Getting started in FM08 hints and tips
Average Rating: 7/10 Hits: 4771 Submitted: Jan 13, 2008
I’ve been posting updates of my game in a current game thread, which can be found here, and a few of the readers have asked questions about how I go about managing my clubs and why. How to arrange a good preseason, how to find and raise good young players and tactics have all been talked about in the thread. Then, one of the readers suggested I compile a guide to managing in FM the same way I do. So here it is.
As you may or may not know, I’ve been playing a long term game which has seen me explore both ends of the footballing spectrum. From fighting relegation in a minor country to managing in the World Cup finals, I’ve had a long and (apparently) successful FM career.
I’ve been posting updates of my game in a current game thread, which can be found here, and a few of the readers have asked questions about how I go about managing my clubs and why. How to arrange a good preseason, how to find and raise good young players and tactics have all been talked about in the thread. Then, one of the readers suggested I compile a guide to managing in FM the same way I do. So here it is.
Before I start though, I’ll make a quick note. I don’t know everything about FM and have never claimed I do. I also know that I’m not the best FMer in the world and that there are much better players of the game out there than me. However, I have had much more successes than failures and have picked up a lot of tricks along the way. You might read this thread and go away none the wiser, or you might learn something new. All I can say is this is how I manage clubs on FM and the methods I use should be applied to every club anyone manages, as most of it is plain common sense.
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy this guide, and thanks for reading.
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Players
"Steven Gerrard is irreplaceable. We have big plans for him here to take him up to an even higher level. You would have to cut off both my arms before I let go of him because I would have them both wrapped around him" – Gerard Houllier
Obviously, one of the most critical aspects of Football Manager is the players you have. It’s no good having the best players in the world if they can’t play as a team, and it’s equally useless spending your time and money on one area of your team.
Still, it’s vital that you get the best players possible, but what do you look for in your players? Here are the main attributes you’ll be looking for in each position:
Goalkeeper: Handling is a must for any level, beyond that it’s just what you think is more important and the standard of keepers interested in your club. I tend to go for positioning, reflexes, one on ones and communication as well. If need be, you can get away with having a keeper with poor fitness stats if his technical and mental stats are enough to compensate.
Defender: Tackling, marking and heading are all critical, with heading being especially important for centre backs. Then I look for positioning, concentration and strength. A good long throws stat is good for your left/right back (if you play with one) and pace is also good to have if your back line pushes up a lot.
Wing Back: A wing back needs to be versatile, so tackling, passing, crossing and stamina are all a must. Pace is good to have, as is creativity, work rate and dribbling. Like the left/right backs, a decent long throws attribute is a bonus.
Midfielder: These are the engine of your team, and need to be able to do practically everything. Passing, tackling and long shots are key here, as is creativity. Good finishing will help and so will strength and stamina
Striker: Every striker needs good finishing and composure, with positioning and pace helping a lot. Heading is also good to have if your team gets a lot of crosses in.
High mental stats are a must for any captian
After choosing your players, there’s still more work to do. You need to get the best out of them week in, week out if you want your club to be a success.
Each player is unique and will react in a different way to what you say to/about them. Because of this, I can’t give tips for every player, but you just need to be logical. You’ll get five options to say about the player in the media, one will be a neutral ‘no comment’, and the others will range from very positive to very negative. Some players react well to being told they’re playing poorly, whilst some get lazy if you say they’re going well. Use the in game notebook option to keep track of how the player reacts, you’ll soon know exactly which player you want to praise and which one you want to criticise.
There you have it. Having the best players performing to their best want guarantee success, but it’ll go a long way to making your career successful.
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Pocket Money (Finances)
"It's no good having money in the bank and no good players out on the pitch" – Tony Mowbray
Money makes the world go round, and that’s true in FM as well. If you’re careful with your finances, not only will you be able to bring in better players who want high contracts, you’ll also have money to improve your facilities. Because money is so important in bringing in players and staff, expanding the stadium and upgrading your training facilities, it’s vital to have a tight hold on your finances.
There are only really two approaches to finances, hands on and hands off. A hands off approach is what most people will use. They get given a transfer budget and spend it, and they get given a wage budget and use it. It’s quick and simple, but it relies completely on the board setting the right budgets. Sometimes they’ll give you a wage budget which you can’t actually afford or a transfer budget which will set you in debt if you use it all. The budgets also leave little money left over for facility upgrades, so you’ve got a problem if you’re in desperate need of a stadium expansion.
This leads me nicely to the second approach, and the one I use, which I call hands on. Basically, it involves you analysing what money you have, how much you’ll bring in and how much you’ll lose from general expenses and then working out how much you have to spend. The main benefit from this method is the total control you have over your finances and you’ll know just how much you can spend. However, you’ll need to wait until the second season to do it, as you need information from last season’s finances. Here’s what I mean with a bit more depth.
Firstly, you need to know what the result you’re looking for. After you’ve looked at each area of you finances, you want to know how much money you’ve got to spend on transfers/wages and how much left over you’ll have from potential prize money. Conversely, you’ll want to see if you need to cut your wages or need to sell players for the transfer fees.
It doesn't matter what level you're at, keep the wage bill as low as possible
You’ll already know that finances are split into two main groups, income and expenditure. Look at income and, from last season’s finances, add together gate receipts, season tickets, TV revenue, merchandising, sponsorship, interest and match day income, then add it to your current bank balance. Unless you’re promoted or have a huge cup run, these areas of finances will change little from season to season. Also, you ultimately have little control of these and whatever you do will be unlikely to affect the money they bring in. Let’s assume that, after adding all of these up we have £10million.
Now it’s expenditure. Add together non-football costs, bonuses, dividends, ground maintenance, interest and tax. Again, these will change little from season to season, unless you have a stadium expansion. Subtract your total from your income total. Let’s say the expenditure is £4million, which will leave you with £6million.
Notice there are some major areas we’ve left out. From income, players sold and prize money has been ignored, whilst wages, signing on fees and players bought have been ignored from expenditure. All of these can change massively from season to season, depending on your actions. Now, subtract your current wages from your running total. For example, say the wages is £4million, take it from our remaining £6million to leave us with £2million.
And there you go. You have an estimated £2million to spend on players and their wages. Obviously, if you sell a player, add the transfer fee and their wages to your transfer/wage kitty. Also, if you’re planning on being a bit risky, add an estimation of prize money into your kitty. This can be dangerous, as it leaves you needing to have a successful season if you’re not to lose money.
It sounds complicated, but once you’ve done it a few times you’ll be able to do it within a minute. It won’t give you a 100% accurate answer, but it’s the best estimation you’ll be able to get. As I said, the benefits are well worth the extra time taken as it guarantees that you won’t be spending money you don’t have, even if the board think they can afford it.
In case you need it, here’s a mini formula:
FROM INCOME
Gate receipts + season tickets + TV revenue + merchandising + sponsorship + interest + match day income + current bank balance = Income Total
FROM EXPENDITURE
Non-football costs + bonuses + dividends + ground maintenance + interest + tax = Expenditure Total
TOTALS
Income Total – Expenditure Total – Current Wages = Spending Budget
Hopefully, if you’re willing to invest the time, you’ll now be able to know precisely who and what you can/can’t afford
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Comings and Goings (Transfers)
“There’s more chance of me signing Lionel Blair” – Paul Jewell when asked if he would be signing Lionel Perez
There are two main ways to improve your squad, either train your players up or replace your current players with better ones. Obviously, due to the money you’ll be spending, this is the riskier method of improving your squad, but yields faster results that than training your players.
Firstly, to buy players you might need to sell some first. This could be to raise money for the transfer fee or to make space for their wages. This is common sense, but make sure you sell players you don’t need first. Do you really need your fifth choice striker? Will that 23 year old you signed as a youngster ever make the grade? If not, these are the types of players you should look to offload.
Now you need to make sure you get the right amount of money for your player. If a team has come in and offered for a player without him being transfer listed, you’ll have room to negotiate. Try to squeeze as much money out of the deal as possible. If you transfer listed a player, generate interest in him by offering him to clubs and setting his squad status to not needed. If you really need to get rid of him to get him of the wage bill, consider lowering his value to nothing. Finally, if a big club is offering for one of your most promising players, try to get the biggest sell on clause possible. You may need to drop a few hundred thousand off the price, but if a player might be sold on in the future for several million, you’ll more than double the money you get form the transfer.
So, you’ve now got enough money to buy a player and pay his wages, now what? Firstly, identify the type of player you need. It could be a fast striker or a young centre back. Whatever it is, use the player filter to narrow down your search. For example, you’ve got an aging centre forward, and need a younger player to come in and start replacing him. Your team plays a lot of crossing and through balls, so the striker needs to be strong in the air and fast, as well as having good composure and finishing. Search for players with these specific attributes to make a small shortlist of about half a dozen players if possible.
I may have spent £63million, but it would have been closer to £100million without proper negotations.
If there’s a player there who’s head and shoulders above the rest and has other clubs interested in him, make an offer quickly, you won’t want to lose out on him. However, normally you want to take a slower approach. Scout the players on the shortlist as thoroughly as possible. Try to get them on trial as well. The important thing is to learn as much as possible about the player before you sign him, you don’t want to sign a young player with ambitions and a short fuse because he’ll be on the sidelines from all the red cars he gets and will want to move to a bigger club. Scouting potential signings eliminates a lot of the risk. Now you can decide the ideal player you want to sign, and one or two fall back options if you’re unable to sign that player.
It’s now time to prepare a bid for the player you’ve chosen. Set yourself a limit to spend on the player and his wages. He may become the best player in your squad, but is there a cheap alternative that’s better value for money. You can praise and admire the player you want to sign and if he’s happy with your praise he’s more likely to want lower wages. The same applies with his manager, praising him will make a low offer more likely to be accepted.
The transfer fee itself is generally the most expensive part of the deal, so take your time whittling it down as low as possible. If the player is unhappy or transfer listed, you should start with a bid below his value. If he’s not listed or unhappy, offer his value. Hopefully, you’ll be lucky and they’ll accept the first offer, but they may negotiate it or reject it altogether. If you have to negotiate or make a new offer, don’t go mad and agree to their demands or raise the offer drastically. Up the bid slightly from the original one, and do this until they accept it or reach the limit you set yourself. You may need to turn your interest to another player, but hopefully you can now offer a contract.
As usual, you’ll want to pay as little as possible. Always try to get rid of minimum fee release clauses and yearly wage raises; you’ll regret it in the future if you don’t. Also think of the appearance fee bonus, maybe you can save money with your defenders by getting rid of it and offering them a goal bonus instead, they won’t be scoring much so it’ll be cheaper. Then there are relegation release clauses, if you’re fighting for promotion you don’t need to worry about these, but if you’re at the wrong end of the table try to get rid of this. Make sure you sign him for the right amount of time as well, if he’s a teenager with potential, you want him to sign a five year deal, whilst players who are short term signings should be given shorter contracts. Finally, try to get his basic wage down as far as possible, as this is where the most money can be saved. You may need to compromise if he rejects your initial offer, but take your time and you’ll get your man.
So there you have it, you’ve signed and sold players for the best prices possible. Now seat back and reap the benefits of your saved money and your strengthened team.
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Bleeding them in (Youth Players)
"When a player gets to 30, so does his body." – Glenn Hoddle shows the intelligence that got him the England job
Youth players are the future, so look after them! The guide in the transfer section will help when signing youth players, but what do you do when you actually have them?
Firstly, the more matches they get the better. This is easier said than done. Whilst it’s possible to get youth players playing when you’re a lower league team, it’s nigh on impossible to get the youngsters on the pitch when you’re a big team without taking a big drop in performance.
It’s just about using common sense here. If they’re not good enough to play in important matches, play them in unimportant matches. If you’ve got a big win in the first leg of a cup match, you can play the youths in the second leg. Also, if you’re playing a team a few divisions below, you can play a few youngsters then as well. Finally, you can play them in league or group matches, when your position has been finalised with a games remaining.
Apparently, you'll never win anything with kids. This squad won the Premier League despite their young age.
There’s more to taking care of your youngsters than playing them in the odd match though. You must have the correct training (look in the training guide for help) and keep them playing in the reserves. Sometimes you’ll have an opportunity to let a player out on loan, whether it be to a feeder team or not. Remember, you’re trying to get first team matches for your youngster, so if the club who offered for him just wants him as back up or cover for the first team, I’d recommend rejecting it. Some clubs will want him as a first team regular, but don’t accept it straight away. Your youngster will be missing out on your training schedules and you won’t be able to keep a close eye on him. Use your discretion and only say yes if you think the experience of first team football at the level of the club offering for him is better than reserve football and your training. Sometimes you’ll want to say no and keep him at your club.
And that’s all there is to it. It’s not a lot to remember, but it’s all easier said than done. If you can manage it though, you’ll save a lot of money buying players in the prime, as you can buy players in their teens for £30million less and train them up to the same level
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Scouts and Physios
"We all know that in football if you stand still you go backwards" – Peter Ried
In previous versions of CM/FM, scouts did relatively little. Now though, they’re an absolutely vital part of any football club. They’ll pick out individual stars for you, give detailed reports on players you’re interested in and, if your club’s scouting knowledge is high, will show more potential signings on the player search screen. Because of this, it makes sense to invest in the best scouts possible.
The obvious attributes your scouts need are judging player ability and judging player potential. It’s worth mentioning, that scouts who are good in both judging player ability and potential are relatively rare and expensive, so you need to work out which scout will do what. If a scout will be sent out to find players to improve your squad and slip into the first team, he’ll need a high judging player ability, whilst if he’ll be sent to find future prospects he’ll need a high judging player potential. As a quick example, the ideal setup for a team of three scouts will be one with high judging player ability, one with high judging player potential and one who is decent in both.
Apart from high judging player ability and potential attributes, a high determination attribute will help.
When you have your scouts, you want to keep them constantly busy; you’re not paying them to sit around dong nothing. Send your scouts wherever you can, whether it be an obscure country or continental Europe, there’s a better chance of them finding players for you when they’re actually doing something. Also use a scout to scout your next opposition as well as scout specific players you’re interested in.
Only one of these attributes are really important for a physio
Now there is some debate as to the usefulness of physios and whether or not you should have more than one. Personally, I have one physio if I’m a smaller club, and two or three when I’m a big club. Use your own discretion though, if you don’t have the money don’t bother getting more than one.
A physio’s role at the club is to treat injured players and to tell you how long it’ll be until a player is ready to play for you again. With that in mind, the one and only attribute you should be focused on is physiotherapy, the high the better. Some people say a high determination rating helps as well, but that’s a matter of opinion. Only really search for this attribute if there are multiple physios with the same physiotherapy rating.
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Your Coaching Team
"If we played like this every week, we wouldn't be so inconsistent!" – Sir Bobby Robson
Coaches are at your team to…erm…coach. Its part of the game which is frequently overlooked, but I spend heavily to ensure I have the best coaching staff possible. The only limits you’ll have are the wages and the number of coaches you’re allowed to sign.
Firstly, find out how many coaches you can have. It’ll say how many the board recommend when you negotiate a contract with a coach. I generally add two to that (if the board recommend no more than 3 coaches, you’ll usually get away with 5 before they stop you from signing any more).
This is what you want to aim for in regards to coaching
There are nine areas in training, strength, aerobic, goalkeeping, tactics, ball control, defending, attacking, shooting and set pieces. If you’re a rich, high level club, you’ll be able to sign one coach for each area. However, small clubs can’t. It’s important to remember that if you assign more than one area of training to a coach, the quality of his coaching will drop slightly (which is why it’s better to have one per area). If you have no choice but to have coaches take multiple aspects of training, sign coaches who have high stats in two (or maybe three) areas to maximise the quality of your training.
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Your Number Two (Assistant Manager)
"If you can't stand the heat in the dressing-room, get out of the kitchen!" – Terry Venables
As a manager, you may not have the time or the inclination to do absolutely everything at the club, so you need an assistant manager. The assistant does many things, like managing the youth and reserve teams, coaching and reporting on players. Also, if you have a touchline ban, the assistant will manage the first team, so it’s important to get the best assistant possible.
As with all staff you’ll want to consider placing an advert for an assistant manager, if you have the money. With that done, you’ll want to look on the staff search and draw up a small shortlist. It’s important to note that you don’t need to restrict your search to just assistant managers; there could be coaches who are more than capable of doing the job.
He's not the best assistant in the world, but my number 2 has good ratings in important attributes.
So what attributes should you be looking for? The main ones you want are man management and motivating. Judging player ability and potential are good ones to have as well if you’re assistant will be helping pick the team and reporting on players. Apart from those, it depends on what team you have. If you have a very young team, you want him to have a good working with youngsters attribute, whilst if your team is getting a lot of yellow and red cards, a high discipline attribute will help. Remember that he’ll be doing some coaching as well, so good attributes in coaching will be a big plus.
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The Training Ground
"I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat!" – Ron Atkinson
Training is where you squeeze that bit of extra talent into your highly paid footballers. Sometimes, you’ll just be looking at maintaining a player’s ability, whilst sometimes you’ll be trying to develop a player’s attributes. Either way, creating training schedules will help you players immensely, as the default General schedule is poor.
There are three types of training, youth, part time and full time. Let’s look at what each means.
Youth training is for all players on youth contracts and players who are in your youth team (even if they’re too old to play for them). In comparison to part and full time, they’ll have little training time, but as they’re so young there’s nothing you can do about it. The main objective here is to develop your player’s strength and aerobic attributes so when and if they play for your first team, they’re not overwhelmed by the fitter, stronger players of the other team.
Then there’s part time, and anyone who is on a part time contract trains on these schedules. They’ll get less training than full time players, so try to get them on full time contracts. Full time schedules are for full time players. The aim for each of these schedules is to train the players to have a good balance of technical and physical attributes.
Avoid using this schedule, it gives no real benefit to any specific positions
Now we need to look at the positions of players, and train attributes which are relevant. For example, training a goalkeeper how to shoot will be a waste of time. First create a schedule for each position and focus on certain attributes for each one, but try not to make the overall intensity of the schedule ‘hard’ (I tend to keep it one notch below hard). Here’s how I do it.
Goalkeepers: Full goalkeeping, high on both aerobic and strength. Medium on ball control and tactics. Maybe increase the set pieces slightly.
Defenders: High strength and aerobic, full defending. Then medium to low on tactics, ball control, set pieces and attacking.
Midfielders: High strength and aerobic, medium defending, attacking and shooting. Low on ball control, tactics and set pieces.
Attackers: High strength and aerobic, nearly full shooting, medium to low on tactics, ball control, attacking and set pieces.
And in case some of you can’t be bothered to make your own schedules, here are my schedules. It includes schedules for goalkeepers, defenders, midfielder and attackers on each youth, part time and full time contracts. Enjoy
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Cross Country or a Holiday (Preseason)
"I think this could be our best victory over Germany since the war." – John Motson, ever the neutral commentator
Preseason is the time for working off the holiday fat from your players and trying out new tactics. So how many friendlies should you arrange, and who against?
Firstly, you need to know what you’re looking for in these games. If you’re trying to get your squad match fit, you can arrange 6+ friendlies, depending on your squad size. Your first objective will to get your first team match fit, but you should also try to get some reserves ready as well, you might need them early on in the season. When getting your players fit, you don’t really need to worry about who you play, 90 minutes of football it 90 minutes of football, whoever you’re against.
Some preseasons can be spent earning money. This is only really relevant if you’re a lower team in need of money. Basically, the more away friendlies against bigger teams, the better. As usual, during these friendlies ensure your players get fit.
A mixture of good European clubs and low English clubs mean I can play around with my tactics and still get everyone fit.
Finally, there’s the tactic tweaking friendlies. These are the opportunity to play with your tactics and formation a bit to try to get a little extra something from your players. You should be playing teams of your own standard here. I would recommend teams in the same league as you. This is because playing lower teams won’t really test your tactics, you might beat a conference team 8-0 playing route one football, but a higher level team will be able to deal with those ‘down the middle’ attacks. If you player lower teams you’ll probably win, but learn nothing. The amount of friendlies depend on how quickly you’re satisfied with your tactics, but I would advise arranging 4 matches for your first team to play and test tactics, and another 4 to get players fit.
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Sexy Football or Route One? (Tactics)
"I'm surprised that they've gone for Scolari. He's got great credentials by winning the World Cup, but he did it with Brazil - my granny could probably have managed Brazil to World Cup success." – Gary Lineker
You may have the best players in the league, but it’ll mean nothing if your tactics aren’t right. The very first thing to remember is every team is different, so using Manchester Utd’s tactics in the conference won’t guarantee you success (unless you happen to have similar players).
Now, there are two ways to look at this, you can find players to fit into your tactics or you can find a tactic which suits your players. Personally, I’ll make sure my tactic is suitable for my current players, and as time goes by adapt and improve it, then buy players who fit into the new tactics.
It gets a bit complicated from here, so we’ll do it in small parts. First, we have to pick a formation. This not only depends on the quality of players in each position, but the quantity of them. For example, if you’re a lower league club and can’t afford another striker, you might want to consider playing with just one centre forward. Find a formation which accommodates the ability and number of players at your disposal, and then think about adapting it in the future. If you’re having some problems, the simplest thing to do is stick with a 4-4-2 formation.
Choosing the right formation is just part of the job
Now it’s time for the instructions. Seeing as I only use team instructions, that’s all I can explain. Firstly, there’s the mentality. I find that getting the right setting is nothing more than trial and error. You can speed the process up though by using your strengths. If you have a good defence, you can push for more goals, whilst if you’re scoring goals for fun, you can sit back and be a bit more defensive. It just sacrifices attacking for defending, or vice versa
I leave creative freedom at neutral, unless I have a midfielder who has lots of creativity and flair. If you’re without a Cristiano Ronaldo, leave it as it is.
Passing style and temp can play a huge part. If you players have high passing and controlling attributes, you can play a short passing, quick tempo game. If you have big, strong attackers with high heading rating, playing a long ball game should help. If your players are good all-rounders, leave it as mixed.
Width is common sense. If you’re playing with wingers but play a narrow game, you’re not using some of your players. A wide formation needs a wide playing style, whilst a narrow one needs a narrow style. Simple.
Then there’s the defensive line. If you have fast defenders with good positioning, you might consider pushing them up and playing the offside trap. If your defenders are slower though, you want to play safe and keep them deep. Personally, I always play deep.
Now, there’s three instructions I’ve left out, and that’s because they change from match to match. Closing down is originally set to ‘own half’. I never turn it down, but if you’re playing a team of a higher standard and have players with high passing and long passing attributes, crank it up to ‘all over’ and give them less time on the ball. Time wasting is exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re 1-0 up, with your backs to the wall and there’s only 2 minutes left, you might want to turn this up. Finally, there’s tackling. Leave it on normal most of the time, but if the referee of the next match is lenient, you can get away with setting it on hard. Conversely, if he’s strict, you might want to put it on easy.
That’s pretty much it. There’s more detail and more precise instructions, but I’ll leave you to discover all that for yourselves. However, if you read all of this and think ‘you know what, I can’t be bothered’, I don’t blame you, it can be very time consuming and frustrating. So, because I’m a nice kind of guy (and because it’s a guide on how I play the game) here's a link to the tactic I use. As I said earlier, it’ll only work for you if you have similar players as I do, so stock up on creative wing backs and centre midfielders and one hell of a fast striker.
On a final note, don’t go into a big match with a new tactic, test it first. Try to arrange a friendly. If it’s the middle of the season, manage the reserves for a game and player a few first teamers with the new tactic. That way, if it’s crap, you don’t end up fighting relegation for the entire season (like I did).
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Preparation (Pre-Match)
Nothing special here, just a few easy pointers.
Check your player’s condition. Too often I’ve just pressed ‘submit team’, knowing my first team were selected. I didn’t notice that some players were only on about 70% fitness and wasted a sub bringing them off 5 minutes in.
Also, read your scout’s report on the opposition. Usually, you’ll just play your own game, but sometimes you’ll notice something that you’ve got to change. For example if he tells you their defence are weak dealing with crosses, put some wingers on with high crossing attributes and strikers with high heading attributes.
Check the referee. If he’s strict and produces a lot of cards, turn tackling down. If he’s lenient, do the opposite.
Finally, have an aim for the match. Do you have to win? If so, don’t sit back on a draw with 20 minutes left.
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Kick Off (The Match)
"I knew it wasn't going to be our day when I arrived at Links Park and found that we had a woman running the line. She should be at home making the tea or the dinner for her man who comes in after he has been to the football. This is a professional man's game. I believe that she shouldn't be here.” – Peter Hetherson will be sleeping on the sofa after this.
It doesn’t matter how good your finances are or how long you spent arranging training, this is where you need to get it right. Obviously, better preparation will make this easier, but you should never just press ‘kick off’ and then leave it, expecting to come back to a 4-0 win.
Obviously, your actions will change depending on your scenario, so I can’t give you definitive instructions. I can however, give you some things to remember.
Whatever you do, sometimes it just won't go to plan
Firstly, watch your player’s ratings. A poorly performing player in an important position (GK or lone striker for example) needs to be dealt with soon rather than later. Sometimes you can alter the player’s instructions or change his position, but sometimes you’ll just have to bring him off.
Watch your player’s condition as well; this can affect this game and the next. If you’re star player is tired and you’re four goals up, bring him off to save him for the next game. Obviously, if any player is very tired (less than 70% fitness in my books) you’ll want to consider bring them off. Personally, as soon as a player is less than 80% fitness, I start to think who to bring him off for. You’ve got a difficult choice to make if in a close match, your best performing player is struggling for fitness.
Check the match stats. It may be 0-0 at half time, but if your opponents have had 25 shots on goal and you’ve had 1, you’ll need to change something. In this situation, I would make my players keep the ball as long as possible, if you have the ball your opponents won’t score.
Sometimes a match will be a lost cause. If you’re 6-0 down with 30 minutes left, feel free to rest your star players and give the youth guys a run out. The same applies if you’re 6-0 up.
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General Tips
"You are talking about a man who spelt his name wrongly on his transfer request." – Gary Megson on Jason Roberts.
As soon as you join a club, go on manager options and uncheck “assistant handles youth contracts”. This stops your assistant offering new contracts to players in your youth squad. It’s not that big a problem if you’re a big team, but when you’re a lower league team a new three year deal for a youth player who’ll never make the grade is a costly mistake.
As a lower league club, you’ll have to keep your wage bill under control. Sometimes, you’ll want to release players, but can’t afford the compensation. To get around this, offer them an amateur contract. They won’t always accept, but if they do you can release them without paying compensation.
When a player gets a serious injury, you’ll have the option to send him to a specialist. This costs a lot of money though, so only do it if you’ve got the money and you need that player.
You can set scouts to check out the next opposition. Make sure you check the report and alter your plans if need be. If you’re a team that plays the offside trap and the opposing team has fast strikers, change your tactics to avoid having you high defensive line exploited.
If you’re a lower league club, arranging multiple away friendlies against bigger times can be a vital source of income. Personally, I find that Nottm Forest and Leeds never say no to a match
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Summary
"If history is going to repeat itself I should think we can expect the same thing again." - Terry Venables
So there you go, that’s how I managed all my clubs now and the methods above are all responsible for my success. I understand that you may or may not agree with my methods, but it’s how I do things. I’m always open to learning new ways of playing FM though, so if you do have any feedback whatsoever, please don’t hesitate to message me or post it in this thread.
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Credits
Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone who has read my current game thread, as the inspiration to continue to post updates and information about my games come from them. Their support is why I made this guide
A thank you goes to the FM scene as a whole, as I picked up a few pointers myself when browsing the scene and asking questions.
A massive thank you to anyone and everyone at SIGames. They’re probably responsible for my school marks dropping drastically, but their games have given me hours upon hours of fun.
And finally, a thank you goes to you, the reader, for making it to the end of this.
I nearly forgot. Thank you to the staff at Fever-Pitch, as they were kind enough to remove double posting restrictions and advise me on where to put the guide
I’ve been posting updates of my game in a current game thread, which can be found here, and a few of the readers have asked questions about how I go about managing my clubs and why. How to arrange a good preseason, how to find and raise good young players and tactics have all been talked about in the thread. Then, one of the readers suggested I compile a guide to managing in FM the same way I do. So here it is.
Before I start though, I’ll make a quick note. I don’t know everything about FM and have never claimed I do. I also know that I’m not the best FMer in the world and that there are much better players of the game out there than me. However, I have had much more successes than failures and have picked up a lot of tricks along the way. You might read this thread and go away none the wiser, or you might learn something new. All I can say is this is how I manage clubs on FM and the methods I use should be applied to every club anyone manages, as most of it is plain common sense.
With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy this guide, and thanks for reading.
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Players
"Steven Gerrard is irreplaceable. We have big plans for him here to take him up to an even higher level. You would have to cut off both my arms before I let go of him because I would have them both wrapped around him" – Gerard Houllier
Obviously, one of the most critical aspects of Football Manager is the players you have. It’s no good having the best players in the world if they can’t play as a team, and it’s equally useless spending your time and money on one area of your team.
Still, it’s vital that you get the best players possible, but what do you look for in your players? Here are the main attributes you’ll be looking for in each position:
Goalkeeper: Handling is a must for any level, beyond that it’s just what you think is more important and the standard of keepers interested in your club. I tend to go for positioning, reflexes, one on ones and communication as well. If need be, you can get away with having a keeper with poor fitness stats if his technical and mental stats are enough to compensate.
Defender: Tackling, marking and heading are all critical, with heading being especially important for centre backs. Then I look for positioning, concentration and strength. A good long throws stat is good for your left/right back (if you play with one) and pace is also good to have if your back line pushes up a lot.
Wing Back: A wing back needs to be versatile, so tackling, passing, crossing and stamina are all a must. Pace is good to have, as is creativity, work rate and dribbling. Like the left/right backs, a decent long throws attribute is a bonus.
Midfielder: These are the engine of your team, and need to be able to do practically everything. Passing, tackling and long shots are key here, as is creativity. Good finishing will help and so will strength and stamina
Striker: Every striker needs good finishing and composure, with positioning and pace helping a lot. Heading is also good to have if your team gets a lot of crosses in.
High mental stats are a must for any captian
After choosing your players, there’s still more work to do. You need to get the best out of them week in, week out if you want your club to be a success.
Each player is unique and will react in a different way to what you say to/about them. Because of this, I can’t give tips for every player, but you just need to be logical. You’ll get five options to say about the player in the media, one will be a neutral ‘no comment’, and the others will range from very positive to very negative. Some players react well to being told they’re playing poorly, whilst some get lazy if you say they’re going well. Use the in game notebook option to keep track of how the player reacts, you’ll soon know exactly which player you want to praise and which one you want to criticise.
There you have it. Having the best players performing to their best want guarantee success, but it’ll go a long way to making your career successful.
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Pocket Money (Finances)
"It's no good having money in the bank and no good players out on the pitch" – Tony Mowbray
Money makes the world go round, and that’s true in FM as well. If you’re careful with your finances, not only will you be able to bring in better players who want high contracts, you’ll also have money to improve your facilities. Because money is so important in bringing in players and staff, expanding the stadium and upgrading your training facilities, it’s vital to have a tight hold on your finances.
There are only really two approaches to finances, hands on and hands off. A hands off approach is what most people will use. They get given a transfer budget and spend it, and they get given a wage budget and use it. It’s quick and simple, but it relies completely on the board setting the right budgets. Sometimes they’ll give you a wage budget which you can’t actually afford or a transfer budget which will set you in debt if you use it all. The budgets also leave little money left over for facility upgrades, so you’ve got a problem if you’re in desperate need of a stadium expansion.
This leads me nicely to the second approach, and the one I use, which I call hands on. Basically, it involves you analysing what money you have, how much you’ll bring in and how much you’ll lose from general expenses and then working out how much you have to spend. The main benefit from this method is the total control you have over your finances and you’ll know just how much you can spend. However, you’ll need to wait until the second season to do it, as you need information from last season’s finances. Here’s what I mean with a bit more depth.
Firstly, you need to know what the result you’re looking for. After you’ve looked at each area of you finances, you want to know how much money you’ve got to spend on transfers/wages and how much left over you’ll have from potential prize money. Conversely, you’ll want to see if you need to cut your wages or need to sell players for the transfer fees.
It doesn't matter what level you're at, keep the wage bill as low as possible
You’ll already know that finances are split into two main groups, income and expenditure. Look at income and, from last season’s finances, add together gate receipts, season tickets, TV revenue, merchandising, sponsorship, interest and match day income, then add it to your current bank balance. Unless you’re promoted or have a huge cup run, these areas of finances will change little from season to season. Also, you ultimately have little control of these and whatever you do will be unlikely to affect the money they bring in. Let’s assume that, after adding all of these up we have £10million.
Now it’s expenditure. Add together non-football costs, bonuses, dividends, ground maintenance, interest and tax. Again, these will change little from season to season, unless you have a stadium expansion. Subtract your total from your income total. Let’s say the expenditure is £4million, which will leave you with £6million.
Notice there are some major areas we’ve left out. From income, players sold and prize money has been ignored, whilst wages, signing on fees and players bought have been ignored from expenditure. All of these can change massively from season to season, depending on your actions. Now, subtract your current wages from your running total. For example, say the wages is £4million, take it from our remaining £6million to leave us with £2million.
And there you go. You have an estimated £2million to spend on players and their wages. Obviously, if you sell a player, add the transfer fee and their wages to your transfer/wage kitty. Also, if you’re planning on being a bit risky, add an estimation of prize money into your kitty. This can be dangerous, as it leaves you needing to have a successful season if you’re not to lose money.
It sounds complicated, but once you’ve done it a few times you’ll be able to do it within a minute. It won’t give you a 100% accurate answer, but it’s the best estimation you’ll be able to get. As I said, the benefits are well worth the extra time taken as it guarantees that you won’t be spending money you don’t have, even if the board think they can afford it.
In case you need it, here’s a mini formula:
FROM INCOME
Gate receipts + season tickets + TV revenue + merchandising + sponsorship + interest + match day income + current bank balance = Income Total
FROM EXPENDITURE
Non-football costs + bonuses + dividends + ground maintenance + interest + tax = Expenditure Total
TOTALS
Income Total – Expenditure Total – Current Wages = Spending Budget
Hopefully, if you’re willing to invest the time, you’ll now be able to know precisely who and what you can/can’t afford
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Comings and Goings (Transfers)
“There’s more chance of me signing Lionel Blair” – Paul Jewell when asked if he would be signing Lionel Perez
There are two main ways to improve your squad, either train your players up or replace your current players with better ones. Obviously, due to the money you’ll be spending, this is the riskier method of improving your squad, but yields faster results that than training your players.
Firstly, to buy players you might need to sell some first. This could be to raise money for the transfer fee or to make space for their wages. This is common sense, but make sure you sell players you don’t need first. Do you really need your fifth choice striker? Will that 23 year old you signed as a youngster ever make the grade? If not, these are the types of players you should look to offload.
Now you need to make sure you get the right amount of money for your player. If a team has come in and offered for a player without him being transfer listed, you’ll have room to negotiate. Try to squeeze as much money out of the deal as possible. If you transfer listed a player, generate interest in him by offering him to clubs and setting his squad status to not needed. If you really need to get rid of him to get him of the wage bill, consider lowering his value to nothing. Finally, if a big club is offering for one of your most promising players, try to get the biggest sell on clause possible. You may need to drop a few hundred thousand off the price, but if a player might be sold on in the future for several million, you’ll more than double the money you get form the transfer.
So, you’ve now got enough money to buy a player and pay his wages, now what? Firstly, identify the type of player you need. It could be a fast striker or a young centre back. Whatever it is, use the player filter to narrow down your search. For example, you’ve got an aging centre forward, and need a younger player to come in and start replacing him. Your team plays a lot of crossing and through balls, so the striker needs to be strong in the air and fast, as well as having good composure and finishing. Search for players with these specific attributes to make a small shortlist of about half a dozen players if possible.
I may have spent £63million, but it would have been closer to £100million without proper negotations.
If there’s a player there who’s head and shoulders above the rest and has other clubs interested in him, make an offer quickly, you won’t want to lose out on him. However, normally you want to take a slower approach. Scout the players on the shortlist as thoroughly as possible. Try to get them on trial as well. The important thing is to learn as much as possible about the player before you sign him, you don’t want to sign a young player with ambitions and a short fuse because he’ll be on the sidelines from all the red cars he gets and will want to move to a bigger club. Scouting potential signings eliminates a lot of the risk. Now you can decide the ideal player you want to sign, and one or two fall back options if you’re unable to sign that player.
It’s now time to prepare a bid for the player you’ve chosen. Set yourself a limit to spend on the player and his wages. He may become the best player in your squad, but is there a cheap alternative that’s better value for money. You can praise and admire the player you want to sign and if he’s happy with your praise he’s more likely to want lower wages. The same applies with his manager, praising him will make a low offer more likely to be accepted.
The transfer fee itself is generally the most expensive part of the deal, so take your time whittling it down as low as possible. If the player is unhappy or transfer listed, you should start with a bid below his value. If he’s not listed or unhappy, offer his value. Hopefully, you’ll be lucky and they’ll accept the first offer, but they may negotiate it or reject it altogether. If you have to negotiate or make a new offer, don’t go mad and agree to their demands or raise the offer drastically. Up the bid slightly from the original one, and do this until they accept it or reach the limit you set yourself. You may need to turn your interest to another player, but hopefully you can now offer a contract.
As usual, you’ll want to pay as little as possible. Always try to get rid of minimum fee release clauses and yearly wage raises; you’ll regret it in the future if you don’t. Also think of the appearance fee bonus, maybe you can save money with your defenders by getting rid of it and offering them a goal bonus instead, they won’t be scoring much so it’ll be cheaper. Then there are relegation release clauses, if you’re fighting for promotion you don’t need to worry about these, but if you’re at the wrong end of the table try to get rid of this. Make sure you sign him for the right amount of time as well, if he’s a teenager with potential, you want him to sign a five year deal, whilst players who are short term signings should be given shorter contracts. Finally, try to get his basic wage down as far as possible, as this is where the most money can be saved. You may need to compromise if he rejects your initial offer, but take your time and you’ll get your man.
So there you have it, you’ve signed and sold players for the best prices possible. Now seat back and reap the benefits of your saved money and your strengthened team.
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Bleeding them in (Youth Players)
"When a player gets to 30, so does his body." – Glenn Hoddle shows the intelligence that got him the England job
Youth players are the future, so look after them! The guide in the transfer section will help when signing youth players, but what do you do when you actually have them?
Firstly, the more matches they get the better. This is easier said than done. Whilst it’s possible to get youth players playing when you’re a lower league team, it’s nigh on impossible to get the youngsters on the pitch when you’re a big team without taking a big drop in performance.
It’s just about using common sense here. If they’re not good enough to play in important matches, play them in unimportant matches. If you’ve got a big win in the first leg of a cup match, you can play the youths in the second leg. Also, if you’re playing a team a few divisions below, you can play a few youngsters then as well. Finally, you can play them in league or group matches, when your position has been finalised with a games remaining.
Apparently, you'll never win anything with kids. This squad won the Premier League despite their young age.
There’s more to taking care of your youngsters than playing them in the odd match though. You must have the correct training (look in the training guide for help) and keep them playing in the reserves. Sometimes you’ll have an opportunity to let a player out on loan, whether it be to a feeder team or not. Remember, you’re trying to get first team matches for your youngster, so if the club who offered for him just wants him as back up or cover for the first team, I’d recommend rejecting it. Some clubs will want him as a first team regular, but don’t accept it straight away. Your youngster will be missing out on your training schedules and you won’t be able to keep a close eye on him. Use your discretion and only say yes if you think the experience of first team football at the level of the club offering for him is better than reserve football and your training. Sometimes you’ll want to say no and keep him at your club.
And that’s all there is to it. It’s not a lot to remember, but it’s all easier said than done. If you can manage it though, you’ll save a lot of money buying players in the prime, as you can buy players in their teens for £30million less and train them up to the same level
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Scouts and Physios
"We all know that in football if you stand still you go backwards" – Peter Ried
In previous versions of CM/FM, scouts did relatively little. Now though, they’re an absolutely vital part of any football club. They’ll pick out individual stars for you, give detailed reports on players you’re interested in and, if your club’s scouting knowledge is high, will show more potential signings on the player search screen. Because of this, it makes sense to invest in the best scouts possible.
The obvious attributes your scouts need are judging player ability and judging player potential. It’s worth mentioning, that scouts who are good in both judging player ability and potential are relatively rare and expensive, so you need to work out which scout will do what. If a scout will be sent out to find players to improve your squad and slip into the first team, he’ll need a high judging player ability, whilst if he’ll be sent to find future prospects he’ll need a high judging player potential. As a quick example, the ideal setup for a team of three scouts will be one with high judging player ability, one with high judging player potential and one who is decent in both.
Apart from high judging player ability and potential attributes, a high determination attribute will help.
When you have your scouts, you want to keep them constantly busy; you’re not paying them to sit around dong nothing. Send your scouts wherever you can, whether it be an obscure country or continental Europe, there’s a better chance of them finding players for you when they’re actually doing something. Also use a scout to scout your next opposition as well as scout specific players you’re interested in.
Only one of these attributes are really important for a physio
Now there is some debate as to the usefulness of physios and whether or not you should have more than one. Personally, I have one physio if I’m a smaller club, and two or three when I’m a big club. Use your own discretion though, if you don’t have the money don’t bother getting more than one.
A physio’s role at the club is to treat injured players and to tell you how long it’ll be until a player is ready to play for you again. With that in mind, the one and only attribute you should be focused on is physiotherapy, the high the better. Some people say a high determination rating helps as well, but that’s a matter of opinion. Only really search for this attribute if there are multiple physios with the same physiotherapy rating.
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Your Coaching Team
"If we played like this every week, we wouldn't be so inconsistent!" – Sir Bobby Robson
Coaches are at your team to…erm…coach. Its part of the game which is frequently overlooked, but I spend heavily to ensure I have the best coaching staff possible. The only limits you’ll have are the wages and the number of coaches you’re allowed to sign.
Firstly, find out how many coaches you can have. It’ll say how many the board recommend when you negotiate a contract with a coach. I generally add two to that (if the board recommend no more than 3 coaches, you’ll usually get away with 5 before they stop you from signing any more).
This is what you want to aim for in regards to coaching
There are nine areas in training, strength, aerobic, goalkeeping, tactics, ball control, defending, attacking, shooting and set pieces. If you’re a rich, high level club, you’ll be able to sign one coach for each area. However, small clubs can’t. It’s important to remember that if you assign more than one area of training to a coach, the quality of his coaching will drop slightly (which is why it’s better to have one per area). If you have no choice but to have coaches take multiple aspects of training, sign coaches who have high stats in two (or maybe three) areas to maximise the quality of your training.
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Your Number Two (Assistant Manager)
"If you can't stand the heat in the dressing-room, get out of the kitchen!" – Terry Venables
As a manager, you may not have the time or the inclination to do absolutely everything at the club, so you need an assistant manager. The assistant does many things, like managing the youth and reserve teams, coaching and reporting on players. Also, if you have a touchline ban, the assistant will manage the first team, so it’s important to get the best assistant possible.
As with all staff you’ll want to consider placing an advert for an assistant manager, if you have the money. With that done, you’ll want to look on the staff search and draw up a small shortlist. It’s important to note that you don’t need to restrict your search to just assistant managers; there could be coaches who are more than capable of doing the job.
He's not the best assistant in the world, but my number 2 has good ratings in important attributes.
So what attributes should you be looking for? The main ones you want are man management and motivating. Judging player ability and potential are good ones to have as well if you’re assistant will be helping pick the team and reporting on players. Apart from those, it depends on what team you have. If you have a very young team, you want him to have a good working with youngsters attribute, whilst if your team is getting a lot of yellow and red cards, a high discipline attribute will help. Remember that he’ll be doing some coaching as well, so good attributes in coaching will be a big plus.
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The Training Ground
"I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat!" – Ron Atkinson
Training is where you squeeze that bit of extra talent into your highly paid footballers. Sometimes, you’ll just be looking at maintaining a player’s ability, whilst sometimes you’ll be trying to develop a player’s attributes. Either way, creating training schedules will help you players immensely, as the default General schedule is poor.
There are three types of training, youth, part time and full time. Let’s look at what each means.
Youth training is for all players on youth contracts and players who are in your youth team (even if they’re too old to play for them). In comparison to part and full time, they’ll have little training time, but as they’re so young there’s nothing you can do about it. The main objective here is to develop your player’s strength and aerobic attributes so when and if they play for your first team, they’re not overwhelmed by the fitter, stronger players of the other team.
Then there’s part time, and anyone who is on a part time contract trains on these schedules. They’ll get less training than full time players, so try to get them on full time contracts. Full time schedules are for full time players. The aim for each of these schedules is to train the players to have a good balance of technical and physical attributes.
Avoid using this schedule, it gives no real benefit to any specific positions
Now we need to look at the positions of players, and train attributes which are relevant. For example, training a goalkeeper how to shoot will be a waste of time. First create a schedule for each position and focus on certain attributes for each one, but try not to make the overall intensity of the schedule ‘hard’ (I tend to keep it one notch below hard). Here’s how I do it.
Goalkeepers: Full goalkeeping, high on both aerobic and strength. Medium on ball control and tactics. Maybe increase the set pieces slightly.
Defenders: High strength and aerobic, full defending. Then medium to low on tactics, ball control, set pieces and attacking.
Midfielders: High strength and aerobic, medium defending, attacking and shooting. Low on ball control, tactics and set pieces.
Attackers: High strength and aerobic, nearly full shooting, medium to low on tactics, ball control, attacking and set pieces.
And in case some of you can’t be bothered to make your own schedules, here are my schedules. It includes schedules for goalkeepers, defenders, midfielder and attackers on each youth, part time and full time contracts. Enjoy
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Cross Country or a Holiday (Preseason)
"I think this could be our best victory over Germany since the war." – John Motson, ever the neutral commentator
Preseason is the time for working off the holiday fat from your players and trying out new tactics. So how many friendlies should you arrange, and who against?
Firstly, you need to know what you’re looking for in these games. If you’re trying to get your squad match fit, you can arrange 6+ friendlies, depending on your squad size. Your first objective will to get your first team match fit, but you should also try to get some reserves ready as well, you might need them early on in the season. When getting your players fit, you don’t really need to worry about who you play, 90 minutes of football it 90 minutes of football, whoever you’re against.
Some preseasons can be spent earning money. This is only really relevant if you’re a lower team in need of money. Basically, the more away friendlies against bigger teams, the better. As usual, during these friendlies ensure your players get fit.
A mixture of good European clubs and low English clubs mean I can play around with my tactics and still get everyone fit.
Finally, there’s the tactic tweaking friendlies. These are the opportunity to play with your tactics and formation a bit to try to get a little extra something from your players. You should be playing teams of your own standard here. I would recommend teams in the same league as you. This is because playing lower teams won’t really test your tactics, you might beat a conference team 8-0 playing route one football, but a higher level team will be able to deal with those ‘down the middle’ attacks. If you player lower teams you’ll probably win, but learn nothing. The amount of friendlies depend on how quickly you’re satisfied with your tactics, but I would advise arranging 4 matches for your first team to play and test tactics, and another 4 to get players fit.
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Sexy Football or Route One? (Tactics)
"I'm surprised that they've gone for Scolari. He's got great credentials by winning the World Cup, but he did it with Brazil - my granny could probably have managed Brazil to World Cup success." – Gary Lineker
You may have the best players in the league, but it’ll mean nothing if your tactics aren’t right. The very first thing to remember is every team is different, so using Manchester Utd’s tactics in the conference won’t guarantee you success (unless you happen to have similar players).
Now, there are two ways to look at this, you can find players to fit into your tactics or you can find a tactic which suits your players. Personally, I’ll make sure my tactic is suitable for my current players, and as time goes by adapt and improve it, then buy players who fit into the new tactics.
It gets a bit complicated from here, so we’ll do it in small parts. First, we have to pick a formation. This not only depends on the quality of players in each position, but the quantity of them. For example, if you’re a lower league club and can’t afford another striker, you might want to consider playing with just one centre forward. Find a formation which accommodates the ability and number of players at your disposal, and then think about adapting it in the future. If you’re having some problems, the simplest thing to do is stick with a 4-4-2 formation.
Choosing the right formation is just part of the job
Now it’s time for the instructions. Seeing as I only use team instructions, that’s all I can explain. Firstly, there’s the mentality. I find that getting the right setting is nothing more than trial and error. You can speed the process up though by using your strengths. If you have a good defence, you can push for more goals, whilst if you’re scoring goals for fun, you can sit back and be a bit more defensive. It just sacrifices attacking for defending, or vice versa
I leave creative freedom at neutral, unless I have a midfielder who has lots of creativity and flair. If you’re without a Cristiano Ronaldo, leave it as it is.
Passing style and temp can play a huge part. If you players have high passing and controlling attributes, you can play a short passing, quick tempo game. If you have big, strong attackers with high heading rating, playing a long ball game should help. If your players are good all-rounders, leave it as mixed.
Width is common sense. If you’re playing with wingers but play a narrow game, you’re not using some of your players. A wide formation needs a wide playing style, whilst a narrow one needs a narrow style. Simple.
Then there’s the defensive line. If you have fast defenders with good positioning, you might consider pushing them up and playing the offside trap. If your defenders are slower though, you want to play safe and keep them deep. Personally, I always play deep.
Now, there’s three instructions I’ve left out, and that’s because they change from match to match. Closing down is originally set to ‘own half’. I never turn it down, but if you’re playing a team of a higher standard and have players with high passing and long passing attributes, crank it up to ‘all over’ and give them less time on the ball. Time wasting is exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re 1-0 up, with your backs to the wall and there’s only 2 minutes left, you might want to turn this up. Finally, there’s tackling. Leave it on normal most of the time, but if the referee of the next match is lenient, you can get away with setting it on hard. Conversely, if he’s strict, you might want to put it on easy.
That’s pretty much it. There’s more detail and more precise instructions, but I’ll leave you to discover all that for yourselves. However, if you read all of this and think ‘you know what, I can’t be bothered’, I don’t blame you, it can be very time consuming and frustrating. So, because I’m a nice kind of guy (and because it’s a guide on how I play the game) here's a link to the tactic I use. As I said earlier, it’ll only work for you if you have similar players as I do, so stock up on creative wing backs and centre midfielders and one hell of a fast striker.
On a final note, don’t go into a big match with a new tactic, test it first. Try to arrange a friendly. If it’s the middle of the season, manage the reserves for a game and player a few first teamers with the new tactic. That way, if it’s crap, you don’t end up fighting relegation for the entire season (like I did).
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Preparation (Pre-Match)
Nothing special here, just a few easy pointers.
Check your player’s condition. Too often I’ve just pressed ‘submit team’, knowing my first team were selected. I didn’t notice that some players were only on about 70% fitness and wasted a sub bringing them off 5 minutes in.
Also, read your scout’s report on the opposition. Usually, you’ll just play your own game, but sometimes you’ll notice something that you’ve got to change. For example if he tells you their defence are weak dealing with crosses, put some wingers on with high crossing attributes and strikers with high heading attributes.
Check the referee. If he’s strict and produces a lot of cards, turn tackling down. If he’s lenient, do the opposite.
Finally, have an aim for the match. Do you have to win? If so, don’t sit back on a draw with 20 minutes left.
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Kick Off (The Match)
"I knew it wasn't going to be our day when I arrived at Links Park and found that we had a woman running the line. She should be at home making the tea or the dinner for her man who comes in after he has been to the football. This is a professional man's game. I believe that she shouldn't be here.” – Peter Hetherson will be sleeping on the sofa after this.
It doesn’t matter how good your finances are or how long you spent arranging training, this is where you need to get it right. Obviously, better preparation will make this easier, but you should never just press ‘kick off’ and then leave it, expecting to come back to a 4-0 win.
Obviously, your actions will change depending on your scenario, so I can’t give you definitive instructions. I can however, give you some things to remember.
Whatever you do, sometimes it just won't go to plan
Firstly, watch your player’s ratings. A poorly performing player in an important position (GK or lone striker for example) needs to be dealt with soon rather than later. Sometimes you can alter the player’s instructions or change his position, but sometimes you’ll just have to bring him off.
Watch your player’s condition as well; this can affect this game and the next. If you’re star player is tired and you’re four goals up, bring him off to save him for the next game. Obviously, if any player is very tired (less than 70% fitness in my books) you’ll want to consider bring them off. Personally, as soon as a player is less than 80% fitness, I start to think who to bring him off for. You’ve got a difficult choice to make if in a close match, your best performing player is struggling for fitness.
Check the match stats. It may be 0-0 at half time, but if your opponents have had 25 shots on goal and you’ve had 1, you’ll need to change something. In this situation, I would make my players keep the ball as long as possible, if you have the ball your opponents won’t score.
Sometimes a match will be a lost cause. If you’re 6-0 down with 30 minutes left, feel free to rest your star players and give the youth guys a run out. The same applies if you’re 6-0 up.
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General Tips
"You are talking about a man who spelt his name wrongly on his transfer request." – Gary Megson on Jason Roberts.
As soon as you join a club, go on manager options and uncheck “assistant handles youth contracts”. This stops your assistant offering new contracts to players in your youth squad. It’s not that big a problem if you’re a big team, but when you’re a lower league team a new three year deal for a youth player who’ll never make the grade is a costly mistake.
As a lower league club, you’ll have to keep your wage bill under control. Sometimes, you’ll want to release players, but can’t afford the compensation. To get around this, offer them an amateur contract. They won’t always accept, but if they do you can release them without paying compensation.
When a player gets a serious injury, you’ll have the option to send him to a specialist. This costs a lot of money though, so only do it if you’ve got the money and you need that player.
You can set scouts to check out the next opposition. Make sure you check the report and alter your plans if need be. If you’re a team that plays the offside trap and the opposing team has fast strikers, change your tactics to avoid having you high defensive line exploited.
If you’re a lower league club, arranging multiple away friendlies against bigger times can be a vital source of income. Personally, I find that Nottm Forest and Leeds never say no to a match
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Summary
"If history is going to repeat itself I should think we can expect the same thing again." - Terry Venables
So there you go, that’s how I managed all my clubs now and the methods above are all responsible for my success. I understand that you may or may not agree with my methods, but it’s how I do things. I’m always open to learning new ways of playing FM though, so if you do have any feedback whatsoever, please don’t hesitate to message me or post it in this thread.
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Credits
Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone who has read my current game thread, as the inspiration to continue to post updates and information about my games come from them. Their support is why I made this guide
A thank you goes to the FM scene as a whole, as I picked up a few pointers myself when browsing the scene and asking questions.
A massive thank you to anyone and everyone at SIGames. They’re probably responsible for my school marks dropping drastically, but their games have given me hours upon hours of fun.
And finally, a thank you goes to you, the reader, for making it to the end of this.
I nearly forgot. Thank you to the staff at Fever-Pitch, as they were kind enough to remove double posting restrictions and advise me on where to put the guide
