[How do I check the player ratings from a previous match?]

Customize your squad screen and add last match rating along with whatever else you want, I use training rating and position/role/duty as well for training 

[Where are the goals from free kicks??]

Come to think of it, in the 3 seasons of fm21 I’ve gotten through I don’t think I’ve seen one free kick goal.

[Strategies to improve/maintain Morale of Squad]

I second ajt, praising recent performance is vital as well. I have noticed that players with the "fickle" personality will unpredictably get upset if you praise or criticize them, so I just avoid that personality type completely. I also have noticed that players with the "perfectionist" personality will grow tired of your praise much more quickly than other types as well. There's a bit of nuance to all this that you will learn with trial and error over time.

[Fines for poor play]

As a avid FMer for years, my bread and butter has been to fine players for poor performances in order to get determination/work rate boosts and improve future performances. I do not know much about labor laws throughout the world, but is this actually a tool used by managers at football clubs? If so, how common?  I would hate to make a mistake at work and get fined a weeks wages for it, I’m not sure it would improve my work rate either.

[Strategies to improve/maintain Morale of Squad]

I’ll give it a go as you don’t seem to have any replies yet. The secret weapon that you have to maintain morale is by praising/criticizing short/long term training or game performances. For instance, after every game I will criticize everyone who performed 6.6 or lower and praise anyone who showed a 7.8 or higher (these numbers are up for debate but they are the ones I use). I will then look at training for the week and praise everyone that trained with a 7.80 rating or higher. If a player after a few months hasn’t made much training progress, I will criticize their development (vice versa if they are making a lot of gains). If you are speaking to your players a lot, fining then when they perform 6.4 or lower and making sure you’re on top of their training, they will tend to be happier and perform better on the pitch. Hope this helps.

[Football Manager 2021 Early Access Beta Official Feedback Thread]

I just want to start by saying thanks for leading the charge on sports management games, The FM series is truly a masterpiece. I just wanted to say that my 2 largest gripes with the game for YEARS have been the match engine graphics being inferior to games released during the same period and the UI (screen layouts, navigation of menus, etc) being extremely cumbersome and visually unappealing. I must say the match engine issues seem fixed - I enjoy watching the match engine and I think I can finally cross that grievance off the list. HOWEVER - the UI was made worse in this version. The match day stuff is just too much, Too many clicks and too much wasted effort. I liked the old system much better as this is just cumbersome. Also, can you please make it quicker to speak to players from the squad screen? I’m tired of right clicking a player after a game and going through the steps (interaction, then speak to, then praise/criticize then actually talk to the player). You should be actively making things quicker for the end user and removing unnecessary steps to streamline the process, not adding more screens! Thanks and I hope you’ve read this post.

[Young Striker: What Should I Do With This Guy?]

Just remarking on the striker because you seem to be having solid tactical results. I personally love to turn strikers into inside forwards or mezzala/b2b midfielders. I noticed he prefers his right foot and you use an inside forward on your left flank.. just saying. Personally he wouldn’t have the pace to play for me as a striker because I prefer to run pressing/defensive tactics but my inside forward has the least defensive responsibility in my setup and your player would flourish there.

 

edit - to clarify, your tactic seems to be working and your tactic requires a striker who is more of a playmaker.. thus I recommend moving him to inside forward where you can utilize his strength as a pure scorer. Or even the mezzala role.

[DoF recommendation trial offers]

This annoys me as well. Thanks for mentioning.

[Need help with pre-contracts]

Also, to add on @likesiamesefish‘s great advice, if you are managing in England you will receive an email in April mentioning that England’s top clubs have released youth players that didn’t make the cut. Once you see this email, you can go to the search players screen and filter by division (premier league), age (not older than 18) and set for release. You will be able to sign these players for a pre-contract deal but there will be stipulations for sell-on fees and international caps for that player if you sign via this method. This is, in my opinion, the best way to acquire quality youth on a free in England. 

[Poached Players?]

Also, as mentioned by SI, this happened in previous versions of the game but there was no email notification and it all happened behind the scenes. Only the notification (email) is new.

[Players not showing in 'Squad' screen]

Just a quick question - are you using a skin or custom squad view by any chance? I don’t have an answer to your problem but I wonder if that is a good place to look. 

[Relative Importance of Attributes for Strikers]

In my opinion, it depends on the level you are playing. Pace/acceleration/anticipation are the key attributes for a lower league counter attacking striker, but in the premier league, I doubt you’re going to find strikers who are just leaps and bounds faster than the players defending them. Even still, I don’t consider signing any strikers that wouldn’t be considered one of the fastest players in the league they are playing in, regardless of their other stats. Speed kills.

[How to improve my 4-1-3-2]

I second @DarJ‘s comments.

I fear you have an identity crisis in your tactics. Your instructions say ‘let them come and try to defend’ but you have riskier roles in your midfield that are better for attacking-type team instructions. If you want to play a ‘defensive’ counter attacking setup as I believe you do, you want to allow them to have the ball in less dangerous areas of the pitch (you are doing this well) but then aggressively win the ball back in your third (you are not doing this well) so you can counter. As such, I recommend a split block and completely changing your central midfielder roles to something a counter attacking side would have. Also I never use ‘lower d line’ as it gives too much room, you might want to try ‘standard d line’ combined with ‘lower line of engagement’ in order to achieve vertical compactness. If you have a split block as well as standard d line and lower loe, you will generate more turnovers which lead to chances. Also you may want to make your Homefield as long as possible in order to maximize the room your strikers have to get behind the defense.

In short, come up with your identity and truly stick to it until you get a good understanding of what your squad is capable of in comparison to the competition then make small changes like adding a mezzala and pressing higher up the pitch.

[How many nations do you usually load?]

Is it ram that really decides how many nations you can run smoothly? I would imagine your CPU is the biggest determining factor.

[How many nations do you usually load?]

I try to push the limits of modern computing when it comes to number of nations loaded 🙂

[My tactic just doesn't work]

@edupampero post a screenshot of your tactics screen along with your goal of how you want your club to play in the tactics section of this forum.

[Getting 4-3-3 Wide to work]

12 minutes ago, Freakiie said:

The wing back will look to occupy the same space as the winger, so you clump your attacking players together on that side. Of course it can work, but since you have the winger who will play out wide you don't need your back to give you a wide option high up the pitch, so it'd make more sense to have him as fullback to give you an extra option slightly deeper, or perhaps as an IWB to cover the midfield.

From my own usage, I actually like the interplay from the winger support and wingback support because if the wingback does jump up, the winger support will cover his position. I would absolutely not recommend a winger attack and wingback support though. Just wanted to see where your head was at. 

[Getting 4-3-3 Wide to work]

26 minutes ago, Freakiie said:

(Oh and a wing back behind a winger seems a tad odd)

May I ask you to expand on this? 

[FM Pre-calculated (scripted)?]

Nothing is prescipted, when you watch a highlight it literally just happened and you are watching it, that’s why you can’t make tactical adjustments or subs until the play finishes. Nothing in FM is fixed, as per SI’s comments on the subject.

[Discussion about game difficulty]

@Freakiie I feel your pain and agree, but know that you don’t have to play in a way where you know players CA’s, PA’s and attributes. This is your choice. I agree on all points though, scouting is a bit too easy in the vanilla game. 

[Discussion about game difficulty]

One thing I have wanted to do for some time was to play without attributes listed as numbers and instead colors only. Here is the inspiration, if you try it; good luck and let me know how it goes.

 

 

[4-1-4-1 DM - Boston Utd]

To be completely honest, I think you are overthinking - you are in the vanarama north, simpler is probably better. Defensively responsible progressive possession using very few instructions will simplify your life and allow you to concentrate on acquiring the right players to fit your system instead of constantly tinkering to suit your squad. Luckily for us, @Experienced Defender loves this style of play in the 4-1-2-3 and can help you set it up. In the meantime, if you wish to play this way, I would up the tempo to at least balanced and remove run at defense and narrow  from the in possession instructions. In the interest of clarity, I am referring to your non counter attacking tactic, it will still behoove you to keep 2 different tactics with the same formation.

[4-1-4-1 DM - Boston Utd]

Also, you are committed to a counter attacking tactic, but Boston Utd (I may be wrong here but I think) is a strong team for their division when you start the game, so many teams will try to play defensive counter attacking football vs you. This will make your team perform worse against the weaker/mid table teams in your division. You should have 2 tactics for the same formation ready to go - 1 for progressive possession and 1 for counter attacking. Good luck to everything and have fun in the English lower leagues, my favorite spot to play.

[Wing back help]

@prigrajf  First, it would benefit you greatly to drastically reduce the number of instructions you are using in all 3 categories. You are asking your players to do many things, some of which even conflict with one another. Get this down to a few instructions immediately so you know what your base tactic without instructions plays with your current players. 

One of the issues you may have is that you are set to defend narrower.. if you were a wingback, and your coach told you that you had to defend narrower, wouldn't you think that the zone you are defending is in the box near the net and not out wide? You are telling your players not to engage out wide and let the other team send crosses in so you can defeat them in the air. Will this instruction definitely solve your problem? I am not sure, you can let us know if removing most of your instructions as well as defend narrower will improve the behavior of your wing back. 

 

It would also really help the people on this site if you took a screenshot of your players roles as well, as in the main tactic screen. Hopefully we can help get this problem solved for you.

[Tatical help]

When your team is not performing well, does it seem like your team is constantly trying to play in extremely condensed spaces? To me, it seems like a couple of your players will be standing on top of one another in an attack, most notably the IWB-D/DLP-S on the left side, as well as the IF-S and CM-A.. your IWB-D on the left will run up and stand near where the DLP-S will be which will cause congestion and won’t allow you to exploit space left by the defense - 1 pressing player could conceivably apply pressure to two players which makes the defense’s job very easy. Also there is little variance in your attacks do to this, the first and simplest thing would be to swap the two CM roles if you are hellbent on keeping them. Also, you use pass into space but both of your wings want to come inside and your striker likes to sit deep so where is this space that you’re passing into? 

Also, do you give up goals on the counter often? The FB-A and CM-A on the same side is dangerous and is only mitigated by the DM, another reason to flop the CM roles.  In fact, the DM is on support duty so there is a chance you could be countered and only have your 2 CD’s back. Scary thought. 

I hope this helps and thanks for reading.

 

edit - think about it like this.. what would YOU do to defend your tactic? Once you see how your making the defense’s job easy, I think it will make more sense.