Dealing with mistakes

[red dragon1978]

Earlier today, I reviewed my first season as Wrexham in the Vanarama Conference. We'd got promoted, and I wanted to see how we compared to the teams in League in terms of shot conversion, pass rates, etc. To my surprise, in every area except cross completion and aerial challenges, we stacked up great. Oh, and except in mistakes.

In winning League 2 and whatever cup matches they played, Plymouth made 97 mistakes in about 53 matches. Committing 110 and 96 respectively saw Bristol Rovers and Morecambe relegated.

Wrexham committed 798 in 56 matches. I'll say that again, slowly. Seven hundred, ninety eight mistakes in 56 matches. I nearly fell out of my chair.

It led me to 3 questions. 1. What actually constitutes an error? 2. How did we commit so many? 3. How can I prevent, or at least drastically reduce, errors in future? In all 3 cases, I have ideas, thoughts and plans, but nothing concrete and would appreciate peoples thoughts.

1. The answer is under each players 'Reports'. Checking 'Stats' gives total mistakes. Checking Analysis gives the types of mistakes...Missed Interception, Lost Ball, Lost Challenge, Handball, Conceded Penalty, Dropped Ball, Mistake Leading to Goal, Caught in Possession. I don't think (please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to have to go match by match) there's a way of looking at these for an entire season, only individual matches. I can say 5 of the mistakes were conceded penalties, and 12 lead to a goal. That means on 780 occasions, we missed an interception, lost the ball, lost a tackle, got caught in possession or committed a handling error.

2. Obviously at the lower levels like this, errors are going to be more common. But my own analysis showed my error rate far higher than it should be. Partially, of course, that's due to the standard of player. But more than that, I believe it to be down to me and my lack of knowledge, understanding and ability when it comes to training. I read up quite a bit before I started the game, but obviously not enough. As things started to go well, I elected not to meddle and just left the training as is. If I'm missing something else, please tell me.

3. So, training. I've been reading up a lot more over the past few hours, and have come up with a plan. Of sorts.

Pre-season. I'd already elected to start the season early, give me more time to prepare for the difficult season ahead (I'm expected to 'battle bravely against relegation', and my board have set up a short training camp. My perusal of various sites and articles have lead me to the following conclusions, which may or may not be correct. Probably the latter.

1. No rest days. Max out the time you have in pre-season by having the team playing or training at all times.

2. A 60-40 split on General and Match Training, respectively....I've read conflicting advice on whether to use individual training here or not

3. Focus on Fitness, then Cohesion, then Tactics. On High or Very High. Keep on Tactics until the team is 'fluid' in every aspect. (my team isn't, even after using the same formation for most of last season).

4. If you want to use 1 specific tactic, have that and only that set up during pre-season, to max out the time the team spends training that specific formation.

5. If you're using specialised roles such as Ball Winning Midfielder or Inside Forward, have players training on those rather than their specific position (I'm REALLY unsure about that one TBH)

6. Regular friendlies....around every 3-4 days if possible, though a smaller squad might need them spaced more.

Last year, I adjusted the rest days depending on the situation...depending on the lightness of the schedule and importance of up-coming matches

1. A 90/10 split between general and match training

2. My tactic is based on possession so last year I concentrated on Ball Control & Tactics. This season, I'm considering Defending and Ball Control, having done Tactics pre-season

3. Use role training for the first half of the season, then regular training the rest (ie, advanced forward and striker training)

4. Once my tactical familiarity is fluid, introduce a second formation.

5. Only give PPM's to players without specific attribute training and vice versa to lighten the load

What do people think? Have I got it right, totally wrong, partially wrong? Have I missed something? Any and all thoughts, ideas and criticism gratefully received. Thanks.

[herne79]

When looking at all of these mistakes, are you sure you are comparing apples with apples?

For example, you mention "caught in possession" (i.e., being tackled) as being a mistake and included in your total of 798. You say Plymouth only had 97 mistakes in total. That would mean Plymouth lost the ball less than twice each match due to being tackled - and that also assumes that every single one of those mistakes were tackles, no room left over for all the other reasons you mention. I really don't think that happened, so I'd say the figures you are looking at are not being calculated from the same basis. Double check exactly what it is you are looking at, as there is something amiss there.

In terms of training, the only way to get your tactic fluid is to set Match Prep to a tactical focus - not General Training. Setting Tactical in General Training will look to develop some player mental attributes. Further, setting General Training to Fitness doesn't improve your player's match fitness, it improves their physical attributes. The only way to improve match fitness and condition is to play regular friendlies (which you are doing).

In pre-season, set General Training to Team Cohesion if you have new players (or promoted youth players) for 2 or 3 weeks, then put it back to whatever general attribute training you want to leave it on (or just "balanced" if you want to cover everything). General Training improves player attributes (and Team Cohesion), whilst Match Prep improves tactical familiarity.

[red dragon1978]

I can't be sure exactly what the mistakes are, no...but I'm looking in exactly the same place for both myself and Plymouth....Team Report, Stats, Mistakes Leading to Goal/Total Mistakes so I assume they cover the same ground, same errors. In fact I got it wrong. Plymouth have 1/95, I have 12/798. It doesn't give a break down, so I can't say what the individual mistakes were. Their DR was the outfield player with the most appearances (51). He made 10 mistakes, looking at his report (7 in the league, 3 in the FA Cup). Looking at the same page for my DR, he started 48 matches and came off the bench once, making 90 errors, 3 of which led to a goal. My captain, a box-to-box midfielder, has 1 more start than my DR, with 6 appearances from the bench. His error count was 69. All I can say is the information is coming from exactly the same place for each player. I don't know how to put screenshots up, if someone tells me I can show you.

I see what you're saying about getting my tactic fluid....and I've been doing that all of last season, so that indicates to me I need to either drop a formation so we're only concentrating on 1, increase the time spent match training...or both. That's great, thanks for clearing that up.

Again, thanks for the advice with pre-season. I see from that, and from what you said previously, that having time spent on Tactics in pre-season is very likely a waste of time, as long as I'm match training a decent amount. Also, thinking about it, I probably don't need to concentrate heavily on Fitness if I'm intending to have a lot of friendlies. So you're absolutely right, Team Cohesion and then attribute training (Probably Defensive, lol. I see some batterings in my future.)

Got those changes locked in. Must remember to check mistakes every match, too. Once again, thanks herne.

[herne79]

I hear what you're saying about looking in the same place for the reports, so it seems odd.

However, thinking about it logically - the report you are looking at is purporting to say that Plymouth Argyle are making two Missed Interceptions, Lost Balls, Lost Challenges, Handballs, Conceded Penalties, Dropped Balls, Mistakes Leading to Goals and/or Caught in Possession in total each match over an entire season.

In other words, Plymouth's players very rarely miss an interception or hardly ever get tackled, whilst not missing tackles themselves. Further, their goalie pretty much never drops the ball, their defence don't make errors that lead to goals, nobody handles the ball (except the goalie) and penalties are given away once in a blue moon. I can only assume Argyle won the league with a record number of points, remaining unbeaten and claimed the FA and League cups .

Something isn't right. Either the reports you are looking at are not using comparable data, or there is something wrong with the report.

Weird.

[red dragon1978]

You're telling me! I've asked in General Discussion if anyone knows how the game calculates this. When it boils down to it, my ratio of 798 is far more realistic at this level.....14.25 mistakes, or barely 1 per player, per match. 97 just seems nuts. I'll let you know if anyone replies.