Managers and CA

[Proteus]

DeadZone

Sure, I will continue to try it in any saves I'm playing. The experiment with Celtic and Rangers and their managers is ongoing. But I will try it with different teams in a different league. I think I might try it in the Bundesliga as the top teams in that league have very similar squads, in my opinion, in terms of the ability of their players.

As it stands just now in the Celtic/Rangers experiment, Celtic are second in the league, having lost their opening game to Motherwell, the club that is currently top of the SPL having won all four of their opening games, while Rangers are in third position as they lost to St Johnstone during an away game.

Another surprising observation from Celtic's 2009/2010 season is that they competed very well in the EURO Cup, beating teams like Lazio and Zenit St Petersburg and only narrowly losing out to a far superior Real Madrid side in the quarter finals.

It's all a little confusing, to be honest.

ps From looking at their respective squads and starting elevens, I think Celtic generally have better players than Rangers do. They also have a better squad. However, I don't think this disparity accounts for the results that we've seen from the experiment. Sure, Celtic having a better squad will clearly have a bearing on the outcome of SPL, but I don't believe it is the definitive reason concerning their success despite having a terrible manager.

[charlo116]

Yeah it will be good to see this sort of experiment in a more open league, rather than Scotland where there are two teams that dominate.

[7zige]

Do you guys noticed that great players who retire and become coaches only have a PA of

130

this happens to Giggs, Scholes, Neville, and even Beckham(yes he can became a coach with some persuasion)...I just dont know why

[jayahr]

The key is in his preferred tactic. It exploits a flaw in the ME. That's why all his team overperform.

Look at Genoa and how they perform in the game. Their manager is playing with 3 central strikers too, hence this is why they overperform that much.

[DeadZone]

You know Jayahr, I'd never noticed that before

Just checked Genoa in my game, and sure enough they're 2nd in Serie A

[chaddy101]

Interesting this. Although i think an SPL title race is not going to give the most conclusive results.

TBH i reckon any ai manager on fm, no matter how gash could win the title with Celtic as they have a far superior squad to the other teams in the league (bar Rangers). Even the worst managers are capable of using a couple of basic attacking and defensive strategies and all it takes is for the team to win a couple of games on the bounce and they will tend to pretty much motivate themselves. I would even go as far as saying a Celtic team all with morale of 'okay' could probably still hammer that league.

Why not try this experiment using a more competitive league? Or even better a relegation battle between to fairly equal teams yet managers that are world apart in terms of ability?

[Dalimyr]

Interesting this. Although i think an SPL title race is not going to give the most conclusive results.

TBH i reckon any ai manager on fm, no matter how gash could win the title with Celtic as they have a far superior squad to the other teams in the league (bar Rangers). Even the worst managers are capable of using a couple of basic attacking and defensive strategies and all it takes is for the team to win a couple of games on the bounce and they will tend to pretty much motivate themselves. I would even go as far as saying a Celtic team all with morale of 'okay' could probably still hammer that league.

Why not try this experiment using a more competitive league? Or even better a relegation battle between to fairly equal teams yet managers that are world apart in terms of ability?

I think using Rangers and Celtic in the SPL is actually a reasonable test, but I'd say it's best for the results between those two teams to be compared rather than seeing how they do in the league as a whole. They've got a reasonable chance of facing each other six times a season (four times in the league, twice in cups). If you take, say, Man Utd and Liverpool, they'll face each other twice in the league and they might face each other in the League Cup, FA Cup and Champions League but those draws are less likely than Rangers/Celtic facing each other in their cups.

Rangers and Celtic winning 5-0 over a team like Hamilton three times a season is nothing to write home about, but if you make Mowbray the worst manager ever and make Smith the best manager ever, and Celtic are beating Rangers 5-0 or vice versa, that's going to be a stronger indication of the impact that a manager's ability has

[megafan2005]

If he was winning the odd trophy i wouldn't mind but the fact is he has built Arsenal to be the strongest team in that particular game winning trophy after trophy which is beyond his capabilities.

If barca hired you they would lose nearly every game. No offence but whilst they may set a certain type of play there are many good managers who have failed there and a manager would still need to be reenforcing the style of play on the team, and considering the quality of there play it would take a top tactician to understand it and communicate it to the players in the best possible way.

The user can create a strong team winning trophy after trophy, and my friends have done this trust me the effort they put in makes the achievements definately over their capabilities.

If Barca hired me then they would not lose every single game. I find it incredible that people instantly blame managers these days rather than the players. At Barca, Guardiola has arguably they greatest center midfield pairing over the past two decades, one of the greatest players ever on the right wing (who just came into his peak as Guardiola took over) and a quality defence. The system is not even overly complicated, it is the players that make it work. The players understand the system well so why would I as a new coach need to a) change it or b) re-communicate it. Not only that but who says im not a top tactician

[charlo116]

The user can create a strong team winning trophy after trophy, and my friends have done this trust me the effort they put in makes the achievements definately over their capabilities.

If Barca hired me then they would not lose every single game. I find it incredible that people instantly blame managers these days rather than the players. At Barca, Guardiola has arguably they greatest center midfield pairing over the past two decades, one of the greatest players ever on the right wing (who just came into his peak as Guardiola took over) and a quality defence. The system is not even overly complicated, it is the players that make it work. The players understand the system well so why would I as a new coach need to a) change it or b) re-communicate it. Not only that but who says im not a top tactician

Barca don't play exactly the same in every game they have to make subtle tactical tweaks from game to game to catch their opponents out. The players do make it work but they need to understand it, just because a player is a brilliant talent and even a football genius on the field gives no indication as to how much they know about the game tactically. Look at maradonna, he knows very little about the tactical side to football but is one of the best talents the world has ever seen.

I can't count the number of times a new manager can improve the fortunes of a team or even worsen them with an immediate impact. Like I already said many good managers have had difficulties at barca so there is a lot of difference that a manager makes to a side.

Whether the problems a team is having is down to any factors other than the manager, like the players, the board, e.t.c, the facts are that new managers can make a world of difference in a short space of time by making some small but key changes.

As much as i respect your great tactical knowledge it seems like you are underestimating the impact that managers have, can you honestly tell me that there are numerous people who could have had such great success with man utd over such a long period of time like sir alex has? He often makes the difference with their success, like this season where he has them at the top of the table with only one top class attacking player, and somehow they've managed to score more goals than last year.

[CowSimao]

That's not the same. Carlos Queiroz was good enough to be ass man, but obviously not as good as a manager. If anything, that just backs up the whole point. Pienaar has very good motivation and man management, but very poor tactical knowlede, so like Quieroz, he should struggle as a manager.

Queiroz is more the opposite really, he has good tactical knowledge which made him a good ass man, but his motivation is crap so even with good tactics the players don't give it their all.

I'm basing that mainly on real life, I haven't checked what Queiroz has in the game.

[Proteus]

I'm trying the experiment with Milan. By the time I got round to editing their coaching staff they'd already played three games in Serie A and had won them all. In the Celtic experiment I only edited their manager, ass man and 1st team coach, but I've decided to make every member of Milan's staff terrible. They have the lowest attributes, rep, personality attributes, etc that I can assign to them via FMRTE. They now have the worst manager, ass man, coaches, scouts, and physios in the game. Here is an example of their manager before and after he was edited.

I've only played about 5 or 6 games since then and immediately after I edited them they lost two games. However, they've started winning again and are now 5th in the league. We will see where they end up and how well they do in cup competitions. The league detail has been set to full and I'm not managing in Serie A.

I'm only doing this because I'm curious. I just find experimentation in FM via FMRTE interesting and don't do it to necessarily find fault with the game.

Edit - Someone mentioned the importance of a manager's preferred tactic, and I have noticed that some AI-managed teams, like Genoa, appear to perform better than expected. Perhaps I will take two teams of similar quality in the same league, make their staff terrible and make the only difference between the two managers the tactic that they prefer to use.

[DeadZone]

Quite the same as you Proteus

I tend to use FMRTE to make my games more interesting and too run experiments, quite the handy tool

[Proteus]

Here is the outcome of making every member of Milan's staff (manager, ass man, coaches, scouts, physios) terrible, i.e. using FMRTE to edit all their attributes to 1 (apart from controversy, which is set to 20), their reputations to 1 (home, current and world reps), and their CA and PA to 1.

End of season league table. Milan finished 6th

Their fixtures. Note that they also won the Italian cup final by beating Fiorentina 6-0. Fiorentina beat Real Madrid 2-1 AET in the same season to win the Champions League.

Their squad and their stats for the league

Is finishing 6th unrealistic given that their entire coaching staff are individually among the worst staff members in the game? Would you expect them to finish in a lower league position given the inadequacy of their staff?

[Proteus]

I continued the same experiment with Celtic.

Note - It differs from the Milan experiment in that the only members of staff to have their attributes, rep, and CA/PA decreased to the lowest values are their manager, ass man and 1st team coach. The rest of their staff have not been edited.

Also, Walter Smith has been edited to make him markedly better than the Celtic manager.

Celtic won the league for the second time in successive seasons. Rangers came second.

Celtic's fixtures

Celtic's squad

Should Celtic be as successful as they have been over the past two seasons given their manager's lack of ability? Is the Celtic squad facilitating their domestic success?