Journey to Line – One Man’s mission from the Couch to the Training Ground

[Mr U Rosler]

Journey to Line – One Man’s mission from the Couch to the Training Ground

 

Greetings all, some of you may remember me from tactical threads over the years, but you’re well looked after in that area now with active posters seemingly covering every possible formation and approach within days of the beta release, so i’ll leave that and instead turn my attention to the hugely expanded training module SI have kindly provided us with this year.

I have no inner knowledge of how this is supposed to work and have tackled the problem as I always do, feet first, clumsily, fully prepared to make and learn from my mistakes all in full public view, no doubt looking a complete berk along the way as I misunderstand one concept or another.

FM attracts all sorts of players, many of whom may be afraid to post and ask questions for fear of looking stupid, not to mention newbies who just want a way into aspects of the game. I have no such qualms and are happy to take one for the team as I lurch from one idea to the next in the search of understanding.

Whilst i’m certain those who don’t want to get involved can leave it all to their Assistant Manager and he’ll do a fine job, that’s not how my brain works in pursuit of marginal gains.

I will outline my ideas and how I am using the module to achieve them in game, please feel free to chip in and make suggestions and share your own experiences.

 

 

Setting the scene.

 

 

I do Academy Challenges these days, normally my home town Club Stockport County who are handily placed in the Conference North. The idea is to try and progress up the leagues WITHOUT signing any players instead developing your own Academy players until they can improve your first team.

So Training & Development is ABSOLUTELY vital, as you squeeze every last bit of potential out of players and mould and shape young players to suit your chosen style of play. Its very rewarding, late game you’ll often see England teams full of players you have produced and nurtured yourself.

Now, Stockport start out part time which makes the training module largely redundant, but back to back promotions have seen us make it to League 2. Whilst we have a very weak team and are odds on to go down I have some raw talent coming through already. We are now full time, so if I can get my young prospects improving fast and squeeze every last bit of talent out of my non-league warhorses I have a chance of consolidating in League 2.

 

No pressure then.

 

Update 14/11/2018

Development Weeks replaced by Performance Weeks.

It seems pointless going for heavy attribute development during the season, the injury risk is too high and 1st team match experience develops attributes on young players quicker than any training. Senior pro's won't develop anyway and its more about maintenance for them which is easy to attain.

So ALL training is now MATCH FOCUSED geared towards conditioning, recovery, injury prevention, set pieces and tactical/teamwork, match preparation to give us an edge come match day.  

Combined with sensible Individual training to work on specific sets of attributes we can basically ignore 80% of the training module options and focus purely on a holistic approach to squad and player welfare with no discernible downside.

 

 

The Approach

 

With a 46 game league season as well as 3 cups to take part in it soon became clear that a strong focus on attribute development is not on, the main focus needs to be match preparation and conditioning ensuring players are fresh enough to play 2 games in a week, keeping injuries and fatigue at bay.

This doesn’t mean players won’t improve as 1^st team match experience remains the single most effective way for young players to develop and they’ll be plenty of opportunity for that!

On those weeks we have one game we can work on General Training, Set Pieces and Goalkeeper as explained below. As such I have devised 2 training schedules, Match Weeks and Performance Weeks.

 

A Match Week is any week you have 2 or more matches to play.

 

A Performance Week is any week you have 1 or less matches to play.

 

Its very easy to go to the calendar and drop in the appropriate plan. 

 

 

'Match Week' Schedule

 

 

You can see we are well in credit for all categories except Match Sharpness which i’ll address below. Note a big win in the fatigue metric as we get our players turned around and ready for the next match.

All the training during these weeks is from the Match Preparation module. We are planning specifically for the next match and our next opponent. We focus on training that improves morale, team bonding and ingraining our tactical approach. We avoid anything that unduly increases fatigue and we have a strong focus on recovery and injury prevention.

 

There are Team Work, Match Tactic and Match Preview before each match, Match Preview automatically appears the evening before a game to ensure we could not be more prepared for the upcoming match.

 

I’ve been playing Tuesday/Saturday so its fits perfectly but it should be just as appropriate if the midweek game is Wednesday or Thursday and a weekend game on a Sunday.

 

The idea is to ensure we have Team Work, Match Tactics and Match Preview in the days before each match, doesn’t have to be precisely the day before. We have 1 day a week off, if you play Sunday it will be the Saturday, I have no problem with this but we’ll see how it goes.

 

Whilst I wanted to devise my own approach I still wanted to ‘plug & play’ the schedules without tweaking every week depending on which days the matches fell on. We’ll see how that goes.

 

 

Rest vs Recovery

Whilst its very tempting to just have 2 sessions on ‘Match Weeks’, comparing affects of Rest vs Recovery, I thought it favourable to include 2 recovery sessions (you’ll lose one to Match Preview)

 

REST                                                                           Recovery 

Condition > increased                                             Injury Risk > Greatly Reduced

Fatigue > Greatly Reduced                                     Condition > Slightly Increased

Sharpness > Greatly Reduced                               Fatigue > Reduced

Happiness > Slightly Increased                             Sharpness > Greatly Reduced

Team Cohesion > Reduced                                    Happiness> Slightly Increased

 

 

Match Sharpness

Match sharpness appears a weakness, but this is a false flag to me. Whilst it can be ‘trained up’ those sessions are knackering (Practice Match) and not worth the fatigue. And besides Match Preview includes some of this, those sessions cannot be built in and appear automatically the evening before each match so that red bar should not alarm.

Besides, like the old days, the best way to get match fit is to play matches. U18/U23 are great for fringe players.

 

 

Performance Weeks

 

During Performance Weeks we only have one weekend game to worry about so we can expand the training somewhat.

This see us go to 3 full on sessions for most of the week although you will note the intensity never gets too high, and we have a positive fatigue return. Its still mid season of course.

Injury risk is slightly increased but an acceptable trade off, team cohesion drops off slightly but happiness is high.

 

The idea here is to blend general training with training which could have a direct impact on Matches i.e. Set Piece Training.

 

 Goal Keeper training is interesting, we have a fair bit here which is obviously of great benefit to them, however during these sessions outfield players work on their player roles which is great as it develops  the attributes we want.

 

 

You will note that there are more training options than there are slots, i’m not chasing them just focusing on rest/rehabilitation and match preparation in Match Weeks, and Technical stuff in development weeks. There is a lot of cross over attribute development so hopefully we have all bases covered.

 

Summary

 

So that’s where I am at the moment, the schedules can be downloaded and dropped into your games if you like. Things will likely change but i’m finding I have fairly fresh players come match day, i’m getting in game messages that our match preparation is helping make chances and my young players are developing.

 

I’ll look at mentoring, pre-season and individual training at some point!

 

 

My September

 

3 'Match Weeks', 2 'Performance Weeks'

 

 

 

 

One of my young players really kicking on!

 

 

Match Week.fmf

 

Performance Week.fmf

Pre-Season.fmf

Edited November 16, 2018 by Mr U Rosler

[Mr U Rosler]

 

Pre-Season

I see some primary and secondary objectives in pre-season training.

Primary

Get High (100%) tactical familiarity

Get the 1^st Team squad match fit (100/100) as close as possible

Secondary

Build Team Cohesion

Build Morale/Confidence

Avoid & Build a Resilience to Injury

Recover Lost Physical Attributes

 

That’s a lot of considerations. How best to approach this?

Here’s how I do it.

Structure

Length of pre-season = 4 weeks

We want to ensure our players have a good break. Cup Finals, Play Off’s, International Tournaments can eat into the holiday period so we’ll be fair. 3 weeks is too short to do what needs to be done. We’ll have an INTENSE 4 week period where we get a lot done without exhausting our players.

Number of friendlies = 4

Only 4? Yes, and all 4 will be easily winnable home fixtures, on a Saturday.

Why?

Personally, I don’t vary my tactical approach much so I never really lose familiarity with it. Season 1 or if you’re introducing something tactically very different you can add a couple more fixtures but in a bog standard pre-season 4 friendlies is enough.

Matches are knackering and not all our first team get a run out, we lose an entire days training, with 2 precious sessions spent travelling if we play away (which is why we don’t).

Instead we play a ‘Practice Match’ mid-week which yields similar benefits as a normal match however EVERYONE benefits from the session and we can utilize the other 2 training sessions on the day of the Practice Match as well.

In this 4 week period we are cramming, working the players hard, every session is vital, if we played a mid-week friendly instead of the Practice Match we would lose 8 precious sessions over this 4 week period, that’s huge.

2 Matches is enough to move a player from high 60’s to low 90’s match fitness. I arranged 2 under 23 friendlies on the middle 2 Wednesdays of pre-season to give fringe players a run out.

We want easy opponents, but not too easy so we start the season ‘in form’ with our strikers scoring goals.

We play on a Saturday as we are free to choose that date and we can build our schedule accurately around that.

There are only 4 friendlies, so play them yourself so you can manage game time for players.

 

Schedule

Whilst we do some general football training and specialized set piece work we have a very strong focus on Physical work followed by recovery.

This is the only time we do physical training. Physical attributes have dropped over the Summer and respond the fastest to intensive work, getting them back to their pre-holiday levels and hopefully beyond is the plan.

There are no rest days although we have a lot of recovery sessions.

I’ve seen it implied that this sort of ‘front loading’ of strength/endurance work helps injury & fatigue resistance throughout the entire season.

Yes, we’re hammering the players for 4 weeks but once the season starts, those Match/Development weeks will be a walk in the park for our players.

To be fair, the default pre-season looks pretty good, but we don’t do default here, so plug this in for fit and strong players

Couple of fellas who enjoyed pre-season;

 

 

 

Mentoring

Mentoring has 2 basic objectives;

 

• Improve player ‘personality’
• Improve player development rate (attribute increases)

There is potential for peripheral benefits morale, happiness, cohesion etc for all players in the group but normally we are focusing mainly on improving a young player in 1 or both of the main 2 areas above.

 

This is how I approach this.

I set up a mentoring group, put in the young player I wish to improve. I then select a TEAM LEADER to go into that mentoring group. The Team Leader will have the most influence on the group, so pick one with a positive personality trait, (determined, professional, ambitious or variations thereof).

Try and tailor this, if your young player is unambitious and you have a team leader with ambitious personality traits use him. If they have low determination, pick someone with a determined personality.

Then add another player (non team leader) from your 1^st team, someone who plays the same position as the young player you are trying to develop. Again, pick the best personality available considering playing positions. Balanced is Ok albeit neutral.

Low determination is the root of all evil, if in doubt just make sure you’re using the players with the highest determination attribute in your mentoring group.

 

So we end up with our young player being ‘bullied’ by a Team Leader and a Senior Player who plays the same position.

I leave it at that, 2 on 1.

As you need a Team Leader you are restricted to 2 or 3 mentoring groups depending on how many team leaders you have.

This is fine, you probably want no more than 2 or 3 developing players in your first team at any one time anyway.

 

The over arching strategy is to mentor all new comers to the first team to have positive personalities. Over time you end up with a squad full of them which makes future mentoring easy.

Personalities on FM requires a thread of its own, there a lot of them, they are very impactful on the game and should not be underestimated. Model Pro’s, Resolute etc all great to have.

 

Case Studies

1. Young Keeper, loads of potential, personality is already good but he’s not developing. Let’s see if we can improve him. Put with a Team Leader and my first choice GK.

 

2. Talented player with neutral personality. Let’s see if we can move his personality. Put with Professional  Senior Pro and loyal Team Leader is his position.

 

It remains to be seen how effective mentoring is this year, having been very effective previously I know they wanted this toned down. We’ll see.

    

Edited November 15, 2018 by Mr U Rosler

[steveyisatard]

Will give this a try!

[witticism]

Keen to see how you manage the new mentoring obstacles, good luck!

[jc577]

Really good stuff this, will nick a few ideas for my own save if you don't mind!

[thegoon65]

Yet again you strike gold have followed your posts for sometime but this one I think will be the most helpful to old and new players alike.

Have you tinkered with pre season yet? I find the AM set ups very good and only need minor changes.

I use the individual players TAB quite a lot. Looking at played comments, so if my Defenders saying not enough defensive drills etc i can switch to my schedule and add or change a routine to compensate this. I have noticed this improves dynamics and overall team cohesion.

 

[phnompenhandy]

Looks like just what I need to get my head around this new stuff.

So let me ask the really dumb questions - which folder to put them in - is it 'views'?

Your schedules are for a part-time team. I'm starting with an amateur one with even fewer sessions.  Will yours still load up with some sessions blocked out?

Without having the game open at the moment, how do I import and load up the schedules?

 

[modase]

1 minute ago, phnompenhandy said:

Looks like just what I need to get my head around this new stuff.

So let me ask the really dumb questions - which folder to put them in - is it 'views'?

Your schedules are for a part-time team. I'm starting with an amateur one with even fewer sessions.  Will yours still load up with some sessions blocked out?

Without having the game open at the moment, how do I import and load up the schedules?

 

C:\Users\Mo\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2019\schedules

 

In-game they'll be under "custom schedules".

[phnompenhandy]

3 minutes ago, modase said:

C:\Users\Mo\Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2019\schedules

 

In-game they'll be under "custom schedules".

Thanks. I didn't have that folder, so I just created it

[modase]

2 minutes ago, phnompenhandy said:

Thanks. I didn't have that folder, so I just created it

Cool. You'll need to click "get more" under custom schedules and then save the schedules as your own to be able to implement them.

Edited November 12, 2018 by modase

[Mr U Rosler]

My schedules are FULL time as we have now gone professional.

Not sure how they can be implemented into an amatuer team.

[phnompenhandy]

16 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

My schedules are FULL time as we have now gone professional.

Not sure how they can be implemented into an amatuer team.

Guess I'll have to adapt! Your principles are still as sound.

[Mr U Rosler]

5 hours ago, thegoon65 said:

Yet again you strike gold have followed your posts for sometime but this one I think will be the most helpful to old and new players alike.

Have you tinkered with pre season yet? I find the AM set ups very good and only need minor changes.

I use the individual players TAB quite a lot. Looking at played comments, so if my Defenders saying not enough defensive drills etc i can switch to my schedule and add or change a routine to compensate this. I have noticed this improves dynamics and overall team cohesion.

 

Thanks,

Got some ideas about optimising pre-season, not just the content of the schedules but how it should be structured in terms of when to play friendlies, how many etc.

I'm in December in my save, waiting till next pre-season to test it out.... its only theory until then!   

[False 9]

I've been a big fan of your tactics over the years, would mind going over the PI's of this please? Thanks

[Mr U Rosler]

Feedback so far.

Rattled through a couple of heavy months and i'm pretty satisfied so far.

 

'Match Weeks' 

Playing Saturday > Tuesday.

After Saturdays match unsubstituted outfield players are around the 70% mark post match. They have Sunday off and spend all day Monday preparing for Tuesday.

Come Match Time Tuesday they have recovered between 20-25% fitness which sees them around the 90-95%, pretty good mid season and i have no problems selecting the same team again although i'll normally rotate 1 or 2 out.

After Tuesday they have no rest but a 3 day gap to Saturday, again they recover 20-25% to sit at 90-95%

Injuries have been virtually non-existent

I'm happy that the 'Match Weeks' are functioning well.

 

'Development Weeks'   

Fitness is no problem, with no midweek match all players sit between 95-100% come match day Saturday.

Its hard to judge actual attribute development at this point, my coach's and training facilities can be improved so there are other variables, i'm monitoring my young players and will report back on attributes improvements at the end of the season.

No reason to think its not working! 

[Mr U Rosler]

5 minutes ago, False 9 said:

I've been a big fan of your tactics over the years, would mind going over the PI's of this please? Thanks

Don't want it to become a tactical thread put i'll post them up later when i'm home from work.

[thegoon65]

I was watching a you tube article a few years ago regards how sarri trains, similar to how you have your no match schedule set up, work hard during the week and long rest the end of it. Works IRL for him and looks like it works for you👌👌👌

[Mr U Rosler]

OK,

Into February now. Out of all cups so I've had a few successive weeks of Development training.

I've noticeably started to pick up injuries during the Development Weeks. I'll tone it down a little, probably add a recovery session and something for goal keepers to help with that.

What it does do is bring into focus how well the 'Match Week' schedule has been working as I've been cruising from match to match with only a few days in between without fitness or injury issues.

I'll post a re-worked Development Schedule at the end of my season.  

[steveyisatard]

9 hours ago, Mr U Rosler said:

OK,

Into February now. Out of all cups so I've had a few successive weeks of Development training.

I've noticeably started to pick up injuries during the Development Weeks. I'll tone it down a little, probably add a recovery session and something for goal keepers to help with that.

What it does do is bring into focus how well the 'Match Week' schedule has been working as I've been cruising from match to match with only a few days in between without fitness or injury issues.

I'll post a re-worked Development Schedule at the end of my season.  

Yeah was going to note that the development week schedule seemed a little heavy - have been playing around with it to try and tone down the intensity.

Just starting a new long term save so having a look into some pre-season ideas also.

Edited November 13, 2018 by steveyisatard

[Mr U Rosler]

Added some thoughts on mentoring to 2nd post.

[Mr U Rosler]

Mentoring success??

Sort of, there's an acknowledgement that the mentoring group is having a positive effect and his determination is increasing + some attributes.

However his personality has gone from fairly loyal to balanced.

[Mr U Rosler]

Update 14/11/2018

Development Weeks replaced by Performance Weeks.

It seems pointless going for heavy attribute development during the season, the injury risk is too high and 1st team match experience develops attributes on young players quicker than any training. Senior pro's won't develop anyway and its more about maintenance for them which is easy to attain.

So ALL training is now MATCH FOCUSED geared towards conditioning, recovery, injury prevention, set pieces and tactical/teamwork, match preparation to give us an edge come match day.  

Combined with sensible Individual training to work on specific sets of attributes we can basically ignore 80% of the training module options and focus purely on a holistic approach to squad and player welfare with no discernible downside.

 

As evidenced by 3 promotions in a row with the original Stockport Squad. (no signings)

 

[craiigman]

Very interesting, will follow closely.

[witticism]

4 hours ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Update 14/11/2018

 the injury risk is too high

I found that it's easier to visualize the intensity of team training when looking through the custom schedules window:

This way you can see if units are sequentially being overworked even if no single day stands out.

[Mr U Rosler]

Pre-season added to 2nd post 

[johangod]

Super interesting as always from you, I love the guides you do.

 

I would like to request that you share some of your tactics over in the sharing section - I've used your tactics pretty much religiously in the last couple of games because I really find them both good but also realistic and I love the guide you give with what player attributes to look for in each position, really makes recruitment for lesser teams easy. Hope you find the will to post at least one or two of your tactics like in the past !

[Nozzer]

@Mr U Rosler

Have you used that tactic in the first post all the way through your 3 seasons?  Have been waiting for you to create a tactics thread since release as all I can get working to a good level in the lower leagues us 4-4-2 wing play

Think I'm also going to copy your training schedules, I am also Stockport.  2nd season in Conference National, I will be looking to bring youth through but I have no restrictions on signing players so it is much easier for me

[Mr U Rosler]

Hi Nozzer,

I did use the tactic for all 3 seasons.

I really didn't want to get promoted last year as i knew league 1 would be a step too far, too soon but you can't turn down promotion.

I'm struggling in league 1 and have my hands full trying to stay up with mixture of kids and non-league players. i don't have even 1 player rated as decent for League 1 !

If i do a tactics thread it won't be on this version of the ME as i suspect it will be updated soon and the current version is not great to work with.

 

[johangod]

Yeah makes sense, there's enough time and I remember last time around you did a tactic after the final ME update and kept it updated with tweaks you did and such.

On that note, has there been a trend when SI usually updates to a final ME version ? I've been playing the game far less religiously in recent years and it's usually final update when I start playing them game 

Edited November 17, 2018 by johangod

[Mr U Rosler]

10 hours ago, johangod said:

Yeah makes sense, there's enough time and I remember last time around you did a tactic after the final ME update and kept it updated with tweaks you did and such.

On that note, has there been a trend when SI usually updates to a final ME version ? I've been playing the game far less religiously in recent years and it's usually final update when I start playing them game 

ME updates few and far between these days.

We used to get one after the Winter transfer window closed every February but we've not had those the last couple years.

Pure guess work, but i suspect we'll get an update over the next couple of weeks and that will be that.

 

[Walrus]

Will view with interest to see if can be adapted to FMT iPad.

Sad that you’ve retired from tactics as yours were always the most reliable. 

[Meneltin II]

On 11/11/2018 at 19:39, Mr U Rosler said:

 

Now, Stockport start out part time which makes the training module largely redundant, but back to back promotions have seen us make it to League 2.

 

Nice work on the back to back to back promotions! And interesting to read your thoughts on training. 
I was wondering how you approached the part-time training schedules, having only 4 slots per week to train, did you just use the default schedules, or personalise them to your liking?

 

[Mr U Rosler]

2 minutes ago, Meneltin II said:

Nice work on the back to back to back promotions! And interesting to read your thoughts on training. 
I was wondering how you approached the part-time training schedules, having only 4 slots per week to train, did you just use the default schedules, or personalise them to your liking?

 

Well, turned out to be 3 promotions in a row...... Then a relegation!

Didn't get sacked and glad I got relegated and the game put up a fight!

Anyway, I looked at the part time schedules and thought I'm not even going to get involved until my players are full time.

If I were to be in that situation again, I'd adapt the match week schedule to try and get Team Work/Match Tactics in before each game and not bother with general training.

[Crispypaul]

This is very interesting thank you however I keep having a problem with players complaining about not doing enough quickness training - any ideas?

[thegoon65]

38 minutes ago, Crispypaul said:

This is very interesting thank you however I keep having a problem with players complaining about not doing enough quickness training - any ideas?

Either change it in there individual training TAB or ignore it depending on how many are moaning

[Banks_87]

Always followed and used your tactics Rosler - it's a shame to know you won't be getting into it this year! I am excited to see where this goes however - and applying it to my own game, when and where possible!

It's good to be back ha

[thegoon65]

Half way through first season with Orient, limited coaches and average training facilities. But these set ups are amazing my players are improving leaps and bounds, the mixture of routines keeps em happy and settled. All I have to change is there individual focus training and my squad are sorted, very few injuries and minor ones via games.

Mr Rosler this thread should be at the top of the list as the best insight to new training, would make a great YouTube video.

[Mr U Rosler]

Thanks thegoon65, I appreciate that. 👍

[yonko]

Are you aware that Match Tactics doesn't have any effect on the upcoming match? It's beneficial only during periods when your team needs to get familiar with your tactic - like early in the season. Attacking Movement, Defensive Shape and Teamwork are what brings the most benefits towards the next match. Attacking Movement and Defensive Shape also focus on Player Role training for all 3 units (60% for attacking or defensive unit respectively, 20% for the rest)

In addition, when you select GK training category for one of your 3 daily sessions, that gives you only 20% Player Role training per day, which IMO is not that much to have an impact. 

Thoughts?

[Mr U Rosler]

9 hours ago, yonko said:

Are you aware that Match Tactics doesn't have any effect on the upcoming match? It's beneficial only during periods when your team needs to get familiar with your tactic - like early in the season. Attacking Movement, Defensive Shape and Teamwork are what brings the most benefits towards the next match. Attacking Movement and Defensive Shape also focus on Player Role training for all 3 units (60% for attacking or defensive unit respectively, 20% for the rest)

In addition, when you select GK training category for one of your 3 daily sessions, that gives you only 20% Player Role training per day, which IMO is not that much to have an impact. 

Thoughts?

Good points.

Regarding the Goal Keeping sessions, whilst 20% of time for outfield players is specified as being dedicated to player roles, it isn't really clear what they are doing the other 80% of the time. I can't imagine they are just standing around, even if they are its not a terrible thing as we have 2 outfield sessions immediately after the goalkeeping sessions so we could consider this a light warm up. I'm fairly happy with this, people can change as they see fit of course.

I like your point on Match Tactics, i'd probably keep 1 a week, its a light session which suits are objective, i think it does increase team cohesion and its helps keep us at 100% tactical familiarity when new players come into the team (u18, u23 players you promote + new signings etc), but yes, we can probably replace the Monday session in Match Weeks to something else, not to strenuous. I'll update the schedule at some point.

Thanks for the input.    

[yonko]

8 minutes ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Good points.

Regarding the Goal Keeping sessions, whilst 20% of time for outfield players is specified as being dedicated to player roles, it isn't really clear what they are doing the other 80% of the time. I can't imagine they are just standing around, even if they are its not a terrible thing as we have 2 outfield sessions immediately after the goalkeeping sessions so we could consider this a light warm up. I'm fairly happy with this, people can change as they see fit of course.

I like your point on Match Tactics, i'd probably keep 1 a week, its a light session which suits are objective, i think it does increase team cohesion and its helps keep us at 100% tactical familiarity when new players come into the team (u18, u23 players you promote + new signings etc), but yes, we can probably replace the Monday session in Match Weeks to something else, not to strenuous. I'll update the schedule at some point.

Thanks for the input.    

The 20% is for player roles from the defensive unit, then you have another 20% focus on player roles from the attacking unit. 60% focus is on the GK attributes. So clearly the focus of the session is the GKs. The players are not standing around but they are not getting much of the focus from that session.

I understand your intent though to focus on the player roles training. However, there aren't enough of those sessions that target the player roles. Frankly, I'm surprised SI set it up this way. It kind of make player roles training a little redundant now. Either they should've removed player role training or they should have more activities (from various categories) have it as impact focus.

Role training is still part of Match Prep though as I pointed out previously. Att.Movement for example focuses 60% in player roles training for the attacking unit, 20% for the roles in the defensive unit and 20% GKs. Def.Shape is the opposite, of course. Plus each one has impact on the next match. So you get double benefit there and you hit your both targets. Also they impact your tactical familiarity as well.

So I would just focus on Att.Movement, Def.Shape and Teamwork during Match weeks. You don't really need to waste a session on Match Tactics unless you bring in new players during transfer window or you make drastic changes to your tactic you use so it affects your familiarity. But even if a few bars go slightly down, it's not that big of a deal.

Personally for player development purposes in the long run my favorite is the General Possession activity. It targets 60% of all the attributes (excluding dribbling) that are important to me for my playing style and club DNA....in every save. Yeah, I'm one of those Pep Guradiola admirers.

 

[Mr U Rosler]

Good points again.

As much as I admire guardiola, I prefer a direct style in FM!

I'll likely tweak the schedules to reflect this although currently you can't seem to delete old schedules and my schedules tab is becoming a bit of a mess.

My main focus for player roles is individual training so any focus we get in team training is a bonus.

[yonko]

16 hours ago, Mr U Rosler said:

Good points again.

As much as I admire guardiola, I prefer a direct style in FM!

I'll likely tweak the schedules to reflect this although currently you can't seem to delete old schedules and my schedules tab is becoming a bit of a mess.

My main focus for player roles is individual training so any focus we get in team training is a bonus.

No problem.

What kind of attributes do you think are priority or important for you in terms of direct style of play? 

Keep in mind that from the General training activities the focus for each group of impacted attributes is for both the attacking and defensive units.

For your performance weeks you might be better off using unit activities that divide the focus of impacted attributes between your defense and attack. So instead of using General Attacking/Defending, it might be better to use Attacking Direct/Wings and Defending Engaged/Disengaged. Chance Creation and Chance Conversion focus 60% your attacking unit while 20% of the defensive unit focuses on individual roles - that might interest / benefit your idea. On the other hand Ground Defense and Aerial Defense are the opposite - 60% focus on the defensive unit, while the attacking unit focus 20% in individual roles.

I think you may want to revisit each category and take a snapshot of what each one impacts and make plan what fits your playing style the best to get the most out of your training. It takes a little while and it may be tedious work, but once you figure it out it will become second nature to you. You will see. Just figure out what's important to your direct playing style.

[thegoon65]

Bumping this up. As most just let there Ass Man do training 🤔 this thread gives you plenty to think about and shows how easy it can be to set up training.

[kelabb]

Mr Rossler,

 

I am happy to say, I have recently had great success in my Birmingham City save, coming through the playoffs to gain promotion to the Premier League for 19/20 Season, while using your Match Week and Performance Week training schedules all through the season. My better players were available for most matches and my lesser lights improved some degree during the season. You might say, I am a rather happy manager as I prepare for the new season ahead in Premier League.

I have had a look at your Pre-Season schedule and while not using it exactly, have prepared a Pre-Season schedule of my own, which I shall report on later.

 

Thank you for cutting through the multitude of options and drilling down to a simple routing that works.

 

Kel

[Pompeyboyz]

Been using this since I stumbled upon it via your tactics thread @Mr U Rosler and have to say this is really good as I've had a few high potential players come out and be poached for high money in Bulgaria.  

[Jimmyrh94]

Thank you so much for this post. I've been looking for a guide to hand hold me into the new training system. I've decided i'm going to start with using the pre-set training and tactical schedules and then tweak here and there.

I've noticed the ass man is selecting match tactics as the default match prep every week even though my tactic is 100% fluid (excluding the Position/Role/Duty bar). Does the ass man every change to defensive positioning/attacking movement etc. ? If not, I take it that once the tactic is fluid there is no reason not to intervene and select a more suitable preparation option?

[thegoon65]

12 hours ago, Jimmyrh94 said:

Thank you so much for this post. I've been looking for a guide to hand hold me into the new training system. I've decided i'm going to start with using the pre-set training and tactical schedules and then tweak here and there.

I've noticed the ass man is selecting match tactics as the default match prep every week even though my tactic is 100% fluid (excluding the Position/Role/Duty bar). Does the ass man every change to defensive positioning/attacking movement etc. ? If not, I take it that once the tactic is fluid there is no reason not to intervene and select a more suitable preparation option?

Check his preferred formation and style this normally indicates how he sets up training. This is why I use these schedules and not my ass man 

[davenumber40]

Really interesting thread. 

 

My question as far as youth development goes is how do you apply this to the U18 players? If the schedule is so heavily focused on match prep, I'd be inclined to leave my younger players in the U18's and tailor a schedule more towards player development. I don't really trust the new mentoring model yet. However I know some in the community are encouraging moving high potential young players to the seniors to be mentored. I'm guessing it must be that the senior experience and mentoring while playing U18 games is enough to raise attributes? I'm holding off starting a youth development save until I get a better handle on training. 

 

 

[phnompenhandy]

3 hours ago, davenumber40 said:

Really interesting thread. 

 

My question as far as youth development goes is how do you apply this to the U18 players? If the schedule is so heavily focused on match prep, I'd be inclined to leave my younger players in the U18's and tailor a schedule more towards player development. I don't really trust the new mentoring model yet. However I know some in the community are encouraging moving high potential young players to the seniors to be mentored. I'm guessing it must be that the senior experience and mentoring while playing U18 games is enough to raise attributes? I'm holding off starting a youth development save until I get a better handle on training. 

 

 

For me at a lower league club, I have a lot of Under 18 players in my first team squad. There it makes sense to include them with senior players in training sessions. If they're in the U18 squad they have different training regimes.