warlock

The oft-quoted answer is that fitness training improves attributes, not actual fitness. Playing matches improves fitness.

Or someone else! The game already gives you the option to run training for everyone from the first team to the U18s (including position, role, additional focus and PPMs), sign everyone, renew contracts for everyone, direct scouting, handle the media and teamtalks... or pass on those responsibilities to another member of staff. I don't know how much more flexibility we could want. And for everyone of the minority who wants to control training drills on the pitch during the week, I'd wager there's a majority who would find that rather boring and just skip it. SI need to make tough decisions about where they allocate resources, and I'd guess that more detailed training regimes is a losing proposition. And, with regard to the OP, I'd go further: in terms of a 'game' there are - and have been - several alternatives (FIFA, PES to name just the first that come to mind); in terms of a football 'simulator', there's never been anything that came close to CM/FM, and they're further away than ever.

In addition to the above responses, you can advertise for every coaching/scouting/medical role on your staff. I'd agree that it can sometimes be difficult to find the staff who want non-senior roles, but the fact that you can advertise those jobs makes it moot.

Not certain but I'm pretty sure that's right - ie, attribute masking is on by default; you just unlocked the ability to disable it.

Doh! Great thread! And I too, need to go to bed because my concentration is so low I can't follow all the ins and outs of everyone else's guesses (a very nice bottle of red wine may be contributing to that!) But I'm looking forward to the big reveal, even though I always play incredibly conservative tactics in FM and this looks very experimental, if not just mental ) Edit to add: The standard mentality makes it even more curious - one of the few things I was certain about in my early post was that mentality had to be pretty aggressive.

He's a great AM, IMO. Was my star player in that role in one Man Utd save.

I'd guess at 4141, IWBs - right-sided one on attack - wide players crossing quite a bit so probably wingers, No21 looks like a playmaker (RP or AP?) and the striker is not dropping very deep so maybe P or TM. Higher or much higher line, and either attacking or overload with retain possession. Looks interesting.

I have used downloaded tactics, but only where the author can explain precisely how the tactic works, why and when it might not work, and why it was setup the way it is (ie, not 99% of the tactics in the tactics sharing sub-forum!). And they're always modified to suit my own preferences - I don't like high-pressing, a lot of closing down, hate 'get stuck in', and refuse to use more direct passing. I rarely use more than 3 or 4 TIs. I'm not good enough to read the subtleties of the game and figure out what to tweak - I use much broader tools like, are we winning or losing, who's got most possession, who on my team isn't playing well. Complicated tactics, with loads of TIs, make it harder to figure out what's going on. For the last couple of months I've been playing a pretty simple 442, standard/structured, and it took Ipswich to the Championship title in the first season, and is now promising to do the same for Darlington in the VNN.

I keep reading this about FM18 (and probably Fm17 as well) but it hasn't been my experience. I've had DLF-S and TM-S dropping to the halfway line (and sometimes deeper) all year. It would probably help if I could tell you why, but I don't have any idea, really. I tend to play a low- or mid-block (I don't close down a lot, and I loathe the idea of gegenpressing). I usually play structured or flexible, and I've played a lot from the bottom of the English pyramid to top European leagues. I'm guessing this isn't helping anyone, but I'm just not seeing this thing about strikers not dropping deep - unless we have different ideas of deep. Certainly, I don't want my strikers on the edge of my penalty area!

I do think there are certain roles in Fm18 that are prone to long shots (even more than usual) - IF-A, B2B and SV-A are among them. PPMs can help, as can the 'work ball' TI, but the single most important thing is that there are players available for the pass, especially someone sitting somewhat deeper and/or wider than the SV. As much as anything, though, this year I've come to love the 'retain possession' TI - seems to work wonders in encouraging players to look for alternatives, including a relatively long pass backwards to reset and start again. I think, this late in the year, it's become my favourite TI... I used to think it would prioritise possession over everything, making us toothless in attack, but in my latest save, just as an example, I've just put together three games where we scored a total of 14 goals using it.

Sorry, but this is just nonsense. I've played about 30 saves this year, won all kinds of trophies with clubs from Darlington in the Vanarama South, to multiple titles and Champions Leagues with Man Utd, and I'd bet I've never changed the defensive line more than once or twice a season (and only then to drop one notch deeper against teams that were threatening to tear us apart). And some of us - including me - have been banging on about the importance of squad management and squad development being more important than tactics for years. Edit to add: The game absolutely lets you focus on squad management over tactics if you're aware of the importance.

Well, that was unexpected. First game of the final four, we went to Forest and won 3-0; Brentford went to Fulham and lost. Second place guaranteed, and automatic promotion with it! Perhaps the Championship is not beyond us yet!

Ipswich: the season climax I was afraid of our mentality going into the final third of the season, and my fears were well-justified. Having held top spot for months, a sequence of poor results saw us drop to second as Wolves continued to pile up wins. With four games to go we need to pick up two extra points over Wolves. Unfortunately, the way they're playing and the opposition they face, I don't see them dropping those points, while we have struggled against the relegation battlers all season and we face two more in the run-in, both away. February wasn't a bad month, although the home loss to Burton (who were 20th at the time) was an appalling result. But we strung together three victories after that and were looking good at the top. The rot set in with another home defeat to relegation candidates Hull, and then another loss to Sheff Wed. A stunning 6-1 against the other side of Sheffield proved to be a false dawn and further defeats followed. If we could have converted some of those losses into draws we'd still be top, but it was the usual late-season story: no obvious reason for the slump, but defenders couldn't defend, strikers couldn't score, and passing throughout the side was poor. Nerves, mental frailty, lack of guts... whatever you want to call it, we crumbled under the pressure. Realistically, my best hope now is that we can take advantage of our lead over Brentford and hang on to automatic promotion from second place. Our better goal difference gives us an effective lead of 8pts and with just 12 available we can't fail. Can we?

Looks good. But that background! How do you play without going cross-eyed?

No question, but I couldn't tell you when I've had such a squad . There always seems to be a core of older players at every club I've taken on. Usually I aim for a 22-man squad with a first choice and backup for each position, and hopefully there's two or three in the reserves who can do a job during an injury crisis. Down at League Two or lower, though, that approach is a bit of a luxury. So more versatile players can be useful. But at that level I don't use many specialist roles if any, and pretty much any CM can do what I need doing in the middle, while wingers on one side can usually do a decent-to-good job on the other. In the Vanorama I've usually run with a squad of about 18 players and reserves/youth for a crisis. In general, it's why I like narrow formations - without the need for specialised wide players squad management becomes a lot easier, I think. On the other hand, three-at-the-back means you need either a bunch of CBs, or at least a couple of decent squad players who can switch between CD and DM (Kyle Walker notwithstanding, I've never found many who can switch between CD and the progressive wingback roles). Always a good thing! So far this year I've played mostly 433dm wide, 442 or 4411, the deep version of the 4231 with two DMs, a 433 wide with a flat midfield, and a 343 wide. Never been able to make the 352 work! And as far as trying other approaches, I guess I really ought to have one good go at winning things with kids .