***The Official Football Manager Thread***

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Well I had a nice long reply typed out but OS decided that a cookie timeout was a better option, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo basically I'm the type of person who chops and changes all the time, I've used 7 different tactics in my first year in the Premier League, though now I mostly just use the 4-2-3-1 at home and a 4-4-4-2 away. I tailor my tactics to fit the players I have in attack, my defense normally suffers from it, though lately I've had some good defenders come my way, so it's gotten a lot better. As an example of how much I chop and change, this was a youth player who joined as a D/M R and now is a D/WB/M/AM R

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

A 4-4-4-2! That is impressive sir.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

A 4-4-4-2! That is impressive sir.

the first 4 is the bus in front of the net

[Krebstar]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

A 4-4-4-2! That is impressive sir.

I have been looking for a way to get more midfielders involved.

[Kobalt]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Okay vets, tactics. Do you guys build your own and tweak, and battle through them not working? Find plug and play from online? I know making your own would be more rewarding.

I keep restarting or starting new saves because I'm unsatisfied with tactics. I keep telling myself to just stick with a save, get fired, and learn.

Any thoughts? On 17, by the way.

Building my own of course. I'm using the same tactics I used in the previous versions with some tweaks.

This is my main one, although this tactics doesn't play like previous versions because half-back is broken.



Pretty basic stuff without the ball, force opponents to go out wide and clog the middle.



With the ball, there's usually 3 back and DM is ahead of the CBs getting to the balls the opponent clears and start the attack again. Have to watch out for speedy wingers on the counter.



For this tactic, I always sign players with high tackling and high work rate.

Currently I'm trying to create a 3back formation because I hate fullbacks but it isn't going so well. so I might have to just use the one I made in FM16 and hope it works in FM17.

[Velocityy]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

For me, I always build mine around the players I have right at the start of the save. I don't keep just 1 and try to force my team into it (at least to start).

I generally start with 3 different ones to train, just to make sure I have some back ups if it doesn't work well (usually 1 more defensive as well)...and then I start tweaking the instructions as I learn about the team. Drastic changes are generally hard to pull off and see a result because it's so different...so I try to change 1 instruction at a time to see. Generally start at Standard/Fluid and almost no instructions and go from there.

For example, in my current save I was running a 4-2-3-1, with a 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1 DM as back ups. Wound up having my instructions be Higher Tempo, Fairly Wide, Closing Down More, More Direct Passing, Be More Expressive, and Hit Early Crosses. This works well in Counter and Attacking, I've found. But I had started with nothing and messed around with it a lot until I found what worked! It's a constant battle, IMO.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

A couple notes to add:

I never download tactics. Takes the fun out of it for me, and a lot of the plug and play tactics you see exploit a found weakness/bug in the engine. Doesn't really appeal to me.

I too try to build around the players I have when I come to a club. Then as I get those players up to speed on a couple tactics, I might start training another brand new one with transfers in mind. It all kind of depends on what level I'm at. I'm not going to try to have exotic tactics in League 2 where most of the players aren't effective enough to specialize too much anyway.

If I'm building new tactics and my team has a very low familiarity with the one I feel is best for my team, I will only train 1 because the familiarity goes up on that one much faster than if you are training 3. Then add new ones as I go.

If a tactic isn't working, sometimes it's as simple as a tweak on one player or one instruction that you have wrong. I pore through the stats and player ratings and try to see if I'm telling them to pass too directly (for one example), or try and change a single player's instructions if one seems to be struggling. Sometimes it jumps out at you, and sometimes it doesn't. It also might not have anything to do with your tactics. Bad familiarity + bad morale can = dumpster fire. It might just be a case of raising morale and/or familiarity.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Also, having too many instructions is a real thing, and a trap I fall into very easily myself. Sometimes simple is the best.

[Velocityy]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

A couple notes to add:

I never download tactics. Takes the fun out of it for me, and a lot of the plug and play tactics you see exploit a found weakness/bug in the engine. Doesn't really appeal to me.

I too try to build around the players I have when I come to a club. Then as I get those players up to speed on a couple tactics, I might start training another brand new one with transfers in mind. It all kind of depends on what level I'm at. I'm not going to try to have exotic tactics in League 2 where most of the players aren't effective enough to specialize too much anyway.

If I'm building new tactics and my team has a very low familiarity with the one I feel is best for my team, I will only train 1 because the familiarity goes up on that one much faster than if you are training 3. Then add new ones as I go.

If a tactic isn't working, sometimes it's as simple as a tweak on one player or one instruction that you have wrong. I pore through the stats and player ratings and try to see if I'm telling them to pass too directly (for one example), or try and change a single player's instructions if one seems to be struggling. Sometimes it jumps out at you, and sometimes it doesn't. It also might not have anything to do with your tactics. Bad familiarity + bad morale can = dumpster fire. It might just be a case of raising morale and/or familiarity.

For me, the simple thing that changed everything was switching my winger from support to attack. That was it. My offense started chugging there. It's totally correct that it can be THAT small of a change.

Also, picking the actual position the players play is vital. Like Tim says...pore over their stats and read the descriptions of each position and you'll find what they play best. Also what position will play well with another.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

I decided I'm going to start one last save for the rest of this year. And I'm going to just go on holiday for 100 or 200 years. See where it ends up and pick an interesting team from there. Maybe even 500 or 1000 years. Let the landscape really change.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Just be aware, if you go that far into the future, your save can end up being extremely slow if there is too much history saved. You'll want to make sure that it's not saving any match results or player bios.

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Just be aware, if you go that far into the future, your save can end up being extremely slow if there is too much history saved. You'll want to make sure that it's not saving any match results or player bios.

Yeah its been running since last night, and its already slowed way down. I didn't know you could turn that off. I just stopped and saved it. Only 62 years in and the save is almost 400mb. It was taking a long time between days. I'll have to look around the settings to turn that off and start it over.

EDIT: I don't even see where I can do this.

[Suntan Superman]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***



Select "Minimum"

[Zac]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Thanks. I'm going to start it over and let run over night again. Probably going to take a few days to get there.

[jasontoddwhitt]

Re: ***The Official Football Manager Thread***

Season two leaves me with a lot of what ifs. We were far more competitive this season in league action. In season one, we finished 21 points behind Celtic. This season...we finished only 9 points. But my goodness.

A strong start to the season saw us pushing Celtic right out of the gate. Of course, Dembele dominated the league. I was excited to see him get signed by PSG...but was saddened to see that a loan back was part of the deal. We'll be rid of him next season, thank God. When the January transfer period rolled around, we were within striking distance. With injuries to our midfield, I added QPR defensive midfielder Ariel Borysuik on loan.

Celtic's deep Europa run was causing them to drop points in the league. Sadly, they coincided with a drop in form by us as well and we couldn't take advantage, ending the season on a six-game winless streak.

Transfer period saw me cut a lot of dead weight from the youth setup and get rid of one outrageous paycheck in Niko Kranjcar. Thankfully, I was able to keep teams out of the south from poaching my guys away from me. Joe Garner led my scoring charts with 22 goals (that's 43 in two years for me). Youngster Robbie McCrorie was rotated into the starting lineup fairly regularly throughout the season, and the young goalkeeper looks like he is going to be a stud. Joe Dodoo came on late in the season, which gives me something to think about as Garner isn't getting any younger.

Goals for the transfer period....

Find a suitable backup for James Tavernier. I bought David Ferguson last year for that job, but he turned into a bust and I sold him to Hearts. Also sold my other right back, Lee Hodson, to Hibernian.

Improve my depth in midfield. Suffered a lot of injuries in midfield last season that really tested us.

More permanent signings, fewer loans.

CB Craig Dunlap (Inverness CT) - $52k: A seventeen-year-old regen who is good enough now to get some minutes with the first team that my scouting team unearthed.

CB Liam Lindsay (Partick Thistle) - $650k: 22-yeard old center back who has been playing well for Thistle. Surprised they gave him up for so little.

CM Grant Gillespie (Hamilton) - $275k: Love his versatility.

CM Stuart Bannigan (Partick Thistle) $1.2M: Quality midfielder who no longer plays against me.

RB Yarouba Cissako (Roda JC) $650k: This guy excites me. A similar player to Tavernier, who has been getting some attention from BPL clubs.

Also brought in Brahim Diaz (Man City) and Miguel Luis (Sporting Lisbon) on loan.

Europa League

Defeated Man 62 15-0 in the first qualifying round.
Defeated Brondby IF 6-2 in the second qualifying round.
Defeated Molde 4-2 in the third qualifying round.

The strongest team in the playoff was Porto....so naturally, that is who we got paired with. The first leg was at Estadio do Dragao. We had hopes early on when Harry Forrester netted us a goal in the 14th minute. But then Porto bagged three goals in quick succession and suddenly it's not looking good. However, as luck would have it, in the 89th minute, Porto scored a goal for us. Sitting with two away goals and a return trip to Ibrox, I was feeling cautiously optimistic.

A sold out Ibrox gave us hope. We dominated possession, but Porto was hitting us on the counter hard and fast. Luckily for us, Jak Alnwick, filling in the for the injured youngster McCrorie, was up to the task. The first salvo was struck by us in the 40th minute when Joe Garner was shoved down in the box and he coolly slotted the penalty. 3-3 aggregate and we hold the away goal tiebreaker.

Porto kept hammering at us and hammering at us, but we didn't break and Alnwick came up with six huge saves in this match. Porto were scrambling for a goal and then we hit them on the break in stoppage time as Greg Tansey slotted one past the keeper!

4-3 Rangers and on to the group stage!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The group we were given....

Southampton
Ajax
Mainz

I welcome the challenge!