Fitz

chopper,

I think this is an excellent topic, and echos my experiences with FM08, which I feel has been most responsive of the FM series, if you use the tactics and instructions sensibly, and not try anything unnatural, i.e. very attacking styles, for the team or individuals.

The only thing I have to say is regarding the angry team talk after a very disappointing result. I played the league leaders in th Championship, third from last match needing one more win to gain promotion, knowing I was playing third place in the next fixture. My team played truely appalling losing 4-0, including two players scoring 4 and two players scoring 5 and the rest scoring 6. Only my substitute came on in the second half and scored 7.

I told them I was angry, and half the team had a messge in their profile which said that they knew they had let the supporters down (or something similar). They then played the third placed team next, totally dominated the game and won. I feel that if I had't have given them the reaction I had to the previous game that they wouldn't have performed as they did the next game. I then stated that they were excellent (or whatever the option was) and there moral was pretty much completely superb to a man.

I think having read your posts that the opposition instructions are very important, as I spend a reasonable amount of time setting them up as well for each game, and have experienced more success than failure.

I'm sorry if this has hijacked your thread a bit but I wanted to show that you aren't the only one having success, and believing that this version responds more naturally to the tactics etc.

retired_rawpaw

This is a good, well thought out post.....very different from the morons who don't stop moaning. Cheers!

firefighterhilf

This is very interesting, perhaps when used carefully being angry at full time can have a positive effect. I think I've become quite cautious in my team talks in an attempt to never damage moral too much and cause my team to go on a downward spiral. But that being said I think I'll keep this in mind and using sparingly to see what happens.

No need to apologise, if this thread promotes any kind of sensible discussion then I'll be all the happier :thup:

retired_tega

Hi chopper - good thread, need more people out there like you willing to make this kind of effort to help others.

one thing with team talks - you have written the above as someone who uses these methods for a lower league team - how about a top/higher league team? most of what you suggest can still apply, but at the end of a game, say you were a big team playing a small team, if you draw its obviously a bad result, so should you be saying 'sympathise'? and the same when you lose. even if you are clear favourites for a game do you still say 'sympathise'?

if it works for moral then mayb its best, but would just feel strange sympathising with your hundred-grand-a-week players who failed to just beat a selection of part time pig farmers, when what you really want to do is get the ol' hairdryer out!

retired_recca

The King's Lynn 4-5-1 works a treat as well.

retired_nsample

chopper99- a well laid out and interestying post- such a nice change from most of the recent ones. Even if we dont always agree with what you write, it is still worth documenting for discussion purposes. Well done. :thup:

retired_nsample

Some interesting points on re-reading the posts about opposition instrauctions. I sometimes, but not always, give instructions aginst the opposition's attackers, but I have never considered using them against their defenders.

I agree with the poster above about the careful and rare use of the "angry " team talk. If used sensibly it can work well altho I do feel that the whole morale issue is over-effective in this version. I cannot see that, for example, the Man Utd players will care one toss about what Sir Alex says about the opposition to the press, but in this game it can have a large effect, apparantly.

retired_tega

sorry for another question but when i looked at your tactics page, you also have a version 2, which you say is the one you used for bigger teams.
so are you now saying version 3 is the one to use for any team, or is v3 still just more for lower league teams? thanks

firefighterhilf

I personally use the same method for big clubs as well (my first game on FM08 was with Man Utd). I always try to keep the effects on moral of team talks to a minimum, so even when losing or drawing to smaller teams I tend to stay away from angry/disappointed as I've rarely seen it have anything other than a negative effect on morale. And once morale starts to drop performances can suffer a lot.

There may be instances where using angry is effective, by all means try it. I've just found that in the long run keeping morale steady has had a much better long term effect than playing the 'morale lottery'.

firefighterhilf

sorry for another question but when i looked at your tactics page, you also have a version 2, which you say is the one you used for bigger teams.
so are you now saying version 3 is the one to use for any team, or is v3 still just more for lower league teams? thanks </BLOCKQUOTE>

V2 is the tactic I developed for Man Utd so is probably better for bigger clubs. Having said that I haven't tried V3 with a bigger club so feel free to try them both and let me know which one works best at the bigger clubs.