Serious Mid Season Slumps

[Prinny_gall]

I've been playing FM09 now for a couple of months on have a number of different saves with different clubs/leagues. What I've noticed while playing through each of these games is that my teams seem to start each season off incredibly well and slowly but surely start to fall apart at the seams as the season goes on! I've experienced this with my save game at Shelbourne in the Irish First Division and Bradford in EL2, both are fairly decent teams for their divisions (top half predicitions for the end of season) and the squad stats i think would go to prove this.

So I've played all my friendlies at the start of each season to assess the teams quality and I was quite happy with the team I had making very few changes in terms of signings and making sure I got a few easy games in at the start of the season, so the boys morale could be good at the start of my first season. All going according to plan so far - I won my first two league matches in both saves quite easily, my Bradford team even went on a bit of a run in the League Cup upsetting Birmingham in the 2nd round. The tactics I was using aslo seemed to be working wonders with Bradford enjoying the majority of possesion and getting shots on target at every possible opportunity. I had even managed to get 17 goals in my first 5 league games!

With this good start I was hoping that I could look forward to a chance at pushing for promotion but with about 2 months into the season, my entire team slowly began to play like donkeys! Progressivly getting worse as the season continued.

To start with the goals started to dry up, I was still enjoying good possession but the midfield and strikers shots on target rate started to suffer, thankfully I had a good defence so not too many defeats were dealt out. I noticed we were still getting shots in but these were always off target 1 out of every 10 shots would be on target. Soon enough though the defence were at it - misplacing passes, giving goals away from corners, being caught out of position! The teams are in freefall now and dying a death, but I'm still using the same tactics that stood me so well in the early part of the season.

Can anyone offer some advice or link to a similar thread, I've never experienced this before in FM and I'm pretty stumped as to what I can do!!!

[clayts]

mate im finding the exact same thing no matter what i do second half of the season it goes massivly down hill.

[Rupertj]

You may not be rotating your squad enough. They may be tiring? I noticed this, and the following season I started rotating my players more. This resulted in an improvement in form in the second half of the season.

[micro-ice]

Naturally, teams start playing more cautiously against you after a good start. you guys need to develop a more expansive tactic that stretches the opponents defense; looking to exploit the holes that appear.

[heathxxx]

It's a classic problem for a great many people and unfortunately one that they can often contribute to themselves.

So you're off to a great start to the season with your team, be they favorites or over-acheivers. What generally tends to happen is that your opponents begin to take notice (they scout you too after all!) and they begin to look at ways to counter the danger your team poses. This is often shown by teams playing deeper or more defensively against you in order to take care more of the offensive threats your team possess.

The natural reaction to take by many FM'ers when faced with tougher defences or teams that sit back and counter-attack more is to start making changes to their own tactics, often considerably, therefore moving away from their own core system. What this can do is destabilise your team to the point you observe their own effectiveness lessen, as they're being instructed to do different things to something that worked for them earlier. Hence poorer passing, poorer shot convertion, poorer defensive decisions, etc...

If this isn't the case and you're not making any major tactical changes, it can be down to motivational problems. In theory, if your tactic has worked wonders before, with the same players, then it should still work. If you're winning games, arguably you need to do less to motivate players with team-talks and in the media. When you lose a game, how you respond to that and how you motivate players then becomes more important, before one loss or draw turns into a slump.

Myself personally, I prefer to keep faith in my tactic and if things don't quite go to plan, concentrate more on motivating the players. If a loss or a draw is unlucky, had more possession, more attempts at goal, or the result came against a team that I consider better than my own, I'm more forgiving with team-talks. I sympathise and encourage more. Only if a player performs badly do I act more harshly. Below 6.5 I'm disappointed, below 6 I'm angry.

If my team as a whole has perfomed badly in my opinion against a team I feel we should have beaten or at least had a draw, statistics favour our opponents more overall and player ratings are low, then I'm more aggressive. I'll tell them I'm dissapointed or angry.

Another factor to consider is the determination of the players themselves. I try never to use or sign players who have less than 12 (lower leagues) or 15 (higher leagues) in the determination attribute. Determined players will try to get back into games that aren't going their way and will arguably pull the stops out more than less determined players. Don't be surprised to see low determination players get lower ratings in draws and defeats than higher determination players. Higher determination players may often respond better to criticism or harsher team-talk options, so don't be afraid to let them know your feelings and generally they will respond better for it.

[clayts]

Well thanks Heath that explains a fair bit i shall put those things into consideration

[Prinny_gall]

Cheers for backing up my problem Clayts - at least its good to see that I'm not the only one in this mess

Thanks Heath that really does explain a lot. I never actually thought that the AI would scout!!!! Sneaky Tried not to change my tactics in any way during the season. So it might have a lot to do with not rotating my squad enough. Sometimes I play some players under 95% and try to keep a settled squad - mainly because I don't have much faith in my reserves or youth set-up (I am dealing with lower-league after all) and think that having my best players at 90% is better than a youth/reserve at 100%. I'm guessing this is a no-no then? Maybe Rupertj could add something to this as well?

Micro-Ice - I would be interested how I could develop a more expansive tactic (would this be a good idea when I've got donkeys instead of racehorses) and learn to exploit the oppositions defence more often!

ANyway I'm definitely going to try these suggestions this week hopefully I can get back to you all by the end of the week to see how my progress is going.

[Prinny_gall]

Excellent! Rotation seems to have worked a treat Heathxxx, my team have stopped leaking goals against the dreaded 4-2-4 with 10 mins to go and they're back to their start of season form.

Personally I think the biggest contributing factor to this is certainly the motivation end of things. No more mollycoddling the players saying they were fantastic after a 1-0 win at home to Mansfield and this is certainly doing the trick :D . Currently 3rd in league 2 and pushing hard fro promotion.

What I have noticed and seems to become a slight problem every now and again is the fact that the players become far too cocky about our current form and think they can "win the game without too much effort" when my AssMan is giving me a pre-match report. I've tried to wake these players up in my pre-match team talk usually giving them the old "I want to see a performance from you tonight" to individual players who think they're up against a pub team. But more often than not I noticed that this sort of situtaion seems to spread through to the whole team during a match and I get turned over 2-0 or 3-0 on a rare occasion. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how you can effectively kick these players up the arse so they perform even when there complacent??

[melogroovy]

Cheers for backing up my problem Clayts - at least its good to see that I'm not the only one in this mess

Thanks Heath that really does explain a lot. I never actually thought that the AI would scout!!!! Sneaky Tried not to change my tactics in any way during the season. So it might have a lot to do with not rotating my squad enough. Sometimes I play some players under 95% and try to keep a settled squad - mainly because I don't have much faith in my reserves or youth set-up (I am dealing with lower-league after all) and think that having my best players at 90% is better than a youth/reserve at 100%. I'm guessing this is a no-no then? Maybe Rupertj could add something to this as well?

I've played quite a bit of lower leagues and I think that when the schedule gets crowded I get better results when I rotate squad players in to rest my regulars. Remember, the other club has to do it too. I go roughly with the 95% rule and will look at the upcoming schedule and give 2-3 players a rest per game over a 2 week period. I tend to play a more attacking style with some players closing down quite a bit so it's important for me to do so. Of course, I also look at rivalry games and key matchups against competitors and will adjust accordingly. I want to win those games and my team gets a nice bounce when they do so I won't rest guys for these kinds of games. Again, I have no set format, it's kind of touch and feel and I think it's important to remember it's not so much how many games off as it is when to give a guy a day off that's important.

Every team has periods where they slump a little, the key is to minimize the damage both by some tactical changes and some motivation. If my team club has lost a couple in a row, I might play a little more conservatively to gain a draw or two, stop the drop and then revert back to my typical offensive tactic. I also prefer to be more positive in my talks and only use negative ones to shock my team when they've been in good form but have a bad first half or a poor game. When the form is not so good, I try to encourage and at the worst will sympathize. Finally, I always use the 2nd week of each month to single out 3-6 players who have played well over the last 5 games. Players around 7.00 + will get a "pleased" players above 7.20 will get "delighted" in the local press. I don't think I've ever run a player down for poor play in the press, FWIW.

[SFraser]

It's a classic problem for a great many people and unfortunately one that they can often contribute to themselves.

So you're off to a great start to the season with your team, be they favorites or over-acheivers. What generally tends to happen is that your opponents begin to take notice (they scout you too after all!) and they begin to look at ways to counter the danger your team poses. This is often shown by teams playing deeper or more defensively against you in order to take care more of the offensive threats your team possess.

The natural reaction to take by many FM'ers when faced with tougher defences or teams that sit back and counter-attack more is to start making changes to their own tactics, often considerably, therefore moving away from their own core system. What this can do is destabilise your team to the point you observe their own effectiveness lessen, as they're being instructed to do different things to something that worked for them earlier. Hence poorer passing, poorer shot convertion, poorer defensive decisions, etc...

If this isn't the case and you're not making any major tactical changes, it can be down to motivational problems. In theory, if your tactic has worked wonders before, with the same players, then it should still work. If you're winning games, arguably you need to do less to motivate players with team-talks and in the media. When you lose a game, how you respond to that and how you motivate players then becomes more important, before one loss or draw turns into a slump.

Myself personally, I prefer to keep faith in my tactic and if things don't quite go to plan, concentrate more on motivating the players. If a loss or a draw is unlucky, had more possession, more attempts at goal, or the result came against a team that I consider better than my own, I'm more forgiving with team-talks. I sympathise and encourage more. Only if a player performs badly do I act more harshly. Below 6.5 I'm disappointed, below 6 I'm angry.

If my team as a whole has perfomed badly in my opinion against a team I feel we should have beaten or at least had a draw, statistics favour our opponents more overall and player ratings are low, then I'm more aggressive. I'll tell them I'm dissapointed or angry.

Another factor to consider is the determination of the players themselves. I try never to use or sign players who have less than 12 (lower leagues) or 15 (higher leagues) in the determination attribute. Determined players will try to get back into games that aren't going their way and will arguably pull the stops out more than less determined players. Don't be surprised to see low determination players get lower ratings in draws and defeats than higher determination players. Higher determination players may often respond better to criticism or harsher team-talk options, so don't be afraid to let them know your feelings and generally they will respond better for it.

Good post.

I tend to get more demanding of my players as the season progresses and ideally you should always throughout a season be looking to improve your tactics anyway, with tweaks here and there. I find that having a couple of options up your sleeve to change your playstyle slightly, in combination to a few experimental tactical choices, can usually get you through a season with fairly consistent form.

[heathxxx]

Having just re-read my original post, in the first paragraph, I should also have added that as well as sitting deeper and more defensive, when my team is doing really well, opponents also tend to use counter-attacking a great deal.

The effect of this is worth taking note of. People often wonder why they concede a goal from opponents limited chances compared to their own dominance and what I observe is it's usually against opponents who counter-attack. Counter-attack is pretty much an instruction to play "gung-ho" offensively (for us as well as the AI) and from what I've read, equals highest mentality for every player when on the counter.

Just thought I would mention this, as we benefit just as much when we select counter-attacking, as the AI does. I've experienced just as many matches where my team has only had a couple of chances on goal against stronger and domineering opponents and nicked a result, as I've had the AI do the same against me. Many people take issue with this on the forums, so it's worth understanding that it's actually very balanced and far from a conspiricy or the game "cheating"