optimusprimal82
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Posts posted by optimusprimal82
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You go away for a while and almost everything changes... Good to see you're still fighting the good 'tactical' fight @knap! Spotted the Discord has been 'retired' and also the 'new home/other place' (base) but I don't recognise many/see you over there? Breaking my 'own rules' posting here again but is this where I'll regularly find you/your stuff or are you at 'the other place' under a different guise/name?
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5 hours ago, byang08 said:
Hi Knap, I've two questions. For this tactic could the winger roles be swapped or changed to both IF or both winger depending on the players available? Also, is there a reason your tactics use attack mentality but the guide says to start on cautious almost always?
I've been having a lot of success using a combination of wulf442P107 and wulf4411 with Man Utd. Thank you for another year of great tactics.
The mentality guide is a way of playing to try & safeguard results as much as possible, in essence it’s just a more cautious approach in general. Knaps tactic sets are - largely (there are a few exceptions ofc) - designed to start on attacking, which in the case of playing as a strong team could/should/is often enough - the mentality guide comes in more if results are a bit choppy (say during a rebuild), if you’re playing as a team not always expected to win etc or if you need a hand knowing how/when/what to react to against the match engine. If you create a CTRL/SUS variant as defined in the mentality guide, they would in essence have the cautious (or defensive) mentalities and Knaps core tactics would take on the role of the BASE (read: attacking) variant.
Fwiw, the reason I mainly advocate/advocated for starting games on a ‘cautious’ mentality is safety first & to avoid the occasional/irritating game where the AI/opposition would start on a high/overload mentality to try and nick a goal then defend for their lives (the classic FM 0-1).
Hope that helps!
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The two issues for me right now with mentality are firstly - as mentioned above - that they change too much 'under the hood' for a lot of newer players, but the flip side to that is when we had the sliders and things were more transparent, (some) people felt there were too many options/things to change and it made it too much of a lottery. I think if there were a way to better visualise the changes it makes to your play style it would help a lot of people for sure?
The other thing is the names of the mentalities - seen this one debated an awful lot; people read far too much into the names of them, but i'm also not sure what to call a lot of them without turning them into sentences? (maybe 'keep possession' instead of cautious? but does that work with 'very direct' passing setup etc?) Trying to explain to people that when chasing a game you can be more effective on a lower mentality is especially difficult as it can be counter-intuitive (in mind at least) to attack when not using 'attacking'?
The other thing of course is the correlation some people struggle with in terms of the structure of their overall set; see people complain about conceding late goals when set to 'very defensive', irrespective of the somewhat offensively minded 424 formation they're rocking?
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Not sure if you've seen this/might find it useful OP? Not sure if it's too much detail & hate plugging my own stuff but it's something I drew up for last years game to help a few friends out with exactly these sort of questions and it snowballed from there into a full blown thread (link also below). I've not played anywhere near as much of FM20 as I did 19 (mainly due to time) but a lot of the trigger points are still the same in 20 from the games I have played.... Hope it's of some help/you find a way in any case!
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As others have mentioned, if he's cheap then it's maybe worth taking a punt and mentoring him to see how it improves - there are those weird random events where a player can suddenly improve/lose determination (along with other stats) too, but we're talking fantasy realms of straw clutching hoping for one of them (but never say never!).
One thing to consider though is what is your bottom limit when it comes to determination? For example, mine is 14 when buying players - for a 19 year old to get from 2-14 is obviously a massive jump. I don't know what's a realistic mentoring rate for determination in 20 just yet, but 4 points per season may make it worthwhile, whereas 2 makes it sound not worth the effort (I still think if he's that good it'd be worth a try though)?
Naturally you don't have to play him/use him but he'll likely get unhappy over the years if you don't, yet if you do, if he's good his influence will grow which means rather than other players upticking his mental stats, he may start to drag theirs down etc so be watchful for that.
I always use the example of "would you buy a 19 year old striker with 2 for finishing, even if his other stats were perfect?" and the answer - for me - would be no (although I'd consider retraining him) - I'm exactly the same with determination, but just depends on how much importance you place on that particular stat.
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2 hours ago, knap said:
This seems to follow what I was waffling about on the Discord yesterday; lower mentalities are playing much better football and creating more scoreable chances - good skills to score so many goals on balanced...!
Notice you're still using counter on this one but will be curious to give it a spin and see what difference it makes - was testing a similar setup (different roles for MC/DMC/STC's and MR/ML at AMR/AML) earlier in-game and doing well playing balanced-positive mostly; maybe not quite as well as going the season unbeaten, but y'know?!
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For the people looking/starting to look at mentality; definitely change mentality depending on relative strength of your opposition, but it doesn't have to be static - think about the flow of the game too; if you're winning by a couple of goals, what is the AI likely to do? Below is a possible example of how you can change up/down throughout a game, reacting to the situation as it evolves!
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5 hours ago, cocomaya said:
Amazing work. He obviously spends a lot of time.
Thank you - it certainly took a while to get all this right in my head, never mind written down!
I've seen enough of 20 now to suggest that the majority of this is still very relevant (the team report windows have undergone a fair bit of redesign - probably the biggest change?) but i'll plug away a bit longer and see if there's anything (else, added on to some of the suggestions above) that needs amending and rebadge/republish etc.
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10 minutes ago, Dreambuilder said:
I see, need to study the PI:s. Set more roles to automatic perhaps? With 5 mentality tactics I would have them all 442. A shame we can only have 3 tactics loaded.
Good news is that if they’re all 442 with mostly the same PI’s etc then you won’t suffer much in the way of a ‘familiarity penalty’ so it should be fine in that sense.
If you use the ‘manage tactics’ option in the tactics screen, you can add all 5 in there which means that all 5 will then be available from the in-game drop-down (means you don’t have to go into the main tactic screen mid-game etc). Not sure if that’ll make sense scribbled quickly as I have; if it doesn’t i can bash a picture in here later explaining what i mean - just takes some of the ‘faff’ & ‘hassle’ out of the changes you have to make each game etc.
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1 hour ago, Cuper said:
this seems to be the only way to go, playing with sicilian 4222 and started thinkering with the mentality against west ham
will do a new test using beowulf and i will change the mentality
Glad to see you’re both getting some good results from this approach - once you get the hang of it, it really is a ‘no-brainer’!
Only thing you don’t mention/not sure if you’re aware/have noticed is that if you’re using a tactic with a lot of PI’s etc, changing the mentality alone may not (which means it still might?) make enough of a difference; what you can do then is have 5 different tactic sets for each mentality that you can switch too on the fly - means the roles & positions match the intention much better; can a 424 really ever be ‘very defensive’ for example? Realise that sounds like a lot of work but it makes it much more reliable when you get it working (example of tactic set i used in 19 is in my ‘mentality matters’ thread - will edit this to a link when im not typing on a phone!).
If you do go down the ‘multi-mentality-tactic’ route, it’s a good idea to keep the tactical shape in mind so you don’t have to make subs/spend ages changing everyone’s position if you move from attacking to very defensive for example (say you score in 85th minute); i always tend to have 3 x MC’s and ensure the DMC’s & AMC’s can play MC well so they’re flexible etc.
NB: Phone has absolutely murdered the post I quoted; was a combination of Cuper & Dreambuilder’s conversation over the last 1-2 pages - worth looking back at to see the success you can have with just a few tweaks each game...! When you start it feels incredibly ‘micro-managey’, but after a while it becomes second nature & you realise you can control games so much easier...!
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Tigers already thrown you a good reference, for an alternative you've got this from my 'Mentality' data sheets - not fully updated for FM20 (yet) but should be close enough;
Or if you prefer something dealing in numbers you can check out Gossy's guide here
To answer your original question too; I absolutely 100% buy players with personality in mind as I feel it makes a world of difference in game etc - you can set your players searches up to exclude personalities like spineless, mercenary, slack etc - attribute masking means they're not infallible, but with good scouting you should be able to filter the bad eggs out reasonably well.
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10 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:
My board have agreed three times this season to sign a player I've wanted, and each time they've made a mess of the contract talks, so it's broken down. I'd like to have an option of just saying to the board 'finance the deal please, but I'll deal with the contract, ok?'
Are you asking them to sign the player outright that way? I haven't done that, no way would I trust Ed with that, he'd have Djimi Traore out of retirement on 300kp/w whether I liked it or not!
It's more I do the negotiations, the contract and when I come to buy I don't have enough - in years past I'd have to delay until cancellation (or I manage to sell someone); this year I could say to the board "this is an important xfer/sorry for spending too much" and they agreed and gave me the extra I needed. Means my xfer budget is now nil, but I'm super stoked as I got one of those rare summer windows where you get everyone off 'plan A' (and it wasn't ruined by greedy ass agents!)
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LOVE that you've added the feature to talk to the board when a transfer is agreed but you're a few million short - removes that years old frustration where you sum all the offers you make and a signing on fee throws your strategy out by a few mill! I'm sure there's a flip side (maybe depending on how flexible the owners are?), but if i can get Ed Woodward to part with extra cash then it must be pretty lenient right?
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19 (and from the little I've played, it'll likely soon be 20) is my favourite off the field (for sure), but on the field I'm not sure; hard to tell definitively with nostalgic glasses & fading memories, but I remember enjoying the ME side much more in earlier versions (12-13 were good & I enjoyed 17's ME too - were they as realistic? Probably not, but they were more enjoyable & fun - for me/my tastes - which is why I play the game in the first place)? Had a lot of success with 19 but stopped playing it a whilst back (when life got in the way) and whenever I found a bit of time and thought about firing it back up, it was the thought of slogging/grinding back at the ME that put me off which says a lot (not sure if that's a lot about me or the game, but I'll leave it there so we don't have yet another thread derail into an ME-fest!)
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5 minutes ago, 15214336646 said:
attack creators?
I didn't mean that,I m not so good at english,maybe made some wrong meaning here.
Im sorry.
It’s ok, it reads a little harshly but no-one’s going to hold it against you, especially if not your first language etc.
Maybe tell us ‘why’ it’s bad & we can maybe help you more/point you in a different direction? You’re conceding a lot of goals it seems, but perhaps attack is the best form of defense? Are you playing as Scunthorpe in the EPL in which case maybe you’re asking too much from a tactic etc...?
Fwiw; on 19, sicilian helped my FC United team DESTROY teams like Man City, but it struggled massively against teams we were on similar(ish) terms with... Its all relative?
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35 minutes ago, Vspec1 said:
This us true game theory optimal. I guess you read Cleons posts back I need the day?
I think I read every post back in the day - I bounced off FM07 originally really hard; I'd thrashed/loved FM06 but couldn't buy a consistent streak for love or money in '07 so went into 'sponge mode' to try and understand what on earth I was doing wrong!
Certainly I'd say I learnt most from both Cleon and wwfan's numerous posts over the years - it wasn't an overnight thing & I had to put some effort in but it helped me get over the 'misery hump' of FM07 and I've never really looked back since. The advice has served me well in all such iterations of the game so this is me 'trying to give back' to see if it can help at least one person avoid the frustration etc. I don't go anywhere near things such as team shape etc as there are plenty of good reads out there about that already (and the people who'd likely benefit/be interested in that level of the game have likely read them already), instead I tried to design this for newer players/people who want to brush up a little and are maybe time poor/people who've played the game a long time and are relying on old habits etc; as with everything, we're always learning, and I 100% include myself in that (this is one of my favourite posts from recent years for example)!
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8 hours ago, DarkAxe said:
Squad training and building is a breeze. I'm identifying weaknesses, filling the gaps, bringing in talent... and giving them games so that they gel. I managed to squeeze 16 friendlies in for Leipzig (won 14, lost 2), but as soon as the season starts its yellows and reds all over the show and like they've never met each other.
My Wednesday team, after I got them promoted, struggled in mid-table for four years. Now I'm not expecting to turn them into Liverpool or Man City, but there was next to no progress. Even after building up a healthy transfer kitty and buying better quality players, the results were still very hit and miss. A Carabao Cup game against Crewe - played a strong side, dominated the match, 30 shots, 15 on target - Crewe had 0 shots and won on pens. We've all had bad beats over the years but no matter how strong my side is or how weak the opponents are, it's still a coin toss whether I get any kind of result. I broke the Prem season record for discipline in January! Full-backs will get booked every game.
Opposing goalkeepers with ratings of 6.5 or worse will suddenly turn into world beaters against me. I usually have to average 5/6 shots on target to score and then their donkey CD will knock a 70 yard pass into space for a 93rd minute winner.
I know I sound bitter and there probably is a solution or two out there, but I'm really getting to the point where it's hard to care any more. It's just not enjoyable to play because EVERY match contains some unrealistic nonsense.
It’s all good - I have no problem with anyone being bitter/grumpy or having a vent, as i said earlier, most of us have been in the situation before so know that general ‘feeling cocktail’ of anger/despair/frustration/hopelessness; you just want to play the game you bought & have fun - getting continually stuffed by things you seemingly can’t directly control is the opposite of that!
I know when you’re in that mindset that people suggesting things can be more frustrating than helpful but i’ll make a couple of quick suggests that you can take, leave or even come back to at a later date (when the desire to throw the pc out of the window dissipates!);
I haven’t looked over Knap’s (awesome) tactics too much this year so far but suspect pressing is set to very high (because it crunches the ME); strongly suspect that’s where a lot of your pain with discipline is coming from - be wary of making changes to a proven winning tactic, but you can try tweaking the pressing down a notch and changing particular players tackling settings down too etc. I tend to do this when im winning anyway as a habit from FM19 as the players were stupidly good from free kicks so it was suicide to concede them. You can even save variants of your tactic so you’ve got an ‘original - full press’ version and a ‘be nice’ alternative.
Before the game (& this is micro-managey & i’ve made a feature request) take a look at the ref you’re told is handling the game; it seems there are always a few ‘deliberate asshats’ in the league so you can actually start to predict the games where you’ll get one of those stupid 2 minute red card decisions; there’s no foolproof counter, but playing your ‘be nice’ variant and avoiding any hotheads (check player personalities when buying etc) can certainly help.
Other things I could suggest you come back to are all written in the ‘mentality masterplan’ thread; someone has linked it a few posts back so ill not link it again, but it covers off some of the basics we all take for granted & goes into detail about how to react in-game to some of the BS. Might be too much micro-management - hey, we all play the game differently - but it’s a starting point/suggestion to at least try and help you find the ‘FM love’ again (FM07 became one of my favourites in the end for example, despite bouncing off & HATING it at first)
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13 minutes ago, FComniworld said:
@knap regarding the 4-1-4-1 VM or just 4-3-3 formation blue matter, it said either here or elsewhere to get mezzella's with good finishing / long shots, yet when I check the instructions on the position, it states : shoot less, also not shooting whenever possible but work patiently into the box, so Im confused. Was the advice wrong or should / could I tweak it for a bit better results ?
Also, is there a tactic working with only 3 defenders ? 3-4-3 or 3-5-2 ?
Remember those settings just mean “do X less often” (in this case; shooting)... the mezzala’s default behaviour is still to shoot more often than say... a BWM (this is based on observation, not knowledge of underlying code)? So they should still fire a thunderb*****d or two (or ten if you have a Pogba)
Without any visual indication (which like them or loathe them, the sliders used to give) this can be hard to see, but likely without those modifiers set, the mezzala (my favourite fm role whilst we’re on the subject) shoots juuuust a little too often and those modifiers ‘redress the balance’ rather than neuter the players natural game etc.
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2 minutes ago, craiigman said:
Are those numbers based on what the game says are important attributes for the roles or ones you have chosen?
A bit of both.
Naturally - as mentioned - I tweak the values down until finding matches etc. Obviously it varies a little depending on club size/rep - the figures are massively 'ideal world' and if you find a single player for any of the positions with all values as listed i'd be surprised; the values are just my example (based on data from the game/experience from playing over the years/feedback from others) of ideal/desired stats for each position.
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Happy to be wrong/learn something new - gives me something new and fun to test with FM20 at least, especially with a lot of people mentioning missed chances etc, be good to get a few different strikers in and see how things like that make a difference...
Will quickly add a disclaimer for all/everyone; anything I write in any guide/post is one way of doing things and is never a suggestion/me telling you that you're doing something wrong, just suggestions for people struggling as to what they can try and look at/do differently; part of the fun is that there is no one way of winning - people have questioned me on my fascination with determination for a long time because they've won everything without ever paying it any attention yet I am so stubbornly against any player with a single digit value etc
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Not that I notice/I'm pretty ambivalent about footedness? The only position I usually care about a player being able to use his other foot is striker really, with it being a secondary consideration for wingers. It's been a while since I monitored PA/CA whilst playing so not sure how much being both footed affects the values overall, but I'm not too upset for most positions if a player is primarily one footed - as with most of these things it's a balancing act; I'd still take a young promising striker who could only use his left/right foot and was hopeless with the other, but I wouldn't take a young promising striker who was great with both feet if he had <5 Determination and a spineless/slack personality for example?
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Hi everybody - long time no see!
After clocking up what can only be described as an obscene number of hours in FM19, it was only fitting I had time away and spent at least some of it with family, friends and of course crying alone in a dark room at the state of my beloved (Manchester) United; having watched Watford deservedly pick up only their second win of the season (yes, they have actually had more managers than wins this season so far) I decided it's time to dust off the virtual waistcoat and come back to banging my head against my favourite brick wall (I mean FM, not the forums)!
So with FM20 freshly downloaded/installed, I'm back in the groove, sticking my nose in where it's not wanted and offering advice where it may/may not be needed! Naturally I'll be running through all of my guides above and seeing how they compare/align with this years game - not going to flatter myself and think anyone is/has still been using it, but any thoughts/recommendations greatly received (there are a couple in the thread I never addressed I'll be taking on board)!
One thing that I surprisingly never seemed to post in this thread - and something I've been discussing this very morning on Discord (because I can't help myself it seems) - is my 'desired player attributes' for when I'm recruiting players? It's not 100% original, it was based on a spreadsheet that was shared around way back in the FM06/07 days, but this is one I put together with all the modern attributes a few years back (and is consequently tailored for my own tastes) - naturally the likelihood of ever finding players that meet all attributes criteria is slim to none, but it's a starting point and filters are naturally your friend!
For anyone not familiar with the history of this thread, I started it/my guides last year when a few friends were consistently struggling with the game and I realised they were all making similar wrong turns; there are plenty of people out there willing to offer tactical advice or assistance on formations/playing styles but if you flick to the data sheets at the top - ignoring the mentality stuff - you'll notice I focus a lot on player recruitment and I reckon it's an area that a lot of players fall down - either relying on real world ability/reputation, ignoring mental attributes/personality traits or a very common issue, Potential ability instead of current ability/decent attribute spread; imagine a striker with 200PA with 20 for tackling, crossing & Throw-Ins but 3 for consistency, determination, finishing, composure & anticipation? Sure he might improve but why waste all that development effort on someone who is so fatally flawed to begin with; chances are you'll be able to find someone with PA/CA of 150 that will regularly outperform the other guy?
The other area - and the reason I'm sharing these now - is I noticed that (from an admittedly very small sample size of 'friends in need') the guys newer to the game were generally better at filtering players by attributes... some of the players who've been playing the game were searching/filtering on memory and overlooking attributes that perhaps they don't see as important/weren't in the game, but perhaps are viewed as quite important now in the game/ME (and I say this on the basis that the game highlights said attributes as important); composure is a big one - if you look at the table below you'll notice I've got it listed as a key/important attribute pretty much across the board, and a lot of that comes from data provided in-game. I remember when composure was introduced, it was a big deal for strikers, but is now especially so for most positions (I always use Chris Smalling as an example of a solid-ish defender with poor composure; on his day he can be very competent, but you can tell he is nervous with the ball at his feet, and if he's ever put under pressure he gets very 'flappy' very quickly). This isn't true of all attributes of course; Determination is one I stubbornly commit too regardless of ability, but is one which I've learnt over many years can/does make a big difference (at least imo). Enough preaching from me anyway, I'll likely pop back and update this as I find things out and learn (probably painful) lessons from FM20!
PS: someone has requested I make this spreadsheet available in another thread; not entirely sure why the full sheet is needed as opposed to the picture but I see no harm in it, so can upload here too if needed/desired.
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@Rober82 you’re unlikely to find a player that meets every one of these criteria but I use this as a general ‘rule of thumb’ when buying per position. Obviously depending on the role I might weight more towards passing/decisions (if looking for a creative) or positioning/heading (for defensive), but as Knap suggests (& we’re often on the same page with this sort of stuff!), these positions are usually quite versatile so a good attribute spread is very helpful (and let’s you adapt their role easily in different phases of the game);
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23 minutes ago, DarkAxe said:
This is the most frustrating version of FM or CM I have ever played! The idea is to get your players to adapt a system, train hard and accept a philosophy. You can have a great or even steady pre-season, leaving you with optimism for the competitive games. But it seems as soon as you start the year it all goes out of the window. I've had saves with Sheffield Wed (my team), Newcastle, Ajax and Leipzig; aside from Wednesday (who I got promoted and stayed four years in the Prem), each save has been a catalogue of misery. I've tried pretty much every tactic in this thread, with varying success. Nothing promotes consistency amongst the players. You can train individual roles, get the best staff, say and do all the right things and still it's a monumental struggle. I've had some great wins - 7:2 v Palace; an extra-time cup win v Arsenal; and some absolute shockers. But the hardest thing to cope with is the bookings, reds and injuries. Five+ bookings per game, even without Get Stuck In, reds after 2/3 mins, and you can have the deepest squad in every area bar one and bet your life both your first and second choice will get cruciate ligament or broken ankle injuries. I don't profess to be the greatest player of this game. I've only ever created two successful, but unpublished tactics, and generally rely on set-ups from the forums, but I've always enjoyed playing FM. It's marvellous escapism, but there has to be an element of fairness to it. I don't want or expect to win every game, even with Hazza's Match Engine Exploiter I never had 100% success, but I don't want to feel like my team have a chance no better than the toss of a coin. It's unfair and demoralising. And I'll go so far as to say that I doubt, unless there's a huge improvement, or step back to immensely playable match engines, that I'll ever buy another version of this game. I'm an old fart. I've been at this 'hobby' for years. All the way back to Brian Clough's Football Fortunes. But this is really, really frustrating to play.
I think we've all likely felt this way over the years about one version or another (FM07 was my own individual nadir - nearly broke my forehead from hitting it off the screen!) and I know that when you get to that low of an ebb, people suggesting things can be even more frustrating (because it feels like you've tried everything) but there's a fair few people (myself and Knap two quick easy examples) happy to try and help you get the fun back into your game without any condescension/lectures about it being 'your tactics'?
Is there a bit in particular that's beating you - can see you're struggling but is it 'in-game/mid-match' you're struggling or is it more off the field in terms of squad building/training? Or does it all suck and you know the problem is somewhere and you're unsure where to turn/what to do?
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Knap - FM24 and FM23 FM22_FM 21 - FM 20 -FM 19 Tactic List
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@knap Sounds good (the invites etc) thank you! Don’t get to play anywhere near as much as I did a few years back (when doing the mentality stuff) but picked up 21 in the hope that changes so more than happy to throw/listen to a few ideas etc!