Game management

[johndickson.dickson]

Hi just looking for a bit of advice. I have just started a new save with Southampton and 1st pre season friendly is against inter Milan, I race into a 2-0 lead in the 1st 20 mins and feel it is way to early to shut up shop but my team is set to play a high press which will mean fatigue kicks in quicker so I leave it as is for the time being at least until half time. Half time rolls around and I am 3-2 down!! Does anyone know or have any idea what to do in situations like this? I would of course drop mentality against similar or weaker opposition and also maybe drop lines try and keep the ball but I didn't see that working against stronger opposition and just inviting pressure! Any advice is welcome. And the game finished 7-2!! Urghhh

[Novem9]

3 часа назад, johndickson.dickson сказал:

Hi just looking for a bit of advice. I have just started a new save with Southampton and 1st pre season friendly is against inter Milan, I race into a 2-0 lead in the 1st 20 mins and feel it is way to early to shut up shop but my team is set to play a high press which will mean fatigue kicks in quicker so I leave it as is for the time being at least until half time. Half time rolls around and I am 3-2 down!! Does anyone know or have any idea what to do in situations like this? I would of course drop mentality against similar or weaker opposition and also maybe drop lines try and keep the ball but I didn't see that working against stronger opposition and just inviting pressure! Any advice is welcome. And the game finished 7-2!! Urghhh

looks like you just gave more freedom for opponent team and they used this + after 0-2 Inter started to play more aggressive.
Personally for me two ways - 1) don't touch thing which works, just use waste of time in last minutes. 2) if opponent team really push me, change things just in context. For example if I have 'counter' just disable this. My team still use attacks, but not so massive as when counter is active and my positions are more solid

[johndickson.dickson]

1 hour ago, Novem9 said:

looks like you just gave more freedom for opponent team and they used this + after 0-2 Inter started to play more aggressive.
Personally for me two ways - 1) don't touch thing which works, just use waste of time in last minutes. 2) if opponent team really push me, change things just in context. For example if I have 'counter' just disable this. My team still use attacks, but not so massive as when counter is active and my positions are more solid

I hear what your saying! I was thinking it was just a bedding in period of the game for inter and knew they would get in to a rhythm at some point so I kinda tried to make my team a little more solid. I use a standard defensive line and higher LOE, standard pressing with forward players asked to press harder and balanced mentality all I done was change balanced to cautious and put be more disciplined then got absolutely whollopped. But yeah looking at it probably should have stuck with what was working for the time being. Good to know for games against opposition as good as inter incase this freak early 2 goal lead happens again lol!! 

[YAMS]

5 hours ago, johndickson.dickson said:

Hi just looking for a bit of advice. I have just started a new save with Southampton and 1st pre season friendly is against inter Milan, I race into a 2-0 lead in the 1st 20 mins and feel it is way to early to shut up shop but my team is set to play a high press which will mean fatigue kicks in quicker so I leave it as is for the time being at least until half time. Half time rolls around and I am 3-2 down!! Does anyone know or have any idea what to do in situations like this? I would of course drop mentality against similar or weaker opposition and also maybe drop lines try and keep the ball but I didn't see that working against stronger opposition and just inviting pressure! Any advice is welcome. And the game finished 7-2!! Urghhh

Ideally need to see your tactic but some things you could try rather than overly time wasting/conceding territory early on are as follows... 

In Possession - 

Play More Disciplined - This Team Instruction will modify your Creative Freedom for your whole team. This will help you retain possession. Positions will be held more in the final third & leave you less suspect able to counter attacks. Your whole team will play calmer than your default mentality & you will take less risks. This is a good way to tone down players decisions with the ball without changing the entire mentality. 

Tempo - Obvious one this, slightly lower your tempo on the ball. This will slow down your play when you have the ball, give your players more of a breather. 

Play for Set Pieces - A classic time wasting choice that isn't actually time wasting, if you get me. Look for set pieces to break up play & take the rhythm from the opposition. 

You could play narrower & shorten your passing as well, this would help with ball retention. 

In Transition - 

Hold Shape - If you want to continue to press high & not concede ground then Hold Shape when you gain the ball will stop you countering more. This should give you more possession.

Out of Possession - 

If you are happy with your press as you have indicated & that press is winning you the ball then I would leave this alone. You could try pressing slightly less but I'd need to see your Out of Possession set up to know more here really. 

Just to add, all the about is about you keeping the ball more when you gain in. As a general rule if the opposition don't have the ball then they can't score. In the situations you describe you need to look at how you keep the ball to negate the opposition. I agree that if you concede ground or overly drop your press it is too early a surrender. 

 

 

[Cleon]

You need to learn the context of the match and what is actually happening. You could be 2-0 up but not playing that great. Highlights will be all skewed for just the best bits and the stats don't tell you the story of how the match is going. Equally you could be 2-0 down and playing brilliant. So ideally you need to learn how to use everything available to read how the game is actually going. This is important because imo there are mainly two types of managers.

1 - The one who panics and changes things as soon as they go a goal behind. This is knee jerk.

2 - The one that leaves it too late to impact things and change the result/game around back into your favour.

You should be somewhere between the middle of those, if not then its tricky. I wrote about this in a bit more detail but the images don't work in the thread which I posted on here. But I still have the piece on my drive, which I can link. It gives you an insight into how I think about the game and try and understand the context. Ignore the result but rather focus on the 'Do I panic or do I wait' message. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fvtb_IBsrfoiaO3Z44DueRIIaHCnXnHv-IfVspbtDSs/edit?usp=sharing

[Hovis Dexter]

@Cleon It's really good of you to provide links to the wording of some of your older posts and include the images. I still refer back to many of your articles but it's sometimes difficult to completely understand your message when the original images are no longer visible. Many thanks

[DarJ]

2 hours ago, Cleon said:

You need to learn the context of the match and what is actually happening. You could be 2-0 up but not playing that great. Highlights will be all skewed for just the best bits and the stats don't tell you the story of how the match is going. Equally you could be 2-0 down and playing brilliant. So ideally you need to learn how to use everything available to read how the game is actually going. This is important because imo there are mainly two types of managers.

1 - The one who panics and changes things as soon as they go a goal behind. This is knee jerk.

2 - The one that leaves it too late to impact things and change the result/game around back into your favour.

You should be somewhere between the middle of those, if not then its tricky. I wrote about this in a bit more detail but the images don't work in the thread which I posted on here. But I still have the piece on my drive, which I can link. It gives you an insight into how I think about the game and try and understand the context. Ignore the result but rather focus on the 'Do I panic or do I wait' message. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fvtb_IBsrfoiaO3Z44DueRIIaHCnXnHv-IfVspbtDSs/edit?usp=sharing

I play similarly to what you described in the article.

I was managing a polish team and I had to play Manchester United in the Champions League so before the game, I went to look at how they play and watched the highlights of all the goals they scored at home (I was playing away from home so I only looked at their home games) and I found out that they tend to score a lot from setpiece etc so I came up with s plan and revised my setpieces. I then went into the game and after few minutes they indeed scored from a corner but after that they didn't create anything but we didn't create much either so for the second half I decided to go more attacking for the first few minutes to see if we were going to create chances and we did but unfortunately we went 2 nil down. Since we were playing much better and United were still not creating good chances I just left things how there were because I had faith that it was only a matter of time until we score unless they change how they play. I ended up winning 4-2 

[zabyl]

Sorry to be off topic; I created this profile for reading deceased great writer SFraser's excellent posts and yours @Cleon. I liken your interpretation of the game to him also to me. I would like to read more writings like these for later versions of this game. 

[johndickson.dickson]

On 04/09/2021 at 15:44, Cleon said:

You need to learn the context of the match and what is actually happening. You could be 2-0 up but not playing that great. Highlights will be all skewed for just the best bits and the stats don't tell you the story of how the match is going. Equally you could be 2-0 down and playing brilliant. So ideally you need to learn how to use everything available to read how the game is actually going. This is important because imo there are mainly two types of managers.

1 - The one who panics and changes things as soon as they go a goal behind. This is knee jerk.

2 - The one that leaves it too late to impact things and change the result/game around back into your favour.

You should be somewhere between the middle of those, if not then its tricky. I wrote about this in a bit more detail but the images don't work in the thread which I posted on here. But I still have the piece on my drive, which I can link. It gives you an insight into how I think about the game and try and understand the context. Ignore the result but rather focus on the 'Do I panic or do I wait' message. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fvtb_IBsrfoiaO3Z44DueRIIaHCnXnHv-IfVspbtDSs/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for the reply. I will give this a read when I find a little time, struggling for any atm lol! I hear what you are saying problem is it happened so quick I had no idea who was playing well haha but yeah I do watch on comprehensive highlights and try read a game! Not that great at reading the game on 2d mode but I do try! Hopefully your article will help with that, thanks again

[johndickson.dickson]

On 04/09/2021 at 10:59, YAMS said:

Ideally need to see your tactic but some things you could try rather than overly time wasting/conceding territory early on are as follows... 

In Possession - 

Play More Disciplined - This Team Instruction will modify your Creative Freedom for your whole team. This will help you retain possession. Positions will be held more in the final third & leave you less suspect able to counter attacks. Your whole team will play calmer than your default mentality & you will take less risks. This is a good way to tone down players decisions with the ball without changing the entire mentality. 

Tempo - Obvious one this, slightly lower your tempo on the ball. This will slow down your play when you have the ball, give your players more of a breather. 

Play for Set Pieces - A classic time wasting choice that isn't actually time wasting, if you get me. Look for set pieces to break up play & take the rhythm from the opposition. 

You could play narrower & shorten your passing as well, this would help with ball retention. 

In Transition - 

Hold Shape - If you want to continue to press high & not concede ground then Hold Shape when you gain the ball will stop you countering more. This should give you more possession.

Out of Possession - 

If you are happy with your press as you have indicated & that press is winning you the ball then I would leave this alone. You could try pressing slightly less but I'd need to see your Out of Possession set up to know more here really. 

Just to add, all the about is about you keeping the ball more when you gain in. As a general rule if the opposition don't have the ball then they can't score. In the situations you describe you need to look at how you keep the ball to negate the opposition. I agree that if you concede ground or overly drop your press it is too early a surrender. 

 

 

Thanks for the advice this will help alot 👍🏻! I will post the tactic when I get the game fired up again struggling for any time atm! Appreciate your detailed reply, many thanks

[guttea]

Here's an example of a game I had yesterday, this may illustrate what @Cleon is talking about. This is a German cup final I played with Hertha Berlin against RB Leipzig. This was my only chance of getting to Europe for the next season since I ended up mid-table in the Bundesliga.  I set up defensively to contain Leipzig and hit them on the break and actually watched this game in full, I was tempted to change things but we held out for 90 minutes and were creating chances ourselves although I probably sweated as much as a real-life manager lol. Then in ET they score. I think that's ok because we're creating chances so no need to panic yet. And boom we equalize on the next attack. So then we keep going and around 110 minutes I decide to push for the winning goal to avoid going to pens. Basically, if you don't gamble, you don't win. I push forward but on 119 min they score a direct free kick (curled a beauty). So you'd say my gamble was a mistake. But because we're so pushed forward this allows us to equalize again. In the end we go to penalties, win the cup and will play in Europe next season.

[Tsuru]

You see, these days I was playing against the 3rd placed and I was 2nd, so I expected a difficult game. It was a balanced one, but we were more clinical and scored 3-0 on the first part of the first half. I felt I needed to control the game and not expose us a lot, but how? I started using the instruction to play for free kicks and the one to be more disciplined like someone said at this topic and yes, we controlled the game very well until the 35 minute of the second half and also created good chances, we could have scored the 4 or 5 goal.

What I did then? I changed the tactic to a Cautious mentality version of the first one, with the instruction to waste time at the maximum, to end the game quickly. Why? The opponents scored twice in 5 minutes and I felt I was going to see a tie. I changed quickly back to the standard tactic with more discipline and play for free kicks and we won 3-2.

I learned two important things from this match: if it is working someway, don´t change it. And never change the tactic at the end of the match to a more cautious one unless you really feel you need, because the results can be very dangerous.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Tsuru

[YAMS]

Changing to a lower mentality is not the way to go. If you do this you are telling your team to surrender all they have attained so far. There are options in the team TI's that are there for you to use rather than changing the entire team mentality. I listed these earlier in the thread. 

Alternatively you can change you base shape to a more solid structure (two banks or four, as an example) or you can change a few roles in your system to slightly more reserved. This way you would be changing one or two players mentality potentially rather then the whole team. 

In real life football matches that are are a level or similar skill field aren't played at the same 'pace' all the time. Games have ebbs, flows, lulls & swings in them where tempo drops/raises & you are/aren't on top. To send your team out on the pitch in FM and not make small adjustments to select TI's, roles & shape isn't going to be maximising your chances. 

Edited September 6, 2021 by YAMS

[Rashidi]

Its pretty hard to give advice without context.

There are some general things we can do.

If you have raced off to a two goal lead, how did you do it? Was it by keeping the ball and creating goal scoring chances? Then I wouldnt change too much but pay attention to whether the AI makes a change. Game management here would be to make sure you are looking out for underperforming players in your system who play a big part in ball retention.

If you scored off counters and set pieces I would be worried, here your possession could have been lower. Perhaps an attempt to keep the ball more effectively would be the way to go.  There are always ebbs and flows within a game, the key here is not to make a knee jerk reaction, but to understand what the weaknesses in your own system are and not allowing that to be taken advantage of.