SFraser's Training Schedules for FM10

[b_mack_]

Great post. Tonight, I finally stop thinking about schedules and start making them.

[Strankan]

This thread has helped me alot! Finally I'm starting to understand how to improve my players the way I want them to, and it's also very easy to make custom schedules for a couple of individuals that want working a certain way. Thank you!

[Daffie]

This thread is real quality.

I have not read everything but it made me think about my own schedules and it is definately improving.

I made 3 schedules now, one defending based, one attacking based and one general.

Obviously all defenders go in the first one, all attackers and wingers go in the second one and the midfielders (DM + MC + AMC (I play AMC players on the MC position too) ) go in the general one.

I made the workload just below heavy because I tried to just improve the workload to abit above heavy and put them all in a general schedule but this made my team have an injury crisis for a whole season.

So I tried again with these 3 schedules, and it is working quite nicely!

[TheTiger]

Are there going to be a downloadable collection og schedules?

[ProZone]

Are there going to be a downloadable collection og schedules?

Probably. SFraser and I are working on something at the moment so please be patient.

In the meantime, all the information you need to update the original release is already in this thread.

[Filke]

when i test my shedules how long player need to be on it so i can decide its working or not.

[FM1000]

Does this training work with patch 3 and with all players no matter age and CA/PA.Sorry for noob question.

[phnompenhandy]

SFraser just confirmed it's fine with patch 3. If you download the package you'll see he has 4 age categories. One set is for the youth squad, one for developing players (i.e. young but in first team or reserve squad), one for first choice players (i.e. older first team/reserve players and one for veterans. CA/PA is irrelevant for choice of set - in my opinion anyway.

[ProZone]

when i test my shedules how long player need to be on it so i can decide its working or not.

I would say a 3 month period, uninterrupted by injury, would be a good starting point. Three points on the Training Progress graph should allow you to see a trend.

[Filke]

thank u very much.

[ron.e]

Designing Schedules

Sorry for the double post, but I would like to explain this process and go into depth for those wishing to design their own schedules or wishing to refine the ones already produced, using Prozones excellent guide to understanding the underlying principles.

The basic principle here is to design schedules with "one notch per attribute" in each category. This should first of all make sure that we are designing schedules based on attribute growth and not category growth. As different categories have different numbers of attributes, designing schedules based on category growth will produce attribute growth we have not accounted for. Equal category growth for Tactics and Attacking could well produce 3x more Attacking attribute gains than Tactical gains, when we were actually hoping for equal gains.

As Prozone described:

This would give us a Training schedule giving every attribute the exact same quantity of Training, and would be a perfectly balanced schedule. It would be a low intensity schedule, and because it is low intensity it will:

1: Reduce the CA this player can gain through Training.

2: Reduce the quantity of CA being moved between attributes that we have direct control over through training.

Higher intensity schedules will allow us to:

1: Increase the quantity of CA this player gains through training.

2: Increase the quantity of CA being moved around that we can directly control through Training.

Ofcourse there are penalties for high intensity schedules. These are:

1: Increased injuries.

2: Lowered Condition Recovery.

3: A minor but regularly applied negative morale penalty.

For each schedule you wish to design upon these rules, you must consider a "Focus" for your players, which is precisely a focus on certain attribute categories. Training itself is limited by the maximum number of notches for each Category, and so in the case of Tactics which has 5 attributes and only 25 notches in the slider, you can only give each attribute 5 notches of training. This means that only a maximum "Focus" of +5 for Tactics is possible.

Here we have a schedule where we are training each Category by "one notch per attribute" so each attribute in all categories is receiving the same quantity of training.

We have decided upon a "Focus" for Tactics. The 5 Tactics attributes are now receiving "five notches per attribute" for an overall ratio of 1 of everything else to 5 tactics. Every increase of all other attributes should now be met with 5 increases for each tactics attribute. This is the "Focus". 5xTactics for 1xEverything else.

Now remember that these are not "Category improvements". It is not 5x Tactics Category improvement, it is 5x EACH Tactics Attribute compared to other attributes. Tactics as a category has 12.5x more Training than Attacking, but it has 2.5x more attributes than attacking.

These are the basic rules to be used for designing schedules. There are other vitally important rules to take into account, but they apply to players themselves.

Players

To design good schedules you must take into account the behaviour of players attributes.

General Attribute Rules

The general rule of thumb with player attributes is that each Category of Attributes on the Player Profile screen, Technical-Mental-Physical, have different rates of growth and decline depending on a players age.

Technical Attributes plot a generally steady course and are the "guide" for the other two categories. Technical Attributes start off slightly difficult to increase in very young players, become increasingly easier to increase as a player approaches late 20's and then get tougher to increase as the player approaches 40.

Mental Attributes start off very tough to increase in youngsters and get increasingly easier to increase right up untill a player is around 40, when they will drop rapidly.

Physical Attributes start off tough to increase in very young players but rapidly accelerate in their "ease of increase" and peak around the early twenties. After this they will start to slowly decline, and around Age 33-34 you will fighting an uphill battle to prevent their decline.

Specific Position Rules

I will be completely honest here, this area requires a lot of investigation before anything concrete can be defined.

In practical terms, these issues seem to make little difference to Training but erring on the side of caution and increasing key Position Categories seems to produce the best results.

This implies two things:

1) The underlying mechanics of these issues are attempting to make them irrelevant for general gameplay like Training.

2) The underlying mechanics are slightly out of balance (and were possibly changed for 10.3).

3) The underlying mechanics are complex.

Do not be alarmed here. In my experience it is completely uneccesary to work with these issue through Training, although erring on the side caution if concerned or not receiving the ideal results is advised.

I will explain how to err on the side of caution and how to work with these "unknown details" in my worked example to follow.

Do not panic.

Worked Example

The good old worked example is always useful. In this example I will use the Centreback, as they are the Position with least "opinion" and personal flavour, and least "distractions".

The Centreback is a nice, simple player to Train and it would appear that my Centreback schedules are the ones producing the best results. So here I will explain how I design a schedule for the simplest and most robust of positions, and hopefully explain to you how to go about designing your own schedules for all other positions.

The Young Centreback

This is the player we wish to design a training schedule for. A very good Centreback that my coaches tell me "would be a leading star for most Premier League sides". The very first, absolutely fundamental thing to do is to study his profile and work out what we wish to see occur.

Jonny Evans

Jonny Evans is an excellent Mental and Technical Centreback, he has quality levels for all Technical and Mental aspects of the defensive game, including First Touch and Passing. His key strengths are most certainly in reading the game and dealing with threats early, but he has an unfortunate lack of Physical Ability, and his key Mental and Technical Strengths are not high enough to deal with the best players and best sides in the game. My coaches also tell me that he is "close to his PA" so I will not be getting many more "Free Attributes".

Any improvements to this player are very likely going to have to come at the expense of other attributes. So my judgement and design is crucial. It is fundamentally necessary for me to look at this player and understand what his future potential can be from where he is now.

Jonny Evans is 22. This means his Physical Attributes have a few more years of relative ease of improvement before their decline, while his Technical and Mental Attributes have yet to reach peak levels of improvement. In 5-6 years time his Physical Attributes will start to decline and will migrate to his Technical and Mental Attributes. In 10-12 years time his Technical Attributes will start to decline and migrate to his Mental. His Mental game "could" reach extra-ordinary levels of ability, at the cost of physical and technical ability. By the time he is 26 he could have Vidic or Ferdinand mental ability. By the time he is 32 he could be getting close to Cannavaro levels of mental ability. However this is all going to come at the cost of Physical Attributes.

If his Mental Attributes reach Cannavaro levels he will not need much in the way of Pace and Acceleration. Neither his pace and acceleration and jumping, nor Strength is particular good for a Centreback. Crucially however his Strength Attributes are closest to being quite high, Aerobic will not be necessary, and Strength Attributes require less Training and have Fewer Attributes. I could sacrifice Aerobic not only for Strength Improvements, but also for Improvements in other areas.

Unfortunately his PA is too low to allow him to progress much in terms of overall improvement. He will never become a Ferdinand or Cannavaro in terms of all round ability. But we can instead train him to become an absolute specialist in the Mental and Technical aspects of defending. We should forget about Aerobic, Ball Control, Attacking Shooting, Set Pieces and Focus only on Strength, Defending and Tactics. Ofcourse we dont want Ball Control, Aerobic, Attacking to completely plummit, but we are willing to sacrifice them.

The ideal overall Focus might be something like the following:

STR: 4

AER: 2

GK: 0

TAC: 4

BAL: 2

DEF: 4

ATT: 2

SHO: 2

SET: 0

However we know that in the immediate short term we are running out of time to improve Physical Ability, and it will be atleast another 5 years before Mental reaches its peak gain. If we go with the current Focus then Strength may not improve by much, while Mental slowly grows then accelerates away to daft levels. We also know that his Technical Defending skills do require improvement and although they have a longer time to develop they will still decline before Mental where Evans is clearly already the strongest.

Our second worked Focus might be this:

STR: 6

AER: 2

GK: 0

TAC: 3

BAL: 1

DEF: 6

ATT: 1

SHO: 1

SET: 0

The problem here though is that our Strength Category is getting into the realm of injuries, and we might be encouraging rapid drops in highly useful attributes that we wish to see slowly decline rather than plummit outright.

So we adjust our Focus again and decide upon the final focus of:

STR: 5

AER: 2

GK: 0

TAC: 4

BAL: 2

DEF: 6

ATT: 2

SHO: 2

SET: 0

For a schedule like this:

We may have to accept the sacrifice of key Strength gains for this player, but we have the option to increase the Focus of Strength if we do not see the gains we wish. Hopefully this schedule will work for us in the near future, but if after 6 months we are not seeing what we expect we can knock down Tactics and Defending and go Whole Hog on Strength with a Focus of 6 or 7 or even 8 if we have the cahones.

That is the crux of my own released schedules. A major aspect of Injuries was the miscount of attributes, but the second major aspect was my "erring on the side of caution" when it came to attempting to ensure gains of physical attributes.

You either gain Physical Attributes rapidly and early, or you struggle for the rest of a players career.

Anyway, I hope his helps.

This a fantasic example and it's really well explained. But here's my problem:-

I just about understand what you're saying about jonny evans but i've got no idea when it comes to my own players in-terms of reading the attributes the player has and then knowing what to try and change to make them better. The one thing i have finally understood is units and focus. But i need a bit more help in knowing instinctively what to do with players. I have this player Ahmed Khalil:-

Now, He has some good physical stats but his techincal are not so good so i just wouldn't know how to improve him by myself. He's improved so much already because of your training schedule. But if i was to make a schedule on my own i just wouldn't know where to start with him. He's only 19 so i can maybe try to max-out his physical stats but then that will come at the expense of his technical stats. But i want his technical stats to improve pretty sharpish. So i'm just finding it difficult to decide whether to have the attitude to focus on the here-and-now or focus on what kind of player i want him to be in the future. I seem to have this problem with all my players, that's why i don't dare make my own schedule in fear of turning a good/outstanding prospect into a crap player. Any help you could give me would be appreciated!!! Thanks

[Jophilo]

This a fantasic example and it's really well explained. But here's my problem:-

I just about understand what you're saying about jonny evans but i've got no idea when it comes to my own players in-terms of reading the attributes the player has and then knowing what to try and change to make them better. The one thing i have finally understood is units and focus. But i need a bit more help in knowing instinctively what to do with players. I have this player Ahmed Khalil:-

Now, He has some good physical stats but his techincal are not so good so i just wouldn't know how to improve him by myself. He's improved so much already because of your training schedule. But if i was to make a schedule on my own i just wouldn't know where to start with him. He's only 19 so i can maybe try to max-out his physical stats but then that will come at the expense of his technical stats. But i want his technical stats to improve pretty sharpish. So i'm just finding it difficult to decide whether to have the attitude to focus on the here-and-now or focus on what kind of player i want him to be in the future. I seem to have this problem with all my players, that's why i don't dare make my own schedule in fear of turning a good/outstanding prospect into a crap player. Any help you could give me would be appreciated!!! Thanks

Hi ron.e,

can you tell me where can i find the skin you're using please ?

Thx a lot.

ps: another great post by mister SFraser by the way and i can see that ProZone is still in the place too. Thx you two for the really good job.

[Rummbler]

I'm very eager to try this one out, problem is: the download doesn't work. Got a new link perhaps?

[Grokaer]

Excellent work SFraser and all others who have contributed.

[ron.e]

Hi ron.e,

can you tell me where can i find the skin you're using please ?

Thx a lot.

ps: another great post by mister SFraser by the way and i can see that ProZone is still in the place too. Thx you two for the really good job.

The skin is called 'one piece' and it's in the skinning hideout.

[Jophilo]

thx a lot ;-).

[Indi75]

SFraser and team - excellent read, was awake half the night looking at this, and some bleary eyed implementation is underway as I type.

I'll be happy to do some testing in due course, but in the meantime thank you for an outstanding read.

[qazaqaz]

A query about striker schedules- I was very surprised to see low levels of shooting and atacking training- surely the 2 most key areas of training for strikers no? Is there a reason for this?

[nao]

The skin is called 'one piece' and it's in the skinning hideout.

Please, i cant find this skin, help me!!!

[ron.e]

Here it is

http://uploading.com/files/1192891c/onepiece.rar/

[nao]

Here it is

http://uploading.com/files/1192891c/onepiece.rar/

Fanks greate!!!

[Veg]

A query about striker schedules- I was very surprised to see low levels of shooting and atacking training- surely the 2 most key areas of training for strikers no? Is there a reason for this?

If you read the OP you will understand why... They are cetainly not trained at low levels even if it could look that way.

[css_matt]

One question!

WF = Wing Forward?

[b_mack_]

One question!

WF = Wing Forward?

read post #33

[Indi75]

Has anyone adjusted the schedules to these new amounts, and if they have, could they please upload them and post or pm me a link?

This

If someone would be so kind?

I'm not sure I'm getting this right, after the revisions the schedules seem weak overall and my training screen is a mass of downward pointing red arrows.

[grimness]

Download ProZone's sheet and put 3 for outfield player strength and you'll get general schedules for every position and age.

[phnompenhandy]

Download ProZone's sheet and put 3 for outfield player strength and you'll get general schedules for every position and age.

Link please, grim?

[grimness]

http://www.filefront.com/15714327/ProZones-Training-Multiplier.xlsx/

[phnompenhandy]

Fantastic. Thanks mate.

[Indi75]

Many kind thanks Grim, much appreciated.

So, looking at Dev GK, the following baseline by Prozone creates too heavy a regime:

STR: 12

AER: 24

GK: 21

TAC: 18

BAL: 6

DEF: 0

ATT: 0

SHO: 0

SET: 0

So am I correct in thinking that a logical improvement would be this?

STR: 15 (+3)

AER: 18 (-6)

GK: 21

TAC: 18

BAL: 6

DEF: 0

ATT: 0

SHO: 0

SET: 0

So I had to drop Aerobic by 6 to keep balance, but this leaves the schedule a little light. Since GK cannot be increased by a multiple of 7, I've gone with increasing Strength to 15 by it's multiplier of 3.

Am I thinking correctly guys?

[Grisales]

I made all the revised (STR 3, AER 5) training schedules the other day, with the intention of uploading for the people that have been asking, then I noticed I had somehow managed to fill in AER as 4 on the Prozone sheet because I'm an idiot.

The numbered sliders for tactics skin is hopefully being updated to include training, so that might make creating schedules off the spreadsheet easier. I thought it might be nice to actually create the schedules using a program based off the spreadsheet but I dont know if there is any way of writing to a TSH file from outside FM. I tried to open one in text editor and only the names of the schedules are understandable, and thats where my programming expertise ends

[phnompenhandy]

Indi, the way I see it, Grim said only outfield players needed adjusting. GK is fine. For outfielders the change makes the STR schedules the same as for keepers.

[Indi75]

Indi, the way I see it, Grim said only outfield players needed adjusting. GK is fine. For outfielders the change makes the STR schedules the same as for keepers.

Yeah, I made the changes to the outfield only, but the default keeper setup on the XLS is as follows:

STR: 12

AER: 24

GK: 21

TAC: 18

BAL: 6

DEF: 0

ATT: 0

SHO: 0

SET: 0

...it's too heavy a schedule. You have to reduce Aerobic to bring it down to medium and avoid overload of overall training and subsequent injuries.

I've completed a tweaked and focused set now, so am testing. Clearly there are some players I'll need to build an individual set up for.

[mg539]

This is a fantastic thread and has really helped my understanding of training!

I've been following it for a while but never had time to do much with it, until now...

Just a couple of points to clarify that i'm pretty sure haven't been answered further up...

Firstly, Reflexes appears in the Training Category screen for outfield players (including a value!) but not on their profile page, we seem to have concluded that its inclusion on the training screen is a mistake by SI and so can't be trained however for goalkeepers, there is the same problem with Technique - can this also not be trained, giving only 1 trainable Ball Control attribute for keepers?

Also, work rate appears on the player profile of a keeper but not on the training screen, and since natural fitness can't be trained for anyone, does this mean there are only 2 trainable strength attributes for keepers?

[New Roosterman]

To SFraser and those who have given me a better understanding of training a big thank you. I didn't buy FM09 (I was enjoyibng FM08 too much and my PC was due for upgrading) so FM10 is still new to me.

As to feedback on the ecshedules I found that over the half a season I used them I didn't see any increases in my players, in fact they all went backwards. For example, (managing Liverpool) I had Dirk Kuyt on the "veteran striker" training regimen and he saw reductions in all physical and some mental attributes. I had a few players on the "developing striker" regimen (e.g. David Amoo) and all his stats went down. I had Adriano (who I signed from Palermo for Liverpool) on "First team striker" and many of his stats went down too.

[Master kool B]

hi sfraser

thank for the training but the only problem am havin is my players are gettin injured, what should i do

thank you

[SehnSucht]

hi sfraser

thank for the training but the only problem am havin is my players are gettin injured, what should i do

thank you

You can start by reading this thread. This issue was addressed before. It's only 3 pages long anyway.

[SavageNick]

To SFraser and those who have given me a better understanding of training a big thank you. I didn't buy FM09 (I was enjoyibng FM08 too much and my PC was due for upgrading) so FM10 is still new to me.

As to feedback on the ecshedules I found that over the half a season I used them I didn't see any increases in my players, in fact they all went backwards. For example, (managing Liverpool) I had Dirk Kuyt on the "veteran striker" training regimen and he saw reductions in all physical and some mental attributes. I had a few players on the "developing striker" regimen (e.g. David Amoo) and all his stats went down. I had Adriano (who I signed from Palermo for Liverpool) on "First team striker" and many of his stats went down too.

Ummm, you're doing it wrong lol. For a start, dirk kuyt isn't a veteran striker. He's first team. Read the instructions at the start of the thread, it tells you which players are used for which schedule. Have other players on the same schedule as these all had stats go down? Or did some go up? Did these players happen to get injured?

[ProZone]

Please don't take my Excel sheet as gospel. I put that up for demonstration purposes only, the numbers for GKs I suspect are not quite right. I see it is being used to create new schedules which I'm very happy to see but if the numbers are wrong then it will obviously create undesired results. I'm going to take down the link to avoid further confusion.

[phnompenhandy]

Sure prozone, but you've dome fantastic work already, both alone and in conjunction with SFraser. I'm sure a few like myself would appreciate it if you tweak them instead!

[ProZone]

There's something in the pipeline which I think you're going to like... watch this space!

[krissbdg1]

is it possible to upload the new schedule? it will be very helpful.

Sory for my English.

[Master kool B]

You can start by reading this thread. This issue was addressed before. It's only 3 pages long anyway.

am sorry but i did ask that to sfraser not to you sehns

[DocSander]

Son of a Gun:

SFraser made a slight miscalculation with the Strength and Aerobic training category: it appears there are actually only 3 Strength attributes that can be trained for outfield players in the Strength category (rather than 4); and there are only 5 Aerobic attributes that can be trained for outfield players in the Aerobic category (rather than 6).

SFraser will be releasing updated schedules at some point soon. In the meantime though you should reduce the Strength and Aerobic training for all outfield schedules. To do this, work out how many notches the schedules are currently using, then divide it by 4 (for Strength) and 6 (for Aerobic). Then reduce the slider notches by the number you've calculated.

This should reduce the number of injuries you get as the workload will be lighter.

hi sfraser

thank for the training but the only problem am havin is my players are gettin injured, what should i do

thank you

You can start by reading this thread. This issue was addressed before. It's only 3 pages long anyway.

am sorry but i did ask that to sfraser not to you sehns

Master kool B, even though you did not intend to ask your question to anyone but SFraser, I'm still going to provide you with an answer, or perhaps, more of a return question.

First of all, I assume that you've seen the statement made by dfgrigg which I've quoted above, in response to a previous question regarding injury issues in relation to these training schedules...

Then, did the suggested improvement help reducing your injury frequention and/or severity? Is it a problem far a particular section of your squad (U17, first team, veterans) or players in a particular position? What type of injuries do you see mostly? And do they occur in match or during training? And during what type of training, strength or aerobic related?

Would love to hear you specify on this so we could try to help you on this one...

BTW: in case you would just want SFraser to answer, his PM box is open 24/7...

[Indi75]

Ummm, you're doing it wrong lol. For a start, dirk kuyt isn't a veteran striker. He's first team. Read the instructions at the start of the thread, it tells you which players are used for which schedule. Have other players on the same schedule as these all had stats go down? Or did some go up? Did these players happen to get injured?

If you change schedules this happens anyway. I started a new game for this, with a start date in February too. 6 months to train, play friendlies, and tweak ahead of the season. Which is essential when you play with no transfer funds in first window.

Please don't take my Excel sheet as gospel. I put that up for demonstration purposes only, the numbers for GKs I suspect are not quite right. I see it is being used to create new schedules which I'm very happy to see but if the numbers are wrong then it will obviously create undesired results. I'm going to take down the link to avoid further confusion.

Thanks Prozone. (Bristol lad like me I see.. red or blue?)

I've been tweaking accordingly creating schedules based on your baseline with my focus. Results varying at present. Have a feeling that's to do with me playing friendlies through June when players are normally on holiday.

Will test later.

[SehnSucht]

am sorry but i did ask that to sfraser not to you sehns

Forgive me if i sounded hostile but the issue you brought up was discussed thoroughly in previous posts. Tweaks were suggested to reduce certain training categories due to miscalculations on the attributes affected.

I've followed the advice given myself and knocked down the training notches and never had injury problems since. Perhaps you could tweak yours and see if they provide a similar effect?

[SavageNick]

If you change schedules this happens anyway. I started a new game for this, with a start date in February too. 6 months to train, play friendlies, and tweak ahead of the season. Which is essential when you play with no transfer funds in first window.

Thanks Prozone. (Bristol lad like me I see.. red or blue?)

I've been tweaking accordingly creating schedules based on your baseline with my focus. Results varying at present. Have a feeling that's to do with me playing friendlies through June when players are normally on holiday.

Will test later.

I'm a bit confused - are you trying to say that having 6 months of "off season" is a good thing for training schedules? Because if you think that's the case I'm afraid you're very wrong If you don't play any competitive games for a long time (either due to injury or just no games to play) then all stats of the players will go DOWN. This is because their "match fitness" never reaches 100% and so can't support their current CA increases (and in fact becomes negative, hence the stat reductions).

[Indi75]

I'm a bit confused - are you trying to say that having 6 months of "off season" is a good thing for training schedules? Because if you think that's the case I'm afraid you're very wrong If you don't play any competitive games for a long time (either due to injury or just no games to play) then all stats of the players will go DOWN. This is because their "match fitness" never reaches 100% and so can't support their current CA increases (and in fact becomes negative, hence the stat reductions).

Alas, the wrongness is on your part having misread it.

1)I started my current game in Feb '09 (Sweden), (I like to take over early) and have been playing weekly friendlies across Brazil and Scandinavia throughout March, April, May, June, and July whilst finding a tactic and preparing my squad/scouting for the first season.

2) My training is performing just fine albeit less emphatically once corrected.

3) The players did not go on holiday in June as they normally do off season. (strange?)

4) During June, the training seemed to drop off.

Ergo - 5) Does the game just assume players are on holiday in June even tho they are not and are playing regularly?

On the subject of injuries, mine are high even after dropping Aerobic my 1 x multiplier, testing further to see what's what as none of my schedules are heavy.

That said, Liverpool's current spate of injuries has left the entire squad in 10.3 with a natural fitness of 2 and an injury proneness higher than Michael Owen and Harry Kewell pout together.

[SavageNick]

Alas, the wrongness is on your part having misread it.

1)I started my current game in Feb '09 (Sweden), (I like to take over early) and have been playing weekly friendlies across Brazil and Scandinavia throughout March, April, May, June, and July whilst finding a tactic and preparing my squad/scouting for the first season.

2) My training is performing just fine albeit less emphatically once corrected.

3) The players did not go on holiday in June as they normally do off season. (strange?)

4) During June, the training seemed to drop off.

Ergo - 5) Does the game just assume players are on holiday in June even tho they are not and are playing regularly?

On the subject of injuries, mine are high even after dropping Aerobic my 1 x multiplier, testing further to see what's what as none of my schedules are heavy.

That said, Liverpool's current spate of injuries has left the entire squad in 10.3 with a natural fitness of 2 and an injury proneness higher than Michael Owen and Harry Kewell pout together.

4) This is because of what I've said in my post if you'd read it properly (and what has been said by sfraser previously). Although you think your training is going fine, it isn't - all that happens in the first month or so is the fitness of the players improves (so their CA goes up/CA increase goes up). This means a small boost in their stats. Then, their RATE of CA increase reduces slowly (i.e. less improvement) until eventually (probably around june in your case) the CA increase actually becomes NEGATIVE i.e. goes down, hence the stat reduction. Not playing properly competitive matches (no, friendlies don't count) is completely useless for testing training.

[Indi75]

So do we have definitive word that the game can see the difference between friendlies and competitive matches?

If that's the case, the game I'm running through now starts in June, so the slowing down should come in around Sept/Oct during the busiest phase of the season. I'll keep a close eye on it tonight.