steve.battisti

These are awesome tips, thank you!

So, I have a required goal to help fix the financial damage at the club. Realistically, what I’d expected of the manager in cases like this? I’m deep in non league and the club is massively in debt. Players have no transfer value, so I can’t sell valuable players to help, and even if I had $0 wage budget it wouldn’t solve their problems. any ideas?

Hey, I've been taking some notes and putting together a guide for people who like to play lower-league saves. Which forum would/should I post something like that in? Thanks!

Hi all. I'm curious as to what everyone thinks about opposition instructions in non-league? For example, I'll get info from the assistant manager suggesting I mark this person tightly or trigger a press on that person. Often I just do it, but I'm also at the 10th tier of English football, so my assistant manager is, predictably, not all that great. He's not actually TERRIBLE, probably great for this level. But in general, how much would you accept the assistant manager's recommendations. I also wonder, although he never recommends it, is it a good idea to show their leading scorer onto his weaker foot? Most players at this level are heavily one-footed. I also know that, tactically, at my level, I want to keep the game as simple as possible for my players. So, what do you think? Should I generally accept the manager's recommendations? (I confess, I typically don't accept his other instructions about things like playing down the left, or adding more defend duties, or whatever. It's just these opposition instructions I'm curious about right now.)

I never lose interest in starting way at the bottom. Download a database and start in the 10th tier of English football!

Not sure if this is a common surname in Zimbabwe, but man I had to do a double-take when I saw this article.

More non-league fun. Managing 10th tier Bovey Tracey, and in my first season had a transfer budget of £0 (obviously), and a wage budget of £690 p/w. I joined them midseason in 18th place and finished in second, but missed the promotion in the playoffs, grr. But anyway, the board seems more determined than me to go up next season. Here's my budget. In TIER 10. I've literally never seen a transfer budget at all in Tiers 7-10, let alone almost $30k.

In FM24, how do I change the penalty or set piece takers? Sometimes I'll get a recommendation, and it will take me to the Set Pieces page, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to actually change who takes them. (I don't have a Set Piece coach.)

Yeah if you're high enough up in the leagues. I'm playing in Tier 10 in England now, no money to be made there.

The other thing I do that seems to really help: Normally during the season you will have training on Tuesday/Thursday and a match on Saturday. You can get yourself an extra practice each week by scheduling friendlies on Wednesdays. I schedule one any time I have an open Wednesday, and I use them to play anyone on my roster who isn't fully match-fit. If you're match-fit, you don't play in the friendly. If you run a lean squad, don't play your regulars. Fill it out with youth players or a few trialists. Doing this continues to build tactical familiarity AND it keeps everyone match fit, so they play their best. It's a big advantage to go into non-league games with a squad that is more match ready than the opponent.

I'm not sure I'm understanding how the recruitment focus thing works. I'm finding that if I have a recruitment focus that is very broad, like "scout for players who match any role in my tactic" it usually does find players regularly. However, every time I have created a more specific recruitment focus, like for example, specifically find me strikers that fit my tactic, I get the email saying "We're having a hard time finding players". Like, you can't find ONE player? Am I doing something wrong? Is there some trick I'm missing? Here's an example of one such recruitment focus. (I realize in this case the scouts are busy, but this happens even when this is the only recruitment focus.)

"Honestly, Luke, it sounds terrible!"

I use two super-simple training plans in semi-pro. One for preseason and one for regular season. You can easily set these up on your own in like 2 mins: Remember that in semi-pro/non-league there is very little point at all in trying to develop players. Your facilities and coaches are terrible, and the vast majority of your players will be on one-year or non-contracts, and if you get promoted very few of them will be good enough to stick around. Therefore, your training should focus heavily on the things that directly impact your match performance - you want training that focuses on building tactical familiarity and working on set pieces. Here's what I do: Preseason: The goal with your three practices per week during the preseason is simply to get your team fit for a long season. Here's how I set up my six sessions per week: Physical and Endurance, Resistance and Quickness, and Physical and Endurance. I use this schedule for every week in the preseason except for the week of the first league match, when I switch to my Regular Season regimen. Regular Season: In the regular season, you're down to 2 practices with two sessions each. Here's how I set them up: Match Practice and Overall, and then Match Tactics and Set Piece Routines. Occasionally I will swap out the Overall with something like a Team Bonding, especially early in the season when I still need to build up team cohesion. Or, if I go through a particularly rough spell, maybe a session or two focusing on offense/defense. But by and large I mostly leave it like that the whole time.

So, not to be daft, but how do you find players that fit if you can't even see what positions and roles they are experienced in? Solely trials?

Fair enough. Budget has forced my hand in that regard anyway.

This is not technically true. You CAN import training schedules into semi-pro or amateur teams. I believe they just have to be semi-pro or amateur schedules since you don't have the same number of slots available.

Having a little trouble right now. I'm in tier 9 in England, starting a new season. Scouting budget was set at £20k-ish, just enough for the scouting package for my league. No problem. This is on July 1st. On July 3, I happen to look at the scouting screen, and my scouting range is now set to "No Scouting" and my scouting budget is down to £750. I looked at my assignments and it just says that my chief scout is scouting the "scouting range". I have two other scouts I just signed who have no current assignment. And now when I look at any players we have scouted, I can't see things like roles and duties, because it says "Outside Scouting Scope". Some troubleshooting notes: There are no players or teams waiting to be assigned to a member of the scouting team. There are no shortlists that have "keep scout reports up to date" selected. I have a save from July 1st, so I can go back to before I lose the scouting budget, but I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on. Any ideas?

I'm at this point in my season again where the games are over and I'm just trying to get things set up for next season. Of course, my wage budget got cut by 1/3, and after offering some extensions and being turned down by a few, I have gaping holes in my roster. I've got like 9 players signed to contracts into next season, and no youth players capable of even making it onto the bench. Maybe a few of the others will roll over to non-contract and stick around, but my best players I can't afford to extend, and they have the dreaded "WNT" next to them anyway. So, I'm planning for life after them. At any rate, to confirm some of the things mentioned in this thread: I cannot sign players to loans until the new league season starts (in my case July 1). I can't sign any players whose contracts are expiring on June 30 until July 1, unless their team agrees to a transfer. Are those correct? And if so, the list of actions I can take before July 1st includes: Identify / shortlist players who I'd like to offer a contract on July 1 Trial and potentially sign FAs If I find a player who is with a club now, but whose contract is running out, I can offer a transfer to his team, and if accepted, I can negotiate terms with that player, potentially nabbing him before he becomes a FA. Is that pretty much it? Thanks!

Tactics >> Set Pieces >> Choose the Set Piece you want to change on the left, then click the drop-down next to "Routine".

I have found that the "r-" only works for newgens, not for other players. For example, I have custom profile pics for all of my squad only. The ones who are newgens need the "r-" to display. The ones that are NOT newgens CANNOT have the "r-" or they don't work. So, newgens get "r-", everyone else stays the same as pre-patch. Not sure if that impacts managers, as I've never tried that before.

Thanks very much. Not many sports scientists in Tier 9, so for now I'll have to deal without them. This has been a problem since day 1 with this player, so I'm inclined to think it's not heavily fatigue-related (otherwise I'd expect to see the problem get worse as he got more fatigued). As you guessed, he's probably running non-stop all game. I may just see if, the next time I upgrade the position, I can get someone with slightly higher scores in those areas. Ah well, thanks for your help!

What are the biggest factors in players getting tired in-game? I am using a wing play system, and my left winger is on attack all game long, which is expect is a lot to ask. I like my left wing, he's a solid player, but he's absolutely shattered every game with like 30 mins left. That puts me in a difficult position of having to burn a sub on him every single game. (I have a FB on attack on the opposite side, and he can make it through the whole game without a second thought.) I'm starting to look for a non-urgent replacement for him, and I'd like someone who can at least make it through a game without begging to come off. I'm assuming that the following probably factor in somehow: Stamina Natural Fitness Maybe Work Rate? The thing is, for this level (9th level of English football), his stats for those things aren't terrible. The first time I noticed it I looked at his profile, expecting to see something like "Stamina =4". See screenshot.

Got it, thanks. It was right in front of me, duh.

OK, so I think I have it. If I am using custom faces for a variety of players, some of whom are newgen, and some of whom aren't, then the rows for the newgens need "r-" and the rows that are NOT newgens do NOT need "r-". Is that correct? (This is now working for me doing it like I just mentioned, but just thought I'd confirm for anyone else dealing with this.) Thanks very much!