FM 15 - A Basic Guide for Tactics and Training UPDATED

PART 1 - TACTICS

When you are about to start any game with Football Manager, one of the first things that's recommended even before you hire/fire your assistant manager is set up a system. This forces you to look at your squad early to address any shortcomings. Take a cursory look at your club and choose a simple tactical system to begin with. Probably the easiest one to start with would be either the 442 or the 4132.

Over at the tactical screen you will see this. Its essentially every aspect of the tactical creation process. FM full allows you to set your team up with 3 quick tactics, and with FMC you can only use 1. The difference between both versions of the game lie with the fact that FMC doesn't penalise you for switching tactics. In FMC as long as a tactic is a solid and good one, a team doesn't need 3 weeks of match preparation to become fluid in it. They are fluid from day 1

So if you aren't very good with tactics, my advice, go play FMC first and learn to see whether your tactics are solid. In full-fat FM you can always use the excuse that your players need time to be fluid before they master the system, that doesn't hold for FMC. I frequently hop over to FMC to test a tactic out with Barcelona and Wolves, which are my barometers for tactical stability.

The tactical creator is split up in 6 broad areas: Overview, Player, Set pieces, Opposition Instructions and Analysis

When you go to the Overview screen you basically get this screen It offers up an overview of your tactical system and advice from coaches, personally I don't use the coaches advice though it can be useful at time. The more important things to note here are:

You can set it up effectively like mine which shows the stats I typically track, and I look for salient information such as the fluidity of a tactic and the role of a player. When you go to the drop down to select a tactic for the first time you are given a set of templates, this is the 4231 template, and it suggests some basic roles. The important thing to bear in mind here is the (auto) role, thats the one highlighted here.

In almost every cry for tactical help on the forums, the solution generally lies in either a misallocation of roles or a general lack of spatial awareness of a tactic or both even. People generally have a good idea of how they want their systems to play, but they almost always select the wrong role or they don't take into account how the AI is attacking their space on the pitch. To address this we will now take a closer look at roles

Duties - Automatic, Defend, Support & Attack

Every default tactic has these duties which adjust with the mentality you have set, how well these duties adhere to their mentality is affected by the Shape settings which tell a side how they should be working as a team, players in a team all fulfil different roles within their prescribed duties.

Mentality essentially allocates associated risks for certain roles. For example, if you have an attacking mentality for your tactic, you team generally takes an attacking stance, every player on the pitch is more risk hungry than a defensive system.

This implies that they are willing to do more on the pitch, like try a more risky pass. What they actually do is is determined by their role, a Deep Lying Playmaker for example on a defend role will not move up the pitch instead choosing to anchor himself to the defense and seek out players ahead of him with mixed passes. One on support could move out on the defense cog if an opportunity presents itself.

Roles cover a host of playing positions, and these in turn are either automatic, defend, support or attack. Each affects their position on the pitch and how they all work together as a unit. For too long players have been obsessed with explaining this in terms of sliders and this in turn has caused more confusion for newer players. Lets explain this in simpler terms and avoid using sliders.

When you select a role, his risk tolerance is governed by mentality, this affects how far he will move forward and how deep he will be when he defends. A defend role has a deeper starting point for attacks then an attacking role.

Automatic roles are those roles that get affected by your shape instructions, a Central Midfielder on support is inclined to assist in attack and one who is on defend will rarely join in attacks.

Defend roles instruct players to focus on the defensive aspects of a system. Attack is attack and support tells them to try and do both.

How much players adhere to these is affected by their position on the pitch, the state of the match (ie. With ball in their half or opponents half or without ball), shape which affects how much they work as a team and attributes like teamwork and work-rate I can't stress this enough, these two attributes will almost likely determine whether your side is working together as a unit.

In the 4231 example we have 3 automatic roles. These are the two fullbacks and one MC. Assuming you have chosen standard which has a 50-50 risk tolerance, a very structured shape tells the fullbacks to not be so creative going forward.

Their risk tolerance governs how far they will go up the pitch. Shouts will affect them as well. Shape affects creative freedom, the lower the shape settings the less creative they become, and the higher it is the more they work together with the rest of the team.

When you increase the mentality from standard to attacking, everyone is affected on the pitch. They move slightly higher up the pitch when they have the ball and they leave gaps behind when they need to defend. The reverse holds true as well.

Some players like me for example never use (Automatic) roles, there is just way too much uncertainty with this particular instruction, and I like to specify what they do. Since attack, defend and support are so clear, I rather just use these roles as they provide more clarity and I know what to expect. When you elect to define your own roles you need to account for spatial awareness on the pitch.

Player Instructions

Within the TC, there is a Player tab. Here you can set up individualised player instructions for anyone on the team, this includes substitutes. You can save these instructions and when a substitute is called up, and if the tactic includes these special instructions, these are adhered to. For example I could set my keeper Ben Foster up with short passing to fullbacks and set the replacement keeper up with kicking to target man.

When the replacement keeper gets called up, it will automatically set that instruction for him so long as its the same tactic. All these PIs need to be saved within the tactic for them to be recalled, and these include set piece instructions.

Saving them during a game does not save them to the tactic, it only caches them. You need to make changes and save them between games.

Spatial Control

Roles affect the space you have on the pitch, winning a football game is all about controlling space. Your assistant manager is there to advise you and if his tactical knowledge is good, he will spot when you create gaps. And these are important to address. In the 4231 example there are gaps that can emerge.

Assume you have gone and decided you want to set up your own roles and you have elected to set it up with a DLP(D) and two Supporting fullbacks. You run the risk of a creating 3 gaps. Two of these gaps are inherent in the system: the ones on the flanks but choosing to use an Inside Forward in attack and 2 fullbacks on support will pose a risk.

Without making any changes to shouts you have effectively created a lot of space. There is now a gap when you attack between the holding midfielders and the attacking group. There is also a lot of space between the inside forwards and the fullbacks. When you are in the opposing half, the inside forwards will in all likelihood cut inside with the ball, allowing the fullback to overlap on support this has the potential of leaving large swathes of space to be exploited on the counter attack.

There is also a gap up front forcing the 2 holding midfielders to do more work covering the flanks as well as the large gaps between defense and midfield and support the attacking midfielder.

Choosing roles effectively requires one to address how we handle space. One way of solving this is by changing roles, turning one of the Ifs into a Raumdeuter or a wide playmaker and another into a supporting inside forward. Another way is to give the AMC a supporting role.

Understanding how these roles affect space is critical in making a stable tactic.

The next element on the tactical creator are Shouts. These need to be used carefully. When in doubt don't use them, if you want to start using them, use them one at a time so you can understand what effect the are having on your system.

Shouts affect how the team plays as a whole and affects the (automatic) roles in your tactical creator. Shouts are a very effective way of making minor changes to your tactic without the need for making wide sweeping changes.

A shout serves to modify an existing role, for example if a player's role generally asks him to make short passes, a shorter passing shout for the team, will also make that players passing even more shorter. These team instructions work in tandem with the individual player instructions.

Possession Shouts

Go Route One - long ball passing, quickly moves ball from back of defense, bypasses midfield as is generally regarded as a low risk way of clearing the ball. Will reduce your possession and requires you to have a good target man upfront.

More Direct Passing - These passes can be long or short. Attacking in nature, these are usually forward passes which will be targeted more to your playmakers or attacking players. Leads to quicker transition from midfield to attack, provided your roles are set up. Potentially reduces possession. Requires good passing attributes for it to be played effectively in an attacking system. Highly recommended for a counter attacking system.

Retain Possession - A team will recycle passes if it can't find a breakthrough, short passing will automatically be taken and a side will try and reduce its risk tolerance in order for it to hold possesion. Increases possession of a side. Can be used in all systems.

Pass into Space - A side will look to play the ball into space for players to attack. For it to be successful you require players with good decisions, passing and off the ball ratings. There will be more off the ball movement by players and this can be modified further if players have the get forward player preferred move (ppm), switch play to other flank, runs into channel ppm. This shout can lead to loss of possession if the team doesn't have the attributes to pull it off. Incredibly effective in counter attacking, and defensive systems where opposition sides are attacking and leaving large spaces. Effective against a 4231 and 424 systems. Can lead to lower possession numbers and is considered an attacking shout.

Work ball into Box - A possession shout where a side will attempt to reduce its long shots and its crosses in an attempt to get the ball into the box. Is a shout that can be used in concert with other possession shouts to further increase possession numbers in a side.

Play out of Defense - Useful in systems which employ no Deep lying playmaker. When a side uses these shouts, defenders pass the ball around themselves and into the middle to build up play. If player instructions are set up for direct passing, it has the potential of being a wasted shout. It can be used to increase possession provided a team is already on either direct passing or short passing.

Clear ball to Flanks - This shout has the potential to reduce possession and is employed when you have suitable flank players who have been instructed to get forward either via PI's or their roles. Requires good passing, and is also a useful shout for counter attacking sides. It however can lead to loss of possession.

Hit early Crosses - Any player whose role dictates that he crosses will take deep crosses when the opportunity presents itself. Useful if you are defending deep against an attacking system that leaves large gaps. Requires your attackers to have good off the ball, anticipation to get themselves into position. Unless their roles dictate they run forward early, this can be a wasteful shout for sides who want to dominate possession.

Float Crosses - Effective shout for sides that have taller attackers with better jumping and heading than the rest. A floated cross can be headed down into the path of a poacher or a midfielder arriving late into the box or a attacking forward who has instructions to hold the ball up.

Whipped crosses - These are not targeted to specific players, instead it serves to drill a ball across the face of a goal.

Low Cross - Similar to a whipped cross, except that these aren't drilled.

Run at defense - increases the likelihood that players with good dribbling skills will take on players and try and beat them by dribbling past them. Unless your players have that skill, you could be wasting possession or running the risk of them being injured from hard tackling defenses.

Shoot on Sight- Instructs your side to take a shot at goal at the earliest opportunity.

Penetration Shouts

These shouts generally affect which area of the pitch passes are drilled to, or how players should be attacking spaces.

Exploit shouts all affect the area where direct/long passes will be made to exploit space and require you to have players with the necessary attributes to benefit from them otherwise this could lead to a loss in possession.

In all these shouts the relevant flank will see an increased likelihood players will make forward runs to. For example an exploit flank shout will see flank players like AMR making earlier forward runs and deeper players making direct passes for them to exploit.

The overlapping shouts have the effect of reducing the forward runs of the players in the middle of the pitch and increasing that of the flank players. The only exception are players who have been specifically told NOT to make those runs via PIs.

Shape Shouts

These shouts affect the width and how deep your tactic becomes. Pushing the defensive line of a tactic reduces the distance between midfield and defense, but increases the gap between defense and your goal. Dropping your defensive line reduces the gap between your goal and defense and increases the gap between midfield and defense.

You can create a walled defense by increasing your defensive line for a defensive tactic, but it also creates gaps behind your defense that can be exploited, conversely you can reduce your defensive line to cut out space that can be exploited, but this does have the effect of isolating your attack. When using these shouts bear in mind the gaps you create as you will need to address how you seek out your players for a pass.

Defending Shouts

These shouts govern how your players address threats. Increasing closing down has the effect of increasing the zonal marking area of a player. When a player is giving higher closing down instructions, he will run around more. This can be beneficial in a lot of cases and can be used both in defensive as well as offensive systems. The shouts here affect the team as a whole. You can elect to specifically tell a role to close down much more without having to use the team shout.

This can be done via the individual Player Instructions Panel. Some roles are locked out and changes can't be made since these would essentially devalue their roles and thereby dilute them.

Using these shouts can have the effect of increasing the likelihood of players getting more tired and run the risk of them getting injured. You can use them but be aware that these shouts have the effect of displacing your overall shape, and its especially true for very fluid systems.

General Shouts

These shouts are self explanatory, the ones that stand out are the more disciplined and more expressive shouts. These shouts allow your side to hold their shape or forgo their shape based on the game situation at that current time. Tempo Shouts are good to use, however these too need to work in concert with your overal passing and tactical shape of your system. A high tempo shout makes a team move the ball around much faster or increases their overall movement across the pitch, however it has the added effect of decreasing the players conditioning over the course of a game. Take a breather is a good shout to take if you want to hold onto the lead, and slow a game down. Other shouts that stand out and haven't been covered include stay on feet which is also a fairly good shout to use in an attacking system since players are told not to go to ground too easily thus forcing a team to find their way around them with passes. However when using this shout if your team has low concentration or anticipation and teamwork, a ball could be worked around your side for easy shots at goal or a player could dribble his way past you without hindrance.

Once you've set all these up you can then go to the Set piece creator, here the best advice is to leave it at default, most people do, there are some who use it to score a lot of goals, and to get that done, you basically go through your side, scour it for good set piece takes or good headers and put them in the positions you think are the best goal scoring ones.

Analysis

Once you have played a few games you can begin to take stock of how you are doing. There are various ways of doing this, you can drill through your ratings on take a look at the Analysis tab of the tactical creator. You need to leave your tactic on the default tactic you have chosen though for it to reflect the tactic that you have used.

This will break down how your system has done against other systems used by the AI, information like where your assists are coming from help you determine if your system is working true to form

One of the coolest features about Analysis is comparing how two different players played against a specific team. Here I am comparing my current fullback against his future replacement against Liverpool 2016 and Liverpool 2017

When you are evaluating WHY your system doesn't work, this analysis tab can be an invaluable aid. It can show you how your team performed in the last match, and you can analyse how your team has worked together over the course of a season. It lets you see how your tactic has been doing, whether its creating the right kind of chances or whether it needs drastic improvement.

In this particular example I was trying to analyse how both players' heat seeker missiles were doing against the same opposition, whether these kind of attacks were useful and whether I should use them again in the future.

The Analysis tab also contains detailed head to head stats including highlights of recent games. Use them when you are in doubt.

END OF PART 1 - PART 2: Basics of Training

Terrific stuff here, rashidi1. I've really enjoyed reading about how you look to utilise space against different opponents. I think a lot of people get overly fixated on making a perfectly balanced, symmetrical tactic when knowing how to "unbalance" your system with a duty change here or a role change there can make all the difference depending on where the opponent is giving your players room to operate. This (and your other posts) have done a really great job of illustrating ways to do that.

Nice to have you back!

Terrific stuff here, rashidi1. I've really enjoyed reading about how you look to utilise space against different opponents. I think a lot of people get overly fixated on making a perfectly balanced, symmetrical tactic when knowing how to "unbalance" your system with a duty change here or a role change there can make all the difference depending on where the opponent is giving your players room to operate. This (and your other posts) have done a really great job of illustrating ways to do that.

Nice to have you back!

Thanks mate, glad to be home

Another excellent thread mate

Thanks Cleon

This is, perhaps, the best explanation of shouts, I have seen out there.

Great thread. Setting up my tactic to create space, exploit space and deny space is where I have a big problem. I'm trying to work on it and I do win things but I think it has more to do with my players then my tactic at times.

Fix deny space first, then you work on how to create space, thats how I usually work. I begin with the defensive side of the game by determining which areas of the pitch i want to control more. You can defend each blade of grass, but you can influence where the ball will be played most of the time. If you play narrow for example, you will gift the flanks to the AI.

Really good read Rashidi1. Also, I very much like your blog -when I receive an email from Addicted to FM it makes my day.

A minor thing, the terminology I would use for Attack, Support and Defend would be Duty. A Role would be a Deep Lying Playmaker. I think this is how the game refers to them?

Really good read Rashidi1. Also, I very much like your blog -when I receive an email from Addicted to FM it makes my day.

A minor thing, the terminology I would use for Attack, Support and Defend would be Duty. A Role would be a Deep Lying Playmaker. I think this is how the game refers to them?

Thanks for your kind words, and yeah I changed the terminology to reflect your feedback. ;-)

Quality post here. The more focus on space the better!

Fantastic write up!

Really good read, I in particular liked your explanation of shouts and the fact that you talk a bit about what is a key requirement to use them effectively without going into too much detail.

One thing I never really understood and that is bugging me a bit is the defense line. Trying to emulate certain tactics you would think playing much higher is what you want, but the defensive line for me just does not seem to work as I think it should.

You say it decreases the space between midfield and attack, but shouldn't the defensive line push my whole team up rather than just the back 4? in FM it actually seems to be a bit of a hybrid. My observation is that players in the DC and DM stratas seem to push up a lot higher, as unfortunately do players on the CM strata with a defend duty. the more offensive minded players don't push up as much. if at all. This makes some sort of sense as it brings the team closer together.

In practise you see some weird things, in particular on the higher mentalities... by pushing up too high you can easily create a huge gap between the DC and the DM/MC strata, caused by DCs not going one step beyond the half way line unless chasing a ball/closing down a player. the DM/MC on defend (includes also the DPL on support) however will follow his instruction and push up all the way to the edge of the opp box (which is too high even on overload and with much higher defensive line, but that's a different story).

There are plenty more of those ME specific dynamics that cause you to pull your hair out until you finally find the reason the the weird behavior and what I'd really like to read about more in the tactics threads is ME specific limitations where known. I would probably try to put my hand on some but I admittedly don't understand the ME enough nor do I have the time to test my "theories" with different teams/role combinations to verify it's not just the players/tactics I use.

Note of interest

I just copied the OP " Basic Guide to Tactics" to word and found it to have 3398 words over 12 pages.

I would hate to see the in depth version

Really good read, I in particular liked your explanation of shouts and the fact that you talk a bit about what is a key requirement to use them effectively without going into too much detail.

One thing I never really understood and that is bugging me a bit is the defense line. Trying to emulate certain tactics you would think playing much higher is what you want, but the defensive line for me just does not seem to work as I think it should.

You say it decreases the space between midfield and attack, but shouldn't the defensive line push my whole team up rather than just the back 4? in FM it actually seems to be a bit of a hybrid. My observation is that players in the DC and DM stratas seem to push up a lot higher, as unfortunately do players on the CM strata with a defend duty. the more offensive minded players don't push up as much. if at all. This makes some sort of sense as it brings the team closer together.

In practise you see some weird things, in particular on the higher mentalities... by pushing up too high you can easily create a huge gap between the DC and the DM/MC strata, caused by DCs not going one step beyond the half way line unless chasing a ball/closing down a player. the DM/MC on defend (includes also the DPL on support) however will follow his instruction and push up all the way to the edge of the opp box (which is too high even on overload and with much higher defensive line, but that's a different story).

There are plenty more of those ME specific dynamics that cause you to pull your hair out until you finally find the reason the the weird behavior and what I'd really like to read about more in the tactics threads is ME specific limitations where known. I would probably try to put my hand on some but I admittedly don't understand the ME enough nor do I have the time to test my "theories" with different teams/role combinations to verify it's not just the players/tactics I use.

In a word no. That would make the system open to exploitation, we'd see people making unrealistic systems. Remember that the tactical grid shows you the position where your players will be when they are DEFENDING, you can understand what will happen if the D-line affects everyone including the strikers. At the moment the defensive line adjusts to affect the players who are on defend and support duty within the D & M strata. Any individual PIs that serve to increase their default positioning such as get further forward has the potential of affecting these too. When a line drops or goes up it does so in relation to the distance to your goal. When you push it up you increase the distance to your goal but reduce the distance to your midfield. More drastic adjustments will come with mentality adjustments. Definitely if it affects D,M,A stratas, we will get exploits, of that I have no doubt. Its a challenge I know SI are aware of which explains why they have focused so much on trying to get players back as much as they can and why the Libero won't work. It certainly looks a lot better than the FM12 engine.

Note of interest

I just copied the OP " Basic Guide to Tactics" to word and found it to have 3398 words over 12 pages.

I would hate to see the in depth version

rashidi would it be wise to use two box to box midfielders in a 442 formation or set one to play as dlp or bwm because i am stumped

In a word no. That would make the system open to exploitation, we'd see people making unrealistic systems. Remember that the tactical grid shows you the position where your players will be when they are DEFENDING, you can understand what will happen if the D-line affects everyone including the strikers. At the moment the defensive line adjusts to affect the players who are on defend and support duty within the D & M strata. Any individual PIs that serve to increase their default positioning such as get further forward has the potential of affecting these too. When a line drops or goes up it does so in relation to the distance to your goal. When you push it up you increase the distance to your goal but reduce the distance to your midfield. More drastic adjustments will come with mentality adjustments. Definitely if it affects D,M,A stratas, we will get exploits, of that I have no doubt. Its a challenge I know SI are aware of which explains why they have focused so much on trying to get players back as much as they can and why the Libero won't work. It certainly looks a lot better than the FM12 engine.

I can understand the reason why it is implemented that way, but what I was actually thinking is not that I want my striker to stand next to the goalkeeper when defending, but certainly, within boundaries being more flexible in the way the defensive line behaves would be good. Right now it's a fair amount of guesswork. To make things worse, players often make weird marking desicions (like an AML/R marking an opp. MC, leaving the full back and wide midfielder wide open on set pieces.

Again, the point of the post I made was something completely different, apologies if I've not made it clear. In the example I said there's one weakness to the current implementation of a very high defensive line, which is centre back positioning. No matter how high a line you play, the CBs will always, and both or even all 3, stop pushing up at the half way line, even if the opp is pulling all forwards back to put pressure on DMs/MCs. The latter though are affected by the extremely high line and as such will push up extremely high, creating a huge gap between the DCs and DM/MCs that a single striker can always use to easily find himself in acres of space after a cleared ball.

I know now that my D-line is just to high and dropping it to standard pretty much fixes that issue. Took me a fair amount of time to figure that out and I think this is due to a ME limitation (DCs not pushing up high enough and DMs/MCs on defend pushing up too high) that would be worth mentioning, in particular in times where a lot of real life top teams are referred to as palying with extremely high lines but when you see them play they either have their DCs positioned 15 yards into the opp half (against teams sending everyone to defend) or have their holding midfielder(s) positioned half way between the DCs and the edge of the box, not 5 yards outside the box . What I'm saying is, D-line positioning should be relative to the opp. highest man positioning, while DMs/MCs on defend should never leave enormous (not talking about huge here) gaps between them and the DCs, no matter the d-line setting.

Apologies I did not mean to derail this thread and turn it into another "the ME is crap" rants since it clearly isn't once you can more easily translate what you see into the instructions you have given, not the instructions you thought you have given!)

The invisible wall is a known issue for as long as I ca remember I just accept it for what it is an work with it:-(

rashidi would it be wise to use two box to box midfielders in a 442 formation or set one to play as dlp or bwm because i am stumped

You should read this mate:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/382825-FM14-Manchester-United-98-99-Treble-Winning-4-4-2

rashidi would it be wise to use two box to box midfielders in a 442 formation or set one to play as dlp or bwm because i am stumped

Hmm, I probably wouldn't, but nothing in the match engine says it can't work. Two box to box midfielders can work, they would be doing a lot of work running up and down covering a lot of space, it would leave you to do more imaginative things with the attack and the wingers though

Ok here we are..I just saw another thread on the forums which almost necessitates me dumbing down a lot of concepts. What follows is a checklist of sorts for defensive, balanced and attacking football, and what you need to avoid and achieve, and I am assuming you want to win. Master each aspect of these and you are sorted.

DEFENSIVE FOOTBALL

Regardless of whether you want to play possession based on counter attacking, this assumes you want to win and not close up shop. We will deal with close up shop sometime in the future.

Defensive Checklist:

RULE 1 USE THE RIGHT INSTRUCTION

Understand the impact of Defensive Team Instructions:

Close down TI's need to be used with care, they displace your system, use player instructions instead on key players so that you maintain the shape

Get Stuck In - great for injuring the opposition, but will turn your players into hurdles, if they are slow or bad, pacey strikers will hurdle over them. Know when to use them and how, again PIs are better.

Tight Marking - Another dangerous TI, this is useless against fast teams with good acceleration they will just turn your defender. Turn your defender means...assume 2 players are close together, the one with higher acceleration, just needs to drop one shoulder and go the other way turning the defender the other way around.

Use Offside Trap - Great for offensive systems which are at least control and higher, dangerous when used with a system with a split back 4, i.e. one defender on cover and another on defend.

RULE 2: USE THE RIGHT ROLES

Defensive players need conditioning, concentration, anticipation, first touch tackling and marking.

Have you employed effective screens?

You can even defend with only 2 central defenders, just ask my 343 formation, provided of course that the right defensive screen in front of them is doing all the work.

RULE 3: USE THE BALL WISELY

Defensive football is fine, but there is a difference between intelligent defensive and stupid defensive. Intelligent defensive will see you getting the ball out to alleviate pressure, stupid defensive is the Clear Ball to Flanks shout used in defensive formations.

Passing control is great, but you need the players who you depend on to have great balance, first touch, composure, decisions and passing. If a player has low decisions and you are defending deep, and he doesn't have good conditioning, sooner or later he will get tackled hard. I do that all the time to the AI, so why should the AI be any different against me?

ATTACKING FOOTBALL CHECKLIST

This is even easier, lol sounds like its mostly about roles and shouts :-)

RULE 1 ESTABLISH YOUR STYLE OF ATTACK

Have you clearly established a style of attack? Do you know where the assists are going to come from? If you haven't then maybe you should think about this first. Have a clear image of how you want your goals to be scored, if you have a clear idea and its not happening..check player for right attributes, then check role to make sure its within a balanced system that allows that role to flourish.

For example. You are playing a system with a DLP and a BBM, and these are your only 2 MCs, potentially the DLP will have low scores cos he will either be trying to win the ball a lot or trying to make a pass, if he is surrounded by ball winners then he will have the space and time to be the god like playmaker you want.

RULE 2: LEARN THE SHOUTS AND WHAT THEY MEAN

eg. The shout pass into space is a fantastic shout, but it can lead to loss of possession, its use is limited by your players and their roles, if you have no players making intelligent runs then the shout is wasted.

RULE 3: USE THE RIGHT PLAYERS FOR THE RIGHT SHOUTS

Have you chosen the right players on the pitch for the use of some shouts?

Overlapping play...great shout, but if your players have low acceleration, off the ball, pace, passing and crossing then this is wasted.

If you have opted for a withdrawn striker role, does he have the right attributes to play the role?

If you are using pass into space as a shout, do you have the right players making forward runs, do you have any players making forward runs?

RULE 4: USE THE SHOUTS INTELLIGENTLY

A shout is not a static thing that should last an entire match, its fluid. It changes. If a side is attacking me and defending and I have players with pace and great off the ball, I will use Pass into Space, as attacking teams frequently leave gaps. If I am attacking and my passes are not really connecting then I will not use the shout since space is at a premium.

Do you have the right shape with shouts?

Shape/ Tempo/Shouts/Mentality

There is a curious alignment with these 4. When you have any shape with high creative freedom and high mentality you will generate a lot of movement. So watch your tempo and look at how your runners are doing, you may find yourself facing a lot of offside calls. Possible sources:

Pass Into Space - this shout will see the ball played behind the Dline or through the vertical channels when this happens, a high tempo setting could see you generate offsides. So drop it to maintain possession.

Defensive shapes require you to have discipline, so heavy closing down TI is not recommended, and furthermore if you are using the Be More Disciplined Shout, please use on rigid or structured shapes, any other shape will see higher creative freedom and make the more discipled shout seem silly.

Sometimes I feel I should expand these, but honestly thats really all there is to it, if you have checked all of the above when you are making any system, you should be fine. If there is an issue with your game, its probably down to one of these factors. Master each one and you have mastered the game.

Cracking thread and a great read. Keep up the great stuff.

Only just got round to this - good work.

Another good update

Thank you

Do you have a link to your blog Rashidi?

Its next to my forum name..fmrashidi.wordpress.com

Its next to my forum name..fmrashidi.wordpress.com

Ah. Last night when I tried that the link didn't work. It's working now though, thanks!

Hi Rashidi,

I cannot tell you how much your revival (recent contributions) have made my game play experience better. Think SI are missing a trick by not employing yous (gurus) to write a helpful guide. With that in mind can i be rather selfish and ask if you will be releasing "basics of training" its a part of the game that i completely ignore

Coming soon Internet problems at home for the last week have scuppered any plans for an update. And thanks for the kind words

Understanding Your Squad Screen

Before we begin on training the first thing you have to do is set up your training views. Do this on the squad screen instead of the training screen, since there's more real estate there. This is what mine looks like and you can download the view from here. Its essentially the most important facet of my game at all times.

[/url]I have updated the links to the views, I have stopped using the training master one I've linked below to include personalities.

Simplified to 2 views these include:

1. I use this view for Training, this gives me information on their age, ppms and personality. Its called simply Training.

2. Over the course of a season I use this as a template to assess how they have done for training, one can make subsets from these focusing on key attributes for various positions, (thank Jambo for making it easier to describe this as an acronymn.)

The view simply has these categories which I deem important to track.

• Player Name
  
• Position
  
• Starts
  
• Appearances
  
• Age
  
• Training Performance
  
• Ass Man assessment of Potential Ability
  
• Ass Man assessment of Current Ability
  
• Control Individual Training
  
• Focus Intensity
  
• Focus Area
  
• Preferred Move Training
  
• Training Happiness
  
• First Touch, Composure, Anticipation, Teamwork (My training plans DNA)
  
• Media Handling
  
• Personality
  

By having a detailed view on the Squad page I am able to handle everyone's training without having to go to the individual training areas it saves me a ******** of time.

Understanding your players

Ever had a personality clash when trying to tutor players? Well if you have, then you need to read this.

Players enter the FM world with one of 37 different personalities in the game (of which i know) There are a slate of attributes hidden and public that go into the concoction of their personality. For a perfectionist personality the professionalism attribute will be between 18-19. Determination is an important factor in determining the kind of personality he will have. How well he responds to training is a function of his personality and how his media handling attributes. Its all very complicated and I tend to dumb it down for myself. I have absolutely no desire to min max these and if you do want to do min maxing then I suggest you read this thread. It was a brilliant thread while it lasted.

A players personality is made up from various attributes mostly hidden, these are the basic ones.

• Adaptability
  
• Ambition
  
• Controversy
  
• Loyalty
  
• Pressure
  
• Professionalism
  
• Sportsmanship
  
• Temperament
  
• Determination
  
• Influence
  

To simplify things, when training players I focus on players based on their level of professionalism since this drives how well they train. A players hidden attributes can change with age, tutoring and events. You need good professionalism to develop young players so they train better, good tutors to keep in your stable should be either:

Model Citizen, Model Professional, Professional, Fairly Professional, Perfectionist, Resolute, and maybe Spirited they will all have a professionalism stat of at least 15, apart from Spirited which is between 11-17. A players determination is not relevant to their development, professionalism and ambition are. A player can have low determination and yet have high ambition and professionalism.

Determination is still a good attribute for players for their on field performance, and whilst its not important for training, its still important for results.

I intend to keep things simple. I don't use editors and I don't want to bust my head open and chase a min-maxed game. The goal is to make training simple enough for me to use on a long term basis.

So if you have a player with low professionalism, option A, get him tutored by one who has higher professionalism, option b, sell him.

• Tutoring Requirements
  
• Higher squad status
  
• Higher reputation
  
• Playing a similar position
  
• Onfield and Off field tutoring - one leads to possible transfer of PPMs and personality and another leads to personality without ppms
  

Understanding your coaches

You can assign coaches to different training categories, their workload and coach ratings affect the quality of training a player and this will impact on their attribute development. Use the tick boxes to redistribute the loads for the coaches. A 5 star coach should be on one category to maximise development, to reduce the load so that the training is more focused add another coach to achieve the lightest workload possible.

Each coach's star rating is determined by his staff attributes which include coaching attributes and mental attributes. This star rating will be reduced if you assign him to additional categories. as he will need to split his attention between them. Assigning a weaker coach to a category which has a five star coach will not reduce the quality of training, it will help reduce the workload. Each training category has either a primary attribute and sometimes a secondary attribute. Where two attributes are listed the latter is the secondary attribute.

1. Strength: Fitness
   
2. Aerobic: Fitness
   
3. Tactics: Tactical
   
4. Ball Control: Technical, Mental
   
5. Defending: Defending, Tactical
   
6. Attacking: Attacking, Tactical
   
7. Shooting: Technical, Attacking
   
8. Shot Stopping: Goalkeeping, Tactical
   
9. Handling: Goalkeeping, Technical
   

In addition these, Determination, Level of Discipline and Motivation are the mental attributes that affect their stat rating, The higher all these attributes are the more stars he has. For youth training, I also include, Man Management and Working with Youngsters in my attributes.

Understanding Training

A players training time is fixed, the goal is to improve his Current Ability over time.

What kind of training is the best?

Basically there is General Training and Individual Training. Once a season is underway and as soon as you can, you need to get Individual training focus to 10%. This ensures that a player spends max amount of time on development. The key now is how to distribute that 20% of General training. If you want more details you should just go to my blog which has detailed pages on training,

You can choose one of two methods: Balanced or Focused

Balanced training for the whole season: this is a safe route to take, but it does one no favors in setting up a team flavor. You have absolutely no control over where the attributes may fall, and they will fall within any of the 5 sub categories of training Teamwork, Ball Control, Mental, Fitness, Attacking and Defending. That’s a total of 36 attribute areas. It’s still a great way to train. And definitely the easiest. If you want more of a challenge then...

You can also opt to give your team a flavor: Focused Training

There is ONLY ONE way of doing this. There are really only 8 months of training, even though one may argue they start the season in July and end in May, you have to allow one month for things like making up time for cohesion if the squad is filled with noobs.

Since a player needs a minimum of 3 months for attributes to stick, you can only devote two sessions of Focused Training, and this allows you to set a theme. My theme has always been what I called the Rinus Michel school, where we tackle Ball Control and Tactics, allowing us to hone our First Touch, Composure, Decisions, Anticipation, Concentration, Dribbling, Flair, Teamwork, Heading and Technique. For me, these are the defining hall-marks of my systems.

You can have your own systems too, if you so choose and then focus training along those attribute lines. If you are a low league side and want to focus on survival you may opt for defense and fitness.

In neither system will a player ALWAYS gain attribute increases in all the targeted attribute areas. Balanced training will not result in someone having all the sub-categories show absolute improvement, and the same holds for Focused training.

What is important to see is whether your training programs target the right attributes you want developed for the player to perform his roles well on the pitch.

You can go in blind and just pick and choose..or you could look at the roles of the player you him to be more familiar with within your system of play and then assign a specific training program for each player. Here's an example I have decided to train this player as an Inside forward and he's under my focused training plan. The boxed areas reflect the ball control and tactics training influence and the blue shaded attributes will be those influenced by his specific role training.

In the example above, I wanted my player to gain attribute development along the lines of an Inside Forward, since that specific role training had the most number of attributes I was chasing after for that specific player. Sometimes two players in a similar position can be trained in different roles. I could have 2 forwards and train one as an Inside Forward whilst other could be trained as a poacher. In this case I select which attributes are needed and set the training accordingly.

If you are uncertain what attributes are being affected go to the training development page of a player and look here. You can see what attributes are affected by specific roles or by specific training categories. In this example, I am looking at the categories for Fullback Training.

Understanding Training Loads

This is an example of a Focused training program, alternatively you can elect to have a Balanced training program for your players but you should maintain the same general training intensity, match prep and focus intensity levels, in which case your training category will be Balanced.

Match preparation training are just short term gains to current ability.

[TABLE=class: mce-item-table]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD] Category[/TD]

[TD]General Trg Intensity[/TD]

[TD]Match Prep[/TD]

[TD]Focus Intensity[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]JULY[/TD]

[TD]Fitness[/TD]

[TD]High[/TD]

[TD]40%[/TD]

[TD]Light[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]AUG[/TD]

[TD]Ball Control[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]SEPT[/TD]

[TD]Ball Control[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]OCT[/TD]

[TD]Ball Control[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]NOV[/TD]

[TD]Ball Control[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]DEC[/TD]

[TD]Ball Control[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]JAN[/TD]

[TD]Tactics[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FEB[/TD]

[TD]Tactics[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]MAR[/TD]

[TD]Tactics[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]APR[/TD]

[TD]Tactics[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]MAY[/TD]

[TD]Tactics[/TD]

[TD]Low[/TD]

[TD]10%[/TD]

[TD]Heavy[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

If you choose to focus on specific DNA markers for your team and elect to "force" attribute development in these areas, bear several things in mind:

1. The effect is minimal but its still there, since a player's training focus is still very much defined by his playing position and the roles he has already learnt, so even if you go balanced the attribute distribution is still affected by those factors.

2. Quality of coaches, quality of facilities and playing time still influence attributes. If you want his Current Ability to improve, a player still needs to play games. Its been my experience that 15 games at senior level should suffice, however going on loan with a team of players who are playing at a good level is still great if he plays games and the quality of training is good.

3. Any tutoring or PPMs get suspended when there is a long injury or a player goes on loan

Understanding PPMs

Player Preferred Moves are little traits that a player can pick up through training or tutoring.

This is the full list of player preferred moves in the game, some can be taught by coaches and others can only be learnt via tutoring. A 17 year old player can learn 5 ppms by the time he is 20, and by then he should have been with the club for 3 seasons earning home grown status. By then you can either start giving him time with the first time, or continue his development. Personally I continue players development, making sure they are capable in at least two positions. That takes one season, and you can put the player on loan once he's ready and tell the loanee club that he can only play in the new position.

Some people may dislike playing with ppms, but imagine the variety of play you can achieve.

To give you an example I had a defender who could also play as a midfielder, at the age of 17 I got him to learn, and he naturally developed a very good passing game.

Likes to dicate tempo

Likes to play killer balls

Get forward whenever possible

My winger on the left has dribbling of 19, composure of 19, acceleration of 20 and pace of 19. With really good ball control skills I gave him the task of

Get forward whenever possible

Runs with balls often

Plays simple one twos

Knocks ball past opponents

Places shots

I also have this winger on the right who possesses a great throw and he has 5 ppms including a long flat throw and 7 assists in 13 games, from his throw

That defender is a lynchpin for my defense now and through him we create a lot of chances, in fact its never surprising for me to see him run the ball up the field and play a killer pass to one of my wingers who then scores. The winger on the left is now encouraged to run with the ball and pull defenses open and when he does that its almost always an assist or he scores. Below is a full list of ppms, and there are combinations you can make to allow you to do things you can;t in the TC, like having a fullback who's the source of all attacks.

1. Argues with Officials
   
2. Arrives late in Opponent's Area
   
3. Attempts Overhead Kicks
   
4. Attempts to Develop Weaker Foot
   
5. Avoids Using Weaker Foot
   
6. Comes Deep To Get Ball
   
7. Curls Ball
   
8. Cuts Inside
   
9. Dictates Tempo
   
10. Dives Into Tackles
    
11. Does Not Dive Into Tackles
    
12. Dwells on Ball
    
13. Gets Forward Whenever Possible
    
14. Gets Into Opposition Area
    
15. Hits Free Kicks With Power
    
16. Hugs Line
    
17. Knocks Ball Past Opponent
    
18. Likes To Lob Keeper
    
19. Likes To Round Keeper
    
20. Likes To Switch Ball To Other Flank
    
21. Likes To Try To Beat Offside Trap
    
22. Looks For Pass Rather Than Attempting To Score
    
23. Marks Opponent Tightly
    
24. Moves Into Channels
    
25. Penalty Box Player
    
26. Places Shots
    
27. Plays No Through Balls
    
28. Plays One-Twos
    
29. Plays Short Simple Passes
    
30. Plays With Back To Goal
    
31. Possesses Long Flat Throw
    
32. Refrains From Taking Long Shots
    
33. Runs With Ball Down Left
    
34. Runs With Ball Down Right
    
35. Runs With Ball Often
    
36. Runs With Ball Rarely
    
37. Runs With Ball Down Centre
    
38. Shoots From Distance
    
39. Shoots With Power
    
40. Stays Back At All Times
    
41. Stops Play
    
42. Tries First Time Shots
    
43. Tries Killer Balls Often
    
44. Tries Long Range Passes
    
45. Tries Long Range Free Kicks
    
46. Tries To Play Way Out Of Trouble
    
47. Uses Long Throw To Start Counter Attacks
    

UNDERSTANDING TUTORING

There are two options when you want to tutor a player. The first option teaches him ppms and affects his mental disposition, and the second option only affects his mental disposition. You can tutor anyone but the chances of success depends on how "senior" the tutor is, whether they have positions they play in common and whether the tutored is injured or not. Tutoring can transfer some of the ppms and takes 180 days to the best of my knowledge. Coaches can also come with PPMs and these coaches have a higher probability of getting players to learn them.

Tutoring can affect personality, ppms or both.

Using PPMS in a game

Its not really hard, but you really need a plan. You can't simply decide that you want two players to approach the game identically. That won't happen. What you need to do is to look at the roles you have and see how ppms can enhance them. I have three positions which are key in my 4411: the right fullback, the left winger and the AMC.

Right fullback

I have an explosive fullback in this position, and when he was younger I was singularly focused on making sure he could dual hat a wingback role as well, so I trained him for both. The player had great stamina, teamwork, natural fitness, concentration, pace and acceleration. With those key attributes I set about looking at ppms to make this attacking fullback position more deadly.

So I added Get Forward, plays killer ball, runs down right flank, knocks ball past opponent.

The reason why I chose knock ball past opponent was because of his acceleration and his crossing, his pace and concentration made him a good choice for an attacking fullback role, right now he is one of the most important players in my squad and at the age of 27 easily a world class player.

Left Midfielder

My winger is expected to dribble at players, break defenses open, get goalside and basically wreak havoc. At the age of 15 I found a young player who had phenomenal acceleration, 17 at that age was very high. Couple with his high pace and stamina I knew that there was a strong chance if he developed right he would be an ace in the hole.

I immediately set to get him to learn two more positions, by the time he was 17 he could play as an AMC, AML and an ML. By 18 he was the European Golden Boy winner, today he has 18 dribbling 15 passing and 17 first touch - a great addition to the left.

In order to exploit his potential I knew that he needed to be paired with a more restrained fullback who could one two with him so that he could have miles of space to exploit. So I gave him the ppms, plays one-twos, gets forward, runs with ball often, knocks ball past opponents and places shots. This has seen him get goal side tonnes of times to score and he frequently beats players to cross from the byeline. His unpredictability down the left has seen many defenses crumble.

In the middle my amc has been given, plays killer balls, switch ball to flanks and get forward.

But to give all these players their ppms they first need the right attributes so they can exploit those ppms. If you give a player the ppm of getting forward but he has low decisions and composure, then its pointless.

Knowing whom to give those ppms is the key to making successful tactics. You don't need every player on the pitch to be walking with a ppm, you need your key players to have them and then once your system becomes rock solid the translation is near flawless on the pitch

UNDERSTANDING FUN

Training can be daunting if you are trying to optimise every facet of a players development, don't get fixated by it too much. Find the right coaches, nurture the right personalities, develop the right attributes and above all have fun by keeping it simple.

Great thread. On your customised training screen you have way more fields than I can get. Is this possible with the default skin?

I was playing on 2k res to get that screen up

Ah I see thanks. In my current squad , league 2, I can teach ppms to senior and u21 but the option is greyed out for my u18. What is the criteria that allows ppm training?

That's training category focus not match prep

Ah I see thanks. In my current squad , league 2, I can teach ppms to senior and u21 but the option is greyed out for my u18. What is the criteria that allows ppm training?

I have worked out the issue. I had a HOYD, myself, u21 and u18 team managers and senior gk coach doing the training. But no specific u18 coaches. I hired one and can now train ppms for youth players. Carry on the good work and don't mind me! Cheers.

rashidi, in your other quite involved guide to training youngsters you mentioned that between the ages of 15-17 you keep them in the youth squad and in that time they learn their PPM's.

Are the PPM's that you initially teach your youngsters influenced by their stats or do you have a "must" have list of PPM's that these youngster must learn per position, regardless of their stats, based on the DNA/style of your club? I'm not after a list, just curious on how you approach it. For example a fresh faced 15y DC with a marking stat of 2. Would you still immediately start training him in the PPM "marks opponents tightly" or initially concentrate 100% on getting that marking stat up before commencing the PPM?

Some players learn their PPM faster than others. Do low "vital" stats for the PPM being learned actually have any influence in the time the player takes to learn the PPM or is it the influence/stats of the coach and/or professionalism of the players, or is it as hotpot mixture of all of these things?

I don't have a must have list, for most strikers I get them to place shots or if they have good acceleration and they look like future flying fullbacks, i get them to learn go forward. If I spot an AMC who can play in the hole then I get him to learn how to play the killer pass.

The ppms are designed so that they fit into my existing style of play for my team. I don't make all players learn like x number of ppms by the time they are 20. Tbh in some cases I leave them be, only when they look like they can be given a few runs in the senior team do I start considering ppm training on them. I wouldn't bother with ppms for players below 17, its better that their training time is focused on basic development. The ideal time for ppms would be between 18-19 thats when you need to make the decision whether they can be tested in the senior team or they should go on loan. Since going on loan usually implies they aren't good enough, I usually stop focusing ppms on them, unless they start showing extraordinary performance while they are away. That actually happened to one player, I did end up selling him for 40 million 2 seasons later.

The time taken to learn a ppm is not fixed it can vary from player to player and i believe its a mix of things.

Yeah just logical stuff eh, and I'm doing pretty well what you say with a horses for courses attitude when it comes with the young players.

Thanks for your thoughts

Hi thanks for this guide...It is a huge help...The link for the RYTrainingMaster1 doesnt link to anything?

I will need to update the links to the views

Its been simplified to just 2 views:

1. I use this view for Training, this gives me information on their age, ppms and personality. Its called simply Training

2. Over the course of a season I use this as a template to assess how they have done for training, one can make subsets from these focusing on key attributes for various positions, but this one is the master and it covers the teams DNA. (thank Jambo for making it easier to describe this as an acronymn.)

A players training time is fixed, the goal is to improve his Current Ability over time.

What kind of training is the best?

Basically there is General Training and Individual Training. Once a season is underway and as soon as you can, you need to get Individual training focus to 10%. This ensures that a player spends max amount of time on development. The key now is how to distribute that 20% of General training.

Rashidi1, thank you for all your info, but I don't understand your statement "Basically there is General Training and Individual Training." By Individual Training do you mean Match Preparation?

So far I'm in February in my season and with 2 matches a week and a relatively thin squad I'm finding that all my players are knackered. I have the following settings:

Match Training/Preparation 30%

General Training - Balanced; Intensity level - Average

Allow rest after match

I've recently added 'Allow rest before match' too to try and improve things. Half of my players have a specific focus but some do not, those that do all have an intensity level of Average. The Overall team workload is 'Light'.

If I've understood correctly, with my current settings I'm not getting any player development, just match preparation and rest. What would you advise I do at this stage to see me through until the close season? I suppose I should move the match preparation workload down to 10%, but what should I do with the remaining 90%? What's the balance between defined rest and the different workloads?

My apologies if I was not clear iny explanation. This is coming from memory as I am nowhere near a computer. The training page has several drop downs. These only General Training and Match Preparation. When I talk about individual training that's the Individual focus for each player where you select whether they should learn their role/attribute and PPM. Assume each player has training time that is 100%. That time is split between match prep and general training. There is no percentage for General training as its split between very intensive to low, I think there are 5 choices here so if we assume a player focus average and then low match prep then the balance goes to individual training. If you select nothing for individual training he still does learn something though it's not clear what exactly. We assume it's his current playing position. This is proving harder than I thought hard to mutitask while we r at the hospital

This is proving harder than I thought hard to mutitask while we r at the hospital

Wow, is it time?!....Good luck to you and your wife

Since you have sooo much time on your hands right now , I'd appreciate you thoughts on this. As I play LL I find the majority of my youngsters need training in a number of key areas regardless of what role they have.

Rashidi in this scenario, do you find concentrating on critical attributes one at a time through a three month rotation system is better than giving the youngster a training role where he might train all those key attributes all at the same time. For example I have a youngest who needs work on tackling, marking & passing. Is it wiser to spend nine months rotating through marking/tackling/passing or is it more beneficial to give him nine months on a role where all these three of those key attributes (plus others) are trained.

I feel from my own experiences that there is no real black & white rules regarding this and it is again it's a horses for courses situation, but I would be interested in what your experiences have been in this situation.

Can't respond apologies mini me is on da way

Can't respond apologies mini me is on da way

Congrats dude, hope all goes well.

Congrats dude, hope all goes well.

Mini me is just like me, full of drama, this could be a false start..still a ways to go yet. So me laptop's fired up in the hospital :-)

@clarkey1 When you go to training page , there are several dropdowns, one is general and another is individual. <br><br><br>

On this page you basically set the main focus of your general training and the amount of time for match preparation. The total of which forms 100% of the total training time of a player. Of which a up to 50% can be allocated to match preparation. I did a simple bar to illustrate this on my blog, I haven't had time to update this but simply put this bar is broken up into 2 parts. The blue portion is the total that can be allocated to general training, this portion can be increased by reducing match prep time, so in essence you can spend up to 90% of a players total training time either on general training or work on individual training. Of that 90%, assuming you only spent 10% on match prep, time is allocated to general training, individual focus and ppms.

Once a season is in full swing and after you get preseason outta the way, and assuming you have tactical familiarity at fluid, you coudl drop General Training (GT) to low, get individual role training to heavy and match preparation to 10%. Then you look at the individual intensity for each player. For some it will show medium for others it will show heavy. Thats fine. As long as its not low a player will start showing improvements in attributes over the course of a season.

Some of us, prefer to just set the focus of general training to balanced, then set individual training to roles. Others like to set general training to a specialized field and then set individual training to roles. Both approaches work. Neither is wrong, since the time allocated to the General training focus is actually only a max of 20% if you follow this line of training.

I hope thats made things clear. One other thing, I dunno about the rest but for me, preseason training features at least 6 games, and fitness training as the focus for General training, match prep is set to 40% and individual training is set to low, while Gen Training is set to heavy. The focus here is to ensure that players spend preseason training working on Fitness focused training. No PPM training is done at this time because it cuts into valuable fitness training time.

@ Taipan, thats a very good question. Tbh, my focus has always been on Ball control and tactics for my youngsters. As far as individual training goes I stick em on a training schedule for the role that they will most likely be fulfulling. My youngsters end up training as a central midfielder if I find that all those areas will benefit them. Since the GT component is only 20% of total training time I leave it be. My critical attributes are the ones in tactical and ball control but because they are only 20%, I usually dont worry. At the early stage period I am more concerned with the basics. If I find that a player or a group require to be better at tackling marking? then I will assign the whole group on a training system which hits the least number of attributes but gets tackling and marking as well. I hope that answered ur question.

Thanks mate for your thoughts. You mention that you don't train PPMs during pre-season. What do you do with players that haven't fully learnt their PPM from the previous season and are carrying the instruction over to the new pre-season training? I have kept them training their PPM as I feel it would be a waste to remove the PPM instructions from them considering the time already invested. Do you do the same?

If they are still learning ppm I leave it. You can't really stop it then cos it's a waste