Outsider23
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Posts posted by Outsider23
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By all means look for bargain permanent transfers, just don't get your hopes up. I took Dresden from the third tier to the Bundesliga and I was surprised by the players who turned their noses up at joining my team. The thing is, we all know that, as the human player, you are a pretty good bet to stay up, but as far as all the NPCs are concerned, you're booking an express ticket straight back to the second tier. Put simply, no one, probably not even your own board, will have even the slightest bit of faith in you.
It will take a while for your reputation to catch up with your performance and in the meantime you should, in my opinion, focus heavily on high quality loanees. It does cause a little chaos and uncertainty in your squad and the knowledge that your best players, the ones you rely on, aren't really your players and never will be can hurt a bit, but it is the surest path to long term stability.
In my Dresden save I was wary of relying on loanees, I was tired of being bled dry by the big clubs, tired of developing players for them to sell for big fees, but looking back I should have relied more on loans. I made some excellent permanent signings, but I made bad ones too and I didn't have the resources to correct my mistakes. One season, I spent big on upgrading my defense, only for my expensive new signings to flop horribly. Let's just say that in my current save I plan to take things a little slower and take full advantage of the flexibility the loan market can offer.
Scouting players who are currently out on loan at other clubs is a good strategy. More generally you should look for talented players over the age of 19 who are making few or no appearances for their club. If the player is based in a foreign club it might be a good idea to make sure they have good adaptability as they won't have time to settle.
Signing cheap players can be good, but just try to exercise a little restraint otherwise you can end up with a lot of deadwood .
Don't be seduced by expensive signings with (allegedly) high potential ability either, you don't have the luxury of buying lottery tickets. Don't sign anyone permanently unless they are a clear upgrade on a player in your squad.
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9 hours ago, CARRERA said:
You are definitely on the right track by increasing the mentality, tempo and passing directness (as you wrote in your opening post).
What are your observations on those adjustments tho?
What I would do in addition is to have more players attack from different angles. There is no reason for being overly conservative if the opposition is just staying back and defend. Having overall more direct runs will open up space for a pass or for other players to utilize that space.
I frequently lower the tempo even further and it usually improves things a lot. It gives more time for my players to move off the ball and in many cases it draws opposing players further out of position, though sometimes it will lead to frustrating moments such as players dwelling on the ball in the opposition box. I find it also increases pass completion which is good for my team since keeping the ball is our main form of defense. Generally, if the other team is athletic and aggressive I can't lower the tempo because it results in stagnation and losing the ball more frequently and if the team is much more athletic I may even have to raise it, but thankfully this is a rare occurrence in the second division.
I often kick the mentality up to positive when my team is dominating possession, but not creating much, but I find it helps a lot more on the defensive side of things. On cautious and even balanced mentalities my players are too passive in their attempts to pressure the opposition, especially out wide. I prefer conceding a few more free kicks than watching my players get passed around as if they were plastic cones.
I hardly ever change directness. I don't see any point in lowering it as I feel like it would put too much strain on the attacking movement as well as the decision making of my players. I would increase the directness more frequently, but I feel I don't have the right players for this style, especially since my main striker is a crafty, but slow veteran. Sometimes though, when I increase width I also increase the directness as a way of encouraging bigger switches out to the flanks.
Of course, if I start the game and everything is working perfectly I just sit back and enjoy the ride.
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The only playing instruction I have on by default is "stay wider" for my full backs.
I adjust mentality and tempo depending on how the game is going.
Christian Rodriguez has been my best player by far this season. He can also play in central midfield, but he seems less influential there.
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I'm in my first season as manager of Malaga in the Spanish Second Division and the promotion push is going very well. At the start of the season I devised a short passing 4-2-3-1 based around the idea of harnessing the power of a wide triangle to drag opposing players out of position and open up space for my CAM and my overlapping fullback. One of my motivations in choosing this style of play was to compensate for a horribly imbalanced squad, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked with just a few tweaks and, interestingly enough, it seems to dominate other 4-2-3-1 possession systems which are very common in the league. Anyway, with the system creating tons of chances as well as being reasonably solid defensively we started to dominate, the board loves me, the players love me, but there is a problem.
I have lost four times this season and three of those losses have come at the hands of teams playing a low block with two banks of four. It doesn't matter whether it is a 4-4-2, a 4-4-1-1 or a 4-1-4-1, my offense, which ordinarily is the best in the league, just seems to shut down. We have trouble progressing the ball and mainly seem limited to low quality crosses as far as chances are concerned. I am genuinely worried that if the AI "figures out" how much I struggle against these systems and every team lines up that way against us, it could jeopardize our promotion chances.
In the latest game I tried out some tactical changes. I switched to a 4-3-3, increased the directness and went extremely wide. They were defending narrowly and I wanted to force them to move around more. The changes created an improvement, but it wasn't enough. We bent their 4-1-4-1, but we could not break it and then lost 1-0 to a set piece goal. In theory my team had been superior, we had notably higher XG after all, but the trouble is that my squad is garbage and cannot win without a flood of high quality chances.
Are there any tactical changes that would make it easier to play against two banks of four?
Additionally, despite my limited resources, I am capable of bringing in a couple of loanees during the January window. Since the ultrawide 4-3-3 seemed to work the best I could look for players who suit that system more, perhaps a highly technical DLP and a pacy striker or maybe a giant target man. What do you guys think?
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I've generally had pretty bad luck with youth intakes. It seems like every time December rolls around I check my inbox and see a giant wall of yellow text and immediately know that the HOYD is telling me that this group of players is poor and that I shouldn't expect much.
I was bracing myself for something similar in my latest save, but the preview is really good, in fact, it's the best I've ever seen, but I'm not posting about it to brag. I'm a bit worried actually. We've all seen five star prospects turn into two star fringe players and bitter experience has taught me that, in this game, you should never count your chickens before they've hatched. What I'm wondering is: should I get my hopes up? Am I risking Disappointment?
How wrong can the HOYD be in these previews? Also, I am in my first season in the Spanish second tier so the squad is bad, does that mean that this latest generation is only "golden" compared to the scrubs I have currently? Finally: can other teams poach them before the intake happens?
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I started a new save recently and decided to focus on scouting Poland early on and recruiting cheap youth prospects there, but my club began with very low nation knowledge of Poland so that scouting there is painfully slow and difficult. I decided to work around this problem by hiring a performance analyst who had 100% knowledge of Poland, but now that he has arrived my club's knowledge of the country seems unaffected.
I swear this strategy has worked in the past and that even staff members like physios can contribute to the scouting knowledge level of a country. Have I made a mistake or do I just need to wait for the game to update my club's knowledge?
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I've only tried doing it a couple of times mostly just to see how it works.
I'm usually afraid to do it based on the logic that if I ask a club about a player and they are unwilling to sell it just gives them an opportunity to stall and maybe even offer the player a new contract while I'm waiting to hear back. Am I wrong to see making enquiries as such a risky move? If so, then when is the right time to do it?
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The shouts system is difficult to work with because it is pretty opaque and unintuitive. Using the wrong shout at the wrong time can have adverse consequences. I have even experienced moments where using the wrong shout appeared to cost me the game. Most recently my defense utterly collapsed because I told the team "no pressure" and yet despite this I have been experimenting more and more with these shouts because I want every edge possible.
I don't spam encourage as much as I did before, because it seems to have diminishing returns and it seems to have the greatest effect when your team is either losing or under great pressure.
Demand more is tricky. I have been hesitant to use it lately because I have had players earn straight red cards after I demanded more from them. It could be a coincidence perhaps, but I do think it can make your players a little too aggressive and reckless. I think you should only use this one if your players are being to timid in their attempts to win back the ball.
Calm down seems mostly to work on players who are angry or frustrated, but not much otherwise.
Praise is weird, I would only use it when you are starting to dominate xG in a tough game otherwise there is too great a risk of them becoming complacent or something else terrible..
I've had a lot of luck berating my players lately, when we are behind on xG against weaker teams, but you have to be careful about berating your players late in the game, because they may be more vulnerable psychologically then.
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I wonder if the front three are incredibly effective at disrupting opponents who like to try and maintain possession in central areas.
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It's when you sell your worst players to your close rivals, thereby weakening them while enriching yourself.
I did it quite frequently in my previous save; Everton was particularly susceptible (not surprising). I'm in the Bundesliga this time so I think this time I'm gonna see if Schalke will take the bait.
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There have been a few times lately where referees have halted promising counterattacks of mine for offside calls on opposing attackers. It is quite frustrating and even downright insulting to have a potentially excellent chance taken away from me in exchange for a useless free kick.
It is somewhat rare, but referees to play advantage on offside calls in real life and sometimes it is crucial.
Admittedly this is a small issue that does not detract much from my enjoyment of the game, but it would be nice to see this feature added in the future.
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I said this in an old thread, but it could be an arsonist firefighter situation where a defender who causes a lot of problems and solves most but not all of them might have a higher rating than a defender who plays perfectly.
I remember in my first ever save, one of my centerbacks was essentially farming key tackles and key headers. He'd give the ball straight to an opposing midfielder in a dangerous area and then play the hero. Yes, he would succeed in putting out the fires he started 8 times out of 10, but the other two cases would result in clear cut chances for the opposition. To add insult to injuries the media constantly asked me questions framed around his excellent form and superb performances and because of the logic of the game I couldn't say "that idiot is losing us games singlehandedly", but had to praise him instead.
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I just played a match against RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga. My team was up 2-0 late in the second half and Leipzig were pushing hard to try and get a result, but when I checked the substitutions they made I noticed they had brought on a centerback for some bizarre reason and it was this guy.
It's mindblowing, I mean he isn't even fit and the guy he replaced wasn't injured and wasn't playing that badly (a 6.4 rating, but many of his teammates were doing much worse). I don't even know why Leipzig have him in the squad. I suppose the AI is confused by how weird of a player he is. Maybe they felt they needed his dribbling up front but then defaulted to playing him in his natural position or maybe the AI thought that replacing a center back who can't contribute offensively with one who can do so in theory is an attacking move.
Either way, even though my team won, I was very disappointed that we failed to exploit this guys defensive weaknesses.
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Team cohesion has long been a problem area for my team. When you rise from the third tier to the Bundesliga you find that star players are suddenly no longer fit to warm the bench and must be replaced and you are forced to rely on loan players from big clubs who cannot, in most cases, be signed permanently. All this is to say that there has been quite a bit of squad churn in recent seasons. I have been trying to rectify this situation and build around a core of talented, young players and am trying to avoid being so trigger happy with incoming and outgoing transfers.
The season isn't going particularly well and I am desperate for team cohesion to increase, but, instead, it somehow decreased significantly. I have been running team bonding and match practice every week and there have been no leaving or arriving players. The explanation seems to be that the previously isolated players from my squad joined secondary social groups and, in the process, some how managed to drag a few players out of the core group, so that my team is more evenly divided into cliques. This is kind of mind blowing for me since I always assumed that more time playing together and more team bonding sessions could only ever improve things, but apparently I was better off with those 3 or 4 players being completely isolated.
As with a lot of other aspects of this game my understanding is a bit muddy. Am I correct in assuming that the best way to build team cohesion is to have as many influential players as possible and to have as many people as possible in the core social group and if so how do I accomplish that? Is there some way to consolidate these social groups other than waiting?
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It could be agility.
In my current FM 21 save my old, injury plagued keeper lost a bit of agility and started to perform really badly, getting beaten from distance constantly and letting in soft near post goals. I replaced him with some 17 year old keeper I had recruited on a whim, which turned out to be a good decision because the young man is a godlike shot stopper by comparison. His reflexes attribute was only one better, but the key seems to be that his agility is 16 compared to the older keeper's 11. Try recruiting a keeper with good agility as well as reflexes
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The only thing that really sticks out is the counter press. Are you having trouble with your defensive transition?
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It is definitely the high line of engagement. The match engine AI seems to be ridiculously conservative when playing out from the back. Even players unsuited to a high press can panic talented ball playing defenders into quick clearances, particularly from goal kicks.
On the other hand if you manage to recruit a goal keeper with excellent distribution you can turn the monster into a joke. It is hard to exaggerate how satisfying and cathartic it is to watch your keeper easily bypass the front line of the stupid 4-2-3-1 gegenpress and then watch the opposition panic.
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So sometimes when you ask agent's about the availability of their clients they will say yes or no and give a reason like "he is excited to work with such a talented group of players" or "he would need you to improve your standing in the league."
In the past I never paid too much attention to this, since there were always tons of players who wanted to join my team, but recruitment has been very difficult in my current save. We won a double promotion from the 3. liga to the Bundesliga, but our reputation hasn't caught up yet and so as a result hardly any talented young players are even interested in joining.
I might just barely survive relegation this season, but my recruitment has to be a lot better regardless and so I'm wondering if there are simple ways to make my team more desirable or to zero in quickly on players who are interested? For example, do they take the quality of training facilities into account, do they recognize a history of successfully developing young talent, is it easier to recruit players of your nationality and so on?
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Damn Valencia you could have just said no instead of giving me the most absurd f**k off counter offer I have ever seen.
Honestly, I'd like to think if I had accepted this the board would have just had me executed or something.
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Ok, thanks for the replies so far and since people are asking I will provide screens of my tactics and the two target men I currently have available.
I admit that I have been mainly focused on tightening up the defense as much as I can, but chance creation has been very disappointing. I have fiddled with directness and tempo, but increasing them doesn't seem to effect the behavior of my target men. As an aside, does anyone know if pass into space increases the frequency of flick ons?
These players aren't the greatest I know, but since my team has a poor reputation and little money, there really aren't alternatives until next season, so I have to find a way to make them work.
I have given the majority of the minutes to Tare so far, on account of his superior heading, anticipation and balance, though his bravery, off the ball and teamwork attributes are problems.
To sum up in my system the target man is supposed to:
1. provide a safe outlet when we have trouble playing out from the back.
2. score headed goals from crosses
3. dominate aerially on both attacking and defending set pieces.
4. provide service to strike partner via flick ons.
5. hold up the ball and lay it off to onrushing midfielders.
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I'm battling bravely against relegation in the Bundesliga, running a 3-5-2 custom counterattacking system with a target man and a poacher/advanced forward up front. The trouble I'm having is that, aside from on set pieces, the target man doesn't seem to be all that useful. I have two players sharing playing time in that role and, simply put, they don't do target man things. They aren't winning or even really attempting aerial challenges all that often and I don't think I've seen either of them hold up the ball.
The weird thing is that their teammates don't ever seem to play high balls towards them, preferring either to play to their feet or, even more bizarrely, attempt balls in behind that they have no hope of catching up to. My main guy always drops deeper when he receives the ball, but I can't tell whether he is being forced deeper by the defender or if it is by choice. Either way it is annoying to see him play this way because he has excellent heading, but mediocre first touch and passing. Also putting him on a support duty, contrary to the description, does not seem to increase the frequency of flick ons, but rather turns him into an especially bad midfielder.
Possibly it is a match engine issue, possibly my players are just bad, but maybe there are subtleties to the target man role that I have failed to grasp. What do you guys think? Should I just use deep lying forwards instead?
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I recently won a double promotion with Dynamo Dresden and am having a bit of a nightmare in the Bundesliga. To make matters worse I recently noticed that one of my key players, who had been out with injury, has just lost 3 stamina. This is crazy because he's only been out for a few weeks; I've never seen this happen before.
I know about rehab, but it never seemed to do much good in the past. I'm wondering if there is a way to make rehab more effective and whether it is handled by physios or fitness coaches.
If I can't get him back up to at least 8 stamina I have to get rid of him, which will be very difficult to do considering he just signed a fat new contract.
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I think that anticipation is the most important attribute when it comes to evading challenges.
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I'm managing Dynamo Dresden and it's been going well so far. Upon promotion to the 2. Liga the board announced the creation of Dynamo Dresden II, which is nice because one of my great struggles in the 3. Liga was keeping my players fit, especially when they were returning from injuries. Anyway, a few days later, I got an email relating to expiring contracts which includes the advice that I give new contracts to a bunch of crappy players in order to help the affiliate (Dresden II).
What exactly do they mean by this? Do they just want me to stock the 2nd team with enough players so that it can function or are they talking about the possibility of promotion? Is it possible to get Dresden II playing in the 3. Liga like Bayern II?
I'll need all the payroll breathing room I can get to build the strongest possible squad to survive the 2. Liga, so I don't want to spend extra money if I don't have to.
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Need advice on how to break down two banks of four.
in Tactics, Training & Strategies Discussion
Posted
Hard to say, we played against a 4-1-4-1 today, but they pressed high and wide instead of sitting in a low block so we beat them pretty easily. Maybe the two banks of four was a bit of a red herring, perhaps I just need to build my squad in such a way that I have more direct options to punish passive teams. In the meantime, I suppose I just have to suffer against those 4-4-1-1 route one types, but we're still on track to go up as champions.