Overmars

There are too many headers in the FM23 match engine. In the real-life EPL this season, the leading player in terms of aerial challenges won is Mitrovic with 74 aerial challenges won in 16 games. That's 4.6 headers won per game, and most players are averaging well beneath that mark. In FM23, every EPL team in my save has at least one starting player who is averaging over 10 aerial challenges won per game. 50 EPL players receiving regular starter minutes are averaging over 10 headers won per game. On many teams, at least 10 players are averaging more headers won than Mitrovic's real-life mark of 4.6 per game. The difference between FM23's headers stats and real life header stats is staggering. Long ball after long ball is lofted forward to ST, AML, and AMR players in FM23, and it doesn't matter which formation or tactic is being used.

I feel like the following should generally be true: FB should be at least somewhat familiar with the WB position and vice versa ML/MR should be familiar with AML/AMR and vice versa MC should be familiar with DM and vice versa There are countless players in the game, newgens and real players, whose position familiarity looks oddly limited. It feels very wrong that my newgen MC is completely lost when asked to play DM -- as if there is this much of a distinction between the two spots in real life.

BBM(s) for a SV(s) or CM(a) for a SV(a). I think all four roles are usable in lower leagues. Just make sure you have someone with speed and stamina. If not, you'll need to sub them off regularly.

Fully agree with this. The TATO skin is a must for me because the statistics paint the picture of what is happening without me having to watch the full match. I also agree with you point about the clicks. I know you can turn off some messages in the game, and that might help, but I guess this type of game is always going to be a bit of a clickfest.

In your screenshot, both of those offers involved selling the player, not just loaning him. The sale price is much lower than the player's estimated transfer value, which is why your staff won't accept the deal. You could probably loan out your player if you do it yourself and remove the future fee option.

This feature really needs to be added to the game. We should be able to pick our youth team's formation independent of our senior team's.

Play around with the WM role. It is almost fully customizable so you can have them sit narrow or wide, dribble more or less, cross more or less, push further forward, etc. The inverted winger role is fine too but a little less customizable.

With a back 3 and defend duty DM ahead of them, I think you have to go aggressive with the two central midfielders. There just isn't enough substance in the attack for the FM23 match engine if you don't. Even if you did something like use two mezzalas, I would consider changing the DM to a DLP to add a bit of creativity into the mix.

For my team in the Netherlands, I can sign staff for my B-team, which plays in the second tier. I can't just pick any staff, though, like I might have been able to do in some older versions of FM. A really good Brazilian physio demands far too high of a wage. The staff I can sign for my B-team are generally Dutch, since they are more likely to take reasonable wages to work in their home country. It feels somewhat realistic to me, even if the disparity between domestic and foreign staff wage demands is too extreme.

I am about halfway into the Eredivisie season, so I tabulated the goals scored of every 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 team to see the distribution of goals among the ST, AML, and AMR positions: ST = 200 total goals AML + AMR = 65 total goals That's a heavy ST bias, with ST scoring at 6x the rate of an AML or AMR player. I don't think there is a good way of getting AML/AMR players to produce like Mane/Salah used to for Liverpool or Saka/Martinelli are for Arsenal.

In my opinion, if desiring a long save of 10-ish seasons or more where you develop teenagers into very good players then managing a bigger club is the way to go. At lower league clubs, you can get a bit of development, but you'll quickly come up against a glass ceiling and need better facilities, coaching, and competition to make progress. It's more frustrating than fun, especially when the bigger clubs spam insultingly low offers for your players and you realize you did all of that training and nurturing to get 4.3k of transfer fees. And then when you do sell your players to bigger clubs, they avoid playing them at all costs and your promising youngster fizzles out into nothing.

Small sample size on this, but I am using a 4-3-3 this season. So far from open play my: Strikers have 7 goals + 0 assists Wide forwards have 1 goal + 7 assists Central midfielders have 4 goals + 3 assists Even with attack duties, IF or IW roles, my wide forwards are facilitators, even moreso than my central midfielders. It's fun to watch and does look similar to the style of play I see from some real-life teams, but it is frustrating to feel like I can't really flip the script and get my lethal finishing wide forward to score on a regular basis.

Interactions should be more subtle, but that seems like it would be far more difficult to implement in a game environment. I'd imagine a player could feel iffy about a manager in real life and won't say anything out loud, but FM just happens to make those feelings more obvious for the sake of gameplay.

Something is wrong with your players. Are some of them new to the team or country? Do you have bad team cohesion? Are your players any good? Are you fining them for poor performance so they push to try harder next match? When your players are in good form, well adapted to the club and country, bonded well with each other, and of a reasonably good talent level then this tactic will play a lot better defensively. And if none of what I said is actually happening then you've just run into some bad luck.

I am curious to see a screenshot of your tactic. I am guessing your players very rarely cross from open play, meaning most of your crosses are coming from corners, where the completion percentage will be much higher. I guess you have play out of defence, very short passing, and work ball into box selected -- and maybe even lower tempo. The stats screens in my game appear believable, although I don't have any pure outliers like you have.

You are highlighting one of my main struggles with FM23. I have used an AF role in that spot with many players and seen them score 5+ goals in friendlies, score a pair of goals in the league, and then go 10+ matches without scoring. I can't really tell if the AF struggles I witness are down to the players in that role or the overall tactic. The xG is fairly low for anyone I play there, which leads me to believe it's the tactic, but when the players are all logging 6.2-6.4 ratings in that spot, I feel like bad player form might also be a factor. A lot of people I see playing this game are now using 4-2-4 tactics to help combat putting all their eggs in the lone striker 4-2-3-1 basket. Having one AF get a 6.2 won't kill you as much in a 4-2-4 since the other striker can pick up the slack. Another solution is to pull back on your lone striker and give him a DLF, TM(s), or F9 role. I'm not a big fan of that in a 4-2-3-1 unless I have monster goalscoring threats on the wings or at AMC. The upside to doing this, though, is that your striker will actually have more than a handful of touches in the match, which can help prevent some catastrophic match ratings and descents into poor form. I'm going to use CF(a) for a bit and see how it does. If that fails then I'll either switch formations or look to sign a target man to facilitate my AML/AMC/AMR. I feel like the better option in this match engine is to use a 4-2-4, but I'd rather remain somewhat faithful to the formations I see most often in real life.

In my experience, the impact of view only leagues is very small and might not be noticeable at all. Playable leagues have a more noticeable impact, and simming a league on full match detail will have a very noticeable impact.

I still aim for the near post, send both my central defenders to that area (one attacking, one lurking), and my team is tied for the lead league in goals from corners.

The decision for me generally comes down to how good my wingbacks are and whether my AML/AMR players are playing as wingers or inside forwards. If I'm playing inside forwards then I want my wingbacks providing attacking width, and so an HB role makes sense to keep a safe back three setup in possession. When I'm using wingers then I can use inverted wingbacks, and then my options for the DM role open up to just about anything. I can adjust the mentality of the inverted wingbacks to compensate for what my DM is doing. If I use a HB then I can use IWB(a). If I use a DLP(s) then I might use IWB(s) roles.

Tactics are only one piece of the puzzle, and often they are inconsequential in comparison to the other pieces (form, morale, talent, luck).

If you are accepting the weakness of having no fullbacks or wingbacks then you have to get something out of that sacrifice. With three central midfielders playing timidly, I don't think you are getting enough compensation for that defensive weakness. What makes this better than a 4-2-3-1? Defensively, it looks worse, and I don't see anyone behind the front four getting up field for an attack. I would want to get more aggressive in the middle. If you are just going to use 2 CAR(s) players then you might as well revert back to a 4-2-3-1 and get proper defensive coverage behind your front four.

I have found more success with DMs than with MCs in FM23. Pushing those two central midfielders back to DM might play better in this match engine.

I am playing a save where I started in Dutch Tier 4. I used Tomijssel's D7 Netherlands download. I am four seasons in, and everything is working well. The only odd thing is the three promotion spots from Tier 3 to Tier 2, so I edited that down using the pre-game editor to limit the number of amateur clubs being pushed to turn pro.

Yes, for those leagues.

To me, where you get the tactic or instructions from is never an issue. Real life managers take inspiration from each other all the time. Where I draw the line is in using unrealistic formations that no one would use in real life. Examples of this are the 4-1-4AM-1 formations and 4-1-3AM-2 formations I saw do really well in FM22 "tactic tests." Even formations with three central strikers feel cheat-ish to me, so I won't use them myself.