retired_kellyk

Cambridge Update

One thing that is painfully obvious playing in the BSP is fixture congestion. I had decisions to make and these involved rotation.

Cambridge only have around 14 players who're decent enough to play, the rest of them are just deadweight no-one wants. I had to bring in players who otherwise wouldn't have made the bench just to keep my players fresh for the 2 trips to Wembly.

In fact I remember playing a goalkeeper in midfield because he was the only player on the bench who had a match condition of 90%. The match that mattered would the Weymouth one which was the last match before the Setanta Shield final.

Weymouth was used at the match to bring in those players who were 'rested'. When I 'rest' players I don't use the ingame option, which is to send players away for a specified time. I just don't play them for at least 2 game or at most 3. Anything more is too much.

While they 'rested' a bunch of 16 year olds took the field and though they didn't win many games, they still gave the senior side the much needed rest.

We've already now secured the title, having won the Setanta Shield we now have 2 more matches before the FA Trophy, once that is done that wil be it.

We've successfully been able to do this with 5 tactics. We started with RYDemonsEyE, then switched to RYMagyars before changing its passing to short, then went on to the RYArrowhead and one 3133 tactic as well.

retired_kellyk

End Season Wrap - Lessons Learnt

Not a bad first season; The last couple of matches were a bit anti-climatic, but enjoyable nevertheless.

Reasons for success
<LI> Loans from Parent Club
Without a doubt these proved to be key, the topscorer was a loanee and so was one of the wingers

<LI> Other loans included 2 defenders, I had to go through the process twice approaching clubs to offer me up some of the players.

<LI>Managing team morale, this was the hardest, morale is so much more harder to maintain now, even though I was touted as the next United manager, that didn't too much, winning streaks weren't enough, so I had to score big wins.

Maintaining consistency also meant I had to grind out results where possible and this meant having a good defensive orientation for all tactics. Some tactics were better suited for a defensive game, and some were very offensive. I know have a good mix of 5 tactics after the first season.

<LI> Staff changes
I'll need to make plenty of staff changes next season, and bring in more players. This group only has 1 player worth keeping, the rest may have to go. A summer sale is on the cards.

<LI>Changing tactics
Its not necessarily a bad thing, however, changing it too much can be terrible. Personally I prefer to have just one tactic, but I get bored easily and often tinker with new formations for fun.

<LI>Key attributes -
Without a doubt determination and teamwork, you need both if you want to do well..then its pace, decisions, passing.

retired_sgambino

[quote]Originally posted by rashidi1:
Had a quick look at your tactic :-

In this game DLine was around 13-14...

DM ment. was at half of slider and closing down around 14-15.

I did it and now they seem to play better way

Both were on same - normal (half of slider). I think I don't understard this idea of 'linkage'. My strikers - yes they look too isolated, but they just standing and waiting for the ball. I could say they are hiding behind defenders back to not get the ball Maybe lowering mentality with often FWR cause they will step back sometime and look for a gap between defenders ?


I didn't get red card I get 3 YC. For CB's I set tackling low after this happend, and winger was replaced.

retired_lauraelise

17 yellow cards for Stopforth!? Wth did this guy do all season?

retired_anitarobinson

I've watched the 3-2 game against forest green, the arrowhead formation seemed to initially have 2 DMC's with farrows, did you set these up the same way as the RYMagyars tactic? i.e mixed forward runs?

Later in the game the mid's moved to the CM positions, i take it they were more defensive with no fwr then? or was it just to get them closer to the opp mc's?

retired_kellyk

I found that having them play too deep little good at all, they were too far away from the action, I found that playing them in midfield with forward runs on mixed. They were on the last notch of defensive and had forward runs mixed. They did better in that position then they did in the default starting one.

And yeah Stopforth played really well throughout the season, he became a great utility player, he played as a DM, MC and an AMC, which is why he picked up all those cards. Got 10 goals as well in the season.

retired_anitarobinson

Stopforth played a blinder in the forest green game, he seemed to find a lot of space...was he on mixed fwr? I usually have an amc on fwr rarely.

retired_exerciseforum

great tactics there... i wonder which one of the 3 tactics u uploaded has one-touch passing?

Mark86

I'm getting very, very narked off with this game at the moment.

1st season with blackburn, I over achieve somewhat, narrowly missing out on 3rd place by 1 point, finishing 5th on goal difference.

I have a solid tactic, only conceded 10 goals at home all season and 22 away (not so great maybe) scoring on average 2.1 goals a game with santa cruz, mccarthy and derbyshire all chipping in.

Second season, i look to strengthen my midfield (savage is old and makoena not the best to have a regular starting place) i make sure to use the "create filter based on this player" option to make sure that the same stats are present in my replacements.

Second season starts, first game, beat chelsea 1-0, second game, beat aston villa 2-1. Now the fun begins.

Suddenly, and for seemingly no reason, despite having 7* defensive and shooting training, my defenders started conceding 3 goals a game. I tweaked my tactics, nothing i did worked. Meanwhile, my strikers started to miss every single shot. There were 4 games in a row where i had 15 shots but 0 on target.

After 5 games, i'm surprised to see that most of my teams morale is on superb or very good. Obviously they're not worried!

I change tactics, start from scratch, playing opposite to what i normally play incase there was a secret re ranking 3 games into the season. Exactly the same problems occurred. No amount of altering defensive line, mentality or passing style with my players changed anything at all.

I could play with 2 practically opposite tactics, yet the matches would take exactly the same course!

I come in here to see what I'm doing wrong, often turning to rashidi's tactical know how to improve my fortunes in Fm.

I give each of these tactics 4 games to see how it goes.

Demonseye - very weird things happened here, i would get dominated in possesion, often around 40-60% but the opposition would only manage ~4 shots at most, we would manage around 12. 4 games played, 70% shot accuracy, only 2 goals to show for it, against fc twente in the euro cup.

The final of the 4 games with this tactic was a 4-0 drubbing by Arsenal. They had 4 shots, scored 4 goals, we had 12, 11 on target scored 0. Miraculously their keeper only had a 7 rating.

Onto the next tactic, version one of magyars2008. beat portsmouth 2-1 at home playing beautiful football in the midfield, despite the mud and despite being down to 10 men since the 30th minute. This was promising!

Second game, FC Kobenhaven, at home, after 25 minutes, we are 4-0 down. They have had 3 shots but scored 4 goals. We are dominating possesion, but suddenly my strikers have once again come down with accute blindness.

I just do not get it. This made me so frustrated that i decided to do the dishonorable thing and reload the game. I play the game against FC Kobenhaven 4 times with the same tactic, same teamtalk, same starting 11, same everything. Here are the results:

0-2 - Dominate possesion, 15 shots on goal, 10 on target, super keeper gets mom.

0-1 - We get dominated this time, only managed 2 shots on target and they had 10, ben foster gets a 9.

2-2 - Winning 2-0 until the last 5 minutes. Despite my changing of the mentality, width and tempo, i see my team rushing to take a free kick, which inexplicably is passed straight to one of their players who launches a blinding counter attack. 2-1. 3rd minute of injury time (i so knew this was coming) FC Kobenhaven somehow string together a sublime passing move, something that my far superior midfielders were struggling to do on the muddy pitch. Nelson misses an interception from the cross, it falls to one of their players, samba tackles, then tries to dribble the ball out, gets tackled, their striker has a tap in because Nelson forgot to mark him.

Fourth replay we win 4-0, completely obliterating them. Now i ask, how on Earth am i supposed to stop my season from being completely ruined and ending with me sacked, if the results are seemingly this random. Sometimes it seems that if this game has determined that you're going to go on a bad run and nothing you do will change it, no matter what you try.

GRR!

Rant over, I'm now going to go back to a version of the game that i saved halfway thru the shocking run and try Magyarsv2. I don't have much hope but i might as well try it.

retired_CuttingEdge94

The fixture congestion is really killing my Worcester team to. It's gotten to the point where some of my players barely run at all after the first half. The big problem is, just as you said, bringing in players that can actually do a job. We were flying by the start of the season, but 11 games in and results are much harder to come by now. We're undefeated, but that's mainly down to the tactics since we often find ourselves pinned back due to sheer exhaustion towards the end of the game. I hate to think there are 31 games (+ cup games!) left before the end of the season...