City are awful on this game!!!!

[..Valhalla..]

For God's sake, came back an hour later and was only on August. The game had stopped processing for some reason, does that sometimes

Have to go back out, off we go again...

[Mr U Rosler]

8 minutes ago, wayne'o said:

Iv watched so many people’s saves on YouTube in past 2 months that I was getting the impression Mourinho was the most  officiant Ai manager,  I think it’s down to his tactics?   This woukd prove Ai managers such as Guardiola who uses offensive tactics are less effective?    Also making it easier for human managers?

think if every Ai managed team was a replica of Mourinho? Woukd make the game a lot harder?

I think its more related to passing range/directness of play.

Mourinho plays direct/semi direct, Pep a possession based short passing game.   

Looking around the tactics forums, no ones really advocating the Tiki Taka model this year.

In terms of whether its making the game easier, probably not, if an AI manager employing a semi/direct approach gets in at a top Club they can be hard to topple. Those that start the game at a top Club, like Mourinho, can stay there for years and years.

Hopefully this will be balanced for FM2019, we don't want to see Pep becoming a journeyman manager.  

 

 

[wayne'o]

1 minute ago, Mr U Rosler said:

I think its more related to passing range/directness of play.

Mourinho plays direct/semi direct, Pep a possession based short passing game.   

Looking around the tactics forums, no ones really advocating the Tiki Taka model this year.

In terms of whether its making the game easier, probably not, if an AI manager employing a semi/direct approach gets in at a top Club they can be hard to topple. Those that start the game at a top Club, like Mourinho, can stay there for years and years.

Hopefully this will be balanced for FM2019, we don't want to see Pep becoming a journeyman manager.  

 

 

I watched some manager experiments on one channel,  Pochettino and Klopp keeps under performing too, not sure of thier tactic traits.   Putting Wenger in as Real Madrid over 5 years saw him dominate and constantly win trophies, same experiment with Pochettino he only won the title once in 5 years and a thew cups too.,

 

whats the difference with these managers tactics?

[Federico]

Thank you guys I feel like this topic is going into the right direction. And thanks for spelling my name right guys, much appreciated! @MrPompey @HUNT3R  

I just wonder why the level of detail seems to affect Guardiola's teams specifically while is not affecting Mourinho or Simeone in example. That's why I was speaking earlier about reputation, tactics, match approach and research. The truth is Man City under Guardiola, in FM, always struggled to win trophies and I rarely, if ever, seen the guy leading the boat for 2 years in a row.

But as long as I want City to perform better in FM, I'd rather prefer to see other teams performances "lowered down" to City's level. Seeing Tottenham as CL holder in the first season is offensive, with all respect.

[..Valhalla..]

OK, as much as this is hardly conclusive, I've done 5 seasons in full detail now (2 different saves) and in all 5 seasons Mourinho has waltzed to the league title as Man City manager.

Oddly enough, Pep has yet to be sacked as United manager due to at least achieving respectable finishes (including 2nd in the most recent season, behind City).

Take from that what you want, I'm done testing as I want to actually play now  

[Federico]

Too much expectations from City? Mourinho considered by researchers the best manager in game?

[Gojira]

In my save, they won Premier League in 2023 and 2024, Champions Cup in 2023, Super Cup in the same year, they're pretty much unbeatable now. Their head coach is Diego Simeone. 

[MrPompey]

@Valhalla - That's a good and interesting test

I think there are a few things here

1. Manager Stats - Assuming this is how one manager may be rated different / better than another to what degree does this affect the FM game. 

2. Manager influence - We know how much player morale can influence teams, are some players in FM world having their morale reduced somehow by Pep at Man City

3. Does the AI shortlist created at the start of the game result in player purchases at Man City that upset player morale, one player picked over another

4. Should more players at Man City have Pep as a favoured manager?

5. Is board expectation of Pep causing the problem if he has a poor start

Anyway as a reminder we will need to re-perform these tests in FM19

 

[Sheriff7]

They have won CL 2-3 times in last 7 years in my save.. 

[s1111]

I'm sure it's all tactical. Direct/mixed tactics are more effective than possession on FM18, I've seen that myself and on other's saves. It's hard enough for a human to build a possession style that can successfully break down packed defences because of the complexity of the role/duty combinations you have to set up. It's impossible for the AI to do, they just aren't coded that way and the very basic tactical attributes that are set by the researcher and are somehow supposed to define an entire tactical style of an AI manager don't feed into the tactical/match engine properly.  They can't even get the 65-70% possession levels that a City or Barcelona have in real life, it's rare you see an AI team averaging more than 55%. And because pressing in FM isn't anywhere near as sophisticated as in reality the high defensive lines that are set by AI Pep/Klopp become suicidal.

Then the Mourinho/Simeone style that defends deeper and attacks more directly becomes far more successful than it should be and you end up with Mourinho at United for 20 years winning 18 league titles. FM has a huge amount of work to do to improve this area of the game, at the moment what should be epic battles against really challenging opponents playing in the style of their real life counterparts become too easy. If I'm Huddersfield playing Man City in the first season I should be expecting to lose heavily with less than 30% possession the vast majority of the time.

The core of the game should be you challenging yourself against realistically modelled elite managers. But it just doesn't happen. Your direct opponents are faceless shells that are nothing like the real personalities. It's arguably the biggest flaw in the whole game

[wayne'o]

27 minutes ago, s1111 said:

I'm sure it's all tactical. Direct/mixed tactics are more effective than possession on FM18, I've seen that myself and on other's saves. It's hard enough for a human to build a possession style that can successfully break down packed defences because of the complexity of the role/duty combinations you have to set up. It's impossible for the AI to do, they just aren't coded that way and the very basic tactical attributes that are set by the researcher and are somehow supposed to define an entire tactical style of an AI manager don't feed into the tactical/match engine properly.  They can't even get the 65-70% possession levels that a City or Barcelona have in real life, it's rare you see an AI team averaging more than 55%. And because pressing in FM isn't anywhere near as sophisticated as in reality the high defensive lines that are set by AI Pep/Klopp become suicidal.

Then the Mourinho/Simeone style that defends deeper and attacks more directly becomes far more successful than it should be and you end up with Mourinho at United for 20 years winning 18 league titles. FM has a huge amount of work to do to improve this area of the game, at the moment what should be epic battles against really challenging opponents playing in the style of their real life counterparts become too easy. If I'm Huddersfield playing Man City in the first season I should be expecting to lose heavily with less than 30% possession the vast majority of the time.

The core of the game should be you challenging yourself against realistically modelled elite managers. But it just doesn't happen. Your direct opponents are faceless shells that are nothing like the real personalities. It's arguably the biggest flaw in the whole game

Yes I agree.

[craiigman]

48 minutes ago, s1111 said:

I'm sure it's all tactical. Direct/mixed tactics are more effective than possession on FM18, I've seen that myself and on other's saves. It's hard enough for a human to build a possession style that can successfully break down packed defences because of the complexity of the role/duty combinations you have to set up. It's impossible for the AI to do, they just aren't coded that way and the very basic tactical attributes that are set by the researcher and are somehow supposed to define an entire tactical style of an AI manager don't feed into the tactical/match engine properly.  They can't even get the 65-70% possession levels that a City or Barcelona have in real life, it's rare you see an AI team averaging more than 55%. And because pressing in FM isn't anywhere near as sophisticated as in reality the high defensive lines that are set by AI Pep/Klopp become suicidal.

Then the Mourinho/Simeone style that defends deeper and attacks more directly becomes far more successful than it should be and you end up with Mourinho at United for 20 years winning 18 league titles. FM has a huge amount of work to do to improve this area of the game, at the moment what should be epic battles against really challenging opponents playing in the style of their real life counterparts become too easy. If I'm Huddersfield playing Man City in the first season I should be expecting to lose heavily with less than 30% possession the vast majority of the time.

The core of the game should be you challenging yourself against realistically modelled elite managers. But it just doesn't happen. Your direct opponents are faceless shells that are nothing like the real personalities. It's arguably the biggest flaw in the whole game

We say this, but most of the successful tactics I see in the tactics forum include high press and high line, and generally are attacking/possession based. In fact I think at one stage there was a thread created to say how trying to play like Atletico wasn't possible, as when playing narrow the wide mids didn't play narrow, it just effected the CM's who were then on top of each other. May have been on FM17 that though

My style of football is a deep line and direct football, but as soon as I play vs a team who is attacking, my teams generally fall apart.

I do agree that there needs to be more personalisation for each AI manager though.

[wayne'o]

I like to play the game from the knowledge of football I have IRL but unfortunately FM is a game and isn’t coded to act like real life,    It’s a strategic game in the form of football and you need to learn and understand what works and what doesn’t in the game,  there’s lots of variables to choose from.     

If you have a team full of 5 star players I guess it’s going to be easier to win than a team of 3 stars.   IRL watching a league 2 game would look different from watching a prem game but on FM it’s pretty much the same.

[Svenc]

We used to collect a few AI Pep oddities back on FM 2016 already on a German board, the release where he could pull off the feat of losing close to 10 Bundesliga matches first season every now and then. The AI is too simplistic to model "top management" in general. It simply gets more and more aggressive if it ever trails behind in a game -- slightly moreso when given attributes as aggressive as Peps. Any realization of how an AI manager is countered over and over doesn't come to pass (the only way it would was probably if FM would introduce a match statistics assessed by AI also  how often a side runs headfirst into breaks over and over, similar to Whoscored, etc.). Basically, AI match management is far too focused on simply scorelines. Back then the German research also made him prefer a different formation, which sprang a few oddities just as well (just sticking to entry level guides ten years of age back then, you'd have an edge, bluntly put).

[Marcussy]

Agree with all those that have mentioned Pep, Poch and Klopp being too attacking as the possible issue. All of them struggle and lose their jobs quite quickly in comparison to Jose (obviously more defensive) who thrives and stays in Utd job for years.

In Pep's case, I also think there is an issue with the City board's expectations being very high. In most of my saves, City dont win the league in the first season but do make top 4 - and yet Pep is ALWAYS sacked for underachievement at the end of the year. This may be realistic in some people's opinions I suppose as it would mean two seasons with no title in-game - but it does take away something from the game. Should board confidence be adjusted to make them more loyal to Pep?

Anyhow - I did some slight tweaking to managerial attributes for Pep, Klopp and Poch before my current save - basically just reducing their attacking attributes - and all are much improved and much more in line with reality. Currently in season 3 and City have won the title both seasons - Liverpool have finished 3rd and 4th - and Spurs 4th and 5th.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

10 hours ago, dannysheard said:

I'd be interested to see if anyone has played a save where they've been decent.

 

They're 2nd in mine. I'm like 16 points ahead of them though.

As always, they and a lot of the top six suffer mostly at away matches. Tottenham are suffering the most in my save, at 8th with Poch sacked just now after going on a rather unlucky poor run with lots of last minute equalisers and things like that. I've been exceedingly lucky in that I've over-performed so far, with 1 defeat (to city) and 1 draw (to newcastle) and I'm in February.

Most of my scary moments come from cup away days where teams go for blood. I presume, if the AI stumbles in the early stages, opposition will continue to attack them and force results to go against them. Whereas, I started off so well that I was visiting teams who played contain/defensive according to my scout reports, which made things so much easier for me. 

[allezdae]

There's also the point that Pep's dominance was a 2017/18 thing, and FM18 was made on the back of a season (2016/17) where City finished behind Conte's direct Chelsea team, while Mourinho won two cups and has a record of success in the Premier League. In FM19 I'd expect Poch, Klopp and Pep's AI to have been tweaked a bit, and Mourinho to perhaps inspire less confidence in his players?

[wayne'o]

13 minutes ago, allezdae said:

There's also the point that Pep's dominance was a 2017/18 thing, and FM18 was made on the back of a season (2016/17) where City finished behind Conte's direct Chelsea team, while Mourinho won two cups and has a record of success in the Premier League. In FM19 I'd expect Poch, Klopp and Pep's AI to have been tweaked a bit, and Mourinho to perhaps inspire less confidence in his players?

I don’t think it’s down to Guardiola, Klopp and Pochettino not having good enough stats, as the experiment proved Mourinho came out on top but it’s not because he’s a better manager in the game, it’s because the match engine code prefers Mourinho’s tactics, weather it be attack, defend, counter, control, high press etc they should all be able to win and do well but the game don’t work well enough with the offensive tactics the other managers have..   if it’s the same come FM19 I think I’ll be using the editor to improve these managers to a good standard..

[allezdae]

34 minutes ago, wayne'o said:

I don’t think it’s down to Guardiola, Klopp and Pochettino not having good enough stats, as the experiment proved Mourinho came out on top but it’s not because he’s a better manager in the game, it’s because the match engine code prefers Mourinho’s tactics, weather it be attack, defend, counter, control, high press etc they should all be able to win and do well but the game don’t work well enough with the offensive tactics the other managers have..   if it’s the same come FM19 I think I’ll be using the editor to improve these managers to a good standard..

If it's not because he's a better manager in the game why would you need to "improve" the other managers? If the match engine code prefers Mourinho then he's better. TBH I know very little about how the ME works compared to the data we see on screen.

[wayne'o]

30 minutes ago, allezdae said:

If it's not because he's a better manager in the game why would you need to "improve" the other managers? If the match engine code prefers Mourinho then he's better. TBH I know very little about how the ME works compared to the data we see on screen.

If you read some of the other posts you’ll get and idea as to why he’s better,  his preferd style of playing compared to the other managers is different making him over rated and the other managers under achieve.  His reserved counter attacking with direct passing works best in the ME compared to high press attacking tactics that the other managers use. 

[wayne'o]

On 21/08/2018 at 14:47, ..Valhalla.. said:

Season 2:

City champions again. Mourinho remains.

United 4th. Pep remains.

I might start again with a few more nations loaded out of curiosity. 

 

EDIT: yeah I have to go out for a few hours so setting up a new game with England, Spain, Italy loaded for more activity. Gonna swap the managers around and run 5 seasons holiday to see how they do.

You’re experiments proved Mourinho came out on top, how to fear playing against Mourinho, Pep or one of the other managers?   Is Mourinho harder to beat?

[allezdae]

3 minutes ago, wayne'o said:

If you read some of the other posts you’ll get and idea as to why he’s better,  his preferd style of playing compared to the other managers is different making him over rated and the other managers under achieve.  His reserved counter attacking with direct passing works best in the ME compared to high press attacking tactics that the other managers use. 

Yes, I get that - so essentially - in the game - Mourinho is a better manager. And when you say you'd start "improving" other managers, would that be making Pep more direct in his style? 

It's kind of a weird one, as it's possible as a human manager to use a style similar to Pep/Klopp and totally dominate, but not AI. 

[wayne'o]

28 minutes ago, allezdae said:

Yes, I get that - so essentially - in the game - Mourinho is a better manager. And when you say you'd start "improving" other managers, would that be making Pep more direct in his style? 

It's kind of a weird one, as it's possible as a human manager to use a style similar to Pep/Klopp and totally dominate, but not AI. 

Yes kind of, if Pep, Klopp etc don’t perform well because the match engine doesn’t consider their offensive style to work but Mourinho’s style is still the best I’d simply give other managers the same tactics as Mourinho...  

[..Valhalla..]

2 hours ago, wayne'o said:

You’re experiments proved Mourinho came out on top, how to fear playing against Mourinho, Pep or one of the other managers?   Is Mourinho harder to beat?

Mourinho definitely hardest to beat. I only just last night (weirdly) beat united 2-0 in the League - my first League victory against his United since I started playing FM18. But we are into the 5th season now and I have a highly developed squad of very determined home grown players. His squad is a mismatch of vastly foreign, overpaid, prima donnas. But I'll take the win nonetheless  

[Neotropolis]

2 minutes ago, ..Valhalla.. said:

But I'll take the win nonetheless  

As the man himself once said, a win is a win.

[MrPompey]

2 hours ago, wayne'o said:

Yes kind of, if Pep, Klopp etc don’t perform well because the match engine doesn’t consider their offensive style to work but Mourinho’s style is still the best I’d simply give other managers the same tactics as Mourinho...  

For a test yes but what this seems to suggest is that the ME is the issue here by not recognising this style of football with the players who can play it well. A good point was made above that last season was good for Pep with his style...we need to now see how the FM19 ME will recognise this and hope changes are made so it does

[wayne'o]

20 minutes ago, MrPompey said:

For a test yes but what this seems to suggest is that the ME is the issue here by not recognising this style of football with the players who can play it well. A good point was made above that last season was good for Pep with his style...we need to now see how the FM19 ME will recognise this and hope changes are made so it does

Yeh ditto bud,   It would be annoying to have a weak pep in the game.

[herne79]

The ME is only as good as the input.  Sounds like Pep needs to visit the Tactics forum.

[MrPompey]

1 minute ago, herne79 said:

The ME is only as good as the input.  Sounds like Pep needs to visit the Tactics forum.

Haha - I would disagree  . Pep and Klopp use a different tactic that their teams play effectively with the players at their disposal, Klopp less successfully but I feel that is down to their squad being of less quality. When did the last premiership team achieve 100 points or 106 goals in a season? The test above could suggest that FM18 does not recognise this correctly

You could be right in that there could be tactic / playing style in FM than can be set for the Manager that reflects that used by City better but I personally feel for FM18 that it may not be able to recognise a certain playing approach with the right personnel to perform it.

FM is a game that evolves, I think for FM19 it needs to do so again. I suspect more testing would be required but at this stage it seems pointless taking this further for FMM18 with FM19 round the corner and so its FM19 that perhaps should be tested to see if it is able to recognise Pep's approach.

Additionally we see Keepers with throws and kicking much more able to influence games, in all leagues...another facet that Pep employs. I have no doubt that SI will be running soaks with the new ME but perhaps it will always be a season behind. FM19 will be eagerly anticipated I'm sure for many reasons including what has been raised in this thread with some of the test results.

Its this type of feedback, discussion and testing that helps evolve FM

[MBarbaric]

The thing is, Pep is so successful due to the style of football his teams play. The style that is simply impossible to replicate in the ME. From proper high press, ball retention, off the ball movement and positioning of players on the field. The same goes for other managers/teams with the similar style. Man City, Napoli, BVB... they simply don't look like themselves in the game. And there is a reason, the ME isn't able to reproduce that. 

if you remember, a few years back when Pep was managing in Germany, German researchers had to change his preferred tactic in the database. That somewhat solved the problem with Bayern's results, but not with the way they play. 

 

[MrPompey]

possibly not possible to replicate in the FM18 version of the ME...I would agree but that's why consideration is required for the next ME version I feel

 

[raymondafc]

FWIW, in my current long term save they've done ok with 4/5 Premier League wins and 3 Champions League titles in a row. Throw in a couple of FA Cups, Club World Cups for good measure.

Having said that, it all happened AFTER Guardiola left (sacked) in around season 2 if I recall. I'm now in 2027 & this happened in the last 7 years.

I can't say who is in charge now as I'm playing a different save and don't want to exit it due to the well known "team collapse when you save and exit bug" 

[Snorks]

5 minutes ago, raymondafc said:

 

I can't say who is in charge now as I'm playing a different save and don't want to exit it due to the well known "team collapse when you save and exit bug" 

You have that as well?

Funny, mine is always the less-known "team collapse when you load a save" bug 

[Hovis Dexter]

Very often the obvious conclusions are correct. This probably simply demonstrates that there is a massive difference between the FM model and the real world.

[Geordieboy52]

Im in the middle of season 9 - they have won twice, runners up 4 times and 3rd twice so not doing too badly so far.  Spurs, on the other hand, have not qualified for Europe for 4 seasons and are currently in 15th 6 points of the drop (only really safe because bottom 3 are terrible atm).

[raymondafc]

34 minutes ago, Snorks said:

You have that as well?

Funny, mine is always the less-known "team collapse when you load a save" bug 

Might be worth researching as to whether the 2 are linked in any way 

[Snorks]

23 hours ago, raymondafc said:

Might be worth researching as to whether the 2 are linked in any way 

Oh, they are - apparently it's something called 'the tactics' or some other coding mumbo-jumbo.

[wayne'o]

On 22/08/2018 at 20:57, MBarbaric said:

The thing is, Pep is so successful due to the style of football his teams play. The style that is simply impossible to replicate in the ME. From proper high press, ball retention, off the ball movement and positioning of players on the field. The same goes for other managers/teams with the similar style. Man City, Napoli, BVB... they simply don't look like themselves in the game. And there is a reason, the ME isn't able to reproduce that. 

if you remember, a few years back when Pep was managing in Germany, German researchers had to change his preferred tactic in the database. That somewhat solved the problem with Bayern's results, but not with the way they play. 

 

Like the last paragraph suggests, I wouldn’t mind pep’s tactics looking like they do in real life just as long as what ever his style is he’s good enough to win the league ahead of Mourinho with the current City team, same with Klopp etc,   When FM19 gets released I’m going to play around with the manager stats in editor and see what changes to managers such as Klopp, Pep need to make there them as good in FM as in real life..

Whats the current difference between Wengers tactics and Mourinhos as Wenger is really successful if you stick him in charge of Madrid, didn’t expect him to be as good.

[warlock]

Well it doesn't mean much, but in my current Darlington save Pep won the Prem at Man City with Jose forced to settle for a poor second place. All of the top managers are still in place except Klopp, who was fired after the last game of the season that saw Liverpool lose to Southampton and therefore miss out on European football.

It's just a pixel in the big picture, but after about 12 seasons with Man Utd - across four or five saves - the team that has pushed me hardest has been Pep's City, followed - randomly - by Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal. Oh, and Burnley.

[Sczheny]

In my save, Pep left in 2022, he had won the league once, however after he left, 14/20 years City won the league, may just be the manager, not the club.

[Crispypaul]

I'm coming to the end of the 2024/25 season (so the 8th season) and Man City have won the Premier League 4 times, FA Cup 4 times, and the League Cup 2 times (and have lost in the final the past 3 times, twice to my mighty West Brom!) although haven't won the Champions League (runners up once)

Guardiola left at the end of the 2018/19 season though after a couple of League Cups and one League title, to be replaced by Diego Simeone.  

[Crispypaul]

In comparison Liverpool and Spurs have won nothing, and Arsenal just one Europa League.  Man Utd are the other strong team in the division.