Morale, Team Selection, Tactical or Manager of the Month Syndrome??

[aaron1606]

Re My original post I have come to the conclusion that "pace" is unbelievably important for "all" of your defenders if playing a high line and that seems to be what is giving me bad results a lot of the time.

In a new save I beat Southampton 6-1 away and Fiorentina 5-1 at home then lost bizarrely against Derby away 4-1 in the Capital One Cup even though I had 21 shots on goal with 12 on target to Derby's 10 with 4 on goal. The difference was I rotated a bit and even though I had Ogbonna and Cresswell playing I rotated Jenkinson and Reid for Byram and Collins and they are somewhat slower than the other two. Even lowering the DL didn't really help I still got caught.

I been done 4-3 at home by Bournemouth with the full defence available but I am starting to see a pattern with defeats and for definite if you play a high line you need four pacey defenders 100%. Some games you get away with it because your defenders anticipate well and get in ahead of strikers. But then you have games where even with a heavy press and high line your players meander about slowly and that's when you need pace. So I think Collins will be sitting on the bench for the long term!!!

That does make sense to be honest. Remember how much John Terry struggled under AVB and his high line defence?

[Sussex Hammer]

I think pace plays a big part but after another season falling apart on a new save I think it's a morale issue. You can be bubbling along nicely and suddenly with one defeat the wheels just come off. Every save without fail the defence just start leaking goals and strikers stop scoring. I have just gone from 10 wins in 11 to 1 win in 7.

[shirajzl]

I have just gone from 10 wins in 11 to 1 win in 7.

...and in the end it evens out and you're still overachieving. It's the same until you sign better and better players and those good runs become longer and bad runs are interrupted by flukey wins due to individual quality of your players.

The only other solution is to know the ME(s) so well that you know exactly what and how to tweak in any given match after watching it for a while. Such a knowledge is possessed by a small minority of users, however.

On top of that, the fact you're playing in England makes it all more difficult. I've been playing in various top leagues on FM 16 and the quality needed to be consistently dominant there is insane compared to Spain, Germany or Italy, for example. It's true to real life, though, so nothing to complain.

[Sussex Hammer]

Yeah I can understand that but the game makes it very difficult to understand as to why I am suddenly losing or drawing games despite dominating shots, shots on target, CCC's, Possession and yet the opposition goalkeeper who by watching the game has become Manuel Neuer on steroids gets a measly 6.1 rating afterwards. It gives me no ideas whatsoever on what is going wrong and why. All I can see is my strikers who have 13 and 11 in the Premier League alone suddenly not being able to put the ball in the net. My defenders who were coping brilliantly suddenly forgetting how to defend big time so I suddenly go from a decent defensive record to conceding 13 goals in three games,. I'm still creating the same quality chances but opposition goalkeepers suddenly wake up around Boxing Day!! Whilst my defenders seem to be remarkably slower at reacting in some games. No rhyme or reason for it, it could be a game three days later or after a 12 day break. It's could be tactical and yet with FMT if it's not tactical there is nothing that you can really do about it.

[Svenc]

Tbf, there's no on/off switch and the first manager in real football who steps up and says, look there's really a lot of good and bad fortune involved in this sports, takes the price. Naturally he'd be lambasted and ridiculed, as every poor pundit seems to have stories to tell in retrospect why a certain match was won rather than lost. The difference between the average and the good manager may be that the better ones adds some further consistency. Still I'd estimate a bare minimum of plus/minus 10 points each season for every team is all about random chance, and I'd up that if injuries of really key players are involved in particular in squads lacking depth. Even runs of results, who's to say just looking at those very closely final scorelines purely which match of those was a rather fortunate win, from a match that could have gone totally either way or expected as to the run of play? Which run of "form" was down to easy fixture list in parts and which bad one was contributed to by a tough one?

Football matches on FM also are low scoring affairs so tend to be decided in pitifully few key moments. Therefore best you can do is anticipate where you're going risky or balanced if you don't want to overcomplicate. If you'd engage in any of those downloads, I'd be wary of counter attacks in particular, same as hugely compressing the final third in the opposition's pitch. No team in football plays like that let alone every match every minute with everybody going forward all the time (and no AI does either). If everybody is pushing up there is no back pass on to rebuild attacks and have depth, so the team is forced into additionally weak shots, and what that means for shields against counter atttacks, well. That's in my opinion the only way you'd overly regularly drop points in those matches you dominate. Shield against the counter, 70% of the job done. Typically you don't dominate this hugely purely by having superior players or a man advantage in the centre. But also because the opponent drops very deep upon losing the ball, has a bucket load of defend duties and only ever advances players in numbers during set pieces -- or when that counter attack opportunity is "on". So if you don't gift them such, they rarely get all that dangerous. Conversely opposition who push up that's immediately going to be a more toughly fought battle for dominating the pitch.

The above set-up for instance with two attacking wing backs and an anchorman essentially providing attacking cover for both, going by the standard of any other team in the game that is inherently on the risky side. That's one guy covering for both wide backs going forward. What's very popular is generally very rather inherently risky tactics. Top heavy formations, even if you would tell every player to hold position, the AML/AMR/AMC and FWD positions are eventually pushed deep into enemy territory as a baseline default. I'm not the kind of player who looks for supposedly superior formations in any ME iteration and/or exploiting weaknessess in AI tactical decision making (and they sure exist). On the last long term save I was playing off an inherently attacking 4-2-3-1 narrow. The formation as a means to an end though, with the focus being on technical players dominating the centre of the pitch. So to get any width advancing backs are a must. I set both centre mids on defend duty, something you rarely see (the AI doesn't do this by default also in such formations, though typically one defend duty midfielder is always part of the deal as bare minimum).

This way there's actually back passes on, plus like the 4-2-3-1 wide and similar, players don't step on each other's toe. More importantly, those two CM/d staying deep can cover the attacking movement on both flanks, whereas in the 4-3-3- with the anchor and the wb/as immediately pushing up, this places a big burden on the anchor man. If your attack is intercepted and the ball carrier comes down the left, the anchor gets pulled there, and if it's happening down the right, vice versa. That's only difficult reading if you're on a cam that doesn't grant you overview, imo or if you solely fix on the ball. Sometimes after having taking the lead or in tough matches, I'd pull one AMC back and add him to the two MCs for additionally cover. Think that's fairly simple. And whilst the common knowledge seems to suggest that the more player you push into the box the more dangerous you'd get, the opposite can be true. Back passes stretch opposition and deep options don't force players to play forward passes only, eventually leading to cul-de-sacs where the only option is to finish it off. Didn't have a problem scoring in that save.

I think the basics are fairly simple, however, in football of the FM kind is well, nothing's granted. What would you have made of some of the matches this weekend? Managing Barca having 13-3 shots at HT trailing 0-2 behind at home to a sorely lacking Valencia this season. Bordeaux losing 1-3 at like 20 shots to 4 (!) with all three goals being scored after Angers had a man sent off!!! Norwich losing 0-3 at 20 to 8 shots. Villa losing 0-6 against Liverpool a couple weeks ago involving a comedy reel of errors which the final shot count at like 7 to 11 suggesting a close tie doesn't touch. You'd expect to have some of that madness in FM as well. And it's there. :-) If you take a look around, it exists for your AI colleagues as well though.

[thesandman]

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On top of that, the fact you're playing in England makes it all more difficult. I've been playing in various top leagues on FM 16 and the quality needed to be consistently dominant there is insane compared to Spain, Germany or Italy, for example. It's true to real life, though, so nothing to complain.

Champions League results tend to say otherwise.

I do agree about the ME part. It would be insanely difficult to get to grips with it that well.

[Svenc]

I do agree about the ME part. It would be insanely difficult to get to grips with it that well.

It would also be extremely boring if well, competitive opponents wouldn't spring competitive results. Matches and seasons between comparably level teams result in competitive competitions and on average tight results, sounds like football to me. The data editor is free for all and nobody would stop you to change this some, it's your game and your fun. It's still not that hard to overachieve some (the myth that you'd be tactically cracked is a myth anyway, and a bad one going against SI's design philsophy -- if AI decision making is ever improved some, it affects all the teams, the human player is incidental to it all, not the centre of everything), but on the transfer markets everybody seems to outperform straight out of the bat even without asking for possibly wonderkid signings, so yeah in the long run it's hardly rocket science that results will get better and better typically. Depending on the number of saves you got going, you will know decent players simply from past playing experience, whereas any AI naturally doesn't have such memory as it would be illogical. FM's mainstay ever since Champ Man is that it is simulating a football world which you happen to be a part of. That is if you at all engage yourself rather than start unemployed and watch the fireworks. :-)

[thesandman]

It would also be extremely boring if well, competitive opponents wouldn't spring competitive results. Matches and seasons between comparably level teams result in competitive competitions and on average tight results, sounds like football to me.

I do agree. Games should be competitive, and they shouldn't play out the same way every time. They don't in real life, so why should they on FM.

The data editor is free for all and nobody would stop you to change this some, it's your game and your fun.

I play iPad only so don't have the editor. However, I used to play pretty much LLM rules in the past, so I doubt I'd change anything anyway.

It's still not that hard to overachieve some (the myth that you'd be tactically cracked is a myth anyway, and a bad one going against SI's design philsophy -- if AI decision making is ever improved some, it affects all the teams, the human player is incidental to it all, not the centre of everything), but on the transfer markets everybody seems to outperform straight out of the bat

Do they? I'm doing OK with transfers. Yes, some I know would work out second time around (my first game crashed - stopped playing Euro competitions so I had to start again), but as Liverpool I find I'm paying over the odds for anyone I try and buy (and Arsenal, United and Chelsea must all go to bed on piles of money with the transfers they bring in), and struggling to even get valuation for players I'm trying to ship out.

even without asking for possibly wonderkid signings, so yeah in the long run it's hardly rocket science that results will get better and better typically. Depending on the number of saves you got going, you will know decent players simply from past playing experience, whereas any AI naturally doesn't have such memory as it would be illogical. FM's mainstay ever since Champ Man is that it is simulating a football world which you happen to be a part of. That is if you at all engage yourself rather than start unemployed and watch the fireworks. :-)

I like to run one save start to finish, and just live with the results. The only reason I restarted this save is as I said, the Euro Comps stopped being played in my first save.

I've always found the game to be more engaging the less it actually does - and the more that you create yourself in your head. Your own story if you like. Once the game tried to do everything, it became the poorer for it. All of the 'reality' that was in your head was blown away by mindless, boring repetitive chores that actually diminished the reality, rather than enhanced it.

Touch has brought me back though. I started playing back with CM 93/94, and found the last few versions just way too time consuming - and with boring, things that I hated. Rubbish team talks, press conferences etc that were boring, a waste of time - but if I got it wrong my team played like 12 year olds.

[Sussex Hammer]

I've just tried experimenting with balanced roles and duties, nothing else, no PI's or TI's, just roles and duties and using the basic counter, standard, control etc to keep it simple. Result - woeful. Can't create and can't keep clean sheets due to pretty much 90% of AI goals coming from crosses. Not quite sure on how you are meant to know how you want your team to play when it just doesn't work at all. Real life ideas implemented into FM (for me at least) are impossible.

I know that there is a criticism with players using too many attacking duties but in defence of that I find that support duties don't really do anything, defensively or attacking wise. They just hover in an area. Great example is an IF on support. Absolute waste of a player IMO. Does absolutely nothing. Same as a lone striker on support. Just hovers around the edge on the penalty area and contributes nothing inside it. Attacking duties do nothing defensively and defensive duties do nothing defensively either!!! There must be a Albert Einstein theory for FM "X duties = PI square" or something because this game has well and truly beaten me!!

[Svenc]

Hammer, to be fair, whilst I always like discussing the game with you and reading your posts you seem to be posting the same ever since at least FM 2009ish. If you overachieve and come up against a bad string of results, it's suddenly "back to the drawing board", and attempts seem to be started to chop things up wholesale or to massively "experiment". Whenever you win against bigger sides and then lose against smaller ones, you seem dumbfounded as to how that could have happened, even though it is evidently happening to AI sides in the game week in week out. At the bare minimum, I'm kind of like RT here in that I don't overcomplicate and don't have unrealistic expectations as to my side's quality, I'm suspecting that your expectations are wholly different to mine. It seems to be looking for on/off switches when there aren't any as long as the matches are second by second simulations. Including the typically close scorelines on average and due to key moments then settling one of three possibly outcomes (win/draw/loss) making things so that nothing's ever granted. That does not mean you can't develop coherent strategies, however experimenting and chopping things around obviously aren't such. There are exploits of defensive issues and AI tactical decision making that makes you win the EPL with the Hammers first season simply hitting continue. But in general, there is no formula as to anything at all. You have a wide range of dealing with stuff. I you don't like your forward dropping off on supp duty, more power to you. :-)

For the record, the defending of wide areas and goals from crosses, that's another thing. Defend duties therefore won't change much here, it's only that all of them have the "hold position" instruction enabled by default, so rather than pushing up, they stay in position. The effect of this is twofold: Players aren't caught hugely out of position when the ball changes hands, or rather feet. As opposed to forward runs, players staying deep in position are players that can't be passed to deep. Pretty simple stuff. I can but try to show that off from stuff recorded off previous versions, this applies for FM 2016 and any iteration beyond too, unless SI suddenly start to replace the ME with a pool billiard sim.

1. vid, post this regularly as it shows two extremes in action, it's actually an AI manager doing this. The AI is Napoli. In the first fifteen seconds it's a sequence of it having multiple defend duties across the shop, notice in particular how none of the wide backs advances. It seems content with a draw playing away at Camp Nou no less, so that's how things start out. When the attack is intercepted, Barcelona find no space to break into and nobody really has moved out of his defensive position. The second sequence clearly it's pushing everybody up in an attempt to get an equalizer. Immediately counter attack as everybody has pushed up. There's a CM/D in the middle who stays deeply, but the ball is cleared to two forwards (don't track back much and just wait for that to happen), and then kaboom. One of the CBs has to close down the forward receiving the ball and leave his position, the other one has to shift over as a consequence also, that last line of defense is broken, forward through on goal.

[video=youtube;7OEyszTyRkk]

Naturally attacks can also be intercepted during the transition rather then when play has reached the opponent's box. Happens to Barcelona here. Again a CB has to move out of position to close down the wide threat vacated, and a similarily chain reaction transpires. Wide roles such as WB/a and even support to a slightly lesser extent would push up as soon as possible.

[video=youtube;dty4sD_47Qw]

This one is simply meant to show off the dynamics if there's multiple players staying deep, forced additionally back passes by playing a low risk mentality, which also explains the low final scoreline. From a 4-2-3-1 as visible in the tactics screen also, the AMC AML AMR and FWD push up highly by default anyway. Without Gaudino and/or Martinez as MC/ds staying deep here, nobody to play back to, players are eventually forced to shoot and finish things off always rather than being able to lay the ball back.

[video=youtube;W5y93yRYj7I]

This is how you can still easily lose against much worse teams. Team fields multiple forwards. They are just waiting for that counter. Huge underdog against Bayern Munich in the club world cup semis. I was Brisbane here, with a 40 years old Tim Cahill sill being a starter. With some luck the scoreline at the 70th minutes mark was still level, Bayern pushes aggressively up, then a counter attack. Really much same pattern as in the Napoli video above. Two (can be three) forwards who don't track back, boom. I lost the match in the end as after conceding from a peno I opened all up by myself (nothing to lose anyhow) and then Depay tore me a new one (was impossibly to contain previously already with like 9 dribbles and just as many shots).

[video=youtube;QXdQMxXYK7Q]

Touch has brought me back though. I started playing back with CM 93/94, and found the last few versions just way too time consuming - and with boring, things that I hated. Rubbish team talks, press conferences etc that were boring, a waste of time - but if I got it wrong my team played like 12 year olds.

Yeah, that's why FM Touch was introduced. :-) I'm a full fat FM player and I let the assistant semi-regularly with worries. The impact is nowhere near as big and shouldn't be. We tested what would of happen if you would do even stupid things, like exclaiming you'd beat the biggest team in the pond with a massively underdog, and so on, the match in the end is still to be played and the (slightly) boosts or penalties to players is nowhere as severe. Conversely in one big international final it was the prolific left back coaxed out of international retirement supposed to thrive in big matches who made the error that made it 0-1 and "decided" the match, whereas the bad morale, out of match fitness and second string right back chosen only due to injury had a decent game. Match play is dynamic and you're dealing in probablities and stil the second to second decision making of simulated "players". Even SI say they couldn't attribute a spefic action of within the match play to a team talk or anything. It's also advocated that even at bad moraly, a huge favourite would still be regarded as a damn big one.

[BoxToBox]

IIRC, team talks and press conferences only have an effect on the first 10-15 minutes of play.

[neonshaker]

I've just tried experimenting with balanced roles and duties, nothing else, no PI's or TI's, just roles and duties and using the basic counter, standard, control etc to keep it simple. Result - woeful. Can't create and can't keep clean sheets due to pretty much 90% of AI goals coming from crosses. Not quite sure on how you are meant to know how you want your team to play when it just doesn't work at all. Real life ideas implemented into FM (for me at least) are impossible.

Thank goodness somebody else is struggling with a keep it simple approach. I´ve posted a few threads based on how to get better at FM with a simplistic approach. It´s ridiculously hard. I tend to resort to retain possession, pass shorter, close down more, lower tempo. etc. It´s not the type of football I want to play but I just can´t get anything else to work. I wanted to play a defensive strategy that soaks up pressure and stays in shape that attacks at pace when we win the ball back, however it seems to just be a case of not getting out of our half and eventually conceding under relentless pressure.

[Sussex Hammer]

Svenc, Great posts as always and yes, you are right, I probably have been posting the same stuff since 2009, although it's mainly since the TC came in tbh. I don't mean to constantly repeat myself and it's annoying to me that I seem to sound like a broken record hence why I don't post too much about my efforts at tactics these days because if it's annoying me then it must be annoying everyone else as well!!!!

Having said that I would much rather be playing the game than posting about it on this site, I'm sure we all would, but along with plenty of others I clearly struggle with the game at times and if I am struggling with a fairly strong real life coaching and management background then I can't imagine the struggles that others may have.

Yes I have used a few download tactics and that was basically because I had given up really on trying anything myself. The interesting thing is that I would say 85/90% of the downloaded tactics had pretty much the same settings regardless of shape. Pretty much all have the likes of shorter passing, mark tighter, get stuck in, higher line, offside trap, look for overlap, work ball into the box, and many more. Indeed pretty aggressive, and yet then they go and have "lower tempo" ticked which makes you think uh?! A lot of them have so many instructions and half of them contradict each other but some of them obviously work because people use them. Plus they have all obviously found that certain TI's work better than others so hence you end up with a load of download tactics that all look the same under the hood. In my experience the downloads work for a bit and then you get battered and go on a winless run playing totally different football than you were before. Defenders stop defending, prolific strikers forget to score, the usual stuff. What is interesting is that if you tinker with them to make them more simplistic and real life the whole thing just falls apart, which just shows how TI's are like dominoes where you take away one and the rest fall over!! Which shows how incredibly difficult it is to come up with something that is what you are aiming for because just one TI can react with another. For instance you might have got it absolutely spot on without knowing it but add "play wider" which just throws the tactic, but you don't know that and chances are you will not even find out it's that instruction that is the problem. So you lower or higher a tempo, change passing styles, tinker with closing down settings and suddenly you are all over the place when all you needed to do was play a normal width rather play wider but there is very little clue in the game and no help whatsoever from a contradicting Assistant to suggest that "play wider" is the problem. So yes it's very difficult to not just start aimlessly tinkering about.

So you then try a simple approach. Yet a simplistic approach is very difficult to get right for any sort of consistency, just look at FM16 Forums and not just this one. So many people struggling with it. I was finding the same thing was happening to my own ideas as well as the downloaded tactics anyway. Not just beating the big clubs and losing to smaller ones. It was things like beating Arsenal 1-0 in a hard tight battle on Boxing Day and getting stuffed 5-0 at their place three days later! My team played totally differently. So differently it was impossible to work out why. I knew Walcott was "doing" me in behind so I lowered the defensive line. He scored two more "in behind"!! Players who two days before were getting interceptions in and closing down were now standing off and meandering about despite the same set of instructions!! I know what I would have done IRL but where it may have worked IRL it didn't in FM.

You cannot just set a shape and rely on roles and duties IMO. After years and years I am still trying to find ways of getting an IF S into the box, stopping an IF A to from blasting a shot at goal from an impossible angle, getting any support midfielder forward enough, getting a DM D to actually defend, a SK to actually sweep up long balls over the top, stopping players hoofing it when you have short passing ticked, a whole host of difficult to explain issues. And that's where the problem is. To get the IF S into the box you make him an IF A, to stop that IF A shooting from silly angles you make him shoot less but all he does is waste his three shots on goal rather than his eight shots on goal,. So you try work ball into the box instead, you go through the range of DM's, from Anchor Men, Regista, DM, BWM just to get a tackle in and to stop players hoofing it you try "retain possession" as well as shorter passing and suddenly just to try and rectify the small difficulties you are seeing in the ME you end up a thousand miles away from that simplistic approach you started with anyway.

I have never been interested in difficulty levels but there is something that would be a great addition and would help people immensely. People ask you at the start "how do you want your team to play?" Understandable question. Personally I know exactly how I want my team to play but tbh I have no idea of creating that it FM. So here is my idea.

Rather than the fairly basic in game default tactics which might work once in a blue moon why not have SI's tactical gurus come up with a set of tactics designed around a particular Managers style. The Ferguson, The Benitez, The Moyes, The Guardiola, The Bilic, The Koeman, The Wenger, so on and so on. I am not saying a win all the time tactic but a template, a starting point which gives you the basics to your vision on how you want your team to play. People can visualise how a Ferguson or a Wenger team plays and either not be able to create it in FM or in many cases totally misunderstands how that team played so gets it totally wrong. Look at each Clubs thread on here and how someone will put a totally different interpretation on how they think say Man United play to another person. The variables are endless so someone hitting the nail on the head is practically impossible. With default tactics like the above that would allow players like myself to think, right I want to play the way Bilic plays rather than Allardyce so I'll use the Bilic template to get started. I can see IRL the differences on how West Ham play under Bilic than Allardyce but putting that into FM right now is a guessing game lottery.

[Svenc]

Think it'd be great to have more elaborate styles in the game. Everything you talk about the "gurus", everything you will find in the tactics sub forums, that visibly goes beyond any AI if you watch. Ideal role combinations, blablabla. It's obvious from the data editor kind of anyway, and SI have posted this on numerous occasions as people still believe they would be "cracked". But the thing is that they have expectations as for a match depending on whether underdog or favourite, every one of them has edited differently favored attacking/defending formations, so that's it. They're also visibly increasing risk and decreasing it in the game accordingly to the current scoreline, and a part of that naturally isn't adjusting mentality, but roles/duties as well. Obviously nothing increases risk quite as much as additionally players pushing forward to leave their defensive position. There's a bit more to it. But if you let your assistant do stuff, he's working off the exact same core logics. So the entire thing is dynamic, and therefore getting different styles in there, I think this would need a totally rework of the AI as well as the UI probably. I'd love for the AI to be that sophisticated, but then the fun would really start... people struggled to cope with the 4-2-4 desperate overload defaults for any manager in really old versions already, even though you could anticipate it from miles away if you were leading and the match went into the final 15 minutes. Was considered a cheat, all that was needed was to keep your own players at check.

I never massively engage into tweaking TIs, nor PIs, nor anything. I barely use any PI ever. So whether people like it or not, or whether they have unrealistic expectations in relation to they initial squad, things are fairly simply at the core. Whilst it's not intentionally, I'd argue any newbie could outscore AI Guardiola's Bayern first season if he would take over rather than the AI Guardiola. The opening posts seem a fairly good example. So there's been downloaded these tactics that have not a single midfielder sitting deep, or which place a big burden on an anchor, all of which by default, not as a means of a desperate push for a goal, the first of which visibly from about any cam is how no team in football plays. Then the thrashings come, and the scorelines tend to be wildly on occasion. I agree it's bad currently that this is punished fairly randomly, wasn't the case on previous for some reason. It's in parts that defenses are probably too easily overloadable again. So rather than going into all kinds of micro-tweaks, people appear to lose sight on the actually bigger basic something. It doesn't help that some are spreading the movement and all that stuff, and the entire match view would be "just a representation" and therefore the argument goes around that every time you are outplayed, it would be the "match engine arbitrarily trying to tell you to change something".

It's not. Play against better or equal opposition who push up rather than drop deep, possibly prefering a formation that outnumbers yours in central midfield, and you're likely going to struggle to control possession. Play against an underdog dropping off and you're going to dominate by default. You might beat Arsenal 1-0 one day and lose against them the other, but how much each of those results was "just" or not only you could tell by taking a look at the match. In one tie Arsenal could have missed out on key players, they were tired, or struggled to break you down, whilst in the other they might have actually employed a totally different formation, all key players on board and taken an early lead, upon which a windfall is more likely. Their might have actually been an AI tactical bug that made it sit back (such as on FM 2015 in the 2nd leg cup ties when the first was won). Away is tough. I had a recent match that had fairly interesting dynamics simply by the fact that the AI brought its key attacking players on in the 2nd half, as they weren't fully match fit (maybe given too much credit to the AI here, but that's what it seemed like). In turn a match that was easy going the first half turned into something else in the second. There was another match where the AI fielded a player with a jumping reach of below 8 as a centre back, which you could borderline exploit (obviously rare to happen). Would be interesting to see those Arsenal ties as pkms for instance. Nothing's ever granted, and it may be fair to assume that even during the 1-0 win, Arsenal had quite a few shots. It's not only tactics, as players have hidden consistency traits, and all that stuff, but for what I don't understand that -despite overachieving- saves seem to be started anew ot chopped up at the first sign of any slightest hick-up or competition who does well simply because it's stacked by actually good players who can be hard to stop regardless. :-) Sensibly assessing usefulness is about things in the long run, not random blips.

That said, players/roles not doing what you'd expect them to, that's a different thing and worth debating someplace else. In some cases it may be tactical, but it can be just as well that your view on football (or roles) differs from that of SI which is viably -- but futile to bang your head against endlessly as things are as they are, and any opponent of yours be it AI or human deals with them all the same. An example not connected to any role or instruction in particular would be tacklings. FM's defending somewhat overly relies on tacklings, which means there is already far too many tacklings made a match, and that's always a balance. So even at the most aggressive, they can't make players tackle even more all over the pitch (though if you look, aggressive roles tackling like a dozen times is not an oddity -- not all of them will be shown in highlights).

[shirajzl]

So whether people like it or not, or whether they have unrealistic expectations in relation to they initial squad, things are fairly simply at the core.

This is one big part of the problem. FMs of the past taught us to expect big things almost instantly. You overachieve more and more for 2 or 3 seasons and then, once you go on top, no one can touch you for as long as you wish to play the save. For one reason or another, things have changed somewhat and it's not as easy to overachieve as much from the get go nor to keep winning the titles once your team gets there.

Out of interest, Svenc, can you tell us about your save(s) in FM 16 so far, your level of success?

[HUNT3R]

It's probably as easy as ever once you're at the top. I won the league in my first season at a big club, walked it in the 2nd season and doing so again in the 3rd, this time with a tactical change although it's only because it fits my players better. The old tactic that won me the first 2 titles is still up to the task, it's just that my personnel changed, so I'm using their strengths rather than fitting square pegs into round holes.

What catches a lot of people is that initial change in how teams approach you (being more defensive when you start doing well) and after that, there's not much more that teams can do really. They'll always be cautious against you, so most games are the same. The only surprises can be a player who your team struggles against (fast striker, good dribbler or target man etc) or a formation that can get the better of you.

[Sussex Hammer]

They'll always be cautious against you, so most games are the same. The only surprises can be a player who your team struggles against (fast striker, good dribbler or target man etc) or a formation that can get the better of you.

Agree with that wholeheartedly. Certain teams/players can give you trouble and I accept that. Bournemouth in 16 for instance have been a right pain in the backside with a way of playing that reminds me of Leicester. Quick balls over the top and Callum Wilson destroying me. Only on my latest save have I beaten them by lowering the defensive line, which worked but possibly more by luck than judgement.

Arsenal and Spurs too are tough cookies, Arsenal only away though, at home they aren't too difficult to play against, but Spurs are very tough especially away when they can blow you away,. I find it's the combination of good players with a bit of everything and the difficulties that can be faced in the ME. Arsenal have Walcott and Giroud, both far better in FM than they are IRL. I say that because Walcott's decision making in FM is too good compared to real life, even though his decision stat is low in the game. However he always seems to find the right ball. Giroud has a pace stat of 14, quicker than Diafra Sakho and the same as Enner Valencia, really?!! Anyway both sides have an option over the top because of Walcott's pace and getting crosses in due to Giroud's ability in the air, whilst Spurs have the same. Harry Kane has everything in the game and Erikssen has super pace in FM so again options over the top and in the air.

This gives a bit of a dilemma when playing such sides. Now IRL as a lesser of two evils I would probably push both out wide because I am comfortable with the height and strength in West Ham's side and Collins, Ogbonna and Reid IRL are decent in the air. Whilst not slow neither Reid or Ogbonna and certainly not Collins would I risk against a pacey striker. However in FM stopping crosses leading to goals is very difficult, as has been talked about elsewhere. It's rarely headers but volleys, IF's popping in at the back post, goals that are rare IRL. You very rarely see any striker volley in directly from a cross IRL but it happens a lot in FM. What frustrates is that on some occasions you can stop it for nearly 90 minutes but a low bumbling cross will hit my full backs knees and in it goes.

Maybe also an issue is that Walcott example I give above. His decision stat is low but in the game he constantly makes good decisions so it's a bit of a lottery. Passing 12, crossing 12, composure 13, vision 13, decisions 11 and against me at least is one of the all time assist getters!! So in quite a few cases how you would stop a player IRL is different to how you need to stop him in the game.

Re teams playing more cautious against you I understand that totally. What aggrieves though is that when you are playing a team in the bottom three. You go one up, maybe two but they don't crumble. I'm not expecting every team to fall apart but too often their passing stays the same, their commitment doesn't seem too affected, you rarely see heads drop and Newcastle'esque (under McClaren) or Aston Villa style defending and suddenly you have been done 3-2 at home against a side that hasn't won for the last 10 matches.

I beat Liverpool 5-0 (unrealistic I know) and was 5 up at half time. They had Lucas sent off after 48 minutes. It stayed at 5. As per the previous paragraph I couldn't understand why. Did Liverpool sit back and close the gaps? Did my lot sit on what they had (I hadn't told them too)? Why did the game just fizzle out? My Assistants advice was pretty much the same for 90 minutes.

Not sure if that's FMT, maybe full fat gives you more data as to why certain things happen, but that's my only frustration, the fact that a lot of the time things happen with no glaring obvious cause. Bit like the original post. 12 games unbeaten then knocked out of the Cup 4-0 at home!!