JEinchy

February 11, 2020

Set-pieces are strong on this year's game, but this has been the case for all versions of the ME.

My team was so unintentionally good at scoring from set-pieces, my board made "Be strong at set-pieces" a club vision requirement! Which isn't how I like to play at all, but needs must.

I wonder, though: how many people bother to use the set-piece training sessions? I usually throw in four or five a month, and I get messages during games from my ass. man about how the team is benefiting from the work being done on set-pieces. Coincidentally, the odd month where I get lazy with this is when I start leaking set-piece goals.

So if you're struggling with set-pieces, try doing some training on them and see if that helps at all. I've a feeling this is more important than the actual set-piece routine itself.

February 10, 2020

13 hours ago, Duff1903 said:

I'm using a 4-4-2 with inverted full backs, but it means I don't really have a 5th player in the attack, not sure if I should either invert a winger and include a wingback (would work down the left with Smith-Rowe and Tierney or the right with Pepe and Bellerein)

Or I could keep with the IWB and Wingers in which case what role should I use for a CM to get them more involved in the attacking phase? I've got an Asymetric tactic but it seemed to struggle against the bigger sides.

4-4-2 is a tricky shape to achieve this with because it doesn't cover the zones as well as a 4-3-3 would, but the simplest way would probably be to have one of the central midfielders go forward as an attacking player. This way, you'd have, in theory two players in the wide spaces (the two wingers), two in the half spaces (the strikers) and one in the central space (the central midfielder).

However, I would only do this against teams who are going to defend against you all day and have no interest in coming out of their deep block. Against teams who are willing to attack you, that lack of central midfield cover will hurt. In which case, inverting a winger and changing one of the IWBs to a conventional wing-back is probably your best bet. If you do that, I'd suggest changing the nearest CM to a defensive duty to cover the wing back, especially if you feel like you're getting overwhelmed down that flank.

Alternatively, you could experiment with a 4-4-2 DM system, with Guendouzi as a Segundo Volante on Support or Attack, depending on the match state. I love the SV because his movements from deep can be very dangerous, while at the same time he'll retreat into a more defensive position. It's a very demanding role but I think Guendouzi is practically made for it. In this case, your five would be the two strikers, the two wingers, and the SV.

9 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

The first thing you should do - apart from the idea of attacking with 5 players - is get rid of one-dimensionality. Not only your flanks literally mirror each other, but you even play both strikers in the same role and duty. Some variety would really be more than welcome.

As someone who often uses identical roles on both flanks and has been very successful in game, I don't know why this advice keeps getting thrown around like it's essential.

In the first place, it's less about the role and how the player interprets the role. In this case, variety is still achieved because Smith Rowe is a right-footed player on the left with good playmaking abilities while Nelson is a right-footed player on the right with good finishing and crossing. So although they're both W(s), they'll play the role differently according to their attributes and PPMs.

February 9, 2020

@Meraklija Vujevic Out of curiosity, do you use the Tackle Harder/Mark Tighter PIs for any of your players?

February 9, 2020

I'm noticing a trend where central one-on-one chances have a high chance of being missed still, but wide one-on-one chances have a good chance of going in.

Even though both my strikers like to lob the keeper, I have never seen them lob the keeper. Ever. In six seasons I've not one single lob from anyone, so I can confidently say this PPM is defunct.

February 9, 2020

In no particular order:

Gil is an academy product who turned out to be a great blend of explosive winger and competent playmaker.

I managed to sign Reinier for £750k because he was unhappy at Flamengo. Nearly sold him for £100m four years later but he couldn't agree terms. Now he's signed a new deal with us.

Godfrey is a recent signing and has developed very well under the AI. I can only find a handful of players in the game who are better BPDs than he is.

February 9, 2020

2 hours ago, dannyfc said:

Definitely agree with you that the archetypal playmaker AM -> poacher ST ball probably isn't as prevalent as it used to be, or at least how it's perceived.

That said you do see much more tight, intricate inter-play between players than you currently do in FM. No necessarily through balls, but a pass into a strikers feet with his back to goal. Or just square balls and 1-2s in and around the box to open up space, which aren't necessarily always in behind.

I keep banging this drum but I just want players to make more risk or intuition in attack. Yeah the striker might be marked, but it doesn't completely rule out him out of the phase. You don't always need to hump it out wide just because that's where the space is.

You don't want to see these high risk moves come off, but you want them attempted to a varying degree of accuracy depending on the player's attributes. I have no issue watching long-ball percentage football if I know I could at least instruct my players to do otherwise and watch them fail doing so.

I'd also argue the lack of distinction in attributes go further than the elite level. These long-shot efforts are banged in by every player, regardless of whether they're proficient shooters or not. Similarly the cross-field 60 yard passes are regularly completed without error by tier 6 players, which isn't right.

I agree. I'd like to see more passes into the feet of the strikers and even attacking midfielders, in particular. A player such as Giroud, who's well-known for his ability to back in to defenders and play well-weighted first time passes or flicks round the corner, would not be as useful in this FM due to the reluctance to play into feet unless he has open space around him. And yeah, the lack of balls squared across the box is a well-known issue.

I'm only speculating, but it seems it'd take more than just tweaks to get the ME to a point where these things can be possible without also disturbing the defensive balance too badly. The logic behind decision making in the attacking third seems to be, "this player is not in space, therefore I will not pass to him", whereas we want them to also be able think, "if I give the ball to this player, he can give it to that third-man runner". So we want passers to not only be aware of who they can give it to, but also where other payers might move after he's released the ball. Easier said than done, of course.

February 9, 2020

6 hours ago, thiagoanjo said:

I guess nowadays the teams defend beter and more compact, this is hard for playmakers send deadly ball and make moves at center of the pitch.

I feel like this has been true for at least a decade.

At least, for as long as I've been watching football, attacking teams have tended to penetrate low blocks through the sides, usually using a combination of a midfielder, inverted wide player and overlapping fullback to create an overload. It's rare for a player to slide a ball through the middle of a deep defensive line for a striker to run on to. Players who can this are lauded as great playmakers. The snappy, penetrative passing moves that we all love tend to come against sides who are out-of-shape or have been caught on a transition.

All of this happens on FM. My team were 60 league games unbeaten until recently, so the overwhelming majority of our goals were coming from crossing situations because every team was sitting deep. The odd game I had against a tough team - away to Madrid or Atletico, for example - we scored more goals off through passes because the space was there to do so.

Where this ME perhaps falls short is in spontaneity and differentiating between players with good attributes (say, between 14-16 at the top level) and those with world class ability (anything above 16 in key attributes). Those on the higher end of the attribute scale should be able to play those difficult passes and invent something out of nothing, but I don't see that very often. The visual feedback I get is that top level players play in a homogeneous way, which in turn makes matches feel monotonous. Elite level sport in reality is entertaining because elite performers do unexpected things, and I think FM could really improve on this front, though I appreciate how difficult this would be to balance.

February 7, 2020

When I reported the issue with defensive teams achieving high possession last month, I got this response:

We feel that once we improve our pressing systems, this should make defensive AI teams passing stats decrease.

So they're aware of it, and it seems it'll take some more time for them to improve pressing to an extent where it'll force teams to go long more frequently.

February 6, 2020

Having played more games, I have some more positive observations:

I love how Ball-Playing Defenders play. A good player in that position in the right system can carry it up the flanks. Makes me want to try out a back three at some point.
Forwards and wide players make some well-timed runs. In particular, I'm seeing my IWs make some excellent runs whenever one of my midfielders or IWBs get on the ball.
While crossing still isn't as varied as I'd like it to be, I'm having more success with them.
Headers being more accurate is making those crosses a lot more useful, although a good number still go over the bar. For now, I'm putting that down to my team not having the highest heading attributes it could have.
There are through balls. They're very situational; you need the right positioning and timing for them to happen. I actually think this is decently balanced at the moment. Defence-splitting through passes aren't super common in real football, especially outside of the top level.

For context, I'm playing with a strong team in 2024, and the majority of games are against very defensive teams. Games like this can be laborious but it is giving me a chance to play weirder formations (currently playing a 2-3-3-2). After a handful of narrow wins, I've just won 7-0, so I'm pretty pleased with things.

Away from my own team, I am seeing the AI score more goals than before. I only wish the AI against me was a little more adventurous, because while my team is strong, it's only the third favourites to win the league. As a result, the game can get easy. I'm on a 12-game winning run and have conceded only three times despite playing a crazy formation in most of those games. I leave so much space down the flanks, but teams don't seem willing to exploit that. I'm talking solid mid-table teams just going ultra defensive and narrow from the start, even in their own stadium.

So if I could recommend one thing that could be better balanced, it would be that. I think it would make attacking play more dynamic, too, because there'd be more space to use.

February 5, 2020

I've played five games on the new patch and, to be honest, it's not much better than the public beta. My observations:

Players' first inclination is still to get the ball out wide as soon as possible. Passing into the feet of a striker or attacking midfielder is seldom the first option, even if these players are in better positions for a pass.
Players are dribbling through each other like there's no collision detection at all. It's back to pre-public beta levels.
Strikers on support roles remain passive once they've released the ball. They rarely attack the penalty area.
The majority of crosses still go to the back post and are still flighted despite using "Low Crosses" instruction.
My goals so far: rebound tap-in, back post header from a set-piece, back post header from an open play cross, long shot, penalty, penalty, long shot.
Loopy headers are no longer a thing.
Clearances have more power behind them.
My centre backs seem to be getting out-jumped by players smaller than them on an alarmingly regular basis.
I can't comment on the quality of finishing yet as I'm still to see a clear, open play chance.

February 5, 2020

40 minutes ago, Novem9 said:

Unfortunatelly I detect old issue which looked fixed before.

I won Napoli 5-0 Lecce and my possession is 43%
Napoli 3-0 Udinese 46%
Napoli 3-0 Fiorentina 40%
For now I play Napoli - PSG and my possession is 61%

It returns us in times when low teams have a lot of empty possession by low riskly mentalities. Possession without any sence

I actually reported this during the public beta. It was acknowledged as something they were aware of and working on, but it seems it'll take some time to resolve properly.

January 31, 2020

I had some success with this style on FM19, playing a conventional 433 or 4411. What I think is crucial is making sure your deep/mid block is active rather than passive. If you're coming under more pressure than you're comfortable with, it could be because your defending is too passive, so you could try increasing off the ball pressure and using the Get Stuck In instruction.

Other considerations to make: mentality and duties. Positive/Attacking mentalities may seem counter-intuitive at first but they encourage quicker and more direct passes, which are useful for counters. A good spread of duties is important as it'll determine which players contribute to the defence and how much. For example, a pair of strikes on attack duties will mostly stay up front and not chase back very far, which coupd leave you short on numbers (in exchange, they'll be in goof positions for counters.).

January 24, 2020

Just wanted to contribute to this with an in-game example of one of the factors contributing to the goalscoring problem.

This is during a friendly, against a lower division side playing a back four and two DMs. They're not bothered about attacking. I'm playing on a Positive mentality, with an Enganche, IW(s), IF(s), and an AF. This typically results in the following:

I'm not telling my team to play narrower, and the Positive mentality comes with "Fairly Wide" attacking width by default. But this isn't what I'm seeing. There is space down the sides of that defence, but my attackers make no movement into those areas, and instead stay next to the defender marking them. It's like they're marking the defender, rather than the other way around.

Inevitably, the ball will be worked to the full-backs, because as far my midfield is concerned, they're the only players in space. In this instance, my midfielder (Alemendra) actually took a shot, which was blocked, despite no. 3 on the left being in a good position for a pass.

Out of interest, I played the next game using a 4-2-4 DM formation, with a frontline comprising of a W(s), IF(s), DLF(s) and an AF. I wanted to see if the presence of two forwards would push my AMR and AML into wider spaces. Again, Positive mentality was used with no alteration to attacking width.

No. 7 is my winger is this set-up, but he's not in a position to receive the ball and cross, which should be his main concern. If he's a couple of steps closer to the side of the area, my midfielder can slip a ball into him, and he'd be able to open his body out and get a cross in.

Also note no. 8, my DLF(s), who is playing in the exact same way as my AF is. Despite being an intelligent player, he doesn't recognise the space on the edge of the penalty area. Movement into that area could potentially drag a defender away, but he stubborn remains marking his opposition defender.

The IF(s) and AF, meanwhile, remain static in offside positions.

Tenerife v Sevilla.pkm

January 19, 2020

Hi team,

This issue may not be strictly specific to the public beta, but I wanted to point it out.

I'm noticing that AI teams playing against me with a lower mentality (likely Cautious or lower) are accumulating a lot of passes without creating anything. For context, it's 2024 and my team are league contenders. Examples:

Celta Vigo, 4-2-3-1 formation - 796 passes
Deportivo La Caruna, 4-2-3-1 formation - 604 passes
Real Oviedo, 4-2-3-1 formation - 662 passes
Bayern Munich, 4-3-3 formation - 639 passes*

* This one is an interesting case because although Bayern have a great team, this was the second leg of a CL knockout match, where they were defending a 2-0 lead. We won the game 3-0, having out-shot them 19-6. They only started attacking in the final ten minutes when they needed to.

For comparison, my team's passing totals in those same games: 434, 459, 368, 339,

I would expect defensive teams to have fewer passes due to opposition pressure and lower quality players making more mistakes in possession. Delving into the stats a bit more, it seems AI defenders are passing the ball amongst themselves, which shouldn't be able to happen against a good press. Even the most defensive teams in reality tend to play more direct in these scenarios as well.

I've attached PKMs of those matches for you to look at.

Thanks.

Sevilla v Coruña.pkm Sevilla v Oviedo.pkm Vigo v Sevilla.pkm Sevilla v FC Bayern.pkm

January 14, 2020

I originally intended on making this post in the big feedback thread in the general section, but I wanted input from the regulars here, as this is a tricky topic.

My main issue with the Tactics Creator in FM19 and 20 is that it's ambiguous about individual player mentality and creative freedom, and seems to give us fewer options to change them than older FMs did. To illustrate this, here are the possible mentalities a Central Midfielder can have on four different team mentalities:

Balanced: Defensive/Balanced/Attacking
Positive: Cautious/Positive/Very Attacking
Attacking: Balanced/Positive/Very Attacking
Very Attacking: Balanced/Positive/Very Attacking

What is the difference between a Central Midfielder (S) on a Positive team mentality and one on an Attacking team mentality? If we go by the in-game label, there is none at all. Both play with a Positive individual mentality. However, as we can observe the role behaving differently when we change the team mentality, we can assume there must be a difference between the two.

On older FMs, it was possible to discern this difference. While the old mentality bar wasn't the most intuitive tool, it did show us how the role differed when we changed team mentality. A CM(s) in an old Control/Flexible scheme had an individual mentality of 11, while in an Attacking/Flexible scheme, his mentality was 13 - marginally more offensive, but demonstrable all the same.

With the removal of Team Shape, it's now difficult to work out what these old values correlate to in the new Tactics Creator. Between Standard and Overload, a CM(s) could range anywhere between 10 and 16 in FM18, but in FM20, the highest mentality he can have is "Positive", which seems too low for a 16. To muddy this further, a CM(a) in FM18 (again, between Standard-Overload team mentalities) ranged between 14 and 20, whereas in FM20 the lowest he can be is "Attacking", which seems too high for a 14.

So, we're left wondering if Very Attacking on a Positive team metanlity is, in actuality, different to Very Attacking on an Attacking team mentality, despite using the exact same label.

To make this even more confusing to me, we now have a Team Fluidity label, which uses the old Team Shape range of Very Structured to Very Fluid. This, according to the game, "reflects the shape and structure of the team according to their roles and duties". Well, in what way does it "reflect" those things? If I was playing on Very Fluid on an older FM, my team would be playing more as a unit as their individual mentalities were closer together. In FM20, though, the only way to achieve Very Fluid is to not play with any attack duties on the lower mentalities, and only one or two on the higher mentalities. The label is telling me that my team is closer together due to the even spread of duties, which makes sense, until I look at the individual mentalities for Balanced-Attacking:

CD(d) - Defensive/Cautious/Balanced
CF(a) - Attacking/Very Attacking/Very Attacking

Looking at that, the team doesn't seem very close together at all, does it? In the older FMs, Very Fluid on Standard mentality put players in a range of 6-14 - but as I asked earlier, a 14 back then surely doesn't correlate to "Attacking" now, does it? That just doesn't seem right.

Then we get to Creative Freedom. In the past, Team Shape would influence how much Creative Freedom your team had. With Team Shape no longer in the game, we can only influence it with the following:

Team Mentality - Higher mentalities involve more creative freedom
Roles and duties - Some roles are inherently more creative than others; attacking players have more creative freedom than support/defensive ones
Be More Expressive/Be More Disciplined TIs

But these have knock-on effects which could be undesirable:

Changing team mentality may make us more conservative or aggressive when I don't want us to be
Changing roles and duties can upset the balance the team, and stray from the style of football I want to play
Be More Expressive/Disciplined is a team-wide instruction, and are vague as to how much of a difference they actually make

A lot of this will read like I'm advocating the return of Team Shape, but I want to be clear: that's not what I'm doing here. Rather, what I wanted to show was how ambiguous things are in the current Tactics Creator, and how crafting specific styles of play has become more challenging because our options are now more limited than before. I basically have to re-think my entire approach to mentality, but the game itself doesn't present this new system clearly.

What do you think? Am I overthinking this or missing something obvious?

January 13, 2020

1 hour ago, Mitja said:

The versions weren't perfect, but I feel even four or five years ago with less and more limited options you could put together more patient controlling football and recycling of the ball that just looked better, to me at least. If you want to play that style now it's much more of a struggle because the game just doesn't allow for it. My biggest bit of feedback I can make to SI, not particularly a helpful one I admit, is that the football action should slow down a bit and reconsider the direction of travel the football part of the game is going down. It's too rushed in terms of getting the ball forward and trying to force play or score a goal at every opportunity.

I hard agree. I felt the same about last year's edition, too. I was just playing a match with Very Short Passing on a Positive mentality, which is hardly the most aggressive combination, and kept seeing my CBs play long passes (despite having Take Fewer Risks ticked), my midfielders attempt balls over the top, and IFs attempting to switch the ball to one another.

It's discouraging because it renders this style of play very difficult to implement without putting some hard limits on what the players can do, which has knock-on effects else where and potentially kills chance creation. It especially doesn't help when higher defensive lines, a core component of this style, are routinely punished due to a well-known defect in CB positioning. While this has made me experiment with different styles, I feel limited because my preferred way of playing just isn't a good way to play anymore even though it's still going strong in reality. The issue is only compounded by the really weak shooting this year. Focusing on creating high quality chances instead of volume is a lot harder when players can't bury those chances properly, and I'm not just talking about 1v1s here.

I've had such a love-hate relationship with my save because of this. My team has been successful, but I feel it's less because my tactics are good, and more that they're inadvertently exploiting the CB splitting bug and generating a lot of 1v1s for my striker to score. Yet compared to what you can find out there, my tactics aren't even that aggressive. I'm winning, but not the way I would like to.

Giving feedback or suggestions here is difficult without knowing the intricacies of the ME and why this is happening in the first place, but I think expressing the sentiment is important.

January 11, 2020

I have a small checklist of things I run through in these situations:

Winning comfortably at half-time and performing well: Say nothing at all, let the players get on with it
Expected to win, but playing poorly (whether we're winning or losing is irrelevant): Go with Assertive tone, tell them you're disappointed/expect more
Expected to win, but playing really poorly and losing: Aggressive, give them a kick up the backside
Not expected to win, but winning: Say nothing - things are going well, there's no need to complicate the situation
Not expected to win, and losing: Encourage the team, get morale back up

Complacency is a tricky one. For years, people have questioned why telling the players to not be complacent doesn't prevent complacency. As a general observation, players who are performing well tend to dislike being told they have to focus or perform better. Telling them to not get complacent is like saying you don't trust them to maintain their performance.

If you have a team that's performing above expectations, you can tell them to "prove a point". I've found this to be a reliable way of getting the whole team motivated before games and at half-time.

As for the tactics/players, you have to consider what the opposition are doing and the condition of your players. Performance naturally suffers with tiredness, so swapping out key players who are tiring for fresh ones can help keep performance levels up. If the opposition are playing more aggressively to get back into the game, you can look to exploit the space they're now leaving by changing a few TIs - Hit Early Crosses, for example, would encourage your players to play the ball earlier to the front men when the space is there. If they're playing more defensively to limit damage, the only things you can really do are brute force it by being more aggressive, or try to draw them out by dropping your defensive line and easing up on the pressing.

December 24, 2019

Quick question for other players:

Are you noticing an unusual number of regen strikers with low stats for Finishing, but good stats for everything else striker related?

I'm five seasons in and a lot of regen strikes coming through my academy or being recommended as good talents seem to have finishing somewhere between 7-10.

December 16, 2019

Good evening,

I have some more examples from a game for you to examine, although I'm not entirely sure on a couple of them. Still, can't hurt to flag them.

This is from a game between Sevilla (me) vs Chelsea, and it's my team doing most of the damage with long passes. Chelsea were in a 4-2-3-1 set-up, but I couldn't tell you what TIs or mentality they were using.

03:37 - This one is interesting because you can see Guehi (33, blue) marking Munir (10, white) as the play develops. When Reinier (8, white) receives the ball in our half, Guehi adjusts his positioning, seemingly in preparation for a long pass. While this looks fine, I wanted to flag this because in doing this, he seems to take a step sideways and leave too much room for Munir to run onto the pass. This looks strange because he had been sticking close to the striker throughout the move, only to move away the moment the pass was played. Granted, this could be attribute related, and the move still required some work to finish, so it's not an egregious example. Just something I noticed.

43:16 - This goal came from a counter. Lopes (7, white) gets the ball and fires the ball into space for Munir to run onto and put away. This looks like a typical case of a team getting caught high up the pitch, but I wanted to flag Guehi again here, as he's closest to the striker but doesn't drop off at any point despite the obvious threat. Again, this could be attribute related. In addition, although he had no real chance of getting back, Christensen (3, blue) doesn't make any effort to come round and block Munir's run, and instead seems intent of running back to his own goal. I'm not sure that's normal but I would expect defenders to charge down a player baring down on their goal to the best of their abilities, rather than leave them.

88:26 - This example is the most problematic, and is similar to the first one. When the ball goes to Martin (3, white), Christensen is in a good position and knows where Munir is. As Martin carries the ball forward though, Christensen starts moving away from Munir. It looks like he's taking up a position where he can cover 16 and 24 if he needs to, but the danger hasn't developed to that extent yet, so he looks like he's leaving his man far too early. There's some time before Martin plays the ball in behind, yet Guehi doesn't make any movement to come around to cover his partner, who has been pulled out of his position. This results in a gaping hole between the centre backs.

These are more issues with marking than with the accuracy of the passing, so I hope it helps.

Sevilla v Chelsea.pkm

December 15, 2019

4 hours ago, Turean said:

I mostly just let AssMan schedule training as well as auto-assign coaches. Is this a mistake? My thinking was that at worst this may effect which player stats change over time, not prevent them from improving at all. I understand that player progression is supposed to be slower than in the past but it's not normal that they don't improve by 1 point in even a single stat over the course of 4 years, is it? Is it just a side effect of managing in lower leagues and so I shouldn't expect players to improve at this level? Does progression get noticeably faster when you manage in better and more prestigious leagues?

It's certainly possible that progression is slower at the lower levels, because it hasn't been a problem for me managing at the top. Besides that, I would check if your players are doing the right individual training and how have a high enough workload. The ass man can put together a decent enough team schedule but won't make the best choices when it comes to individuals. It's possible your players haven't been working hard enough.

4 hours ago, Turean said:

As a somewhat separate but related question, I noticed that often players show a sudden drop in Determination and it never goes back up. It's always this same stat, and always a sudden sharp decrease. Is there something that is know to cause it?

From my own observations, Determination is very dependent on the overall level of Determination in the squad. I've had players with 16 determination drop to 14/15, which is about average for the rest of my squad. On the flip side of that, I've seen youngsters with low Determination get better just by being in the first team squad. I believe praising and criticising their training performance can have an effect as well (I know it certainly does for Work Rate).

4 hours ago, Turean said:

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated. Are most of you finding that your players develop significantly over the course of several seasons? If so, what suggestions would you give to someone used to doing things "the FM18 way"?

The trick with team training is to pay attention to which sessions benefit which units. You'll notice there's a 60/20/20 split in focus for each sessions, and that each training session will prioritise one unit over the other two. If you do a lot attacking and technical training, you'll see the associated attributes go up faster than you will see defensive attributes increase, because the defensive unit only receives 20% of the focus in those sessions. Balancing this is key. Leaving it to the ass man should be okay, as he generally creates a balanced schedule, but it might be worth having a look, just to be sure.

Individual training is the same as always. Pick a role, any specific skills you want the player to work on and how high their workload is. Normal intensity is fine for players playing a lot, while double is recommended for those not playing.

Tutoring is the big one because it's completely different. You can only tutor - or mentor, as it's called now - players who are in the first team squad, so any u18/23 players you want to mentor have to be promoted. A good mentor not only has high Determination and a good personality, but should also be high up in the team hierarchy, too. The quirk of this system is that its unit based, meaning players in the defensive unit can only mentor other players within that unit (likewise for goalkeeping and attacking). This means you could put a centre back into the attacking unit and have him mentor your young attackers, if you wanted to (though of course, you have to consider the PPMs he would pass on, and the impact on his own training). You can then drop three or four players into the same group, so they all receive the same benefits at the same time.

Other than that, it's the same as you would normally do it. Playing time is still essential and having good facilities promotes better growth.

December 14, 2019

17 minutes ago, TCHNG said:

just to add, why is it not possible to play attacking with high lines and high pressing and still be solid why do we always have to drop the lines and drop this and that, fair enough maybe few less instructions as positive adds some risk anyway, but look at liverpool and most other teams, 2 CBs and a DM near the halfway line is more than enough to deal with counters, why cant it be this way in game, id like to see on average how many times liverpool concede on the counter or a city or someone who leave 3 back and let the other 6 go forward

It's perfectly possible. You just have to judge which opposition you can do it against.

To use your City and Liverpool examples, most teams play defensively against them. Any long ball attempt is going to fail more times than not due to a simple lack of runners and support. However, when they come up against better teams who pose more of a threat to them, they typically drop their defensive blocks. They don't go into every game with a high block looking to dominate in the opponent's half because better teams will hurt them.

This is the key to doing well on FM20, in my view. I'm currently on a long unbeaten run with Sevilla (about 30 games now in all comps, in my third season, where we're predicted to finish 5th) and I like to think a lot of it has been down to picking and choosing the games I can be more aggressive and which games I need to drop my defensive block. My rule of thumb at the moment is:

Is the opponent playing very defensive, with no intent to come out and play? Then the DL/LOE go up, mentality goes on to Positive or Attacking, and we look to beat them into submission.
is the opponent on even footing with us, or looking to play with more attacking intent? Then DL/LOE go down, mentality stays on Positive or Balanced, and we look to suck them in and hurt them with rapid counters.

I change a few TIs around, too, but generally it's all in the DL and LOE.

If you're a top team, your going to come across the first scenario more often than not, but there will still be games where you have to change. If you're playing as a team like Everton (as the OP of this thread is), you're going to come across the second scenario a lot more, so you have to be mindful of the risks you're taking.

December 13, 2019

4 minutes ago, Ron Mexico said:

Again, I'll happily yield to those with deeper tactical knowledge but I'd strip away, well, just about everything and rebuild this. Either that or keep everything status quo and hope that I don't get burnt too badly. I just don't see how to balance essentially (for the lack of better terms here) an arcade tactic with a simulation result.

I wouldn't go that far, but I agree with everything else you've said.

I will add that playing such an aggressive style is perfectly possible in certain games, but going away to Leicester with such a high defensive line, aggressive pressing (which will further pull your players out of shape) and risky ball usage (mentality, TIs and player roles combined makes this a very risky tactic in possession; the chances of turnovers are high) is asking for trouble considering their midfield talent and pace up front.

Unless you have the quality to completely dominate your opponent, you have to be mindful of the threats they pose and how they can exploit your approach. The obvious answer here would be drop the defensive line. You may not control the game in their half but if you've set the roles up right, you should still able to generate chances, especially as Leicester are likely to attack a team they consider themselves equal to in their own stadium.

December 9, 2019

Hey Team,

In the latest patch, it seems the accuracy of passes over the top of defences is too high, and the reactions of defenders can look strange in the circumstances. A combination of these factors appears to be generating an unusually high number of 1v1 chances in every game.

I've uploaded a PKM of a match I (Sevilla) played against Real Madrid. Firstly, I should point out I was playing on a Very Attacking mentality with a Standard defensive line and normal pressing. Secondly, I'm aware I was playing against high quality passers and a very quick centre forward. Balls over the top of my defence were expected. However, I want to point out three instances that looked odd to me despite that.

46:20 - Casemiro (14, white) manages to play a perfect first-time pass from deep in his own half despite coming under pressure from Reinier (8, blue). Diego Carlos (20, blue) has a lot of time to see Vinicius (8, white) and read his intentions, but only seems to react to the run long after the pass has been made.

53:52 - Neves (17, white) executes another perfectly weighted-pass. Carlos (20, blue), again fails to react to the run while Bettella (4, blue) makes an odd movement while the ball is in flight rather than recovering his position.

77:27 - Kroos (10, white) plays the pass this time. Bettella is in a decent position to come round on the cover, but he instead moves up the pitch, away from runner altogether.

Generally, I don't mind long passes if the situation allows for it, but as it is, the accuracy is so good that they'll always result in a 1v1 opportunity rather than send the striker wide and give my defence a chance to recover.

In addition, the frequency of this occurring is every game, against all manner of opposition. Here, for example, is a screenshot from my analysis page, showing how the opposition have been entering my defensive third:

And I should stress, I rarely play with aggressive high lines or pressing. Even on lower defensive lines, this issues keeps occurring.

I'm happy to provide more examples and PKMs as and when I find them in game. I invite others to do the same, too.

R. Madrid v Sevilla.pkm

December 8, 2019

IIRC, a winning youth team actually helps development. Players tend to develop better if they're happy and playing well, and those two things go hand in hand.

Outside of winning things, it's good to maintain a squad at these levels to prevent over-playing and injuries, which hinder development. The AI will fill out a depleted squad with grey players, but these players are just bodies and won't prevent a good youth prospect being played in every game.

You don't have to put together an all-star youth squad, but keeping a squad of at least 16 players is advisable. For this reason, I actually keep low potential players around. The better youth prospects will carry the team to results, while the rest fill in the blanks.

December 7, 2019

After some initial grumblings with the game, I've found something that works for me and can't quite pull myself away. That's Football Manager for you. Just one more game...

Having played nearly two seasons with a myriad of different tactics, I feel confident in saying that this year's FM has made playing a high risk approach tricky. A few pages back, I posted the stats from a match I played that ended with nearly 30 shots a side, with about 15 CCCs between both teams. I kept the same tactic from that game and although I was winning, I was conceding about 20 shots a game, whether it was against a good side or a struggling team down at the bottom of the table. Obviously, this couldn't continue, so I thought about why this was happening and how we could tighten up and concluded my team were taking far too many risks and getting hurt far too often in transition. I made some tweaks, reduced the amount of risk my team was taking, and now have a team which creates chances without conceding a bunch. I have hit that "FM sweet spot" of around 15-20 shots and 55-60% possession per game.

This isn't a revelation, but it turns out, playing with a high defensive line, high line of engagement, counter-press, counter, mixed passing and a fairly high tempo, all on a positive mentality, creates a lot of turnovers and leaves my team out-of-shape and exploitable. I'm not saying this approach can't work, but in my experience, it's been one of the most punished set-ups in this year's FM and the number of players using it and struggling seems to support that. There are some ME issues that exacerbate this, too, such as some iffy final third decision making (the tendency for a player to shoot rather than wait for a run so he can pass is a lot worse playing with a high-risk set-up, for example) and slow reaction times from defenders (which I'm currently in the process of filing a bug report about, assuming nobody beats me to it) but I'm not here to talk about them.

Rather, I think a big issue is the ambiguity of the tactics creator and the advice which is given the player in-game. There's a disconnect between what the game says will happen and what actually happens. For instance, Positive mentality says its good for teams who are favourites, want to control possession and manage counter-attacks, but in reality it's an aggressive setting that sees a lot of direct passes, dribbling and shots, which are all scenarios that can lead to counter-attacks. It's a deceptive description which can trip up a lot of players because it's not clear they're taking a lot of risks by using it. What's more, that it's said to be for teams who are favourites is a misnomer because Positive and above mentalities are often used in successful counter-attacking systems, precisely because of the more aggressive risk-taking. Yet, if you wanted to build a counter-attacking system, players would instinctively choose Cautious because it's stated in-game to be a specific feature of that mentality. Cautious can certainly be used for counter-attacking, but it's not the counter-attacking mentality. It says it can facilitate aggressive counter-attacks, yet in actuality it lowers tempo and gives players a lower individual mentality. The names being changed from the old "Counter/Control" was good, but it really seems the descriptions weren't changed accordingly along with it and that doesn't help players make better decisions when building their tactics.

To compound this further, the team instructions editor will show the changes mentality has on passing, tempo, width, pressing and defensive line, but these do not show up in the sidebar as active instructions. So playing on Positive, my tempo is automatically set to Fairly High, but it's only when I set it to "Higher" that it'll appear in the sidebar. In this case, it's not immediately clear to players how mentality changes their approach. Stranger still, if I play on Balanced and increase tempo to "Fairly High", it'll show up as a TI. TIs decided by the user will appear, but the ones inherent to the mentality do not, and I think that creates unnecessary confusion.

This brings me on to the advice the player is given on how to approach games. My ass man will frequently suggest that I should play with an Attacking mentality, and then play with four/five attacking duties because that's "appropriate for such a mentality", but this is, frankly, complete and total bull. If Attacking already makes my team more aggressive and take more risks, why do I then need to add even more aggression and risk taking on top of that? In effect, the AI here isn't promoting well-balanced tactics - it's promoting the bad habit of doubling down and making things more extreme, which creates tactics that make very little sense. While the player is free to ignore this advice, I'm concerned AI managers are following the same logic and creating unbalanced set-ups. Obviously, there has to be some poor decisions because real life managers do the same, but there are top managers in-game who under-perform because of this (hello, Pep Guardiola).

I may put this in the features request, but I really think removing CCCs and Half Chances would be a step in the right direction. What the game determines to be a chance versus what the player determines to be a chance are too far apart for those stats to be worthwhile. My more successful teams in this series have never generated a lot of CCCs, by the game's definition, yet frequently win and score plenty of goals. This alone renders the stat pointless. It's existence causes a few other issues, too. Players playing only on Key or Extended highlights (which I feel like is the majority?) may judge their tactic on the generation of CCCs, but as we're seeing now, this is incredibly misleading. The game considers most 1v1 situations a CCC, but as has been pointed out, this isn't the case in reality - 1v1s are actually harder to score than they look. Meanwhile, a straight-forward tap-in from a cut-back is often not considered a CCC in game, despite this being one of the most common types of goals scored in real life. Players who fail to convert CCCs receive a penalty to their rating, which in turn effects a lot of other things, such as their confidence and body language, and the likelihood of them being subbed (it also leads to the infuriating "he should have done better/how did he miss that?" commentary line).

The game's assessment of chances is just weird in general. A player running onto a through pass to score is a routine move, but is often considered a "great solo effort" by the game and can even appear in goal of the month competitions. It seems any player that has to run more than 10 yards to get on the ball is deemed to be in the middle of a great solo goal. I have to wonder if this affects the quality of finishing at all; if it's not a case of the game deeming these chances more difficult, and therefore applying more inconsistent shooting to ensure that "great" goals aren't being scored all the time.

While I'm at it - and I've complained about this before - the player ratings system is too rewarding for players who score penalties and long-shots. Any player who scores a worldie or penalty gets a significant increase despite how poorly they play. I have had striker miss every chance and give the ball away at every turn, yet still end the game with a 7.5 because they buried a pen. To say nothing of an opposition player scoring a screamer within two minutes, and my ass man telling me to close him down because "he's pulling the strings" or "running the game". This is more of a syntax issue than anything, but I do feel feedback shouldn't be attached to player ratings at all. Or, if it has to be, then player ratings should not be so easily influenced by one-off events. If this was a case of the in-game media assigning the rating, then sure, that'd be added realism. However, player ratings play a significant part in player assessment, so I hope this can one day be addressed.

I think tweaks in these areas can really help make things easier for the player. Most of the time, problems come from the player not actually knowing what everything in games does and how it affects their team, which leads them to making unbalanced set-ups.

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Posts posted by JEinchy