Start of Season Slump

[RoversRob]

At the start of every season, I have inconsistent form and end up around 12 points off the table leader. Form eventually picks up, and by the time Febuary rolls around I've caught up and overtaken the leaders and sit top of the table and go on to win the league. Happened the last 3 seasons and the one I'm currently in.

My squad consists of a lot of world class players, and I have 3 different tactics in play - My main tactic I use all the time, a "different approach" one in case main tactic isnt working well in a match, and a park the bus defensive/counter for when I am 1/2 goals up against dangerous opposition. Familiarity of all tactics is good as there isnt a huge shape difference between them.

I think the slump might be something to do with my pre-season training setup, but being completely honest I have not gone anywhere near the team training in this years edition. It looks so different to past versions that I've just left it all up to AssMan and have never touched it. It hurts my eyes when I look at the interface.

Basically just looking to see if anyone else has the same start of season slump, and if they have rectified it with a different approach to pre-season. Also just looking for any advice in general.

If it helps, for my pre-season I usually just make sure I have enough friendlies set up to make everyone match fit, and the opposition teams I pick are always minnows that I know I will absolutely thrash to get morale as high as possible (this always seemed to work well on past FM editions).

[FrazT]

One thought is that only playing minnows in the pre-season may produce complacency when they do eventually play some better teams, so I suggest that you have at least 1 or 2 harder matches in the pre-season

[MagicHat]

the only times i have a slump at the start is because either i brought too many new players in or my team hadn't learned the tactics fully yet. for instance in this save how many of your first 11 have only just been signed and how full are your tactic familiarity bars?

[RoversRob]

Hardly made any signings the last 3 seasons, been gradually introducing youth once they have had enough odd appearances in cup games/from the bench to make them more or less a good rotation option. Squad has pretty much been together for years bar a couple of changes.

[Gunnersmoke]

I’ve had the same problem before and through trial and error I would recommend that ( especially if you don’t want to touch training ) you focus on you friendlies. Now first friendly I would play an easy game, this is to get morale up and also a bit of cohesion. Then play against the hardest opponents you can find for the next few. Then the final pre season friendly make it a very easy game and then that will get your confidence up going into the season ahead!!!

 

The reason I suggest hard games in pre season is this is where you can really hone in your tactic and make any tweaks necessary so that come the first game you know exactly what is going to happen rather than going in blind. 

 

Hope this helps