Coulthard's Jaw

Lets hope so. It's a tough environment out there for everyone in the gaming industry at the moment and SI aren't immune from that.

Still struggling to work out how to play well at home against teams who defend deep and break on me. I understand the concepts, I don't understand how you translate that into a tactic in the game.

But how do you get sufficient support to your striker if you drop the attackers back a bit?

OK so basically I've kept the short passing, but I've got my central midfielders to be more direct. Converted my wide midfielders into wingers. My striker is now a DLF (s). Initial results are promising (managed an exciting 2-0 win over 2nd placed Swindon ).

Won't quote your whole post @Rashidi but big thanks, will play around with your suggestions tonight

I've told them to dribble more, that's it. Will give your suggestions a go, thanks !

i) First half of the season, typically crosses. Since my poor run of fun began, it's been shots fired in from just outside the area. ii) Thanks. iii) OK thanks !

Firstly I should say this isn't just this game, every single career game I play in FM, I get off to a flying start, and then things gradually turn to crap after 6 months, usually resulting in me being sacked or giving up in the second season. Anyway, here we go. I am Port Vale. Here are my results: League table My home tactic and my away tactic If you need any further info, let me know. Basically I'm posting because I literally go through the same exact pattern every career game and its getting tedious, I'm obviously doing something fundamentally wrong either tactically or with some other aspect of the game, would be good to know what exactly as common sense is not providing an answer so far.

Hmmm that would actually be a better reason because I really feel my tactics are pretty sensible.

Cheers Yeah I don't mind that, it's the death spirals that I'm going into where the club just self destructs that I want to stop

Any guides you or anyone can recommend to playing against teams who treat you as the favourite? Literally every career game I play I end up having to give up after the second season because this just destroys it and I'm a bit stumped as to what I'm meant to do.

Is the AI reacting specifically to my tactics, or is it a general "that team is performing really well, I'll go more defensive to combat it" type approach?

How do I adjust my tactics to cope with second season syndrome?

If you're going two flat banks of 4 you're probably better using a flexible or fluid team shape.

Well SI have never really let themselves be bullied by the community or social media over the features they put in the game (and as a company which generates over £10m in turnover doing it their way, why should they) so I'm not really concerned about them not putting in the designs and ideas they want.