Short Guide to Man Management (Press Conferences + Team Talks)

[Jack722]

"For me, maybe 90% of being a successful manager is the way you manage the group."

-Manuel Pellegrini

Football Manager discussion on the internet is almost entirely about tactics. It's seen as the number one most important thing to get right in the game. I constantly come across posts and videos like "my tactic got 100 points last season" and "i'm playing so badly at the moment, someone help me with my tactics". What I find funny is that when I started playing Football Manager, I would also focus 100% on the tactical side, and nothing anywhere else. My tactics were massively complicated - normally with 10+ instructions, I would change things up signifcantly every half season as soon as form took a slight dip, and any match in which we were underperforming, the problem would always be diagnosed as a tactical mismatch.

But the more I play FM, and watch, play and read about real life football, the more I realise how wrong this interpretation is. Not just in real life - but also in game. My tactics now are almost always extremely simple, hardly ever more than 5 instructions. neither do I significantly change anything - with tactical tweaks only ever to accommodate new signings or for the benefit or a substitute that doesn't play exactly the same as the starter.

Let's say you've got a very basic level of knowledge and confidence in your tactics - That's to say you recognise it's not the best idea to play tiki-taka when you've got a team with poor technique and passing; to play a 442 diamond when your 2 best players are natural wingers - Let's also say you won't use an obvious exploit tactic. How much of a difference will it really make to play a 4231 or 433... Wide or narrow width... Inverted winger or inside forward? I think not that much. What's more important is to sign / train high-ability players to play their position well, transmit confidence and motivation to the team, and train the team well so that everyone is on the same page and well drilled. 

While I've seen a posts and videos about team talks, I don't think they ever really go into much depth - mostly saying to spam "I have faith in you, go out there and make a difference". And with press conferences, I don't think I've seen anything written about them. Despite being a huge part of the man management aspect of the game. In fact, all i remember reading is how boring people find it and how useless they are.

Press conferences and team talks are important in every game, but they're especially important in the following situations:

• Avoiding complacency on a winning run
• Turning around a poor run of form
• Title races
• Big matches (Rivalries / cup games)
• Underperforming players
• Strikers on goal-droughts

For example, if you find yourself unexpectedly at the top of the table, Journalists will start asking questions about the title race. You can use these questions to deflect pressure away from your players and allow them to continue playing how they were without worrying about 'bottling it' or being the one who ruins a once-in-a lifetime opportunity. On the other hand, if your team was expected to win the league, you can use this opportunity to up the pressure. The players knew what was expected from them, and should take the pressure positively and use it to instill a winning mentality.

Let's say your managing liverpool at the top of the league, and the merseyside derby is coming up at home against a relegation zone Everton. The journalists will ask you all about the rivalry. How important is it to you? Do you want to win this more than any other game? - Here you can answer yes, big up the game as much as possible, raise the pressure, don't let them think "oh it's an easy home game against a bottom half team". While on the other hand, if you're managing Everton in this situation, you might want to play the game down. Say "It's just another game". Realistically, this isn't the kind of match you need to win in order to stay up. Raising the pressure in this situation is likely just to cause nerves, as well as deterioate the dressing room atmosphere when you inevitably lose.

In terms of general game-to-game usage of team talks and press conferences, here in my Southampton save, we just lost a tight game in the FA cup fourth round against Aston Villa. A game for which we were very slight favourites:

I'm about to head into the post-match team talk and press conference. But before I do that, I refresh my memory for a few things. 

• How did we play?
  •  quite well but not outstanding
• What are our board/player's expectations for this competition?
  •  not high, only to be competitive
• How is our form looking?
  •  quite bad, our last 4 games being 0W-1D-3L.
• What were our expectations for this game? -
  • Very slight favourites

Team Talk

Since we played well against a similar level team and weren't expected to get far in this competition, I can't get too angry at the players. Although on the other hand, we were slight favourites for this match, and I want to create a winning culture at home. So I think the best response was what is highlighted in red. Here we recognise the good performance, but still express dissappointment at being beaten in a very winnable game.

Press Conference.

Again highlighted in red were all the responses I chose. The themes of the day were: Exit from the competition, Poor form, and individual player. As you can see, all the responses are divided between being positive or negative about the team. For the first question, we were asked about our exit from the competition. Here I was slightly positive, due to the exact same reasons as my team talk choice - We played well and were never expected to go far anyway. I could've gone extremely positive and praised the team, but i don't want to create a culture of being too content after any home loss, no matter how well we play.

In terms of question two regarding form and morale, you have to go think about the recent games you've played as well as the current one before you decide. In my last 4 games we've conceded two late goals to lose us points, we've been the better team on xG twice, and the two deserved losses were both by 1 goal against 2nd and 3rd in the league. Realistically we're not playing too badly, and all we need is a bit of luck and time to turn things around. So again I chose to be positive. If you look at the negative answers, they involve calling for more "hard work" from the team. this is the kind of response necessary for when your losing games and being outplayed. We don't need our players to start second guessing every decision they make and lose confidence right now.

The last question gives me the opportunity to praise or criticise a youth player, Samuel Edozie. I've been training him to play in left midfield instead of left attacking midfield, just so that he fits in my tactic. He only played today for the sake of rotating in a cup game, and hasn't played particuarly well or badly. For this reason, I picked the middle response, which is almost always neutral and essentially means you skip the question. I tend to cut lower ability players a lot more slack than my highest earners, and Edozie's season average rating of 6.7 and lack of any significant goal/assist contribution is acceptable in my eyes for a youth prospect. 

On to the next game away against Everton in the league...

This is always going to be a tight game, with Everton looking like they might edge it. Altough we're above them in the league, we're on poor form, playing away, and Everton have a higher predicted finish. These sort of games are tough to navigate in terms of man management, since you can't really demand a win nor do you want to allow the team to be content to lose.

Press Conference

Here we had another question about an indiviudal player, as well as one talking about the opposition. 

Our first question gives us the choice to out the spotlight on one of our players, Che Adams, or take it away. The clue is in the responses. "I expect he'll impress.." puts a bit of pressure on him, while on the other hand you can call out the media by saying "you lot love to pile on the pressure..". While Che Adams doesn't have a particuarly strong personality, he ticks all the boxes for being someone to rely on. He's our first choice striker, he's on a high salary, he's not young, and he's been at the club for a long time. I think a little bit of pressure could force him to play better this game.

The second question gave us an opportunity to give our thoughts on Everton's play style. We can either criticise the way Everton play, forcing our players to back up my offensive comments with a good performance, or we can be more cordial, appreciating that Everton were going to be a difficult team to play against. I chose to appreciate them, responding with "This is going to be a real challenge". I liked this question because now in my team talk I can be a bit more demanding of my players, as they will be more relaxed in the knowledge that a loss won't be the end of the world playing away against a strong team.

Team Talk

I thought that this team talk was pretty easy. I didn't want to demand a win, since we were not favourites, but I wanted to put pressure on in a different way, since this certainly wasn't unwinnable. Asking the team to "Impress me" seems more like we want to focus on the performance rather than the result. A good performance against Everton is definitely a more realistic target than a win.

In the end we managed to beat them, with the extra expectations on Adams helping him get on the scoresheet! I really felt like I could use the team talks and press conference to keep spirits and confidence high despite the 4 game winless run, and turn things around before we started to slide down the table.

There's still a lot of questions that i'm not 100% sure how to answer, and some team talk options that I struggle to know when to use. But I'm certain this has a massive effect on games. I've replayed games in the past as experiments where I change press conference/team talk responses and get widly different results, all using exactly the same tactic. But it's something that's barely discussed on the internet -This is also a "strategies" forum afterall.

Has anyone else used interesting team talk/press conference strategies to turn things around?

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Jack722

[Ghost77]

Interesting read with some good tips. Thumbs up!

[coach vahid]

Just have seen a video where a guy explain on press conference using always the second choice from the left...Not convinced.

Edited April 8, 2023 by coach vahid

[Hovis Dexter]

Good post by @Jack722 with many thought provoking comments. I’ve seen a few people suggest the second choice from the left a la @coach vahid’s point but think that this idea is totally asinine. The first and second choice from the left in press conferences are simply agreeing with the point of the journalist’s question they are not necessarily positive messages to your team.

[Mutumba]

How does "no comment" on every question affect morale (other than the journalists morale )? Anyone done any research on that matter?

[Jack722]

23 minutes ago, Mutumba said:

How does "no comment" on every question affect morale (other than the journalists morale )? Anyone done any research on that matter?

Interesting question. I wouldn’t think it would have a direct effect on the players. Although I have seen journalists be unhappy with my responses before. I guess could cause them to write more negative articles about you if you keep doing it? Perhaps making it more likely for fans to turn against you if you underperform.

I remember reading a post by an official SI staff on these forums saying that everything in the game is there for a reason. So I don’t think they add in those negative journalist reactions just for the sake of it.

[The3points]

Gestures are also really important and key in press conferences. If I'm not smiling warmly then most likely I pointing my finger to raise the moral of everyone in the room, while picking the neutral response

[HanziZoloman]

That’s great I love it and will try it out!

Will report on any impressions.