MINTED BLOB

Yeah nah, I definitely overworked them during pre-season. Got a bit carried away with wanting match practice early on!

Would love to know you guys' secrets. Currently playing with Man Utd and have had long-term injuries to Dalot, Martinez and Reguilon (had to terminate the loan ) during pre-season in addition to the existing injury to Malacia. Has left me extremely light in the full back department - rather like real life!

Oh sorry, one other thing I'd like to quickly mention; I also feel that I'm being given a fair bit more during matches that helps me to spot tactical issues than in prior versions of the game. Obviously, you had the post-match reports feature added in FM23 (?) which I think was really great. I'm now actually starting to see visuals of average positions and pass maps show-up mid-game, and this has been extremely handy for me when it comes to quickly identifying tactical issues and coming up with potential fixes. I understand that it has been possible to see this information during a match in prior versions, but as a somewhat more casual player I do really appreciate that SI have made it more readily available this year. Improved feedback from assistant managers and coaches was something I'd been hoping for for a while, so it's nice to see it come to fruition.

Keep in mind that I've not played very much of FM24 at all, but I have to say my first impressions of the match engine are extremely positive. I know that this is just a feeling and not supported by any solid evidence but I did sometimes feel in prior versions that the engine was quite repetitive. That's not to say that tactics had no impact on results, but rather that the goals I would score or concede from sort of felt quite similar no matter what tactic I employed. The most obvious to me was the fact that a huge number of the goals I conceded seemed to be a result of a winger rinsing my full-back and then crossing from the touchline to a striker who would head in. This year there seems to be a LOT more variety, and I'm really enjoying it. In the matches where I've gone for a gegenpressing approach, I've been far more vulnerable to being played through in the centre of the pitch. Meanwhile, when I instead try to play a more tight, patient, possession-oriented game, opponents will more frequently look to exploit the wide areas. This is great because it massively adds to the realism, and gives a much better sense of the risk-reward nature of each way of playing. I don't really have much else to add at this point but the match engine improvements are definitely something that have stood out to me so far.

Hello everyone! As I do every season on FM, I've started out this edition of the game with my beloved Manchester United. After a few failed test runs in friendlies, I decided that my best approach is to keep it simple as far as tactics are concerned. My reasoning is that I've got a talented group of players available to me, and I don't want to restrict them too far with an abundance of team instructions. So with that in mind, here is my tactic: As I've said, there's nothing particularly clever going on here. I wanted the side to play a high-pressing game, so the bulk of my team instructions are based around achieving that goal. Beyond that, I've only set two instructions for how I want the team to play in possession of the ball: Distribute to Centre Backs: This is based on the fact that I have centre backs who are good at progressing of the ball and forward players who aren't spectacular in the air, so I'd rather have the ball progressed via these centre backs than kicked long to the forwards. Low Crosses: Again, this is based on the lack of aerial presence in my forward line. I believe they're better placed to score from lower crosses than those aimed at their heads. Beside these two, I've opted not to set any hard instructions for my team in possession. I'm not particularly adept at the tactical side of the game anyway, so I'd sooner trust that the talent levels of my players will see them use the ball effectively than overload them with team instructions the implications of which I probably don't fully understand. To give a complete picture of roughly what I'm looking for from my tactic, I'll briefly go over the player roles and why I've chosen them: Goalkeeeper: I'm not looking for anything fancy from De Gea. As he is in real-life, I mainly need him to be a reliable shot-stopper when the opponents do break through my defensive line. This is why his role is set simply as a Goalkeeper with the Defend duty. Centre Backs: Again, I'm not after anything especially complex from my centre backs. I mainly want them to hold the line in defence and play passes through the opposition press to the full backs and midfield. As such, I've picked two Central Defenders with Defend duties for my base tactic. On some occasions, I'll switch this so that one of the defenders (typically Maguire) is a Stopper and the other is a Covering player, and I do this when I notice opposition strikers beating the defensive line consistently. Full Backs: On the left, I want my full back to overlap the inside forward and give him passing options without sacrificing his ability to provide cover in defence. I've gone with a Full Back with an Attack duty here, although I am considering whether the Wing Back role could be more suitable for this player. On the right, I mainly want the full back to provide a passing option out wide and balance his attacking and defensive duties. This is why I've gone for a simple Full Back with a Support duty for this player. Midfield: The heartbeat of my team. The defensive midfielder is stationed primarily to offer protection to the backline and play simple passes to the more creative midfielders in front of him, although I'm happy for him to play longer passes to the forward line if the opportunity arises. I decided that a Defensive Midfielder role with a Defend duty is best suited to deliver these requirements, although this is another position I've considered changing. The Roaming Playmaker is the creative hub of my side, and essentially I'm looking for a lot of our play to be funneled through him. Rounding off the midfield, the Mezzala with a Support duty is there to provide passing options to my inverted winger and midfielders and providing support around the penalty area. Forwards: The Inside Forward with a Support duty is intended to be my creative forward player, providing a passing option for the midfield and looking to play through balls to the striker and cross-field passes to the inverted winger on the opposing flank. The Inverted Winger on the other flank with an Attack duty looks to stretch the opposition defence (hence he has a stay wider player instruction), using his dribbling ability to create panic before other shooting or passing to forward players in space. The Deep Lying Forward on Attack rounds off the team by dropping deep to provide further passing options in the centre before using his acceleration to run beyond the opposition's defensive line. And with this summary of what I'm trying to get from my side, here are the results: It's hardly spectacular, but also not horrendous. Considering the first transfer window was disabled, I think it's a respectable start to the season with a side that has a pretty great first team but lacks something in the way of squad depth. However, I'm not altogether happy with some of the performances. As the chart below shows, my team is some way off the top two when it comes to chance creation: This is reinforced by the fact that there is quite a heavy reliance on goals from corners, with a higher percentage of my team's goals resulting from corners than any other side in the league: Perhaps the biggest "problem" for me has been the stark discrepancy between my team's performances at home and away from home. As the two charts show below, whilst I'm yet to drop any points in matches at Old Trafford this season, the side hasn't been as impressive on the road. Whilst our away form is not disastrous, we've dropped a number of points in matches I think were winnable, and even some of the wins came in spite of some pretty average performances: With all this said, I was wondering if any of the more seasoned tacticians could offer some thoughts on my tactical set-up and any potential improvements that could be made which might improve my performances, particularly away from home. Even writing this up I already have a few thoughts of my own but I'd be curious to here what insights some of you have to offer. I'll also add that I'd rather receive more generic advice (e.g. I don't see who is making runs from midfield) than specific "you should change this player's role". Many thanks in advance for any help you have to offer! (Should anyone like me to provide more information or graphics to help in this regard, I'd be happy to provide them as and when I can)

I've still scored a few goals from near post corners. I'd say far post corners have been slightly more effective for me though. I have two basic routines, one where the tallest player (usually a centre back) attacks the near post and one where they attack the far post. I'll also have a player lurking at the post I'm targeting. I find that as important as the routine itself is your training, though. As the screenshot below shows, I put quite a heavy emphasis on set piece training: I'll gladly admit that I'm not particularly great at Football Manager. I struggle with the tactical side of the game, so I find set pieces to be a great equalizer. As the image below shows, my team is doing very well from corners this season and it's won me quite a few tight games:

Many thanks for the response; I appreciate the help. From what I've seen written about team mentality, I think what you've written is a really good summary. I will also credit the game here and say that the idea of risk is actually mentioned within the description of the available team mentalities; I just think that the way that mentality actually impacts your team's behaviour (e.g. defensive line, passing risk, tempo) could be made more explicit in the game. Unless the tactic creator has changed again recently, I am now aware that mentality plays a role in affecting these factors as well as team and player instructions. I know now, for example, that the second from highest tempo setting on a "positive" mentality setting relates to a higher tempo than the second highest tempo setting on a "cautious" mentality. I'm not entirely sure that the game makes this fact immediately obvious, though, and I think this could be quite helpful for players who aren't as experienced or just aren't as good at building tactics. (I'd put myself in this bracket) Essentially, what I'm trying to get at is that I think the one paragraph you've written there provides more clarity on what team mentality is and how it affects your tactic than the game itself does, and in my eyes that doesn't reflect brilliantly on the game.

First off, I'd like to say thanks for a great response to my post. That's really helpful feedback with some actionable points I hadn't honestly considered before. I'd say even taking what you've said into account though, my own personal issue with the assistant manager is that I don't always feel as though you receive enough feedback as to why they're making the suggestions they're making. The best Football Manager players are always excellent at spotting things in-game and can always explain why things will work rather than just that they will. I myself struggle with this facet of the game, and whilst there are some excellent people on here willing to offer help in this regard I do think it would be good for the game itself to offer more support to players looking to bridge that gap. Opposition instructions are an area where they do do this quite well; normally you're told that a winger is getting a lot of room for crosses and so should be closed down, for example. I feel it would be good to receive more feedback like this regarding, say, player roles and why they might not be working together from your assistant manager, or any problems your team's mentality is causing for your tactic. I'll end by saying that I do appreciate this is an extremely subjective criticism. More experienced/better players are quite obviously going to feel less inclined towards assistant managers who offer more guidance with tactical tweaking, as they're more able to do it themselves.

I've just bought FM23 having bought every version since FM14. I have to say my initial impression has been somewhat disappointing. As somebody who plays this game to wind down a bit rather than dedicating a great deal of time to it, my issue with the game for a while now has been not that it is "too difficult" (I think that's a pretty menial criticism to make of a video game generally) but rather that there's insufficient feedback from your in-game staff that may help with understanding what is and is not working with your approach. To ensure the post isn't too nebulous, I'll go into some specific criticisms below. 1. The Assistant Manager Still Feels Pretty Redundant This is not a new criticism of the game but I'm reiterating it here because it is perhaps one of my biggest and most prolonged frustrations with Football Manager. With many players complaining about the game being too easy, and others complaining that it's too difficult, and I think a large part of this is that Football Manager is a game with a steep learning curve. The assistant manager seems like a great way to help players at all different stages of this learning curve. If you belong to the first camp, you can have your assistant manager focus fully on the coaching side and perhaps even tailor your preferred attributes accordingly. If you're in the second, you should be able to prioritize tactical knowledge and have this reflected in the quality of feedback you receive from your number two. In Football Manager, it only really feels as though the first camp can be satisfied in this regard. Sure, you can designate different tactical aspects to the assistant manager should you wish - you could even have him run the matches and just do the transfers if you want to! But the one thing I don't feel you can do is learn much about the game from them. I think this is such a shame because, whilst there are some absolutely wonderful people in this forum who have shown the utmost willing and kindness to help me out with my tactics when I've struggled in the past, I've sometimes felt like some of the stuff they've told me should've been stuff that an in-game assistant manager suggests to you. The choice of assistant manager is probably one of the more important decisions any football manager would make in real-life, and this just doesn't feel like it's reflected in the game to me at all. 2. Team Mentality Perhaps it's just me but I've read a number of pieces from a number of different users on team mentality and I still don't think I fully understand it. This is not a criticism of the users; I think they do a quite brilliant job of explaining it. It is instead an issue I have with the game itself. I don't think the game does a particularly amazing job of making it clear how team mentality impacts your team instructions and player mentalities. And sure, some of you might say "well isn't it obvious", but I feel that the very fact that there have been quite a number of fairly detailed posts on the forum clarifying how mentality works in Football Manager somewhat vindicates my argument that the game itself could do a better job of making the concept more explicit. 3. The User Interface Feels Overly Complex I think this argument is best explained by way of example, with perhaps one of the updates SI has made to the game in recent years that I have liked the least - the development centre. The main bugbear I have with the development centre is the fact that it adds extra clicks for certain functions which were much easier in previous versions. The base function of viewing your under 21s and under 18s squad is no longer as simple as just clicking a panel like it used to be, and viewing your staff members is far less intuitive than it should be because for some godforsaken reason the "staff" section of the development centre only shows you an overview and not a list of your actual staff members (Unless I'm missing something, in which case I'd say it's not obvious like it used to be). I'll admit this is quite a nebulous criticism but I don't think I'm the only person to bring it up either. The above list isn't exhaustive as I haven't had long to get to grips with the new game yet, but I think those are a few of the things that have marred my initial impression.