Mid/Late season fall off

[MalkavianRaven]

Hello,

I am noticing something with the few teams I have managed. It seems early to mid season, they play well, but then something magically happens and they lose the ball, cant keep the play out of our side of the pitch, lose to teams that are like 7 places below them in the list.

 

Is there something I can do as a manager to light a fire under their asses? I have tried changing tactics. I make sure to compliment and criticize how they are reported in training. I am not sure what I as a manager should be doing to help the team play better.

 

Any suggestions would help.

Thank you

[XaW]

Well, there are several things that can cause this, but the most common are

• Fatigue levels
• Opposition managers adapting
• Higher pressure on the players as the matches means more

There can be other things, that cause, or at least impact, these things, but those 3 are the most usual things.

For fatigue levels, it usually comes down to how well you have rotated across the season as a whole. A players fatigue is NOT the same as their condition levels. If you have a sport scientist, they can advise on fatigue levels in the medical centre. If you rotate well, and make sure players give enough time to rest when they are struggling, as well as letting them ease back into the team after injuries, this should not be a factor. But if you play the same 11 almost every match and never give them much time to rest, then they will struggle to play as well as they can towards the end of the season. Things like natural fitness in players also impact how much they are affected by these things.

The opposition managers usually judge you by your pre-season expectations when the season first starts, and if they expect to beat you, then they will player in an offensive way where they will try to dominate you. If the tactic you use rely a bit on space, then you can in some cases very easily overachieve and thus exceed expectations. The AI managers aren't very clever, but they do react at times. So as the season goes along, and it's evident that your team is not just lucky in a few games, but rather a strong team they need to respect, they will modify their tactical setup against you. No, it's not like they are smart enough to directly counter you, but they will often play a bit more cautious or defensively since you are a good team now. If you still use the tactic that relies on being given space by the opponent, well, you might start to struggle. Your quick striker who often ran past defenders around the middle of the pitch now sees himself stationary around their box instead and can't use his pace anymore. This is usually obvious to spot when it happens if you look at where your chances start from. If you used to counter or score by being given space, the ball often started in your half with their defenders around the half way line. However, if you always start with a throw in or a free kick already in the final 3rd, you are most likely controlling them, and if you still use a high tempo direct football, there is just not any space to do so. The answer here is to change the tactics, usually lower tempo and shorter passing, but that all depends on your initial setup.

Pressure is an attribute that all players in the game have, but is hidden. The same goes for "Important Matches". Both of these come into effect more towards the end of the season. The matches often means more, either in cups, or if you are fighting for the title, continental competitions, or just surviving the drop. If your players can't handle the pressure or big matches, then this can have a very detrimental effect on results. The hidden attributes are there to impact the player's personalities, and are hidden for a reason, however scout and coaching reports will some times hint at them if they are low or high. The same goes for personality and media handling. If a player personality is "Resilient" you know they handle pressure well, for example. There are guides around where you can see the ranges for each type, but that is kind of looking behind the curtain, so beware, the more you know the details, the easier it is to fall into the trap of trying to "game the game" rather than just play for enjoyment.

As I mentioned before, there can be a lot of other things impacting this, complacency, squad morale, injuries, facing all the strong teams at once, etc. But thought I'd write up a few words for this, so hope it helps.

[MalkavianRaven]

21 minutes ago, XaW said:

Well, there are several things that can cause this, but the most common are

• Fatigue levels
• Opposition managers adapting
• Higher pressure on the players as the matches means more

There can be other things, that cause, or at least impact, these things, but those 3 are the most usual things.

For fatigue levels, it usually comes down to how well you have rotated across the season as a whole. A players fatigue is NOT the same as their condition levels. If you have a sport scientist, they can advise on fatigue levels in the medical centre. If you rotate well, and make sure players give enough time to rest when they are struggling, as well as letting them ease back into the team after injuries, this should not be a factor. But if you play the same 11 almost every match and never give them much time to rest, then they will struggle to play as well as they can towards the end of the season. Things like natural fitness in players also impact how much they are affected by these things.

The opposition managers usually judge you by your pre-season expectations when the season first starts, and if they expect to beat you, then they will player in an offensive way where they will try to dominate you. If the tactic you use rely a bit on space, then you can in some cases very easily overachieve and thus exceed expectations. The AI managers aren't very clever, but they do react at times. So as the season goes along, and it's evident that your team is not just lucky in a few games, but rather a strong team they need to respect, they will modify their tactical setup against you. No, it's not like they are smart enough to directly counter you, but they will often play a bit more cautious or defensively since you are a good team now. If you still use the tactic that relies on being given space by the opponent, well, you might start to struggle. Your quick striker who often ran past defenders around the middle of the pitch now sees himself stationary around their box instead and can't use his pace anymore. This is usually obvious to spot when it happens if you look at where your chances start from. If you used to counter or score by being given space, the ball often started in your half with their defenders around the half way line. However, if you always start with a throw in or a free kick already in the final 3rd, you are most likely controlling them, and if you still use a high tempo direct football, there is just not any space to do so. The answer here is to change the tactics, usually lower tempo and shorter passing, but that all depends on your initial setup.

Pressure is an attribute that all players in the game have, but is hidden. The same goes for "Important Matches". Both of these come into effect more towards the end of the season. The matches often means more, either in cups, or if you are fighting for the title, continental competitions, or just surviving the drop. If your players can't handle the pressure or big matches, then this can have a very detrimental effect on results. The hidden attributes are there to impact the player's personalities, and are hidden for a reason, however scout and coaching reports will some times hint at them if they are low or high. The same goes for personality and media handling. If a player personality is "Resilient" you know they handle pressure well, for example. There are guides around where you can see the ranges for each type, but that is kind of looking behind the curtain, so beware, the more you know the details, the easier it is to fall into the trap of trying to "game the game" rather than just play for enjoyment.

As I mentioned before, there can be a lot of other things impacting this, complacency, squad morale, injuries, facing all the strong teams at once, etc. But thought I'd write up a few words for this, so hope it helps.

Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to reply this to me!

I will need to review what you wrote and see where it falls in for me. As far as Fatigue. I constantly rotate my players. I know that I want fresh people on the pitch.

[azymin]

I've run into the same thing many times. 

Be careful not to over rotate your squad tho. Or to over tweak tactics. I tend to do the latter. 

[Tfunk]

Nothing you can do about it tbh just do your best to leave the players playing badly out since nothing else seems to make them play better, I've done tests giving players 20 in each of their key attributes, changing consistency and imp matches to 20, healing between each game, freezing morale and still they slump every season.

[XaW]

17 minutes ago, Tfunk said:

Nothing you can do about it tbh just do your best to leave the players playing badly out since nothing else seems to make them play better, I've done tests giving players 20 in each of their key attributes, changing consistency and imp matches to 20, healing between each game, freezing morale and still they slump every season.

Well, this is just not true. Otherwise how can I finish my season with only a single loss in the final 10 matches of the season with a team predicted to get relegated, but I won the promotion playoff?

Of course you can do something about it. If the AI can do it, so can you. The match engine does not distinguish between human managers and AI managers, so the tools are all there.