FM 05

[tucker rocky]

I'm playing as Birmingham of EPL.

Any favorite tactics ?


Why no team will accept my friendly challenges?
(I'm assuming now, that this can only be in the pre-season.)

Training?
(Must take time I'm guessing.)

MP is good, some improvement is probably needed.

I see they came out with a patch, I've read good and bad about this.
Some saying you have to restart your career for the
patch to work properly.:(

[Eaglesfan27]

You don't have to restart your career for the patch to work. It just works optimally if you do. You might want to check out the big FM thread for answers to some of these questions. As far as a favorite tactic, I really like a variation of the 4-1-2-1-2 or the 4-1-3-2, but really it is important to pick the right tactic for your club. I know very little about Birmingham so I can't recommend anything specific.

I don't know why no teams will accept friendlies now, except their schedules are probably fairly full already. Next year you can pick all of your friendlies (although teams might refuse if they don't want to play you.) As far training, it takes time to see improvement/decline in players.

Edited to add: I HIGHLY recommend installing the patch. It makes the game MUCH better IMHO.

[moriarty]

I'm playing as Birmingham of EPL.

Any favorite tactics ?


Why no team will accept my friendly challenges?
(I'm assuming now, that this can only be in the pre-season.)

Training?
(Must take time I'm guessing.)

MP is good, some improvement is probably needed.

I see they came out with a patch, I've read good and bad about this.
Some saying you have to restart your career for the
patch to work properly.:(

Training takes a little bit of time. I think on the profile screen of the player there is an option to show training effects (don't have it in front of me).

I don't think most teams will schedule friendlies in season. You'll have to wait for the off season. If you can find a league (like the MLS) that runs on a different schedule, they might be in the off season and might be willing to accept a friendly.

[Eaglesfan27]

Yes, there is an option on the profile screen to show training effects. I rarely use it, but it is there. I remember quickly looking at it last night.

[bhlloy]

Yes, but I believe the arrows only show the effects of training for the current week. Marc can confirm this, but a lot of people think their training is crap when actually it's doing a decent job and they've just had an off week/ busy week with games.

As an aside, I've found it is ESSENTIAL to set seperate training schedules for different positions (at least 4 - defense, midfield, attack and gk although 5 might work better - defense, midfield, wingers/attacking midfield, attack and gk)
You just won't find your players getting much better at position specific skills if you try to use a general schedule e.g. defenders getting better at marking and tackling, strikers getting better at finishing etc....

[path12]

How do you go about setting your training schedules? I've messed around with it but can never seem to get an effective one (I let it run for a month before checking progress).......I'd love to hear strategies for training setup.

As a side note, how many schedules do you have your coaches involved in? I usually try to stick to no more than two.

[bhlloy]

Some random thoughts re. training that seem to work for me (nothing set in stone - strictly my own observations):

All players train on Sunday, no rest during the week and a fitness related session on Saturday morning
Tick "don't train on Matchday" box but none of the others (this means 99% of the time you won't actually be doing fitness on Saturday morning, but if you don't have a game it's a nice pickup session)
Create at least 3 (4 if you want your wingers and AM to be seperate although I put them in with attackers) new blank schedules
Sunday morning = cross country for all outfield players
Goalkeepers seem to do better if you leave them on just the pure goalkeeping skills (GK agility, shot stopping etc...) even though the GK bar goes up further if you put a mix of 5 a side games, overloading etc in
In general for outfield players: lots of overloading (at least 4 times a week), lots of large pitch 5 a side games (small pitch doesn't appear to offer any extra benefits, large pitch is more fitness intensive)
Defenders: have at least 2 closing down sessions, 2 defensive set pieces sessions, 2-3 tactical training/shadow play (shadow play makes the bars go up further but I like to leave one tactical training in for variation), heading and sprints also useful, maybe technique & pig in the middle
Midfielders: cross country once more in the week, 2 closing down sessions, 2 pig in the middle sessions, technique, crossing (maybe twice if you are including wingers) and attacking free kicks useful
Attackers: crossing 2-3 times, shooting 4-5 times, heading twice, sprints at least twice

That's the basic outline I use and with extra coaches (hint: include all players from the USA, there are usually 4-5 quality coaches that will sign for £200 a week. If you just load English/European coaches there aren't usually many decent coaches unemployed) players seem to do very well indeed. I play as Cardiff City in English Championship and with average training facilities I see young players coming through pretty quickly and even veterans get decent bumps when they first start the regime.

I put 2 coaches and 1 physio on each individual schedule no matter who I play, if I don't have that many I sign more. No coach doubles up but I can deal with my physio doing more. Coaches are cheap and the board will just have to deal with the extra wages :)

Question for Marc - does having a physio on a schedule decrease the likelyhood of players being injured/becoming tired easier? That is the general impression I get but it would be useful to know...
If not, does it actually hurt to put physio's on a schedule (they actually try to train the players with their poor coaching ratings?)

[bhlloy]

DOLA - if you want actual regimes (and advice from people who know a lot more about the game than I do) I find this site very useful:

hxxp://www.fm4rums.com

You do have to register but I think it's worth it. I don't like the SI forums but there is a lot of knowledge on there as well. The Dugout forums are supposed to be pretty good too.

[scooter]

There is an actual forum at SI for training and tactics. There is a guy in there named Lyssien who's done a lot of research on the training in CM03-04 (which is pretty much the same in FM2005) - the "Gary" schedules. I use his training setups for my team and they seem to work pretty well. There also seems to be another thread by Cleon that has some interesting research as well.

[path12]

Thanks for the info -- I'll check that site out. I hate wading through the SI forums but will try the Dugout one also. In the past I've downloaded training schedules and they've worked well, but there's something about developing your own that just seems more......well, satisfying. I feel the same way about tactics, but generally use one of the standard ones and tweak it instead of starting from scratch. I suppose that still being somewhat new (four years or so) to world-class football hampers my skill level in developing things -- it's much easier formulating game plans in FOF since I've been watching the NFL all my life....

[tucker rocky]

Installed the patch, didn't start new career(although recommended by SI).

Downloaded a few tactics over at Dugout, I really like the 5131 Barnsley tactic, but my defense somtimes falters late in match for whatever reason. I get a lead, only to have other team comeback, will try pulling back to see if this will work.

Training is daunting, but results are mixed, maybe hiring more coaches will help, presently have 5 coaches and 3 physios. Older players seem almost impossible to train(albeit Hattrick), looking for diamonds and younger players with my crew of scouts touring Europe and rest of the world. Looking to transfer a few players(when next transfer window is available), for possible younger trainable players for my team.

A question, what is through balls?

[tucker rocky]

dola,

Is there a way to combat the offside trap?
Maybe short and direct passes might help, instead of long passes?
Maybe lowering the tempo?

[bhlloy]

Beating the offside trap is usually one of the easier things to do in FM (but I haven't played post patch as my copy is at home) Having midfielders/attacking midfielders make runs forward is a good way to beat it, I like having one striker on his own up front as a target man to hold the ball up, then 2-3 attacking midfielders (depending on playing home/away) making forward runs.

4-2-3-1 DK is a preloaded tactic that works pretty well, make sure you tweak it to suit your team though

Another way might be to play a very short passing game combined with low tempo and try to break it down, but I find a couple of attacking midfielders with pace will usually shred an offside trap pretty nicely.

Through balls are balls played over the top/ through the middle for your attacking players to run onto. You'd want a lot of these if you took approach #1 above.

[SirFozzie]

A question, what is through balls?

Most passes are feet to feet. a Through Pass (or through ball) is when you pass the ball forward into open space for a player to run on to. If it works, you're in great shape. If it's a bad pass, or the guy stumbles, guess what... you've just turned the ball over to the opposition to counter attack.

[tucker rocky]

Well, I lowered my frequency of being offside by lowering the tempo, shorter passes, playing my defense deep, and shutting down all over. This worked against Arsenal in the League Cup yesterday, with me winning on penalties 3-0.
This was very unlike the match earlier in the season when Arsenal whipped me 6-0. :)

The thing that gets me is the sometimes long layoff between matches, but other than that the game is fine and fun to play. Learning different things each time I play.