general Overview on this screen first, it contains nothing I have not spoken about that is relevant other than Staff Personality and Media Handling Style. Staff Personality is much like player personality in that it defines how they develop, how they react to certain circumstances, and how the react to other characters. The Staff personality does the same. It defines how Staff Members develop, it defines how they deal with certain situations and it defines how well they relate to and get on with other specific player personalities.

Media Handling Style is another by-product of Staff Personality. Certain key attributes in the Staff Personality will be used to define a style of media interaction and the choice of reponse. As you can see my "Professional" Assistant Manager is Media-Friendly and Reserved when speaking to the media. He keeps them happy and keeps everyone happy, while giving very little away. Ambitious personalities might be more likely to be Outspoken or Short-Tempered, meaning that they say the wrong things from a club perspective.

The key feature in this screenshot is the Backroom Advice profile. In this screenshot I have hovered my mouse pointer over the "Man Management" table and received a tooltip explaining what it means in human terms. You can do the exact same with every other entry to receive a description of what it means.

This Backroom Advice Profile is not just a new way of explaining how new stuff works, it is a new of explaining how old stuff works. If you take this Staff Members "Recruitment" ability level then it is explaining that his suggestions are generally as good as you could expect to get when it comes to signing players, even if his JPA is only 16 and his JPP is "only" 18. This ability chart graph is taking into account all the relevant attributes as the game sees them and is telling me that in this game, this particular staff member is top quality when it comes to suggesting new players. Assistant Managers suggesting players has existed for atleast one version of FM, but now you can actually judge how good these suggestions are compared to the rest of the AI. They still might be terrible suggestions from a quality human managers perspective, but according to how the AI chooses players they are top notch.

According to how SI both value and define the relevant attributes for particular game issues, Valter Di Salvo suffers only from a lack of Tactical ability but is otherwise just about the greatest member of staff in the game. Barring Tactical ability, my Assistant Manager is just about better than all other AI managers, combined. Ofcourse Tactical ability is vital for a manager, but it is not vital in an Assistant especially if you happen to have a Tactical Genius floating about the coaching department.

The Backroom Advice panel is essentially a set of bar charts describing a coaches ability at key elements of staff ability, using the combined attributes that SI take into account when calculating outcomes during the game. If you hover your mouse over each section you will see a tooltip containing an enhanced description of what these entries mean.

This is a great way of instantly judging a staff members ability, and also in judging the accuracy of the advice he gives. These values do not solely correspond to Backroom Advice quality, they are the products of attributes that apply across the board in a coach/staff members function. Someone with high levels for Man Management will not only give good Man Management advice, but will be an individual others find easy to get on with and easy to work under.

Staff Roles

If half the battle is understanding your forces and the enemies forces, the other half is using your forces against the enemies forces. Worth pointing out here is that in the context of Backroom Staff, the enemy is yourself.

The entire crux of Backroom staff is understanding what roles they can fill in your club, above and beyond the standard roles you can hire them for. And understanding what you yourself are strong at and weak at, and constructing a team to bolster your weaknesses while enhancing your strengths. The Backroom staff is your support team, it is a group of people moulded around your own management style and ability, with the sole purpose of expanding the management capability and overall performance and efficiency of the club.

SI don't allow you to design new stadiums, plan new training grounds, set ticket prices, build new stands etc. They do not allow you any direct control over the physical infrastructure of your club. Instead they give you the ability to construct a vast management infrastructure of immense depth, from the most shallow of initial appearances.

Contractual Roles

The contractual roles are pretty basic and pretty obvious. I do not think it is worth going into much depth here because there is very little. Suffice to say that staff members have preferred roles, and highly specific roles such as youth or first team or fitness or goalkeeping coach generally require less wages while providing a lot less flexibility in their use.

Non-Contractual Roles

This is where a managers understanding of the game pays dividends. This is where a manager that is capable of appreciating ability and necessity and gameplay function can trully excel. There are a multitude of options and I in no way claim to know all possible permutations. Suffice to say that there are as many possible options as there are abilities and mechanics in the game.

Roles, Functions and Systems

This section is getting a bit messy, because I really want to talk about what staff members and staff roles can be used for, rather than attempting to describe the obvious, while not wanting to miss anything out.

From here on in I will describe roles and how they can be used, and will no doubt leave out many possible roles and uses that I am simply unaware of.

Assistant Manager

The Assistant Manager is your right hand man and head of the backroom team. He can fulfill almost any possible role and do anything any coach is capable of, while also having the greatest number and variety of specific inputs. He will advise on match tactics, player ability and potential, teamtalk options, contracts, signings, overall team ability, team weaknesses, teamtalk feedback. He can take press conferences and will offer his opinion on the advice given by other staff members.

The absolute crux of the Assistant Manager is as the foil to the Manager. He can be used in a variety of "smaller roles" such as coach, scout, Backroom advice filter etc. but his absolutely fundamental purpose is to support the manager in key management tasks. Only the assistant can give teamtalks, only the assistant can comment on tactics, only the assistant can advise on signings that improve the first team and sit with the manager during contract negotiations. Only the assistant can take press conferences etc.

It is absolutely vital to find an assistant manager that directly compliments your own management ability. If you are tactically weak then get a great tactician assistant, if you are motivationally weak then find a great motivator, if you don't know what to say to the media then find someone who does, if you cannot judge players effectively then get someone who can. If above else though you cannot handle your squad and individual player happiness effectively, if you are a dragon or an overly soft touch, then find someone that is the anti-thesis of you around the dressing room.

You and your assistant manager are a team. If you do not work closely with him then you are giving up a massive aspect of successful management. If you do not find someone that you trust to do the key jobs you ask of him, then you have gained nothing.

Club Psychologist

Sure you cannot contract anyone into this role, but you can sure as hell use them in this role. Such a staff member is ideally your Assistant Manager as he has the greatest area of comment and advice and can be given the greatest level of interaction with your players.

This individual exists to do two things and requires a few things to achieve his role successfully. His role is to interact with players, understand players, manage player happiness and offer sound advice on their mindset and the best ways to handle them. Such an individual should be regularly involved in all training regimes in order to regularly interact with all players, should have excellent Man Management and Motivation and Mental Skills, and if at all possible should be your Assistant Manager in order to offer key advice when it is most needed, i.e. during the match.

Such a staff member is never overtly a "psychologist". They do not sit in a room and wait for players to come to them. What they do is involve themselves regularly with everyone at the club, and come to you first and with the best advice. It does not matter if they are the worst coach, worst everything else. All that matters is that they are constantly involved with players and raising their morale, and are as good as possible at understanding Player problems, mentality and offering quality advice.

Club Tactician

Again, cannot be directly contracted but most certainly can be utilised. Again, best suited to the Assistant Manager role if possible.

Such a staff member has the sole purpose of offering the best Tactical advice available to you. If it is during a match then all the better. If not, then so be it. This individual does not need to be involved in the day-to-day activities of players, he needs only to be as good as possible for your club at understanding tactics and offering tactical advice to you. If he is your assistant then it is all the more useful if he is a good judge of players and can offer good advice on who to sign for the gaps and problems he spots.

Simple as that.

Reserve Team Manager

Again a role that does not exist on paper. None the less it can be a highly important role, and it can be a huge benefit to you if you get it right and use it properly.

The average reserve team contains a smattering of OAPs, First Team crocks, First Team under-performers, up-and-coming stars, a few lads on the transfer list, and some people that have annoyed you.

This is the pool of less-than-ideal that are still at your club and must be managed appropriately. You might have high hopes for them, or you might need to bring some pain-in-the-neck back into the first team and demand a performance from him.

The reserve team manager has the job of managing a bunch of misfits so that they either do not cause much trouble, do not get upset, do not enter a team of emo-junk prior to their big day, and do not get their spirits crushed.

The reserve team manager is all about attempting to get results, but most importantly maintaining or improving morale. He is a cross between the club Tactician and the Club psychologist, although nowhere near as good as either at individual roles. This is the guy you have high hopes for and want him to develop quickly through experience managing the Reserve Team, while also trying his best to get this bunch of misfits in the right mood for playing at your club.

Tactical ability is highly useful, Man Management and Motivating is a necessity.

Youth Team Manager

The guy tasked with managing the games of the Cristiano Ronaldo of the future, with all the petulance and arrogance and childishness that comes with it. A guy tasked with taking a bunch of children in personality with limited skill in a set of competitions offering minimal developmental opportunities.

Forget being nice to these lads, they are too immature to understand. All that matters is results, which boosts ability growth, while you hope Gary Neville can kick some sense into his protege just before he knee-slides towards the Liverpool U-19 bench, kissing the United badge.

It is nigh-on impossible to team-talk youngsters towards the all important result necessary for CA improvement, so you can only hope that the youth team managers tactical ability can do it instead.

Man Management can be useful for forming early relationships. Anything less than perfect Motivation is nigh on useless so ignore it. Tactical ability is an absolute must.

If these guys don't win, they don't develop.

First Team Coach

So you wont work with youngsters?

In that case while my grinding, ruthless, hardcore Shooting/Set Piece/Tactics coach is putting the first team player through his paces, you can be standing there offering shouts of encouragement and words of inspiration while reducing his workload.

The First Team Coach is like a mini club psychologist. He doesn't do much coaching even though he is involved in every training regime, his job is to boost the morale my individual category slave drivers are reducing.

Youth Team Coach

As above but with maximum Working With Youngsters, if possible.

Reduce workloads, improve morale.

Category Coaches

Welcome to hell.

Maximum possible single category star rating, maximum possible determination and level of discipline. Man Management and Motivating a bonus.

You do have some real friendly guys walking around Carrington watching the training and offering words, shouts and claps of encouragement don't you?

Head Scout

Alright Dave? Hows the familly? Fancy heading over to Nottingham this Wednesday and giving me your opinion on their young reserve winger I have heard good things about? By the way, there are a couple of young Brazilian defenders I want you to watch around August, 3 weeks holiday for you and the familly. A game each would be spot on. After that we might able to squeeze in a dirty weekend for you and the missus in the South of France, aye aye.

Quite simply the best, most reliable scout you can get. Spare no expense in finding one guy with the best possible JPP, JPA, Determination, Reputation, Mental, and anything else you might think is even remotely connected to a good scout report.

This guy is your main man when it comes to getting that report. Sign him, give him whatever cash is necessary to keep him, and rely only on him.

General Scout

Alright son, heard good things about you. How about you head on over to (country of birth) and tell us what you see for the next season.

These guys should have high Determination and Level of Discipline as that seems to signify the highest rate of CA gain for Scouts. Send them to wherever they are familiar, get them to scout regions you require general knowledge of. Use them as the workhorses of your scouting network and get them to do the donkey work.

Whatever they send back that you like, send Dave to investigate properly.

Head Physio

Get on that bench and get fixed. We have a league to win and I have a report to send to mister Fraser ten minutes ago.

Determination, Level of Discipline, Physiotherapy. End of story.

General Physio

Hello mister Anderton, how are we today? Ah it looks like I might have to send the manager a sicknote for this week.

Man Management, Motivating, Physiotherapy.

I am sorry I could not go into more detail. There is an epic amount of potential for someone like myself to write about, but this post is becoming long even for my standards.

I hope it was of use to people, and I hope it opens some eyes as to the underlying and hidden potential that exists in this game.

Reserved for future use.

Marvellous as ever Steven and I'm looking forward to the next installment. I'd like to start with a couple of questions.

1. You state that 'Working with Youngsters' is relevant for youths under 18. I given my youths full-time contracts and move them from youth training to full-time as soon as they are able, which is age 17. So to clarify, do you actually mean under 18, or do you mean 'Youth team' players, or - given the youth team is the U19s, could it be under 19?!

2. I wonder if the next installment will go into the staff hidden attributes. I find those intriguing and would love some insight. You write about Discipline increasing attributes at the expense of morale - is this the same as 'Hardness of Training'? If so, what is the difference between the visible and hidden attribute; if not, what effect does it have? Does 20 lead to faster fitness development, more injuries, widespread misery or what?

Great thread

In the days when you could have two assistant managers, I'd always look to have one who knew his stuff with tactics, and one who knew about man management. I know others did so as well. It was a shame that I couldn't assign them their roles- you had to hope that your man manager was doing team talks, or whatever.

Great post SFraser.

Real world example of a "club psychologist": Terry Mac at Newcastle ... cracked jokes and made beans on toast for the lads! Never took a training session in his life ... probably

Nice post....

As always....trying to get us to do more.... don't you think we have enough now with simply pressing the 'continue' button.... jeeeesh..

lol.... just noticed this post gave me one more than thou.... though to be fair, I dont think there is much competition between the usefulness of posts!!!!!!!!!

Great analysis there SFraser

Glad to see you've still been busy and providing some good "thinking" material whilst I've been away.

Just installed FM10 and will soon be in a position to start adding to the discussions hopefully.

Great analysis there SFraser

Glad to see you've still been busy and providing some good "thinking" material whilst I've been away.

Just installed FM10 and will soon be in a position to start adding to the discussions hopefully.

'bout bloody time

Hah!

Well, there might be an all new FM10 "Granada CF" thread coming soon

Of course, you lot have had a good head start on me this year, so I'm reading everything with great interest

Marvellous as ever Steven and I'm looking forward to the next installment. I'd like to start with a couple of questions.

1. You state that 'Working with Youngsters' is relevant for youths under 18. I given my youths full-time contracts and move them from youth training to full-time as soon as they are able, which is age 17. So to clarify, do you actually mean under 18, or do you mean 'Youth team' players, or - given the youth team is the U19s, could it be under 19?!

It's all guesswork I am afraid. However it is interesting to note that the game itself does not allow you to select the squad status "Hot Prospect" for anyone older than 21.

Likewise the oldest player recieving the "Young Player of Month" award in my current EPL save is 21.

I would guess then that the game itself considers "Young Players" to be those of age 21 and under and I would take my lead from there.

Ofcourse this does then mean that Staff Members involved in the first team, or certain staff roles, will need to take Young Players into account. Perhaps then our "First Team Coach" mentioned above whose role it is to reduce workloads and improve morale should also be very good at Working with Youngsters.

2. I wonder if the next installment will go into the staff hidden attributes. I find those intriguing and would love some insight. You write about Discipline increasing attributes at the expense of morale - is this the same as 'Hardness of Training'? If so, what is the difference between the visible and hidden attribute; if not, what effect does it have? Does 20 lead to faster fitness development, more injuries, widespread misery or what?

In the threads that went into detail for 5 star coach attributes, and the mechanics of coach/staff CA gain, Level of Discipline was explained as a key attribute for both. The explanation I gave for Level of Discipline is an assumption, but a fair one I think based on that evidence. However it may not reduce Morale. That may be an assumption too far. Again having said that, there is evidence for a lot of "Morale Manipulation" going on in the background of clubs. I would expect to see player Morale within a club environment be a fairly complex yet realistic mechanism.

As for the "Hardness of Training" hidden attribute, that is quite a puzzler. I consider there to be a clear link between "Hardness Of Training" and the root causes of certain injuries, but you would expect in return to see some kind of a benefit. However this may not be true and it may be an attribute that defines a "personality" so to speak without any real benefit other than to reduce the threat of injury. Something similar to the "Controversy" attribute perhaps. Alternatively it could result in superior end results.

I am not sure if both Level of Discipline and Hardness of Training would both produce superior training and a negative impact on morale. Perhaps Level of Discipline has the sole effect of superior results while Hardness of Training reduces Morale.

I think testing or atleast much greater evidence is required before these questions can be settled. That said, the fact it is hidden while Level of Discipline is not raises some interesting points.

As for going deeper into the Hidden Attributes themselves, most tend to be very similar to what players have, and the rest are mostly tactical in nature. I have to say that the relationship between Hidden Tactical Attributes and the AI's behaviour is something I have very little experience of, so it would probably be mostly obvious information combined to pure assumption on my part. Worth discussing though.

There were a few threads a while back that tore right into this stuff, and an application was released I think allowing you to do "something" with this information.

Just installed FM10 and will soon be in a position to start adding to the discussions hopefully.

Good to see you back.

There seems to be a lot of good stuff being discussed in the forums recently. I don't know if you use the TC much, but there is potential for some really good and really clear tactical discussions.

Very informative post. Do you have any insight into how coaches develop? I've always assumed that setting a young, high-potential coach to teach, for example, set pieces would have the set-piece attributes develop quicker than none set-piece ones. It's just an assumption though, anyone shed any light?

Bah took bloody ages to read but was well worth it

in the part about the reserve and youth team manager you say they need motivation, good man management and tactical ability. what do you mean by tactical ability?

do you mean their ability at tactical coaching or their tactical knowledge*

in the part about the reserve and youth team manager you say they need motivation, good man management and tactical ability. what do you mean by tactical ability?

do you mean their ability at coaching tactical or their tactical knowledge*

Tactical knowledge.

SFraser - I'm hunting through some old threads which went through the optimum attributes for coaching of each area of coaching. Now the star ratings are 5 star instead of 7 star, the calculations of any of the older "utilities" will be a little different, though the end product should be the same.

As a guide though, for each training area, I'll hunt down one of the old threads which had the ratings listed and post it here.

Steven, is this the thread you were looking for?

While initally developed for FM09, the principles of these formulas seem to hold true for FM2010, don't they?

Another useful link is the Coach Calculator provided by BonzoLLM...

That's the one DocSander. Thanks for that.

Excellent post SFraser, and I'd like to thank you for bringing the screen with each staff member's Backroom Advice competency to my attention. I'd never noticed that before.

One small piece of information I've discovered. I had been slightly puzzled by which attributes were required to give a high level of Squad Management advice, which I'm missing in my current Everton staff setup. I've just done some tests with FMRTE, and it appears to be a combination of Man Management and either of the two Judging Players attributes. From the tests, it seems that these attributes are of equal weight in the calculation.

I hope that's of some use to others as well!

Excellent post SFraser, and I'd like to thank you for bringing the screen with each staff member's Backroom Advice competency to my attention. I'd never noticed that before.

It is hidden away behind a tiny little button next to Profile in the Staff Members Profile screen, and contains an immense quantity of hugely useful information.

You can see this information in staff members not at your club, and it is excellent means of judging which staff members to bring to your club.

Unfortunately, as I said, it is hidden away behind a tiny little button. SI do make things hard on themselves.

One small piece of information I've discovered. I had been slightly puzzled by which attributes were required to give a high level of Squad Management advice, which I'm missing in my current Everton staff setup. I've just done some tests with FMRTE, and it appears to be a combination of Man Management and either of the two Judging Players attributes. From the tests, it seems that these attributes are of equal weight in the calculation.

I hope that's of some use to others as well!

That is very interesting information. Player Judgement attributes combined to Man Management attribute equals effective Man Management ability. Very logical system and it most certainly implies that Man Management advice and details rely upon the Coaches judgement of PA and CA. Which further implies that Coaches and AI staff members themselves do rely upon the "star" system or something similar when it comes to deciding outcomes and reactions to events.

Very interesing information.

Did you perhaps notice any relevence of the Mental Attribute of Staff Members in particular Staff ability calculations or events?

lol.... just noticed this post gave me one more than thou....

You should start more threads. It is an excellent opportunity to steal some "free" posts.

I would also like to add that the brief discussion with Phnomenhandy and the thread found by DocSander have shown that some of the information in my first post requires altering and also resolves some questions, while also throwing up implications for other possible staff roles.

I think it is quite clear that "Youngsters" are those under 21, and also that Motivation is a clear variable in the end result of Training Ability. The precise impact of these issues would be interesting to know, but not necessary.

Out of interest, what is the size of your backroom staff in your game? Do you keep it tight-knit or do you have an expansive team behind you?

Out of interest, what is the size of your backroom staff in your game? Do you keep it tight-knit or do you have an expansive team behind you?

Personally, as Manchester United, I have from Assistant to Physio level 16 individual staff members and 12 scouts.

I have 1 Assistant Manager, 1 First Team Coach, 6 Coaches, 2 Goalkeeping Coaches, 3 Fitness Coaches and 3 physios.

My Assistant is my "Club Psychologist" and participates in every Training Schedule in every Squad. My First Team Coach is similar, but he does not involve himself with Youth Team schedules and instead take Reserve and Youth Team Matches. Otherwise I have 3 Fitness coaches for 2 Fitness regimes in both squads, 2 Goalkeeping coaches for 1 goalkeeping Category in both squads, and 6 coaches for 6 other Categories in both squads. Plus 3 physios.

It is a huge reduction of the staff members compared to Manchester United at game start, but I am only in season 1 of my current save and it could definately be improved.

However as finding and scouting and signing key youngsters is a vital part of my economic survival strategy for the next 25 years, I refuse to compromise on the breadth of my scouting network. That does not mean that I refuse to sack and sign but it does mean that I only sign those that appear to have massive potential and cost very little.

Large and effective does not always mean expensive, and this is a key issue for the manager. Maximum gain for minimum output.

That is very interesting information. Player Judgement attributes combined to Man Management attribute equals effective Man Management ability. Very logical system and it most certainly implies that Man Management advice and details rely upon the Coaches judgement of PA and CA. Which further implies that Coaches and AI staff members themselves do rely upon the "star" system or something similar when it comes to deciding outcomes and reactions to events.

Very interesing information.

Did you perhaps notice any relevence of the Mental Attribute of Staff Members in particular Staff ability calculations or events?

To clarify, Player Judgment allied to Man Management is important for the Squad Management category in backroom advice. Initial experimentation suggests that ability in the Man Management category of advice is affected by a combination of the Man Management and Motivating attributes, with both of equal weight. So a Man Management attribute of 10 and a Motivating attribute of 20 give 100% in the Man Management advice bar, as does a Man Management attribute of 20 and a Motivating attribute of 10.

These tests refer specifically to Backroom Advice, since this is easily quantifiable through the bars in the Personal screen. It may be that these formulae also affect other areas of the game (player morale? training levels?) but that's more difficult to gauge because of the number of variables and the ambiguous and disparate feedback the game gives us. Still, if I can manufacture a suitable controlled environment, I might look into it some time.

--

To answer your question, the Mental attribute doesn't appear to be involved in any of the Backroom Advice categories. At some point this weekend, I'll go through each of the advice categories and figure out the exact formula that each uses.

Reserved for future use?????? - post 2.

Any updates on this outstanding peice of work?

I have just started again as Fulham and have promised myself not to 'cheat' in any form. So...... I'm gonna need a good backroom team.

Lee

Thanks for the bump. Only just spotted this goliath of an OP. And it's something I'd like to copy/use/implement in my save, as backroom staff has always been one of my interests.

I've tended towards using my assistant manager as my motivation and tactical tips type guy. Because the "assistant manager advice" in game is often very useful, as I often CBA looking through heaps of stats, especially if I can trust the guy doing it for me. I also like to be able to rely on the assman to select team-talks. Both of these attributes then make him the ideal man to manage my reserve squad. My current assman even has 18s for JCA and JPA, meaning I can trust his opinion on my reserve team and potential signings.

Just signed this guy from Man City as my new assistant manager. I think he is spot on for me:

Regarding the assignment of training categories to coaches; I have observed superior results when matching the category to the Coaching Style. This applies mostly to standard coaches rather than the First Team Coach or Assistant Manager, I'll come to these in a bit. For example, a coach with an Attacking Coaching Style would be assigned to either Shooting, Attacking or Set Pieces. Similarly, a Defending Coaching Style coach would be assigned to Defending. I assign General Coaching Style coaches to Ball Control or Tactics.

Adaptability is a key attribute in my opinion. The guidelines above are successful, ie. coach attributes increase, when they are followed even when the Adaptability attribute is low. A high Adaptability score allows you a little more room for manouvre but I have seen plenty of attribute declines in staff with high Adaptability when assigning them to categories which are non-compatible with their Coaching Style. Adaptability, I believe, is more applicable for signing staff members from overseas and/or promoting staff. The assignment of the raw coaching categories should be made based on a coach's Coaching Style.

I also see attribute declines when coaches with low Working With Youngsters scores are assigned to youth training categories. This is perhaps a common mistake when trying to get the maximum star levels in each category for first team and youth team training. There is a general lack of understanding as to the exact function of the Working With Youngsters attribute and I follow the general rule that any coach with a score less than 14 (I manage an EPL club) does not train any youth category. Particularly if his Adaptability is low also!

Lastly, I have had many bad results from assigning my First Team Coach and Assistant Manager to train individual categories and have observed drops in attributes accross the board. This leads me to believe that the category assignments for these more responsible staff positions should be more general/managerial/over-seeing (ie. assigned to all training categories) and preference given for Reserve/Youth team management. This would appear to agree with SFrasers suggestions in the OP.

I do have a couple of questions also:

- At what age do staff members, particularly coaches, begin to decline?

- Has anyone noticed a link to Coach attribute improvement/decline corresponding to those of players? I think I have seen this happen when for example a player scores a free-kick my Set Piece coach's technical attributes increase.

- Is there a limit to the number of categories that should be assigned to a coach to avoid overworking him and thus leading to decline? Similarly is there a minimum, whereby a coach is underworked and therefore declines?

The 'roles' for staff members I wish were more complex. I believe we should have an option in Team Settings as to who gives you advice for what as I like motivational assistants who aren't very good at judging players or tactics and in real life I'd be hiring other staff to do precisely that to be honest!

"Head Scout

Alright Dave? Hows the familly? Fancy heading over to Nottingham this Wednesday and giving me your opinion on their young reserve winger I have heard good things about? By the way, there are a couple of young Brazilian defenders I want you to watch around August, 3 weeks holiday for you and the familly. A game each would be spot on. After that we might able to squeeze in a dirty weekend for you and the missus in the South of France, aye aye.

Quite simply the best, most reliable scout you can get. Spare no expense in finding one guy with the best possible JPP, JPA, Determination, Reputation, Mental, and anything else you might think is even remotely connected to a good scout report.

This guy is your main man when it comes to getting that report. Sign him, give him whatever cash is necessary to keep him, and rely only on him.

General Scout

Alright son, heard good things about you. How about you head on over to (country of birth) and tell us what you see for the next season.

These guys should have high Determination and Level of Discipline as that seems to signify the highest rate of CA gain for Scouts. Send them to wherever they are familiar, get them to scout regions you require general knowledge of. Use them as the workhorses of your scouting network and get them to do the donkey work.

Whatever they send back that you like, send Dave to investigate properly.

Head Physio

Get on that bench and get fixed. We have a league to win and I have a report to send to mister Fraser ten minutes ago.

Determination, Level of Discipline, Physiotherapy. End of story.

General Physio

Hello mister Anderton, how are we today? Ah it looks like I might have to send the manager a sicknote for this week.

Man Management, Motivating, Physiotherapy."

Might be a dumb question, but can you actually decide who will be your head scout? and head physio? if that is the case...where do you make that choice?

"Head Scout

Alright Dave? Hows the familly? Fancy heading over to Nottingham this Wednesday and giving me your opinion on their young reserve winger I have heard good things about? By the way, there are a couple of young Brazilian defenders I want you to watch around August, 3 weeks holiday for you and the familly. A game each would be spot on. After that we might able to squeeze in a dirty weekend for you and the missus in the South of France, aye aye.

Quite simply the best, most reliable scout you can get. Spare no expense in finding one guy with the best possible JPP, JPA, Determination, Reputation, Mental, and anything else you might think is even remotely connected to a good scout report.

This guy is your main man when it comes to getting that report. Sign him, give him whatever cash is necessary to keep him, and rely only on him.

General Scout

Alright son, heard good things about you. How about you head on over to (country of birth) and tell us what you see for the next season.

These guys should have high Determination and Level of Discipline as that seems to signify the highest rate of CA gain for Scouts. Send them to wherever they are familiar, get them to scout regions you require general knowledge of. Use them as the workhorses of your scouting network and get them to do the donkey work.

Whatever they send back that you like, send Dave to investigate properly.

Head Physio

Get on that bench and get fixed. We have a league to win and I have a report to send to mister Fraser ten minutes ago.

Determination, Level of Discipline, Physiotherapy. End of story.

General Physio

Hello mister Anderton, how are we today? Ah it looks like I might have to send the manager a sicknote for this week.

Man Management, Motivating, Physiotherapy."

Might be a dumb question, but can you actually decide who will be your head scout? and head physio? if that is the case...where do you make that choice?

They're not real roles in the game in the sense you can employ them specifically for that role. Head scout is what he explains send him to anything your general scouts find to get his accurate report as he is the best scout. The general scout, you should have lots of them all searching the globe for the next best talent and sending the head to check them out more (hint: Nickname your head scout so you know who he is!)

I suggest 1 head physio ie; good physiotherapy but poor mentals so he will get the job done but may decrease morale whereas the other one is better at motivating and may raise morale. I suggest 2 motivating physios and 1 head although you cannot make him the head.

Might be a dumb question, but can you actually decide who will be your head scout? and head physio? if that is the case...where do you make that choice?

They were ideas to make use of the other perks of staff members aside from training. Signing a coach with good management and motivation to take all training categories alongside your specialist coaches should keep morale up and give you good backroom info on any player issues. Signing one or two particularly good scouts and a lot of chaff keeps costs down and you can simply Ctrl-A an entire list of reports from a weak scout doing X assignment and get the better scouts to look through them, meaning you can pretty much ignore the stuff that turns up in your inbox if you have heaps of scouts, and look only at the reports from your main guys.

You could/should also sign a coach with good Tactics and Tactical Knowledge even if he doesn't have a job to do training players simply to get really good and accurate Tactical backroom staff information.

There is quite a lot of abilities from your backroom staff you should be trying to exploit/maximise even if the coaches don't have a "real" role or job to do.

Club Psychologist - Good man management and motivating involved in training to reduce specialist workloads and keep morale up as well as keeping you up to date and giving you good advice for any personal issues at the club.

Head Scout - Best quality scout you can find, to "scout" through the reports your "chaff" build up doing their widespread, wideranging assignments.

Head Physio - Not really "head physio" so much as getting atleast two quality physios, one with Motivating and one with Discipline.

Tactical "Right Hand Man" - Just a random coach with high levels for Tactics to give you the best feedback on tactical backroom issues. He doesn't need to be involved with the team much, though obviously for efficiency sakes it helps if he is for example really good at taking Reserve/Youth team games.

There is far more to building a good backroom staff infrastructure than just getting the most stars for your coaches. If that's all you look for you are missing out on a lot of stuff, and likely suffering because of it.

The post is awesome, no question about that, but I think I'll have to get some more background knowledge about staff and staffmembers before I even try to understand all of this.

Are there some post that explains general things about staffs and staffmembers? Because, as a dream situation, I'm trying to make the perfect save as we speak, with factors I haven't implemented to my game as of yet. Some of the new things I'll try to use to my advantage is;

1: Teamtalks: Getting my players to feel better, more motivated and hungry for more success can't go wrong? Obviously I have my own little twisted idea that the correct teamtalks will give my players more confidence and somehow be more up for it, evey game.

2: Staff: As this post explains pretty (insanely) well, the perfect staff combined with the perfect use of them will provide more success, there's no question about that.

3: Training: Trying to adjust the perfect training schedule for my players with position, tactic, role etc in my mind will hopefully train the correct attributes for my players. I don't think this have too much to say though.

This is some of the things thats on top of my head right now. If you have helpful information, links, tips or ideas I'd be happy to hear them

Thanks for this great guide, I hope I'll be able to benefit from it

Regarding the backroom advice bars, they directly correlate to certain attributes (possibly some hidden) within the game as SFraser says.

I've not looked into all of them but

Recruitment % = Max(JPA,JPP) * 5

Tactical % = Max(Tac Training,Tac Knowledge) * 5

I have noticed something regarding the personality of staff:

I also think it is important to note that all players and staff have multiple personalities and it is only their strongest personality that is ever pointed out in the game.

- Ambitious staff members are more likely to go to the press to state that "they would like to join X team on Y staff role". In most cases, all it means is that the staff member would like a better pay package, or (and plus) higher tier staff role in the club; offering a new improved contract normally solves the issue.

- I think that the correctness of team talks is HEAVILY influenced by personality while the accuracy is based on attributes. This could be read as a staff member (usually ass man) would only give the appropriate team talk if they are of the right personality (i.e. the same as the squad); their attributes would determine how accurate it is. I have a number of saves with Man Utd; some with M. Tassotti (light hearted) as ass man, and the others with B. McClair (professional) as ass man. In either case, my squad personality is always highly professional; B. McClair tends to give consistently more accurate team talks on average. [OR J. Evans and D. Fletcher always tend to respond well to Tassotti and McClair respectively, while W. Rooney rarely responds well to either]. Now I am aware of the many quality team talk guides on this forum and I am not disputing their correctness, and I'm aware how statistically limiting the usefulness of this example alone is.

- It is advisable to get staff members of the same personality as your players. And like players, determined, ambitious, and professional staff members tend to have the best long term attributes. Again take Man Utd. for example, virtually all their staff members are professional at game start and they tend to stick to the same staff personality type when hiring replacements as the game progress, as their squad personality is Highly Professional

- Their personality has an influence on the type of player (i.e personality) they consider ideal to be a tutor (and indeed who needs tutoring), when (and if) they give tutoring advice.

That's a very interesting post Simply... Awesome!. I usually take note of the personality before hiring staff but have never considered that matching the the playing and coaching staff personalities was important. But, it makes perfect sense, particularly regarding teamtalks.

Another area where this might be useful I suppose is the advice given for praising player form. I've found it hit and miss until now and perhaps a better approach would be to only comment on players who have a similar personality to the staff member offering the advice.

Slight digression but I think that Simply's post might also apply for players. As we know for legal reasons some players are described as balanced but checking relations with media gives you better description. Confrontational, media friendly for balanced player might mean that you have moaner who will gladly run to media and serve them dirty laundry.

Regarding the backroom advice bars, they directly correlate to certain attributes (possibly some hidden) within the game as SFraser says.

I've not looked into all of them but

Recruitment % = Max(JPA,JPP) * 5

Tactical % = Max(Tac Training,Tac Knowledge) * 5

Same can be applied for training knowledge. If coaching style is general and coach has Tactical 7 and Technical 9 then the higher value is multiplied with 5 and he has 45% knowledge of training.

A quick thought for SFraser on "Level of Discipline"... have you considered that this may also apply to the discipline of the self? As in time and resource management, the ability to carry out a well planned regime etc. the old "not so much keeping people in order as keeping an order in people" sort of thing. In conjunction with various other attributes this could conceivably have a positive effect or help neutralise negative effects on morale, harmony and happiness caused by the hard grind of training. (or trawling high-end show rooms for the most expensive cars!)

love xxx

"It is hidden away behind a tiny little button next to Profile in the Staff Members Profile screen, and contains an immense quantity of hugely useful information.

You can see this information in staff members not at your club, and it is excellent means of judging which staff members to bring to your club.

Unfortunately, as I said, it is hidden away behind a tiny little button. SI do make things hard on themselves."

I realise this thread is from FM2010, but does this button still exist - I can't find it anywhere in FM11 and having this info would be a huge help.

I realise this thread is from FM2010, but does this button still exist - I can't find it anywhere in FM11 and having this info would be a huge help.

Yes. You just click the "Personal" tab in their "Profile" screen. It's in the same place as the screenshot in the first post.

This is a good thread.

In reading it, I realised I simply did have anyone with good Man Management. Or anyone to motivate all the players by being in all the training categories.

The way training works suggests that you combine the best qualities of all the staff in a training category, without making their inadequacies carry over.

I had a staff made up of specialist category coaches, who took all training on both the youth and reserves. Not optimum.

Since I had some spare coaching slots I went and hired:

A first team motivator, with 16 discipline, 12 determination and 18 motivation. A "First Team Coach"

A man manager, with 17 for motivation, 16 mental and 19 man management, aka the "Club Psychologist."

A motivator who works with both first and youth, 18 man management, 19 motivation. Combined "First and Youth Team Coach."

A youth team motivator, 16 motivation, 10 discipline, and 16 working with youth, aka the "Youth Team Coach."

A youth coach, who has 16 tactical knowledge and 20 tactical coaching. I'm not 100% sure if it'll work out too well, as my assistant already has 15 tactical knowledge and 15 tactical coaching, but I've got the spare spot, and it's pretty cheap. He could work as a "Club Tactician," although one of our coaches already seems to get used like this.

I sacked one of my physios, they all had 20 for physiotherapy but they are all General Physio types. So I hired a Physio who only had 18 for physio, but had 17 for determination, 16 for working with youth, 14 for fitness, 17 for discipline and 17 for determination. Very much a Head Physio.

You don't have to take "my roles" as the letter on this subject, but I do think you will benefit enormously from thinking about coaches beyond simply their star ratings.

My assistant manager has amazing Man Management and Motivating skills and has been my Assistant for five years now. I am brutal when it come to pre-match demands, half time teamtalks and squad discipline. I am ruthless. I will easilly "ANGRY" at a 6.5 away from home against my arch rivals, but I have never had a squad wide interaction problem. I have had a couple of "thinks he is being treated unfair" that I solve by not playing these players untill they apologise, but I have never had any real dressing room issues.

I could be wrong, but the results I see from the way I do things are so impressive I am tempted to think I am doing something right.

My assistant is poor in those areas (he does have 20 for jpa, jpp, tactical knoweldge and working with youth, so he's our youth team manager and I use his opinions of my players in my selection main screen), so those extra guys will be very helpful.

I didn't neccessarily take the roles as letter, but I already have 4 or 4.5 star ratings on all my specialist categories, and where I am it's not realistic to expect to be able to get 4.5's and 5's across the board, so even if it's not spectacular improvements, it couldn't hurt.

Another great thread by SFraser, i used to just sign coaches according to the calculator and get the most stars for each category but this thread made me take a whole new approach of how to sign my staff.

There's actually a really good 'Expert Level' type of staffer missing now that I think about it:

The Knowledge Staffer

This staff type is a non-contractual role. It can any job type as long as you have the boardroom allocated staff space, wage budget and he does what you want him for.

It is not a role a Manager who is not at high level club and has no spare space will be able to utilise,

He will have negligible direct impact on the team on his own. But you could find the next Messi in your new youth recruit class because of him. You could find a player who can do a job for you for low wages and high effort because his country is now far better known.

This staff member is there for one thing.

He is there to bring his knowledge of a specific country or region to your club.

Scouting Knowledge is a key for two areas:

Increasing the player pool you can use to search for players in.

Increasing the diversity of your youth recruitment.

There are a handful of ways scouting knowledge is gained.

The first way is the scouts. However, this method is slow, cumbersome, and simply has the knowledge gained vanish as soon as the scout leaves. It's not permanent.

Another way is through feeder clubs. This can be limited in scope, or you could spend 15 seasons asking the board only for them to give you Northern Ireland, New Caledonia and Zambia as your feeder clubs.

Then there is staff.

Every staff member has a hard-coded set of country knowledge on their profile screen. Valter di Salvo has Spain, Italy, Argentina, England, Portugal and France for example.

When you hire a staff member, that hard-coded knowledge is added to your scouting knowledge. It does not degrade. You will never lose it as long as you have that staff member.

This staff type is useful for when there are limited nations set as playable. It reduces the amount of staff floating around, and you won't have as much diversity in what staff you do recruit.

If you have the space, have filled out the other roles, look to see what regions or nations you are missing, then go for a search. Obviously, start off by searching for staff with that nationality. Then try staff in that country. Then try staff who often have shared citizenship.

In my own personal case, I hired a coach who had full knowledge of Argentina, and another who had good knowledge of Brazil.

very good read learnt alot thanks

Right, after a few seasons using the sort of staff that SFraser have pointed here are my observations:

-I went and carefully recruited a decent tactical coach for my U-20 team, even though my regens aren't that good(since my youth recruitment is really low) and i'm not signing any top youngsters for them they've been performing really good, even winning a U-20 league and consistently challenging for the top spots.

-My Backroom advice seems to be more useful, they are actually suggesting me PPM's and other stuff that makes sense and they generally agree with the advice that is being given.

-My players seem to be progressing really fast though my facilities are only average at the moment, i really think now that having a couple of "motivators" assigned to everything seems to pay off.

-Not completly related but this time i went out of my way to find scouts with decent/good determination and they seem to give the full report on one go without leaving "blank" attributes.

My only dissapointment is the "psychologist" not giving me any backroom advice on players morale and happiness, i guess i was probably expecting something that it isn't actually implemented on the game, but i was hoping that he would explain why sometimes the player X morale drops for instance.

My only dissapointment is the "psychologist" not giving me any backroom advice on players morale and happiness, i guess i was probably expecting something that it isn't actually implemented on the game, but i was hoping that he would explain why sometimes the player X morale drops for instance.

That's possibly because he is working. If there is nothing to report then everyone is likely to be happy and fairly motivated. A "psychologist" that keeps everyone happy is a much better staff member than a "psychologist" that reports back on problems.

my backroom advice screen has been blank fo the past 2 months.After following your advice SFraser and reshuffling my staff i couldnt be more happy.Just so i dont get ahead of myself though,are you finding this to be the case in your save also?Or are there constantly messages waiting for you?I mean i don't even have the usual murrmerings about a few youth players complaining about their training workload being to intense.

Also with regard to your head scout once your other scouts send in reports about youth players do you then manually assign your head scout to give his report on that report?which is what i do.its a pity there is no function whereby all scouts reports then go straight to the chief scout so that he can reccomend those that are worthy of a place at my club(or is there a way of doing that and i just haven't noticed).

One area that would be worth investigating is the relationship between a club's staff and the quantity and quality of youth intake for that club. I have noticed that some freshly-minted youth players begin the game with positive relationships with member(s) of their club's staff. This suggests that perhaps the game assumes that the youth intake players have already had some interaction with the youth coaches. My guess would be that the hidden mental attributes of youth players may be affected by this - i.e. that over time the personalities of a club's youth intake will resemble the personalities of a club's youth coaching staff.

Another possibility here is that having youth coaches with high "Judging Player Potential" will allow them to spot talent better and thus improve the PA of the youth intake. I have not done any detailed research in this area, and sadly (and happily) I have just begun a new season so it will be a while before I have solid data from my own team.

Also, here's my 2 cents on what counts as a "youngster" in game. SFraser posits that under-21 players are youngsters based on the fact that these players can be offered "hot prospect"/"youngster" contracts. However, there is another possibility that would make sense - the youngsters are simply all players who are on youth contracts. Youth contract status already determines whether or not a player will be able to participate in youth training schedules, and this is a hard difference - only youth players can participate in these schedules, and these are the only schedules they can participate in. Similarly, youth coaches can only work on players who are assigned to youth schedules. These facts suggest to me that "working with youngsters" modifies a coach's performance if and when he is assigned to youth schedules. If this interpretation is true, then the attribute loses some of its importance.

SFraser,

Huge fan of your posts as they make you think about the game on more levels that just click and watch, however as someone due to work time constrains I don't always have time to create notes prior to playing, because these notes are not always pasted into the game I tend to loose them and always have to find the posts and recreate my notes as I play the game starting unemployed and working your way up the leagues and earning the right to manage an international team.

Do you have a cheat sheet option, for all the roles stated in the opening post?

Example;

Head Physio: Determination, Level of Discipline, Physiotherapy

General Physios: Man Management, Motivating, Physiotherapy

Regards