Adverse affect on the team's performance

[charlieff]

In the game hints and tips it quotes the following

“Constantly changing your tactic and making dramatic alterations to the style of play will not help your players settle or find their rhythm and is likely to have an adverse affect on the team's performances”

If that’s the case should we have only 1 formation with the same tactical instructions for each game regardless whether home or away?

[Flohrinho]

In the game hints and tips it quotes the following

“Constantly changing your tactic and making dramatic alterations to the style of play will not help your players settle or find their rhythm and is likely to have an adverse affect on the team's performances”

If that’s the case should we have only 1 formation with the same tactical instructions for each game regardless whether home or away?

No.

It just means changing every game from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1 then to 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-2-1 and constantly playing wide and then narrow and so on will mess up your team.

You can actually see how good your team is at a certain tactic with certain instructions in the "match preparation" screen.

[Marsupian]

No but you should try to get your team familiar with the tactics you use which can be done through match preparation training. You can train on 3 different tactics at the same time and I believe that when you stop training on a tactic your team will stay familiar with it for quite a while. If you keep changing your tactic without giving your team the chance to get familiar with it you won't get a good performance from them.

[jim morrow]

Be careful with games inside hints and tips, there are sometimes not a very good advice, sometimes old and not up to date.

[charlieff]

I did think it might have been out of date since the introduction of the Match Preparation training but was not sure. I am using a 442 home and away with different tactical instructions. i.e control slow temp away and direct attacking at home and this seems to be working well.

Thanks for your replies

[phnompenhandy]

It's not out of date; the principle is the same, but it's clearer with match prep. Don't confuse tactics with formation. I'm managing a lower league side of players with limited intelligence. Thus I am sticking to one FORMATION. however, I tweak the tactics before every game (player roles etc) and in game with shouts.

What match prep shows you is that if you switch from one formation to a different one that is quite similar, the players can carry over their familiarity and only lose a little understanding. However, if you switch to a completely different formation, they will take far longer to get it. It's all logical and common sense, really.

[heathxxx]

Will certainly depend on the degree of difference between the formations you're using.

I currently have two formations, but both work off almost identical tactical settings for all but one position. They are a wide 4-2-3-1 (using 2x MC's) and a 4-5-1. The only thing that actually changes is that if I change from the 4-2-3-1 to the 4-5-1, I'm replacing the AMC with a DMC. Every other position/role/instruction remains the same. All but one player remains fluent with either formation, plus the AMC is fluent with the 4-2-3-1 and the DMC is fluent with the 4-5-1.

The purpose of my using these two formations, is that my 4-2-3-1 is very offensively orientated and whilst the 4-5-1 is a more attacking system, it gives me the option to be a little more defensive minded centrally and deeper with the DMC if need be.

However, if you were to change between formations that have very different positions and roles, then there would likely be more of a negative impact, especially if the players aren't so fluent with the formation you change to. That said though, if you were to go from a single striker formation to a three up front formation in an act of desperation to get a goal, then you might be lucky sometimes late in a game, depending on factors like the condition of yours and opponents players, what shape and tactics your opponent is using... etc...