Is it worth listening to your assistant for tactical advice?

[martplfc1]

Every game my assistant tells me to remove the same instructions and play the same formation, neither of which is how I want to play.  I never know though whether he is giving good advice or not.  Is he ever correct? I let him choose my formation and roles one time; he put full backs on "automatic" and had Coutinho as a left winger

Think I've probably answered my own question with that last sentence, but do you ever give him the time of day?

[PleasedToMichu]

In a word, no.

I'm the same. He always tells me to get rid of instructions and change to a different formation.

"Yeah the guys have been on a 15 game unbeaten run and playing sensational football, but change the whole formation and way the team plays for the next game gaffer, yeah?"

[AndersSchm]

I use it to take some clues which formation to use.  Usually  he will say "change to Counter" when I'm expected to lose so I'll pick my counter attacking formation and team.  But if you followed all the advice you'd be onto a loser

[martplfc1]

Surely this can and should be improved then.  Completely superfluous if what he is saying is worthless.

[martplfc1]

Another blatantly wrong instruction from the assistant:

Mane's last 5 game - 7.04

Romagnoli's - 6.96.  In fact, I've just warned Rom to improve or he'd be out the team, which he accepted.

[phd_angel]

Do you guys also think that Assistant's squad selection pre-match is usually wrong?  

I tend to agree, as he may place some 2-star subs instead of some stars, but then I think whether those subs are in better physical or psychological shape or did well during training?... 

[ExeChris]

My assistant is a nightmare during games.  He always tells me to go more direct or work the ball into the box, and if I ever do what he says the chances are within 15 minutes he is advising me to change back!

[samuelawachie]

Personally, for tactical advice? No. But for other things like informing you that no one is marking posts, who got a knock, and the other things they can report, those are good information. You're still the manager though, and the buck stops with you. 

Whether you think it's rubbish advice or not, it's up to you to follow it or ignore it. That's one of the beauties of being the manager. The other side of this coin is that if those decisions don't pan out, you're the one who's got his/her head on the chopping block. (:

[FrazT]

4 hours ago, samuelawachie said:

Personally, for tactical advice? No. But for other things like informing you that no one is marking posts, who got a knock, and the other things they can report, those are good information. You're still the manager though, and the buck stops with you. 

Whether you think it's rubbish advice or not, it's up to you to follow it or ignore it. That's one of the beauties of being the manager. The other side of this coin is that if those decisions don't pan out, you're the one who's got his/her head on the chopping block. (:

This sums it up perfectly

[..Valhalla..]

5 hours ago, samuelawachie said:

Personally, for tactical advice? No. But for other things like informing you that no one is marking posts, who got a knock, and the other things they can report, those are good information. You're still the manager though, and the buck stops with you. 

Whether you think it's rubbish advice or not, it's up to you to follow it or ignore it. That's one of the beauties of being the manager. The other side of this coin is that if those decisions don't pan out, you're the one who's got his/her head on the chopping block. (:

 

1 hour ago, FrazT said:

This sums it up perfectly

 

Well.... not really. I mean, I do agree with @samuelawachie in that the buck stops with the manager, but justifying a part of the game that is (let's be honest) shoehorned in there just for the sake of it by saying "you don't have to follow the advice given in the first place" is a bit of a cop-out in my opinion.

Translate it to real life for a second (we want the game to be realistic don't we?): imagine Liverpool are cruising 3-0 at home, dominating possession, creating chance after chance, but Buvac is sitting next to Klopp chirping away every now and again:

"We are being seriously overrun in midfield..." 

"We should encourage the players to adopt a more direct passing play..."

"We should play more crosses in as we are superior in the air today..."

All the while Liverpool score another goal and the game is dead, but Buvac just keeps giving random advice for no apparent reason. Jurgen would ask him if he's on the glue

Being told to ignore the advice given doesn't exactly help. Why give advice in the first place if it's not only unhelpful but almost certainly a losing strategy? I've had some of the best assistant managers around but they all do the same thing; arbitrarily giving tactical advice that is simply contrary to our current playing style. If I'm playing direct, I'm told to play it shorter. If I'm playing a patient passing game, I'm advised to be more direct. I play less crosses; I'm told to play more crosses (and vice-versa), It's pointless drivel, poorly implemented, but dressed up to look important.
The first thing I do in my first match in a new game/save/career is make sure the in-match advice from the assistant manager is only to tell me about injuries, goals, cards and so on. Everything else is switched off and that's pretty sad don't you think? What a missed opportunity to give the game genuine depth. It's exactly the same as removing all promises from contract negotiations because I know there's no point in even making them. But that's for another thread I guess.

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

Not really, no. He generally suggests a formation that I don't even train. I generally follow his advice about whether I should counter attack or not though. 

[stevio11]

I normally play the same formation but he sometimes suggests 4-4-2 which works but after that its my decision on how we play before and during

[Mojby]

It will also depend on his stats as well. Obviously someone with low stats will give you wrong information so you would ignore them. Managing Liverpool, i have a good assistant manager and usually his recommendations are right. I do though choose to ignore some of his advice as I like to play a certain way.

[michael]

I never listen to him at all. He useful for some things but I think the only reason I have him is because every football manager has one! 

[herne79]

There was a thread here the other day about someone that had gone on holiday, left matches up to his assistant which resulted in the team going on a great run.  The AM was apparently supposed to use the user's tactic.

The user came back from holiday and totally failed when he retook control.  Couldn't replicate the AM's success.

So for everyone saying the AM's advice is useless, have you actually tried following the advice in FM17 when it's given?  Or are we merely restating hearsay without actually trying things for ourselves?  Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of restating it as well without doing much testing myself, and I agree some of it sounds nonsensical (I was told earlier that Jermaine Defoe is an aerial threat for example), but has anyone really tried it for any extended period of time?

And not just the in match advice - we get all sorts of advice these days which we tend to dismiss out of hand (I know I do), but has anyone started a save and basically followed the advice given?  It might actually be kind of fun and perhaps even useful data to send back to SI - whether we succeed or fail.

[jsw]

As someone who's making the leap from FM12 to FM17 I've relied heavily on all AM advice while I'm getting my head round it. My Crawley team are 10th after 13 games with 6 clean sheets. We don't score many goals but we're doing slightly better than the media prediction of 14th. We could easily finish there (or worse) as the players are not great (20th last year) but I've scoured the earth for good staff and I'm delegating like crazy. The assistant is Matt Gray who was already at the club, I wasn't brave enough to risk getting one worse! Other than discipline of 15 everything else is 8-11, pretty bang average. I'll see how it goes. The game is mind blowing going from fm12 to fm17 though!

[Weston]

I get an AssMan with high marks for judging player ability and tactical knowledge and trust him to do a large amount of the minute-to-minute player-based opposition instructions, but it's usually pretty hard to tell if that's good or bad. That's mostly it.

[Svenc]

10 hours ago, herne79 said:

There was a thread here the other day about someone that had gone on holiday, left matches up to his assistant which resulted in the team going on a great run.  The AM was apparently supposed to use the user's tactic.

The user came back from holiday and totally failed when he retook control.  Couldn't replicate the AM's success.

So for everyone saying the AM's advice is useless, have you actually tried following the advice in FM17 when it's given?  Or are we merely restating hearsay without actually trying things for ourselves?  Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty of restating it as well without doing much testing myself, and I agree some of it sounds nonsensical (I was told earlier that Jermaine Defoe is an aerial threat for example), but has anyone really tried it for any extended period of time?

And not just the in match advice - we get all sorts of advice these days which we tend to dismiss out of hand (I know I do), but has anyone started a save and basically followed the advice given?  It might actually be kind of fun and perhaps even useful data to send back to SI - whether we succeed or fail.

 

Assmans are decent, hence why I've never understood why somebody wouldn't at least TRY if they were struggling (yes they can fail, seasons are dynamic). The reasons the assistants perform is that (from my experience) they're infused with the same logics as any AI is, which is they won't do something outright terribly. Actually they even manage matches dynamically, so that rather than pushing for a third and being hugely exposed as your average Steam Workshop download with no holding midfielder and two complete wingbacks for which hitting contain will be no cure, they may try to play a little safer, increasing the likelyhood that the opposition may not get a comeback. The assistant in-match advice however has always been mostly horrible, unless you knew that all he reacts to stats in very simplistic ways. And if you knew, you are best adviced to read it as an indicator of such of a stat sticking out. Up to you to decide how useful that is then. Must be difficult to program, however. If SI would find the Holy Grail of Assmanisms here, this could directly linked to and impact AI manager decisions in general in fantastic ways.

- Opposition lines up with a basic formation that has more men in central midfield: Sir, we're being outnumbered!!!  (NO **** SHERLOCK!)
- Passing completion threshhold drops below x%: Sir, we should encourage to retain possession (Dude, I don't care, I'm Leicester and top of the tables, it's working)
- Messi who can't be fully contained anyhow skins the wide back multiple times a match: Sir, we've seen X skinned all too often today (Yeah, but look at who he's playing against)

The only way to do that if there were several key performance indicators edited into the thing suited to specific styles/approaches. Going by reports, that's how several top class management goes about it too. WIthout them, this is always going to be totally random and lacking the context to make it much useful. As it stands, this is rather harmful, as no doubt players bang out of luck treat it as something it really isn't.

[jsw]

After 19 games of doing everything I'm told, it's actually not too bad?

Crawley Assistant Results.html

Crawley Assistant Table.html

[225C]

I usually ignore my assman. I recently had a bad injury spell with only one fit attacking player( a single striker)  and he kept insisting I play a 4-4-2. Ain't happening. I have found his tutoring suggestions to be spot on. His attributes aren't the best either, think it affects his decision making.

[zebec]

I appreciate that staff help point out at times an aspect of the FM game's features or options that I might be overlooking.  But my  overall impression so far is that trusting and going with the assistant's advice brings less than desirable results.  

jsw is right to mention that this 'feedback' or input from staff is indeed helpful when trying to become quickly acquainted with the SI FM game's features.  However, so far, it overall seems like the tactics recommendations are similar to the backroom advice -- and not what works out to be best for the club.

Valhalla's comments about Jurgen Klopp and Buvac at LFC made me laugh.  Maybe ole Buvac had a bit too much Carlsberg before kickoff?

[shani ace]

On 7.1.2017 at 01:40, ..Valhalla.. said:

The first thing I do in my first match in a new game/save/career is make sure the in-match advice from the assistant manager is only to tell me about injuries, goals, cards and so on. Everything else is switched off

Where can I switch these things off? Never mind, I found it.

It's so annoying when your Assman tells you to mark or at least close down opposition player X when you've already set your team to mark/close him down prior to the match.

In my first career in FM14, I actually fired my Assman at Bristol immediately after the first game because I assumed his bad advice came due to him being terrible at his job. Later I found out that even Assmans with high stats just give you random advice that is completely useless.

[Goosewinkle]

The advice would be helpful if it had some context.  Why do you want me to play a 4-4-2 vs. NYCFC?  Why do you want me to switch to short passing?  What do you know that you aren't telling me?!

[lemeuresnew]

43 minutes ago, Goosewinkle said:

Why do you want me to play a 4-4-2 vs. NYCFC

usually because that is there prefered formation. if that is there attacking or defensive shape, they will suggest it more if that is what they want your team to do

but for the title of this post, the simple answer is no. your ass man is a goon and only useful for general squad reports, why i focus on his judging attributes and prefered formations more than anything else

[Rashidi]

Personally speaking, I am old school, I like to take control of matches myself, but here's this. 

The Assistant Manager module has been vastly improved from FM15. He makes good recommendations on missing duties in your system which you can adopt or ignore.  He is also a lot better at choosing the right players for your roles. There are times when he does recommendations that I may not agree with, but aren't that bad.  I did three experiments using a really good Assistant Manager in the game with Liverpool, earlier on FM17. In the first experiment I just went on holiday, he won the title. I opted not to do anything. In the second experiment I gave him a tactic and allowed him to make player selection decisions. He won the title again. I then started a save with Wolves, decided to take the squad as-is, created my own tactic, then I hired the same Assistant Manager, went on holiday, and Wolves got promoted.

By now I was aghast at how good he was, what the hell! So I opted for the best challenge, newly promoted Wolves had a few players added in the transfer window, and I let him take control again, confident he would fail. I went off on another binging competition with the boys to return fully expecting to find myself sacked, but the same Ass Man had avoided relegation.

The Ass Man module isn't perfect but it still works. I do tell people sometimes to ignore it, only because in the long run, it makes you better at spotting things in the game and figuring out what to adjust. There are times when he does give what appears to be conflicting advice during the game. I usually ignore it, but tbh some of it is actually good advice. I am not asking you to adopt every piece of advice he gives, but to keep an open mind and try to determine why the advice was given in the first place. Was it warranted? Ultimately the beauty in the game lies in the power we have to make a choice - whether to follow or not to follow his advice. There are certainly areas where this can be improved, however I do believe the right ass man is now quite a manager in the game. 

In my current game, I don't use the ass man, because I have a particular style of play which is unique and I don't think me and my ass man are on the same wavelength. And this ass man I have is nowhere near the calibre of my experimental Assman. The experimental assman was smart, when he saw my squad he told me to take a hike cos he wasn't willing to work with a bunch of noobs. At least he has some personality.

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, Rashidi said:

By now I was aghast at how good he was, what the hell! So I opted for the best challenge, newly promoted Wolves had a few players added in the transfer window, and I let him take control again, confident he would fail. I went off on another binging competition with the boys to return fully expecting to find myself sacked, but the same Ass Man had avoided relegation.

I've been posting "go holiday" results with the ass man taking over in quite a few threads arguing how difficult this game would be ever since, I think FM 13 -- not that anybody was listening. Hopefully, you'll get through. On 15 or 16 Barca even had an ass man that due to his traits raped the Match Engine, consistently averaging 4 goals per match. "Unfortunately" you don't get all the credits, whilst on older versions all manager of the month awards still went your ways to party hard.



There is still imo 2 distinctions to made be made: The advice the assistant gives to you (prior to  match, during a match). And how he would manage matches. I personally think the assistant managers are the key component to balance this game in the future... in particular as real managers delegate stuff to their staff in real life, even on the tactical / match management level. edit: more importantly as any AI management is linked, everybody could take something from improving AI, and SI not be afraid of taking it beyond "don't hurt me" levels (to exaggerate) . What I'd like to see is the "match plans" from Touch being expanded upon and included in the full fat FM. That-a-ways if players wouldn't want the added "challenge" of tactics on a micro level, they could tell their assistant what results (perhaps even roughly style of football, pesky board demands and club philosophies!) they should target, and roll with it. I.e. going "direct and ugly", "aim for the dour 0-0". To allow for some further in-match management, this could be changed perhaps during the match too. Like on oldschool On The Ball games, going from "ok, we now simply want to defend what we have to" "all guns blazing" within a click of the mouse, with the specifics then up to the ass man.

In some cases, holidaying and letting the assistant taking over is even preferably over plug&play downloads promising miracle results. This is because the assistant engages in match management, same as any AI, so changes how he defends and attacks accordingly due to circumstance. Plus unlike quite a few of those downloads, he's never as unbalanced as pushing everybody boxside with only the centre backs staying deeper. He also isn't targeting whatever defensive hole the ME has. Even this seasons narrow holes can be plugged by a few AI approaches, defensively in particular by an additionally centre back, and a couple DMs shielding in front of this. Over the course of a league season, point drops don't matter much. However, in knock-out cups, that one match going awry can hurt (actually, pre-season friendlies against the U23s oft spring already interesting matches with such p&p tactics, as the staffers ape the first team starting formations/tactics).

[Guest]

What I personally find most astonishing is that my assistant manager has suggested the same formation, 4-2-3-1DM Wide, for *every single match I have played in three seasons*. I have used it maybe ten times. For the record, the other two formations I train for are 4-2-4Wide (that's CM, CM, AML, AMR and SC, SC, which is really attacking and intended to be used only in home matches I really expect to win) and 4-2-3-1 Wide (CM, CM, AML, AMC, AMR, SC), which I use most of the time.

 

I follow my assistant manager's Opposition Instructions all the time, mainly because I can't be bothered to get that nitpicky myself.

[Rashidi]

7 hours ago, Svenc said:

In some cases, holidaying and letting the assistant taking over is even preferably over plug&play downloads promising miracle results

True, I find that people should hire the perfect assistant manager, there are so many in the game. I've had the same personal favourite for the last 10 years I think.

[craiigman]

I currently have no AM as no decent ones want to be an AM at Celtic

[Goosewinkle]

Well I took his advice for once.  I was playing Real Salt Lake and they were completely dominating possession (my assman actually said this would happen...I don't know how the hell he knew this).  So I switched to his recommended 4-4-2 counter.  And well, heck, it worked.  In fact looking at the stats, I'd say Salt Lake kinda got FMed by my assman...

There's something dissatisfying about it though....like the game just plays itself, and I am irrelevant to it (not the first time FM has given me this feeling)...  

[Svenc]

4 hours ago, Goosewinkle said:

 

There's something dissatisfying about it though....like the game just plays itself, and I am irrelevant to it (not the first time FM has given me this feeling)...  

 

As long as you can't judge what specifically happened on that match, you will always have some of that feeling (as outlined in that mid-season collapse thread, those simple stats are a start, better would be do judge those shots individually and who had the better of them, for instance, which the game currently lacks reliable feedback for). As for the assistants and your general involvement, that's why I'd like to see the match plans from Touch expanded... it's a middle-ground. The broad decisions good and bad would be still your own, and you can be burnt heavily by misjudging. Should I try to target convincing victory with some free-flowing football away at Bayern? What would it mean for the after-math of the match if that would back-fire heavily, also for the squad. In-match: Should I risk going for a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or consolidate, etc.? The specifics, which would improve alongside to general AI improvements (any assistant manager taking over match days is essentially an AI manager), would be up to the assistant. To me that's win-win for everybody, those who yearn for more reactive/intelligent AI opposition, and those who'd rather have a fully-fledged tactical assistant manager. Question is does it fit into the design ethos of FM, plus is it technically feasible.

Additionally, long-term it might even end up with some context to that "go 4-4-2 counter" advice. Here you're just left hanging why the dude would at all advice to do such, and the natural reaction can actually be suspicious right there. Not ideal, in particular as to that feeling as if you'd be "irrelevant" and a by-stander to the main show anyhow.

[Hwithyll]

I was first season in Prem as Preston, started ok had a few unlucky results and then couldn't buy a win. I sacked my assistant from championship days and brought in ex Bayern assistant Manager (forgot his name) who had great qualities. His preferred formation was flat 4-5-1 old skool. I adopted it. Went on a great run and finished well. Now he says to do this all the time with zero exceptions and the novelty has worn off and now I'm back to square one - can't get a result anywhere. I'm not going to sack him but freshen things up on my own. His substitute choices are awful and team selection a bit off. He'll play the same 11 over and over. 

[Goosewinkle]

15 hours ago, Svenc said:

As long as you can't judge what specifically happened on that match, you will always have some of that feeling...

Well if I'm truly honest, I was just bummed that my assman was right and I was wrong.  And he doesn't even have a brain.  I thought about it though--from now on I'll consider the assman's advice as a Plan B in the event my plan isn't working out.