BlueAnderson

Anyone else having some real bad luck with injuries and penalties?

CM-A is the best running CM on this game.

What role has Pep given Sterling for him to make less decisions or thinking? This is rubbish and really undermines Sterling’s ability as a player.

Actually, I’ve posted several times in this topic offering constructive feedback, plus also took part in the BETA and reported bugs in the forum. That’s my main point - SI are a small team. We should help them make the game better, they’ve provided us a platform for this.

You can say that but you’re not contributing anything to making it better, so your comment is pretty much useless.

You can just use space bar instead of keeping your mouse pointed to pause a game.

The amount of crosses are fine, it’s accuracy. But there’s a deeper problem - defenders don’t defend (good) crosses too well on FM - so if they increased the accuracy - there would be an anomaly of cross goals.

Lots of food for thought here - thanks guys for the input and feedback. So I was Birmingham manager, leading the table and suddenly we hear that West Brom have just sacked Pulis as they were languishing in 18th. Their board thought they’d be cheeky by trying to steal a rival’s manager in me - and I fell for it. It’s January so I have space to somewhat rebuild the squad. I’ve had two days to prepare my team for a game against Puel’s Leicester - and made some changes. I have now got this setup going on: Standard/Flexible. SK(D) FB(A) CB(D) BPD(D) WB(S) BWM(D) CM(A) MEZ(S) IF(S) T(A) IF (S) TI: POTB, Roam From Position, Shorter Passing, Push Higher Up. I’ve taken in some of your advice and simplified the tactic a bit... and result from the Leicester game was extremely promising. We won 6-0! This is with a side extremely low on confidence, having only won two of their last thirteen games. I’m guessing new manager syndrome has something to do with the result though. I’ll play more games and let you all know how the tactic is developing. I’ll shortly upload a video of some good moves from the Leicester game for those interested.

On support or attack?

I only have shorter passing and WBIB on. Not retain possession. I toggle WBIB off and on depending on the game. I understand that I’m getting my players into the 10 area but that’s by design. My problem is that sometimes players will have clear options ahead but will often choose to shoot instead. I want to play short possession football with players having plenty of options around them - which they do - the tactic is kind of successful, but it doesn’t seem to be as effective as first. Long shots are a lot more frequent. I was just hoping someone who’s had this problem with the 4-3-3 could perhaps drop some pointers. Completely forgot to add. I’m playing with a flexible shape on a control mentality - I have found that switching to a standard mentality makes the players a bit more patient in play though. I made the pair attacking in the sense so that the lone striker isn’t as isolated and that the wide players always have options to pass it inside. I have found that the MEZ-S dictates the play in the middle of the park - his role is similar to that of Silva’s at City. I don’t feel like the spaces he occupies are bad - he’s actually one of the best players in my team. I don’t lack control in the team - but you definitely have given me some food for thought. I think I’ll play around with the AP - maybe make him a winger to make play a bit less congested. As mentioned above, I play on Control/Flexible. I don’t have problems with the first phase or 2nd phase of play tbh. It’s play in the final third that seems to be struggling. You may have a point that the players under my disposal might not have enough quality. The thing about my midfield pair - they are currently both the highest rated players in the league. The CM(A) grabs a lot of goals, whilst the MEZ(S) regulates play excellently.

RESERVED

Hi. I’ve created a quite successful 4-3-3 but after a while, now my team is fully used to the tactic; long shots seems to have gone up a lot in our game. I can’t quite figure out what it is without losing the complete essence of the tactic. GK FB(A) CB BPD FB(S) HB CM(A) Mez(S) AP(S) DLF(S) W(A) TI: Short Passing, POTB, Lower Tempo, Offsides, WBIB, Slightly Higher Line, Roam From Position Every midfielder and forward bar the CF have shoot less as a PI. I’ve tried to put my FBs as WBs to get them further forward a bit to provide more options for example - but these options seem to be getting ignored; quite often a runner will be in a prime position to slide someone in but the player with the ball takes a long shot instead. Any tips guys? I'll post some pictures of play up soon.

Please delete.

Hazard has this problem on FM at times too. I do agree that player intelligence needs a huge focus. Shame it won’t be this iteration though.

Thanks for the continued hard work Neil and SI. Any news on the next big update?

I'm waiting to finish the season to then report on how many penalties were missed overall. I'll upload corresponding PKMs when that time comes.

As I speak - been awarded another penalty which is missed again by a good technical player (Giuseppe Rossi, 16 at penalties). I just don't understand?

Why are players so bad at penalties? Missed my last three, I don't expect to score penalties now. It's strange considering the high percentage of penalty goals that are scored. The odd miss or here fine but it seems like you're more likely to miss a penalty than actually score. In some throwaway save I had one game where there were 3 penalties and they were all missed?

+1.

Crossing has been severely nerfed, as it was too easy in 17. But they’ve gone over cautious - no way those lucky crosses should be happening 3/4 times a game, maximum once or twice every two games imo, that seems more realistic. Wow. Reverse Michael Jackson.

I feel like the game does not calculate CCCs amazingly well. A lot CCCs are bogus, whilst some shots or half chances which should be registered as CCCs are not. It's very inconsistent at the moment. Would be pretty cool to use xG to determine how big a chance is, as it's quite accurate.

It's not really a bug, in my opinion FM doesn't favour or represent possession based tactics too well, especially in this version.

Anyone having crazy offsides problems? Currently in a game where it’s just reached HT and I’ve already clocked 10 offsides. That’s not normal. It happens quite frequently too.

I’m curious - what tactics do you use? What team are you? What is the overall philosophy you try to go for? You’re the first person I’ve seen on here call the game “too easy”.

The 4 biggest problem in the ME are: 1. Crossing is terrible. Defensively they’ve improved how they’re reacted to but now we have the problem of general crosses just not being good enough. Too many times do players cross the ball “luckily” and that just doesn’t happen in football - not if a player gets into space where they can carefully pick out a cross. 2. Counter attacking seems to be very odd - you could have a 4 vs 2 or 3 vs 1 situation that just requires a switch of play from the player on the ball to exploit that numerical advantage but it doesn’t happen. Even the most talented players often make the wrong decisions and just try to continue to solo the attack and it ends up with long shots. 3. Which brings me onto long shots. I feel like players are still too inclined in general to take a long shot when they have team mates in front of them whom they could pass to who would then be in a better position. 4. Offsides are strange on the game. An offside trap is usually devised to compensate for a high line but even low blocks seem to be able to excecute it perfectly - we’re seeing way too many basic overlaps and through ball situations turn into offsides in my opinion.