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Boy, Spurs/Mourinho really stink on FM21.


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I've monkeyed around with 3-4 different saves, and the latest I've seen Mourinho last is May 2021.  Generally he's sacked around December/January of the first year.  In my latest save, Spurs are in a relegation battle in mid-January and getting blown out by teams like West Brom.  They are sitting 16th on the table.  Kane has 6 goals and 3 assists.  Son has 4 goals and 2 assists.  Bale has 0 goals and 0 assists.  Etc. (those are approximate numbers...I don't have the game pulled up right now so I'm just going off memory).

I couple of FM versions ago (FM20 maybe?) I thought Manchester United with Mourinho was overpowered.  It was typical of them to form a dynasty and with the EPL year after year.  Now the opposite seems to be happening with Mourinho and Spurs.

I haven't gotten deep enough in a save to be able to tell if the Spurs players just don't fit with Mourinho's tactics in the game, or if it's something else.  I assume they just aren't a tactical fit for the game (though in real life that's obviously not the case).

Of course I'm a biased Spurs fan.  And it certainly doesn't make the game unplayable for me or any of that nonsense.  It's the best version of FM that I've played, and I really appreciate the improved match engine.  Great job!  But it does seem quite a bit unrealistic.  At first I thought maybe it might just be the beta, but then I started a save on the full release, and if anything it seems worse.

Is everybody else seeing the same Spurs results in their saves?

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4 minutes ago, Cartopis84 said:

Yup they've gone through 3 managers in 2 seasons and came 10th first season and 15th second season just 6 points off relegation. Pretty Funny.

Maybe funny to you, but not to some of us :lol:

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I think it's an issue with Mourinho's tactical style in the game. More passive tactics are notoriously ineffective in the game. In FM20 Mourinho had Route One as his preferred tactic and in FM21 it's Fluid Counter I believe.

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1 minute ago, swippy said:

I think it's an issue with Mourinho's tactical style in the game. More passive tactics are notoriously ineffective in the game. In FM20 Mourinho had Route One as his preferred tactic and in FM21 it's Fluid Counter I believe.

Yep, it is Fluid Counter attack in FM21.  I checked that last night when I saw that he got sacked.  You are right, that is probably the issue.  In FM20 he didn't seem to struggle at Spurs in most of my saves.  In fact, he even won the Champions League one year.

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The two constants that keep popping up in the forums are that Man Utd are overpowered and Spurs underperform. On my save it's exactly the same, Spurs narrowly avoided relegation first season but have gone through three managers already whilst Utd are destroying teams on a regular basis and challenging on every front.

 

I don't think Ole is such a bad manager in real life but in FM21 he's unbelievable. Even playing as City it's a struggle against his teams, which adds to the fun I suppose. I wonder if the Spurs bubble will burst in real life?

 

Spurrsy. 

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9 hours ago, swippy said:

I think it's an issue with Mourinho's tactical style in the game. More passive tactics are notoriously ineffective in the game. In FM20 Mourinho had Route One as his preferred tactic and in FM21 it's Fluid Counter I believe.

Yeah I tried to play our counter attacking tactics and got bitch slapped. High pressing seems only way in this game.

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9 hours ago, Chappie.dm said:

The two constants that keep popping up in the forums are that Man Utd are overpowered and Spurs underperform. On my save it's exactly the same, Spurs narrowly avoided relegation first season but have gone through three managers already whilst Utd are destroying teams on a regular basis and challenging on every front.

 

I don't think Ole is such a bad manager in real life but in FM21 he's unbelievable. Even playing as City it's a struggle against his teams, which adds to the fun I suppose. I wonder if the Spurs bubble will burst in real life?

 

Spurrsy. 

Its quite annoying to be honest. Son is criminally underrated, hes as good as if not better than Kane.

Id have to type out the whole squad list to say who is underrated.

Our squads are always terrible.

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We were pretty poor in FM20 too in my experience.

I've taken over Spurs a few games in and the squad has been all over the place.  They tend to have a lot of money and absolutely waste it.  I'm not sure why.

I'm only in 2022 in FM21 and Mourinho was sacked after a season where Spurs finished 6th and without a trophy; Ernesto Valverde was sacked in March in the following season where Spurs ultimately finished 11th.   Matias Almeyda (managing San Jose in the MLS...hmm) is currently manager.  Kane was sold to PSG for £94m (bit low?) in July 2021.

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1 hour ago, andyt365 said:

Its quite annoying to be honest. Son is criminally underrated, hes as good as if not better than Kane.

Id have to type out the whole squad list to say who is underrated.

Personally I would fire the spurs researcher. Our squads are always terrible.

Yes I'd have Son in a heartbeat at City, he always tears us up in real life (though not in FM) - and whilst we're at it we'll take Kane off your hands. :p Incidentally, do you do any better managing Spurs in the game? Never managed them in the game.

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54 minutes ago, Chappie.dm said:

Yes I'd have Son in a heartbeat at City, he always tears us up in real life (though not in FM) - and whilst we're at it we'll take Kane off your hands. :p Incidentally, do you do any better managing Spurs in the game? Never managed them in the game.

I end up replacing half the team

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Yea they're about 10th in my save Mourinho sacked, Allegri bought in. Again I think because defensive tactics have been toned down as attacking tactics in previous fm's had managers like pep being sacked after 4 months. Now its Mourinho's turn to suffer. 

As for Man Utd I think they're one of those teams that are great on paper when you look at it so all the lack of morale, tactics, Consistency in real life is not translated well enough in the Football manager context and would be quite hard to replicate anyway. 

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5 hours ago, Crispypaul said:

We were pretty poor in FM20 too in my experience.

FM2017 was my first version of FM, and generally speaking, Spurs have underperformed every single year in comparison to their real life counterparts.  That has been my experience.

Though I did have one save in FM20 where (after a couple of managerial changes) Spurs and Liverpool basically dominated the league for a whole decade.   They'd alternate winning the title year by year.  And that was with Frank De Boer as Spurs manager, haha.

In my current save, Spurs have replaced Jose with Marcelo Bielsa...who like Jose runs a fluid counter attacking system.  They failed to score in four of his first five games as manager.

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I’m really struggling with Spurs. Started over 4 times now. Probably gonna start over again after I just lost to Villa 5-1. And I’ve been playing these games for about as long as they’ve existed. I did great with them in the beta, but am seriously struggling with them in the full game. Funnily enough, Bale is my constant excellent player. Kane suddenly can’t score in any of my saves, though he got me 30 goals in the beta. 

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8 часов назад, Chappie.dm сказал:

The two constants that keep popping up in the forums are that Man Utd are overpowered and Spurs underperform

First thing which I do after buy new FM - change Arsenal players attributes because I find them overated ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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9 hours ago, Chappie.dm said:

I wonder if the Spurs bubble will burst in real life?

What bubble? Squad is more than decent enough with all around players that suit each other who have improved alot after first season with Jose.

You can bring in Jose factor but it is different environment than in United and not every path is the same, think he has learned and Levy knows what he got into when hiring him.

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They came 6th in my Dortmund save's first season - 67 points with Man City coming 5th on the same points and beating them on goal difference, and only one point behind Chelsea in 4th. It was a damn close season, so seems fair. Amusingly they got beaten in the 4th round of the FA Cup by Arsenal.

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Posted a topic where they were relegated in my beta save, Mourinho sacked around Xmas to be replaced by Howe with Son, Bale and Kane barely touching double figures all comps combined.

In my current save not playing in the PL but they were in the relegation zone in feb before Mourinho was sacked and replaced by Bielsa who has gone 9 unbeaten including winning 5 on the bounce to get them 40pts and up to mid table.

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13 minutes ago, JordanMillward_1 said:

They came 6th in my Dortmund save's first season - 67 points with Man City coming 5th on the same points and beating them on goal difference, and only one point behind Chelsea in 4th. It was a damn close season, so seems fair. Amusingly they got beaten in the 4th round of the FA Cup by Arsenal.

Was the PL in full detail??

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3 hours ago, lex311085 said:

As for Man Utd I think they're one of those teams that are great on paper when you look at it so all the lack of morale, tactics, Consistency in real life is not translated well enough in the Football manager context and would be quite hard to replicate anyway. 

Under Mourinho they were doing very well in-game, and he did have them doing well IRL until the final season anyway.

In FM20, under Ole, I've seen United fall around 4th-6th at the end of the season. I've seen a dev mention that in soak tests (I don't like this method of testing but, whatever) United tend to fall around the 4th-5th mark on average. So, they are inconsistent in game, and people's mileage will vary on it.

 

I do think there are some very overrated United players (see: Mata), but on the plus side by FM20 most of their defence got heavy nerfs to their mental attributes, which makes most of them a liability. De Gea has been knocked down a bit in 20 and in 21, I think one of the key keeping attributes has been tuned down enough that I wouldn't even put him near World Class anymore. And by the form book, apparently United are doing very consistent under Ole. So they're in an okay spot at the end of the day.

I'd check the attributes more in-depth, however, they aren't available online anymore at FM Fan sites because of a copyright takedown request, and I cba to download the demo to offer a critique. >_>

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2 hours ago, Mcfc1894 said:

Was the PL in full detail??

Yup, set the rest of the top 5 leagues (English, French, Italian and Spanish) to full detail when I started, so they'd use the full match engine, along with their top cup competitions and all the matches for continental and international competition.

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how many are you guys playing with games running 'Full Detail'.... that may factor into it. I always run full detail in my games and Mourinios, Guardiolas, Artetas and Klopps last quite a few seasons in my game. In one Klopp left for the Germany job. Arteta was at arsenal for 8 years.,.. Mourinho left Spurs after 3 to go back to Madrid

Edited by greenz81
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I did a Beta save as Bayern for 2 seasons to "learn the game", and i noticed Spurs were struggling, both seasons finishing in very obscure mid table. By the time i was bored with Bayern, i noticed Mourinho was sacked and replaced with Bielsa.

 

Intrigued by this, i loaded a Spurs save to see whether i could make any difference to them. Im coming up to the end of season 1, and competing well in the europa league, borderline finishing 4th or 5th in the league so not fantastic by any means domestically.

 

My thoughts on why things go wrong and why spurs underachieve would be (and im far from being good at this game btw):

 

1) The squad is pretty bang average when you look at it. I think some of the players are somewhat underrated, particularly Hojbjerg. Many of the players are workmanlike, but offer little quality. Especially in central midfield. Ndombele is the only player who offers good technical ability for example. The biggest thing thats missing though seems to be PACE in my opinion. So playing a "fluid counter" strategy is not too effective.

 

2) On the subject of lack of pace, I do believe that high press tactics are always preferable in FM. However as spurs, although Dier and Alderweireld are good game readers and blockers, they are also slow. So it doesnt feel very natural to expose them by playing a high defensive line. Without the high defensive line, we cant be as aggressive in the pressing as not to risk getting caught out by through balls. So not being able to recover the ball closer to the opposition goal doesnt help. This lack of pace at centreback seems to constrain the team.

 

3) Again on lack of pace, its tricky to set up a good forward line to get them to fire. Because it feels a bit more natural to sit deeper to allow the centrebacks to read the game, ideally in that scenario id like someone up front who has real genuine pace. Acceleration and Pace 17 or maybe even more than that. Id like this kind of player that we could use to break through offside traps. Son has great off the ball and composure, but I think he is quicker than the game makes him out to be. Plus....its difficult to get Kane to fire on all cylinders.

 

4) The schedule of fixtures Spurs have to play is brutal. 3 qualifying rounds for the europa league and a multitude of games in a short space of time after christmas whilst trying to manage a squad where several important players get niggly injuries (or in Bales case big injuries) constantly.

 

5) Quite a few teams seem to set up with 2 strikers and an attacking midfielder, often with wingbacks. This seems like a particularly difficult system to combat this year, whilst not being one that we can play ourselves well with players naturally in their positions.

 

Having said all that, im still enjoying managing Spurs.

Those are my thoughts so far, but im not a particularly good player of the game. I mostly just like easier saves with the biggest teams and money to win things.

 

 

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From a researcher perspective, the most difficult part is getting the manager right. You have to get your clubs manager right to get him playing the team the right way in game, using the right players in the right positions. Then of course, you're somewhat dependant upon the other researchers to also nail it with their managers and respective elements. 

Being a little bit off can have massive impacts. Coming into FM21 Michael O'Neill at Stoke had the formation set that he was primarily using last season as his default tactic, I changed things around a few times with formations to reflect what he had started playing this season quite late in the research window and the results in game were dramatic. It's anecdotal evidence since the amount of testing I do in comparison to SI's soak tests is negligible but it was the difference between Stoke being relegation contenders & play-off hopefuls. Not a single increase to any CA in the squad, no improvements to any player. Just a change to the manager.

My concerns now are more along the lines of thinking he's a bit too effective a manager and getting picked up by a PL club in the first season and how to tone that back down.

Mirroring what Mourinho is as a manager is going to be difficult, and so subtle changes could yield massive differences be that positive or negative. Once decline sets in and a club perhaps gets their next managerial appointment wrong then things can spiral very quickly. The Spurs squad is very strong, easily capable of mounting and winning the title in FM so there's no worries on that front as someone looking at the overall ability of the squad. 

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1 hour ago, santy001 said:

From a researcher perspective, the most difficult part is getting the manager right. You have to get your clubs manager right to get him playing the team the right way in game, using the right players in the right positions. Then of course, you're somewhat dependant upon the other researchers to also nail it with their managers and respective elements. 

Being a little bit off can have massive impacts. Coming into FM21 Michael O'Neill at Stoke had the formation set that he was primarily using last season as his default tactic, I changed things around a few times with formations to reflect what he had started playing this season quite late in the research window and the results in game were dramatic. It's anecdotal evidence since the amount of testing I do in comparison to SI's soak tests is negligible but it was the difference between Stoke being relegation contenders & play-off hopefuls. Not a single increase to any CA in the squad, no improvements to any player. Just a change to the manager.

My concerns now are more along the lines of thinking he's a bit too effective a manager and getting picked up by a PL club in the first season and how to tone that back down.

Mirroring what Mourinho is as a manager is going to be difficult, and so subtle changes could yield massive differences be that positive or negative. Once decline sets in and a club perhaps gets their next managerial appointment wrong then things can spiral very quickly. The Spurs squad is very strong, easily capable of mounting and winning the title in FM so there's no worries on that front as someone looking at the overall ability of the squad. 

Id say you can get more out of their squad than AI Mourinho can, who it seems like from your post has the same problem human players have, he cant translate his ideas into the match engine effectively.

The squad you start off with, its not bad by any means but its not brilliant.

For example, if Mourinho likes "fluid counter" then hes got no pace up front to work with. Compare that to having Martial, Rashford and Greenwood as options at Man Utd.

Im managing spurs at the moment and we arent doing too badly, but to be a title contender theres loads of missing ingredients. Theres no tall, dominating quick centreback like Van Dijk. The wide players are decent, but you wont get 20 goals a season out of Moura and Bergwijn. Sissoko and Hojbjerg are exceptionally fit hard working donkeys.

Its a lot of fun managing spurs though i like them on the game.

EDIT: Another thing i also like to do is manage realistically by turning first transfer window off and starting with their real life squad to begin with. You could possibly go in and immediately make sweeping changes to the squad and improve instantly, but i would assume AI Mourinho pretty much sticks with the squad you start off with without say, selling 4 players and bringing 4 in immediately. This probably has some effect too.

Edited by FMunderachiever
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On 01/12/2020 at 17:04, Come_On_You_Spurs said:

I’m really struggling with Spurs. Started over 4 times now. Probably gonna start over again after I just lost to Villa 5-1. And I’ve been playing these games for about as long as they’ve existed. I did great with them in the beta, but am seriously struggling with them in the full game. Funnily enough, Bale is my constant excellent player. Kane suddenly can’t score in any of my saves, though he got me 30 goals in the beta. 

Beta was a different game mate 

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