stockwellpete

OK. I think things like this might need thinking about because he is playing in goal - I am not playing him at left back, or anywhere else. I don't think there would be an issue in real life. Just as I had another unhappy manager complaining that a midfielder was playing ten yards further forward than expected as a ball-winning player. In reality, managers want the player playing first and foremost. Whether he is sitting in a defensive or central midfield slot is really a secondary consideration - it is the playing experience that is important. If a loanee is not getting matches when he has been sent with the expectation of regular starts, or if he is being played completely out of position then I could understand it.

Ok. You should have it now. It is called "Dylan Berry bug". I have a later save as well if you need it.

No, I don't think I was (90% sure anyway). Just GK De because you can see his star rating is slightly higher for that role at that time. Plus I defend close to the penalty area, in any case. He has only missed a couple of games all season and needs just one more clean sheet to set a league record. (see first screenshot) I had another phone call from an irate Malky Mackay about it and it is now showing as a "Failed" promise on that specific page (see second screenshot).

I am 500+ hours into the game now - and while I consider it to be a very interesting football simulation in many respects, I find the way that fatigue is currently configured to be really frustrating. Sometimes it means that I stop playing for a few days because I get fed up with continually having to manage players' fitness levels individually by going into "Training-Development-Rest-2 days" for each player who is supposedly "exhausted" after a match. Of course, managing the stamina levels of your players should be an important part of team preparation, but at the moment when a club is playing twice a week for more than just a week, it becomes the all-consuming consideration to the detriment of other aspects of the game. I feel that a lot of tactical nuance is being lost because of this overwhelming pre-occupation with getting your players physically fit enough to get them through the next 90 minutes. My main point is that players do not generally get "exhausted" playing football. I stand on the touchline during a game and my assistant tells me that so-and-so is looking "exhausted" and we should bring him off. No, he isn't. Exhausted is when a marathon runner collapses 5km from the finish line on a very hot day. Footballers do get tired though - and it means that they start to adopt coping strategies to get themselves through to the end of a game (e.g. reducing the amount of high intensity running that they do), which may mean that they are implementing the original gameplan (especially if it was a pressing gameplan) less effectively than they were at the start. The manager then has a judgement to make. Can this "tired" player still impact the game in a positive way for us that mitigates his gradually declining work rate, or should I make a change? At the moment, centre backs seem to get more tired than anybody else in the game. Why this should be is a complete mystery to me. I know it is the same for the AI team, but that is really missing the point. Central defenders do not generally run quite as far as players in other positions on the field - and they generally do not do as much high intensity running either. Yet in FM23 they are often the first players to reach "fair" then "poor" stamina. Fit central defenders playing just once a week should have no stamina concerns at all. Only if they were playing twice a week for an extended period should fatigue become an issue. For wing backs, midfielders and strikers, the situation is a bit different as they run further in a match and do more high intensity running than defenders, maybe 20-25% more in some cases. These players are much more in need of substitution and squad rotation. I am currently playing as St Albans City and we are now in the Vanarama National League. We are still part-time and train just twice a week. Sometimes we have a match on Saturday and then another one on Tuesday, without there being a training session in-between. I have my own "house-rule" now that stops me from using the "Rest" option for players unless I am specifically excusing them from a training session. I checked the stamina levels of both teams on the last occasion that I had a Tuesday match after one on the previous Saturday. I had rotated my squad as much as possible, but after just 30 minutes four of my players were already on "fair" stamina. I thought this was unrealistic, but then I checked my opponents and they had 6 players at either "fair" or "poor". So before half-time, half of their side were either "exhausted", or approaching exhaustion. Clearly, this is ludicrous. I appreciate that all these different types of strategy games (sports, historical, whatever) sit on a continuum with "game" at one end and "simulation" at the other. And sometimes compromises with "reality" have to be made in order to enhance gameplay. Maybe this is what is happening here? Somewhere else (maybe on the Steam forum), someone wrote that the gegenpress tactic was found to be too powerful, so stamina levels then took a hit to balance the game. I have no idea if this is true or not. If it is, then I think that it is always a mistake to correct one error with another one.

Top pedantry for this one . . . In the " Monthly Board Performance Review" when you get an "A" "Untouchable" rating it says . . . "To summarise, the board feel you are doing an unbelievable job and you are clearly the right manager for the job." Nothing wrong except you have used the word "job" twice in the same sentence. Better is . . . "To summarise, the board feel you are doing an unbelievable job and you are clearly the right manager for our club."

The 3rd Round Draw appeared OK in my latest game. I am now wondering if I just missed it on the occasion I have reported to you. The button for the draw is tucked right in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and it is very small.

And then I got this screen a short while after. Again I have the save game file, if required.

Ahem . . . this is going so well. I have set it so I can take short corners on the right hand side of the pitch. The first one saw the player receiving the ball short immediately play it against the defender who was out there and we won another corner (which was then crossed into the middle straight away); and with the second one, the player receiving it short tried to pass it back to the corner kicker and it went out for a goal kick! Ha-ha-ha.

OK. But when they appeared in my match day squad, I still had enough players to fill the subs bench without using them. And I had not specifically promoted anyone from the U18's for that match either, even though 2 players had international call-ups. So I didn't end up using them at all. It is not a problem them being in the game for the AI or unloaded leagues - I shall just not be using them if I can help it. I tend to bulk out my squads anyway with players who I describe as "runners". These may be 2, or 1.5, star utility players who can fill gaps for me, particularly when I have a period of fixture congestion. Often, I will have one on the subs bench, but occasionally I will start them in a match against weaker opposition. The supporters are not happy when I sign these sort of players, but then they don't seem to understand squad rotation/squad depth (nor do some of the players).

I have to say that I am not convinced that they are really needed in the game. If you have an injury crisis then you need to promote players from your other squads, or maybe go into the transfer market at the next opportunity. That is what would happen in real life. I think I will add "ghost" players to my house rules and not avail myself of them. Part of the challenge of the game should be to keep your squad at a decent size and to hold some money back in case of an emergency.

That sounds a good one. I think I shall add that to my repertoire in future. I have never watched a whole game. I must try it soon - maybe the frequency of my players running offside like brain-dead zombies will reduce. lol

Ok, thanks. I am relatively new to FM. So I cannot play them unless I offer them a contract then?

I had two players who I never have heard of available for selection yesterday. I had enough players to fill up my subs bench without them as well. Is this normal? Teams will sometimes not name a full roster of substitutes in competitive matches in real life presumably without penalty, Jed Doyle is the other ghost player. What happens if I play them? Do they just disappear before the next match if another player becomes available? .

Ah, I have found it now. I thought perhaps the lack of replies meant I had missed it. Be interesting now to see what proportion of corners are taken short. And whether the defending team sends out two players to deal with it. If they just send one then it will be much easier to get a cross in.

When I am scheduled 2 games in a week, I will often individually "Rest" my players for 2-3 days to restore their fitness levels. This is normally OK, but I am currently in charge of a semi-professional club that only trains twice a week. A few times I have had a match on a Saturday followed by a match on a Tuesday, without any training sessions scheduled in-between. Yet I can still "Rest" my players. This seems like a possible exploit to me and I now have my own house rule where I will only use the "Rest" option if it means the players concerned will miss a day's training sessions. Normally, part-time players would be at work, not resting.

I watch Comprehensive Highlights. Usually they are very exciting matches. Biggest drawback with them is the number of sequences that end with an offside decision. Two possible remedies - either reduce the number of such sequences shown or enable referees to play advantage when the defending team has clearly won possession outside of the penalty area. Anything inside the penalty area would still have to be given as a free kick.

I am still puzzling over this issue. I have been looking at the CIES Football Observatory Monthly Report n°68 for October 2021, which I have found online after a random search. It gives figures for 2020 and 2020/21 for average distances covered during a match for 5 categories of position in some of the best leagues in Europe, including the English Premiership . . . Centre back - 9222m Full Back - 9888m Midfielder - 10611m Winger - 10253m Forward - 9945m Separate figures are also given for high intensity running and sprints here . . . Monthly Report 68 (football-observatory.com) Now I am not completely happy with these 5 categories. For instance, where do wing-backs fit into this classification? I regard them as auxiliary midfielders and quite different from full backs, particularly at the elite level of the sport. Also, what is exactly meant by wingers these days - and how are they so different from inside forwards? So there are some grey areas for me here. Nevertheless, when I compare these numbers with numbers taken from the game for my part-time Vanarama South outfit (last season) then there seems to be a significant mismatch for full backs and wingers. The other positions seem to reasonably similar, although it should be noted that my players are semi-professional and are playing at a much lower level of football. Towards the end of last season, I took these statistics from my team/tactic selection screen (average over3 matches) . . . Centre Backs - 9700 and 9300 Full Backs - 11800 and 13700 Midfielders - 10000 and 10400 Wingers - 11900 and 13800 Forwards - 9900 and 1080 I don't know if statistics are kept for the non-league divisions, or whether individual clubs have commissioned their own studies (I expect it is quite expensive to do), but my guess is that there is a gradual drop off in overall distances covered and high intensity running as you move down through the pyramid system. How does the game deal with this issue? Does it assume the running statistics are similar for all levels in the game and not differentiate at all? Or is there some sort of taper in operation? I haven't played the game enough at Premier League level to track these sort of statistics for the elite clubs yet. If you are managing an elite club, what are your running statistics for the various categories of position telling you?

Thanks. I have found that page in FM23 and can now proudly say that one of my forwards is the worst one in the whole division for getting caught offside (with an average of 3.54 times a match). Seeing that I sometimes play him on the left-wing he has really excelled himself. My other main forward is 9th worst in the whole division, so I think I can conclude that both of them need to develop the player trait that deals with beating the offside trap. As you say, the data is for only the division's top 20 players, but is better than nothing.

Anyone?

But it seems you cannot find out how many times an individual player is given offside in a match, short of watching all of it. That would be helpful to know. Maybe there should be separate stats for fouls and offsides?

Yes, I am not clear if an older player's traits can still be developed if you just ignore the negativity of the coaches. With younger players the coach sometimes says it is not a good idea to develop a particular trait, but I go ahead anyway and sometimes get a positive result.