[What does all the data mean...?]

Those results were a fluke by the looks of things. I've just lost 1-0 to Man City - which I expected to lose - with them having over 60% possession and 25 shots, 10 on target to my 1 shot off target.

Then I scraped a 2-1 and just played a second from bottom Parma and been run ragged by a team full of Lionel Messis and Van Dijks who couldn't be stopped and couldn't be beaten.

Thanks for all the attempts at help, but I'm done with this. It's not fun in any way 

[What does all the data mean...?]

I'll take that. We were the much better side for the first time (and Leão's goal was not offside ).

[What does all the data mean...?]

Thanks for the responses. I actually sat and watched the first 10 minutes of a match, and noticed a few things that needed changing.

Although it sounds obvious to select 'full match' now it's not something I'd considered before - I always watch the Comprehensive Highlights (one below full match). The one time I mentioned not watching was because I was completely fed up and couldn't watch.

So, my players were just tapping it to each other (93% possession in the first 10 minutes) - which I know is what I'd instructed them to do, I just didn't see the bigger picture. I have some very good passers in my side, >= 16 for passing, technique, and vision, which seemed to be wasted.

I also noticed that, although Theo Hernandez bombing down the wing was great when watching Comprehensive Highlights, he was actually constantly doing it, having cross attempts blocked at the by-line, and leaving a massive hole in defence.

Also, despite having four really good attacking players, not much was happening. The ball would go to one of them, they'd run at a defender and lose it or play it backwards.

So the changes I made were: slightly more direct passing, standard tempo and removed work the ball into the box. Because my striker isn't great in the air, he's more of a runner with and without the ball, and a finisher, I changed to lower crosses.

I also left the lines on standard and the mentality as balanced. If I'm up against it I drop a midfielder into DM and go to cautious. I'm looking into whether playing narrow defensively is helping or is a fluke, as most through-ball attempts have been intercepted in the last three games.

I also changed DL and DR to wing-back support, AML to inverted winger support, AM to Advanced Playmaker Attack and AMR to Inverted winger attack. In terms of player mentalities I'm now at 3 defence, 4 support, and 3 attack.

My last three results:

I don't know whether those results are a fluke - we are coming off the back of two draws and two losses - but beating Napoli and Lazio like that felt good. Results aside, it feels like they're playing well, so I can take getting beaten by a good side as long as my team play well.

[What does all the data mean...?]

I hadn't taken into account the change in mentality, which is something I often do.

I have two tendencies, which might be bad for all I know:

1. Against a better team, I start with cautious mentality, higher temp and shorter passing, then if I start bright I move up to balanced and then positive (sometimes right to positive)

1. Against a lesser team, I start positive, and then up to attacking.

My defenders at the moment are fairly quick for pace and acceleration one is 14 and 15 and the other 12 and 13. So not lightning quick, but quick enough. I still have Theo Hernandez who is attacking and i often leave space on my left, which I know about and am fine with. My right back is Calabria on FB Support.

I do see the Team Report say a lot of opposition attacks come through the middle, so that's got me wondering about some better marking / closing down there.

I don't particularly like losing - who does? - but I can accept a loss when it's deserved, but when it feels like I'm handing the win I get frustrated and bored.

In real life, I support Wolves but don't watch too much English football. My teams are Milan and Atletico Madrid, although (even though it's hard to admit as a Milan fan) I like watching Inter at the moment - but their 3-5-2 (or 5-3-2) wouldn't really suit the players I have at the moment.

This is pretty much my starting 11 at the moment.

[What does all the data mean...?]

Thanks. I'll have a look at the videos. It just feels as though that data is there for a reason, I just have no idea what the reason is

I've just read something about having a match plan ready for close games after 75 minutes for example and dropping defensive - my problem might be watching the game. If it's close I might set to defensive and skip to commentary only, because I can't bare sitting and watching constant highlights of them attacking.

My problem really is that I don't have a a real clue what's going on, I'm just clicking and hoping.

If I'm Milan and playing Spezia for example, I know I can play attacking, put people on attack duties, work into the box and specifically mark their one decent player. That's good enough for a win by a couple of goals because my players are so much better.

When I then come up against Inter or Juventus (or even Atalanta or Sassuolo at the moment!) I have no idea. There must be something in the highlights or the data that is suggesting a good way of countering them or a decent way to defend against them. I've just played Juventus - I left it to run without watching - and managed a 0-0 but no shots at their goal and 35% possession. The defence and keeper must have played incredibly well, but no shots?

What I'm looking for is something that makes me believe what I'm doing is for a reason, rather than a 'huh, I'll try this' kind of approach, even if it doesn't work all the time. If I look at my tactics and I'm playing a high line - I couldn't say why.

I've been looking through the Team Report and it says that 22 of 40 assists have come from through balls in the last 50 games (or similar) and then it says I should have a higher line because we have conceded 1 goal from outside the area. What are you supposed to do with that?

[Change of tactic instruction and training]

Thanks. I thought I'd test it out, so saved just before.

We drew 1-1 with my changes, lost 2-0 without them. Tried a third time and went on holiday: won 3-0.

This game is so annoying.

[What does all the data mean...?]

I was wondering if anybody could help me. It's getting to the point where I can barely play anymore because it's getting soooo boring, and I suspect it's this massive amount of data everybody talks about.

I'm playing as Milan, in my second season - the first season was OK; I set pretty much every responsibility to assistant manager.

Second season I've taken over some more of the responsibilities. I've taken over training (using downloaded schedules, and some individual training), which seems to be going well, as plenty of players are improving quite a lot. I've also taken over the opposition instructions and contract negotiations. When I watch the highlights the players seem better connected to each other, moving the ball around quickly etc.

Yet I've never, not once, beaten a bigger side than me. I've only managed to hold onto a 1-0 once. Every other time there's an equaliser in the last 20 minutes.

When I watch the Extended or Comprehensive highlights it's probably 80% the opposition with the ball - this is where I'm getting so fed up. Every time a highlight starts and I see it's the opposition again I just feel like switching off.

When we have the ball it's normally one of my players running into the opposition, losing the ball and back they come again.

My xG is normally close to the oppositions, occasionally quite a way above. We're having lots of shots, but a low percentage are scored. My defence seems OK, but we're constantly getting beaten by through balls.

My tactics are hardly out there: I play 4-2-3-1, sometimes I drop the AM to a DM if we're playing a team with lots of players up front. The only changes I've made are: shorter passing, higher tempo, distribute to CB, tight marking, prevent GK short kick. Sometimes I play a low front line, standard defensive line, regroup and counter, sometimes I play both high lines and pressing depending.

I suspect my problems are the data - I have absolutely no idea what any of it means.

I looked today and most of my key passes are from Sandro Tonali - well, he's a good player, what's the point?

Most of my goals are from around the penalty spot. OK, don't know what to do with that.

I'm being told to play a high line to stop shots from outside, yet I concede from through balls...

My team report lists lack of depth outside the first team, so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing well or poorly and have no idea where to look to find out - do I need to watch the full 90 minutes of every game? Up to this point I mainly click stuff and see whether I score, sometimes I make a semi-educated guess such as focusing down the right if their left-back is crap.

I've looked for some information, but I end up reading things such as "if you have high xG and low goals, you need to make your strikers more clinical" which is like saying "to drive a car, get in and drive".

Can anybody help, either with some information suggestions, or decent articles?

 

Thanks.

[The Ultimate Feature Request Compilation]

Something that I find annoying at times is that a player scoring a goal gets a rating bump automatically.

I know sometimes this happens in real life, but I had a guy on 6.3 until the 80th minute when he scored a tap-in (created by a brilliant left wing-back) and his rating went up to 7.5.

His pass completion was something like 60% and his shots on target were 1 from 3.

Then if you look at the recent Marine v Tottenham match, Marine's centre-back played out his skin and got man of the match despite losing 5-0.

[Change of tactic instruction and training]

Hi all,

I was wondering if changing a tactical instruction requires any days in between to train for it.

As an example: I've been playing a 4-2-3-1 (positive against "lesser" teams and cautious against the big guys), standard passing with standard tempo for quite a while and doing OK.

The day before a match I see that the opposition report says they are poor at tackling, workrate and pace, but good at aerial. My thought was to change to shorter passing, high tempo and wider with low crosses. My thought process was to pull them out wider, pass quickly around them and tire them out.

I was wondering if changing something like that just "happens" or whether you need to set it in tactics for a few days so it can be trained - or even if there is a "train for this" option - or maybe the players won'r really listen anyway because they're used to a system by now.

I delegate all of my training to my assistant too.

I'm going to play the game later, so I'll see how I get on anyway.