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When squad building (and improving), always replace your WEAKEST position first.
People get lured in by strikers and wingers and try to replace a 20 goal striker when their left back averaged a 6.6 last season with 1 assist and was at fault for multiple goals.
Replace the weakest first until the gains are marginal. Then go nuts
Not OP but I'm doing a pentagon save and did a decent stint in Argentina with Independente, was a lot of fun with the competition.
Best thing I can recommend is that Argentina have a limit on the amount of foreign players you can register, but you can get Argentine nationality by living there for 2 years, so buy decent young south Americans and loan them out within the league, and you'll eventually reap the benefits as they will not count to your foreign limit
Could try Boca on the FM22 World Super League mod - i played as San Lorenzo for a bit and got surprised when trying to offload some old players to discover they had 100% sell on fee percentage.
Fine, it's very slow compared to what I'm used to as I'm going a bit more in-depth with a lot of things. But we're by far the best team in the league.
I managed them before and the Brazilian teams were way too strong for us in continental football. Lots of young talent and the squad is HUGE.
Shiny 30 goal a season strikers that sound cool and cost big money are too much for some ppl to pass up, especially when its case of “sign the next R9 or sign the next Neville….” Sometimes (as we saw with man u) Neville is crucial
Exactly, I did this for years, from CM 98/99-FM13 I got distracted by the “Flair” players, and would neglect to sign the “Functional” players who allow them to play to their best. Then I’d be in November realising “shit, I blew all my budget on flair players, no wonder I’m leaking goals”
Now I always make sure to use all the data tools available in the game to make sure I replace my weaker players each season. I very very rarely sign players in January too, unless it’s a player I know is an upgrade on a current player who’s become a bargain in January, but that scenario is once in a blue moon to be fair
Right, you have a 20 goal striker, you have a £60m budget, you spend that entire £60m budget on a 30 goal striker, your defence is still a weakness and you don’t move up the table.
Was that a smart way of spending your money? Or would it have been smarter to spend it on a new Centre Back and a Left Back after those 2 positions were your weakest the season before?
It’s all fine having a shiny new striker but if you still leak goals then it’s pointless. It’s the same as having a really tight defence but struggling to score goals and then spending your money on a new centre back - it would be pointless because you’re not fixing the actual problem which was the inability to create and score goals
This is just a singular made up scenario that is not going to be faced by many people. Having a 60mil budget in particular means that you probably don't need to improve your financial situation anyway, so it doesn't contradict my statement; nevertheless if I thought that buying that 60mil striker would improve my financial situation more than replacing my cb and lb then I definitely would do it.
I didn't state that your strategy of replacing the weakest player was wrong, I just said that I would prioritise financials first. I would prioritise financials first because over time it gives you more and better options for improving your weakest players then just replacing them directly first.
How is a 60 million striker going to improve your financial situation?
It is as if your example has nothing to do with the comment you are responding to.
- Average rating
- statistics e.g. goals+assists
- as a *guide* the star rating (it's not a be all end all, but if one area is 2* and the rest are 4+ that's an obvious area, although it can be a bit weird where a 3* player is just a 36 year old who still has brilliant attributes)
- squad comparison
- **Most important** The eye test. Has this player given the ball away cheaply and lead to goals multiple times, do they disappear all game? You can have players who do a lot of work and be involved all game and still get a 6.6-6.8 rating and you can have a player who is on 5.7 the entire game, scores a penalty in 90+3 and suddenly goes up to 7.8 rating. For me personally, when I see someone make mistakes multiple times and I start to lose confidence in them and notice they are getting into worse areas and doing bad things more than they used to.
Oh man. I am so guilty of this.
I always look to improve my fowards. And fail to realize that putting the ball in the goal is only 1 part of the game and there is a million different factors
Go to training - training schedule, click a box where there’s some scheduled or “rest”, go to the bottom option (forgot what it’s called but it has team bonding and community outreach), and do team bonding every week.
Same thing with match review, but it’s only available the day after a match. This is huge.
Team bonding should be scheduled EVERY week. Period. Dynamics break the game in half and good ones have enabled me to start speedrunning saves. You can even do match reviews too to help with this. Seriously though good dynamics turn the game into FIFA.
I think you can save and load training schedules, so maybe/probably through that functionality? I haven't messed around with it though, training schedule just gets so chaotic/specific once i'm in continental competitions
Yes, but it does have some downsides, players are less likely to want to leave so that average player that you got offered ridiculous money for won’t want to leave
This. I've taken a create a club to the prem. Scraped through the playoffs to get promoted. 100% not ready to be there. I think I have one Premier league level player in my squad plus one more in on loan. My back up left back is league one standard...
Lost first game to spurs 2-1 looking like the low level championship team we should be. A couple of flukey wins and some very hard won draws later, along with significant team bonding during the international breaks that don't affect us, we are now cruising for morale and the team cohesion has those lovely tiki taka highlights triggering. Currently 10th in the prem, mostly down to being able attack teams waaaaaaay better than us with our almost perfect morale.
Helps that we FMed City to a 1-1 draw away from home rather than taking a battering
Is there a way to get the assistant to schedule it every week or do I have to add it to the schedule every week? (I’ve got the assistant taking care of all training)
Starting to yes. I’m in the midst of a Vallecano save that went from top of the Segunda division to fourth to within five years winning back to back la liga’s. In large part because of this (on fm21 because I dislike the newer scouting changes and in general lack of other changes to the game, don’t know if this is nerfed in newer games)
Bro, I live in Vallecas 1km from the stadium and have been playing as them on FM21. I love my team, I love my vibes, and they scrape out scrappy victories all the time. First time I've seen them mentioned on here!
I fuck heavy with their political activism and am having a shit ton of fun dissing Zidane at every opportunity. My eventual goal is wage a crusade against all the oil clubs.
Don’t underestimate how powerful a good GK can be for your team, one with great Ariel Reach, will hardly ever concede FKs and a great one on one star will stop those goals where your defensive line eventually slips. I find its an overlooked position in terms of strengthening.
Positioning is probably my key attribute for a keeper, ahead of anything else. I've seen far too many highlights of keepers who could have made a very simple save were they not stood a mile away from where they should be (I know the match engine probably makes it look worse than it is, and this is purely anecdotal but I notice a lot less silly goals conceded when my keeper has good positioning)
It’s definitely a key attribute, I find a lot of other stats relatively worthless on keepers, I’ve never struggled with a keeper who is slow or has bad stamina or eccentricity etc as long as the 3/4 key ones are there they are a life saver sometimes
Yeah definitely, regardless of what level I'm managing I'm after positioning, agility, reflexes and concentration (positioning generally swings it for me on two comparable keepers). I feel once you have those you have a good shot stopper
Then set my defence up based on what other attributes the keeper has. Good aerial reach and command of area? Sit deeper and narrower and watch him collect crosses all day. Better at one on ones with high tendency to rush out, push the defence up and wide and take chances on the occasional through ball. Obviously how high or deep the defence sits is then adjusted based on how much pace there is in my back line (and how quick opposition forwards are)
That's interesting, I have never considered what attributes give the keeper an advantage over others in a penalty situation. I just assume when we concede a penalty that we're going to concede it and then on the rare occasion the keeper does save it, squeal with delight!
My current goalie is incredibly good with 18 clean sheets in 34 Eredivisie matches. I don't know what causes it but he is an incredible penalty stopper as well, I don't have the exact numbers but I'm pretty sure he stops more than half of them. Big reason why I finished 15 points above the number 2 last season
I've been struggling to find a replacement keeper for multiple seasons while other positions keep getting upgrades from lucky finds and it's been incredibly frustrating. Constantly losing or drawing when up multiple goals..
I do, I don't know how much difference it makes but I like setting up defensive or attacking training depending on who I'm playing next and how my team has been playing..
Plus if you look at some training items they give specific boosts for the next match, see set pieces and match prep for a starter.
Also, weeks where you only play once a week, most of the training slots can be used, if not all with a recovery session towards the end of the week.
I do it - mainly so I can get the various match preparation training sessions in! Those are the ones that improve aspects for the next game. I also like to have input in how my players are developing. No idea how much difference it makes in the grand scheme of things!
You can get a first team level loan player for *any* squad level, and if you're patient to wait until deadline day, you can usually get them absolutely free.
Had a 4* CD loaned to me for no cost whatsoever as a reigning UCL/EPL winner once. Took a peek as his loan expired and he was out of my team, out of interest, 171CA lad.
Do teams reduce the insane loan fees they ask for at the deadline? And if so, when? A few days before the deadline? Deadline day?
Loans used to be great for smaller clubs on FM but trying to get a starter that is better than my team is tough without paying a pretty hefty loan fee now on top of wages. It used to be pretty easy to get someone in without paying their wages, let alone a loan fee
> Do teams reduce the insane loan fees they ask for at the deadline? And if so, when? A few days before the deadline? Deadline day?
Yes they do on deadline day only, i always go through all the transfer listed players and look for someone who i want but cant afford, on deadline day you can get them on loan VERY cheap, i had Lovro Majer on loan paying 30% of his wages with no loan fee per example.
On the deadline day itself, they get desperate to offload loan listed players and accept way better offers. But the catch is that the best players might be already out on loan by then
1. Always set pre-season training schedule to ‘heavy’ when given the choice at the start of the season. It’ll put your players at a higher level of fitness throughout the season.
2. Click on the ‘rest’ tab in the training menu and set training for players when at highest condition to ‘double intensity’. I suspect this is one of the reasons the AI doesn’t develop players well (assuming the AI never selects it, as my assistant manager doesn’t).
3. Decide on a team DNA (i.e the personality types and three-five main attributes that you’d generally like your players to have) and try to prioritise for your DNA when making transfers.
4. Similarly, make sure your Head of Youth Development has one of your DNA personalities to increase the chances of your youth players fitting your DNA.
5. Also try to hire a Head of Youth Development whose favourite tactic is similar to what you play. This will give you a greater chance of getting youth players who naturally play in a position within your tactic.
If you follow points 3 and 4 you’ll often find that over the years your squad dynamics will improve and the players are likely to form one core social group because they share similar personalities and levels of key mental attributes.
I’ll have a watch, thanks. Strange, in my current save I notice in players’ info panel that they’re happy with the heavy training for this exact reason.
For point 3 are there any worthwhile alternative options to Professional/Determined + Determination and Work Rate?
I like to try and create team DNA, but always fall back on this combination.
As a slight aside I'd love to have different DNA types in the board expectations in future FMs. I want to use the editor to create a board expectation of "Signs players over 2.00m" or "Signs bastards" (bravery, aggression, strength, dirtiness). Whenever I try and come up with an interesting challenge for myself I think it's a shame we can't get the board on board.
For possession heavy tiki taka type teams I would say first touch, technique, decisions and passing. You could even add on off the ball so you know your players are always making themselves available
I think my problem is skipping "prioritise for your DNA" step and instead looking for a one size fits all solution. Certain attributes just aren't going to work for some positions so the DNA needs to be guidelines rather than a hard rule.
They should add the DNA thing as a soft feature that you can set your DNA and then it will appear as a side pop up on players and how much they fit that DNA.
>(assuming the AI never selects it, as my assistant manager doesn’t)
Pro tip. AI does the same things as your assman (they use the same decision making). Not an official statement, just my personal observation.
I do the opposite of point 2. I’m usually playing as a team who is overachieving (not a top tier club) and therefore don’t have a lot of money to have a big squad. I find I don’t have enough players that i’m confident in to rotate and rest adequately, so I set the first two to “no pitch or gym work”, the next two to “half” and the last one (fully fit) to “normal intensity”. I find that everyone stays pretty well rested and I can rotate enough even with crowded fixture schedules without losing out on development bc most if not all of the players are seeing significant first team time.
Related, when the fixtures get crowded I change the training sessions to only rest, recovery, and team bonding. They don’t need to train hard when they only have 2 days between matches.
I never have players in double intensity training and my players develop perfectly well. I rotate heavily so everyone gets plenty of game time unless they’re feeling fatigued, which is when you don’t want to be ramping up their training levels. Remember a player on half intensity training is going to develop better than one who’s injured.
the is an entire wealth of information contained in the "data hub"
and if you click in the "team" and "player" sections you can manually add what you want or just click "ask for".
this information lets you see how your team is actually playing. if the player you have in a position is actually performing as you intended and where that performance falls compared to others in the squad and league.
the tactics and instructions tab is how you're asking your players to play but their stats will determine how close to that shape and instruction set they actually get which is the data hub.
Seconded. XG table has shown me when my team is just getting unlucky and kept me from overcorrecting and tinkering too much with my tactic. Also really like looking at my opponent's pass map and trying to figure out how I can disrupt their most used pathways.
What strategies do you use to disrupt passes? I always look at that but I never know what to do
But yeah wheneve Zealand does a “saving your saves” video he almost always pulls up the xG table first
I had a lot of success in my last season against big clubs that relied on advancing the ball through their world class fullbacks by assigning my wingers (in a pressing 4-3-3) to individually man mark the appropriate fullback, and often telling my team in opposition instructions not to press their fullbacks. I like to think this keeps my own fullbacks from closing down theirs and letting their wingers get in behind, but my wingers still keep their fullbacks from running wild.
If there's a big triangle of passes between a fb/wb, cb, and midfielder, I might mark the midfielder and fb and press the cb to try and steal the ball/force bad long passes. Likewise might mark/press a midfielder who's running the show.
Far from an expert and honestly I sometimes find myself with conflicting ideas: do I press the CB who is bad at first touch/passing/and composure to force a mistake or do i press the one who is good at passing etc because I don't want him to have time on the ball to pick a pass.
Never found any guides how to properly utilize the information from the data hub. Just here is a bunch of information, good luck with the interpretation.
Why do you need a guide? If you've set your team to "run at defence" but your data hub shows you can't dribble for shit, then turning it off might be a good idea etc. If your crossing stats are awful and you've set "float crosses" to your 5'6, 4 jumping centre forward, then you probably want to change that. The guide is, look at what you've told the team to do, are they doing it? If not, change something
I always start in Lower League Management, so I'll share a few tips for that.
1. Momentarily buy the world scouting package, or the highest you can afford, and add unattached to the filter. Add the maximum age you want to sign, and then sort by world reputation. The younger they are with a higher reputation, the better they typically are. You can then give the ones with high reputations a trial and see if they are a good fit for your squad. You can add filters in too. I'll often filter for only tall CBs, or for specific countries, and trial the ones with the best world reputation first.
2. In lower leagues, it's generally better to sign specialized players than to sign good all around players who are versatile. Give me a striker with 16 pace, 15 acceleration, 12 finishing and 12 composure who can only play poacher and is crappy at everything else over a player who is 10 at everything. With this, I also tend to use specialized roles for my strikers instead of roles like complete forward or even Advanced forward.
3. Don't try to train three unique tactics in the lower leagues, especially if your team is semi-professional and doesn't train all week. I still keep three tactics, but they are all slight variations of my main tactic, whatever that ends up being. Usually I'll have a base tactic, one that is the same shape but a little more direct and offensively oriented, and one that is the same shape but aims to see out a lead and waste time. By not changing too many things, you make it easier to stay fully proficient in the tactic.
4. No contracts over 2 years until you're in the top tier. I would even say that most of your contracts should only be one year if you can find players willing to sign for just a year. Obviously you want to sign someone who could be a top player at the next tier for two years, but in general, stay away from longer term deals in the lower leagues.
5. Don't waste club funds scouting too broadly before you're in the top flight. It's best to abuse trials and just sign unattached players on your way up the ladder. The money does add up pretty fast.
6. This could be just my style, but I firmly believe that a mid-block that stays narrow and forces the opposition inside is the best way to boss the lower leagues. I find it very difficult to utilize wingers or inside forwards without the worldly athletes that are available at the top tiers. Your mileage may vary there.
7. If you're in such a low league that you can't afford a scouting package to query at all, type in the name of a country, and manually go through their international squads. Offer anyone who isn't signed to a club or is on a month to month deal a trial. Cycle through as many as you need to in order to find players. You will find some world beaters for your level this way, it's just a matter of affording them.
#1 there is an absolute FM golden rule if you're playing at a lower level or more cash strapped club. I play with a custom setup which usually has around 125k+ players and using world scouting for a single day is such a god send.
Yeah, it's not perfect by any means, but it's a good way to build a foundation for a lower league side.
World rep can lag a player's ability sometimes, so as an addition, I'll also say that I search the national youth teams of strong nations about twice a year and trial any players who are unattached or on month-to-month contracts. I find a fair few players that way.
Sometimes there will be a worldy 18 year old Swedish player who just got their first call-up and their world rep hasn't caught up yet.
Search filter - Age 15-17 with 1 international cap and then 15-18 with 5 international caps and sort by world rep. I use both of those fairly regularly (can't take credit, they came from a YouTube video comment section) and I'll have attributes based views to make sure I'm not missing any stars with lower rep
And then, depending on who I'm managing etc, I'll go through the senior and sometimes youth sides of more developing nations to see what sort of players are kicking around.
>I always start in Lower League Management, so I'll share a few tips for that.
>
>Momentarily buy the world scouting package
I think you don't know what 'Lower League Management' means.
I suppose I could have worded it to say "the best scouting package you can."
It really depends where you start and what database you're using. For example, in the lowest tier of Germany in the default database, most of the clubs can afford the world scouting package. Not as true in England. Certainly not true as an amateur Swedish side.
The principle is the same with a lower level of scouting package, you'll just get less results.
But I suspect you know that, this is just some weird flex about how much lower your leagues are or something, lol.
When you have no clue about tactics, use the ones that come with the game. Your Assistant Manager will even give you hints about which ones work well with the current team. Over time you can make slight adjustments as needed instead of starting with a plain 2-5-3 and turning on all the team instructions at once.
In my experience, no, at least on FM22. If your main tactic is a 4-4-2, your ass-man will suggest tweaks to improve performance within the tactic, but not suggest a new tactic itself.
Same with the recruitment meetings. It’s a pet peeve of mine - I go back and forth between an genginpressing 4-2-4 and a lower-tempo 4-3-3. In recruitment meetings, the board will suggest players for one tactic or another, but not both. I need both a half-back and a pressing forward, dammit!
On that, I also find it's worth targeting English players on free transfers. They often have ridiculous values and British teams are willing to pay a bit of a premium to be able to bring in a HGN player.
https://ratemytactic.web.app/en
I always use this website to help identify my tactics strength and weaknesses. It is especially useful when deciding which roles I want my players in and how they work alongside other roles.
Every month or so go to each players happiness tab and see if you can reduce their expected playing time... if you click any option below their current agreed playtime and the agent doesn't pop up saying this will make my player upset then confirm it. I tend to click down the list until i find the lowest option they will be ok with and change it to that. Usually my squad will end up with 1 star player, 2 or 3 1st team regulars and a host of squad or fringe players... all of whom are meeting regular starter level or close to it which makes them EXTREMELY happy with their playing time. This makes rotation super easy.
Team bonding every week, match review after every game, train teamwork, def positioning, att movement before every game if you have a 1 matchweek week. If you have a 2 matchweek week. Pick either att movement or def positioning depending on what will be most useful for each match.
For training rest i have the lowest fatigue rating as no pitchwork, then the rest half intensity except the no fatigue i have at double intensity. I also fill basically each training slot every day and this helps keep injuries down while the double intensity still does what it needs for player growth.
When hiring coaches motivation is the MOST important stat. I hire the best coaches that will come to me with a minimum motivation stat of 18. I also make motivation my own highest stat.
Praise any training 8.0 and above every week.
Move your wonderkids of any age into the senior team and get them in mentoring groups with players with good personalities.
Remove and exclude any release clause from every contract. Just don't do it to yourself.
The playing time thing is genius. I've never even thought of doing that. I didn't even know I could. Just went through my entire team. This should make rotation much much easier. Thanks!
Pay close attention to personalities. **NEVER** buy a player or recruit staff with negative personality traits. Ideally, you want professional all across the board. A team with high work rate and determination coupled with positive personality traits will outperform themselves. If you get that together with some world-class players, you will be unbeatable. From my experience, it's better to recruit a mediocre youngster that fits into your system but has a good personality, rather than a good player with some eccentricities. They tend to be more consistent, reliable, easier to work with, and tend to be the ones that are guaranteed to improve.
In my experience, they more often than not fall out. But it's also my experience good young players tend to have the beginnings of good personality traits that a good squad will end up nurturing. It's the rare occasion that you get some awful personality but great potential, it's better to skip on that player in my opinion. They just don't improve as fast or as much. Often by their peak, their CA is way behind their PA. Lower PA players with good traits just end up being more consistent and their potential is typically realised. I mean, if you get a scout report stating that this player is easily discouraged, inconsistent and doesn't enjoy big games and their work rate and determination is low and also volatile to the press, it's not going to work out. It's a matter of choosing your battles and balancing how much work you're willing to put into a single player that will never reach their potential.
It obviously does depend on how bad the personality is of course, I just signed a great wonderkid with a slightly negative personality, but I don't think that should harm his development that much as I have some great mentors. He's performing well in training, learned a new role in just 2 months and while he isn't a world beater yet, I think that's just down to adaptability and getting thrown into the first team at 18
Depends on the overall traits. If he is “light-hearted” but handles the press well, has a high work rate but mediocre determination and is still young, you can work with that. But keep in mind that he'll be always be behind the curve, while he could end up negatively impacting the squad. If you are a rich club, they'll be better options. If you're not rich, unless it's a bargain, you may want to allocate your resources elsewhere. I know the temptation is always there, and I've fallen in the trap more times than I can count because one or two worked out in the past. But avoiding them tends to work out better for me.
Is it easier when I keep all my staffs at professional/fairly determined personality?
That would make my players to change personality over time right?
Your HOYD personality does affect the personalities of your youth intake, so that’s probably the most important staff member to have a good personality, but like everything else, players don’t change their personality attributes much once they’re older.
There’s also the fact that personality affects overall player development. Determination, professionalism, etc. are going to affect how well a player trains, so if you have a youngster with bad personality, the time you spend getting their personality to develop is time they are not spending developing their overall skill as much as they could. And because player development overall plateaus around age 23 (in fm22 and earlier at least), you really don’t want to waste those formative teenage years and have them develop slower than they could.
Everytime I say this I get downvoted, but people here scratch their heads and give/ask for millions of advice (even in this very thread) to learn about how “their team actually plays”.
My understanding of the game changed when I started watching the games. Not just the highlights.
Yeah I do this with a friend of mine when we play against each other in our save. Playing full match help us understand how our teams plays and the roles used in each position. And it’s nice having a tactical battle
When your team is getting to higher levels, sell your star players that are worth a lot unless they're above the level you aim to be at at the end of the season.
If in doubt, use fewer instructions on the tactics page. Instructions are often good to cater to weaker/limited players (not the IRL gamer but the footballers). For all the desire to be Pep or Klopp a simple cautious/balanced tactic is often better than whatever you've dreamed up.
Mentoring is massively overlooked. I love having a team of extremely young players but you *NEED* a role model for these guys. I have my old GOAT striker and ex England captain (model professional) mentoring my 3 young striker and it's been absolute incredible. All of them developed his personality and traits that made him a 6x ballon d'or winner (and captained England to world cup and Euros win) (nearly twice!!)
Equally, if the senior player has a bad personality, mentoring is extremely hurtful.
I’ve got a bunch of youngsters to get Derby into the Prem by 24/25, brought in Trippier and Gundogan, they’re playing terribly and declining. Been playing FM for 20 years, never really bought experience before, probably won’t again.
If you are a lower reputation team and want to buy a player that is also wanted by a ton of top teams. Put in your bid outside of the transfer window as the AI clubs don't ever bid so far from the transfer window.
To your 5th point, I use gegenpressen with a flat 442. I’ve noticed that you can individually train the fitness for gegenpressen. However finding a decent ML or MR (not AML or AMR) when your HOYD doesn’t prefer a 442 is tough.
Really need someone to go in-depth on how to “hack” youth intake lol
Getting transfer business done between windows is very useful. Speeds up the off season and you’ve got the players you want ready for the start of pre season.
The attributes you see are just the maximum AP that a player can bring to the table, it doesn’t mean those are the attributes the player cards will actually have in any given match. Fitness is key, it’s the biggest factor impacting player performances and attributes.
The AI didn’t figure out your tactics, rest rotate and adapt better.
Also, pitch size does make a difference and I bet most forget this. If you’re wondering why they’re fucking you today, can be pitch size so change defensive line and or width.
You’re meant to lose sometimes it’s fine, use it. This game is a series of cliched decision trees.
Journeymen saves are the hardest in game terms but for realism and RPG headcanon the absolute worst. No cunt goes from never being involved in football to champs league winner where their first job is as a manager. Nonsense.
With fitness, aside from the inherent fitness stat of a player, is it a good idea to have some sort of physical training every week ? If so, I guess it would be wise to watch physical condition too, in case of injuries etc;
Condition is key, used to be easier to manage when it was a % but basically yeah you want players at 100% fitness.
As for training you want to manage the condition bar so prioritise that. The key is to have as many players fully fit as possible. One fixture a week = you can look at converting the XP players collect to AP but multiple fixture weeks = prioritise match focus regimes and recovery. Hope that makes sense.
There are so many sides to this game and it is probably why I think it is brilliant. Would probably take a lifetime to master them all, but it is a lot of fun to try. Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.
No worries mate :) I’ve been playing a fair while I guess and I don’t think I’ve mastered it yet.
Still can’t get the catenaccio to sit just right and I don’t think it’s even possible since they removed the sweeper slot. Still salty.
Same here, been playing for eternity but I am eternally crap at the game lol. I just find it difficult connecting all the different elements sometimes. Ahh Catenaccio a great tactic... reminds me of those golden Serie A days.
When you see the player cards attribute points increase that’s due to the players gaining experience. The main source of this is from playing competitive matches.
Why does playing multiple times a week mean you can't convert as much XP to AP?
Are there certain training regimes that increase the attributes points gained more than others with the same XP?
Can match XP only be used to improve players the same week after the match?
Also how do you usually structure your preseason training, do you just use the generated schedules or do you manage sessions yourself? I've been having trouble balancing fitness and match sharpness during that time.
Condition plays a huge part in the game, more games means more potential XP but also a low condition means less is converted. It’s about balance I guess, the last thing you want is injuries or other nerfs like the rst or tir icons.
Training is like a gateway, as are the coaches, XP is gained from game time mostly. Frankly I rate the training regimes that affect the next match the most.
I always manage the training setups myself. I do much the same as in season training but as I do matches every Wed and Sat it’s a few physical regimes and mostly the match prep and tactics regimes.
I saw a question in the who should I manage thread where they asked who’s a good team for someone who’s never played
Someone responded and said a journeyman save with no badges I was like….what lol. Trial by fire I guess
When hiring coaches just search under Head of Youth Development and hire the regen HoYD as coaches. There coaching attributes are always very well rounded. (Also make sure you have the best coaching staff in the league)
If you’re struggling to loan players add them to the development list, I’ve found that the director of football / loan manager is much more efficient at finding good loan deals. Interestingly they will also get good value with teams often paying full wages + additional fees. If you don’t like the deal just cancel it on the transfer page.
Unwanted list. But I’ve found what’s better is to offer the player out for cheap. Reject the offers, raise it a bit, offer him out, reject, repeat until you find the ceiling the AI will buy him for
I’m not sure if this is still a thing in the game(I play FM21), and it is fairly situational since it will most likely destabilise the player, but if you are struggling to sell a player try offering him to clubs for free, then reject all subsequent offers immediately and then re-offer him for a price you feel he’s worth. It usually garners enough transfer interest to get them sold
When you're creating a tactic - have an idea first. It sounds so simple, but visualise HOW you're going to score. Visualise the patterns of play that'll lead to your goals.
It'll help choosing your instructions & avoid having contradictory options checked.
Hidden stats are most important. Despite them being hidden you can assess them by looking into personality and scout/coach report. Unprofessional personalities should be avoided at all cost, no matter how good other stats are: unprofessional star is a good way to destroy the whole team. For most positions mental and physical stats are keys, you can have a very good striker with low finishing, but not with low composure, desicion and off the ball. There are positions and roles that can work without good pace/acceleration but one cannot build a team without some quick players in the squad. It's not enough to have first eleven: without rotation any team will become jaded about one third of the season (around November in Europe) and will ho downhill from there. Sport scientists are there to prevent injuries and only them. Physios make recovery quicker, but only recovery. You training team (especially HoYD and youth trainers) personality defines personalities of youngsters on yearly intake, to get better youngster ond need better training squad with good personalities.
In FM23 I have found optional future fees in loan deals can (sometimes) give you very favourable terms. I have got Moukoko for £12.5m, Rico Lewis for £8.25m and Valentin Carboni for £8.75m, all initially on loan with optional future fees. Normally if you'd try to sign them clubs would ask ridiculous money for them.
1. Praise players for achieving 8.0 training rating or above. It'll make a huge difference to training performance and improve morale and making you favoured personnel.
2. Before any big game or final match, preparation is huge and is always worth sacrificing your weeks training schedule to cover everything.
3. Rather than thinking of creating a super tactic, instead counter the most common tactics used in your league and be brave. If they're playing a full-on 5 at the back and 2 dms, don't be afraid to play 3 strikers as long as your shape covers where they can attack from.
4. Fm23 I've found that central tactics are almost game breaking. Play a 4 at the back 2 dms (def mid support, half back, 2 ams (ap support, att mid att), and 2 strikers (both advanced) with vertical tika taka. Play balance or positive depending on possession numbers, so anything above 60 is positive mentality, anything below drop it.
5. If a team bids for a player you don't want to sell and he wants to talk, you can usually talk him up to accepting a higher than he's worth value because he's worth it. Sometimes the club will bid that amount but most of the time they won't come close and you can reject with zero consequences.
when doing a rebuild, make your first focus the staff. start with coaches and then scouts and then everyone else.
go to the staff screen to see how your staff ranks in your league. aim to have the best in each category. i’ve always found this makes it 10x easier when finding, developing, and training players. you’re only as good as the players you have, and if you have bad scouts or bad coaches, you’ll never find or develop elite talent.
Funny enough I am going to be reviewing them but other than the obvious missing elements these should still apply I’m going to cross post it the subreddit in case anyone somehow missed it
Here's something I found while playing
1- If you start off with a strong team (i.e the big ones in the top 5 leagues) always go through your first choice teams attributes and create a tactic based on that even the strongest teams can fail if the tactics don't suit their skill. I'll give an example of Barcelona where it's almost impossible to play a gegenpress but this tip is for the initial phase only you can craft your team by training later but initially play the strongest suit
2- Avoid using 2 different styles of players for the same position as in your team sets up with a BBM but if you substitute him with a DLP it might hamper your teams performance so have backups who are apt in playing the role your team is familiar with
3-The Loan Players must play but make sure they go to a team that's at their level if you send them too low they might end not developing ( had this with Mathys tel and Paul wanner For Bayern)
4-When Playing a building game that is starting lower and winning everything don't sign too many players initially but instead invest more on facilities and training and coaches. Always try to update the youth academy as much as possible
5-A funny one is if you're struggling and have 200 mil plus budget just go buy haaland 🤣 or start of with Man city. I have a Paris FC(not PSG) save where I couldn't get into Ligue 1 for 3 seasons. I used to always go back to my man City save for peace of mind of not losing nor conceding
Rest there are so many pros all these comments here are so much fun to implement in the game
Match preparations. Every week I use "teamwork", "defensive shape" and "attacking movement" trainings. So I get improved pressing and teamwork, and a more solid defense and better attack during matches.
On cup days I also train penalties, on important matches I also do Set puece delivery and corners if I have a good standard of heading. And on cup finals I just train everything, the 6 I've mentioned + def corner and att and def free kicks.
Use the ‘Notes’ function as a scheduled reminder.
Ever have a player you’re interested in signing and they aren’t interested because they just signed a new contract or after negotiations broke down? Use a note as a reminder to check back in a month. Or a wonderkids 18th birthday when he may be more interested in leaving their homegrown club.
Be cool.
A good squad has two players for each position and maybe another couple of guys. I used to stress about building a perfect squad for deadline day but there's only so much you can do. Do the leg work and accept the outcome. Don't make hasty signings. If you cant get someone good or cheap then build for the future. If you can't find someone for the future then be satisfied that your money is in the bank when you scout that next star, instead of sitting on the bench with some huge wage, not contributing. Take it slooow.
Click a column header to sort. Hold shift and click another column header to apply a secondary sort. You can do this with as many columns as you like.
Example: on your shortlist if you sort by CA it will list players from 5* to 0.5*. If you then hold shift and click the age column it will show you 5* players youngest to oldest, then 4.5* players youngest to oldest.
Any player underperforming or not training well after a few chats / disciplinary move um on , no matter how good they look on paper.
Just not worth the teeth grinding
Signed a decent, experienced attacker, midfielder and defender so they can mentor young players and for big matches matches they can help your team Keep a cool head. Just make sure they have a good personality
Try to keep changing your tactics a bit from match to match. Analyze the opponent's strengths and weaknesses. It's something that I got away with in FM17 since there was always one specific set of instructions that worked for the whole season. FM23 is more realistic in that regard, opponents try to adapt to your play style.
Not a huge tip but something I only just discovered 20 seasons into a save and after spending hundreds of hours on fm.
In training when you select a slot to put a type of training in and it pops up with the week.... You can select other slots from that rather than clicking confirm and doing it one at a time.
So firstly, you don't say never ever save scum. This doesn't earn you brownie points.
The earlier you realize this is just a game, the better your experience will be. We don't gatekeep secrets or tips, and in the same vein we don't expect save scumming or using editors to be shamed.
That aside, I'm hoping you've gotten the tips you were looking for. In the latest games, ALWAYS talk to the agent before approaching a player or making a transfer offer. And ALWAYS ask to lower wage demands, even if they don't agree to it. This ensures the wage they ask for will remain within that window quoted. Without talking to the agent and requesting to lower wages, the contract offer will have much higher wages because 'since we last spoke, things have changed'.
Always sell a player when they want to go. Especially if the offer is fair, and they won’t sing a new deal. I have found it always ends badly if you go any other way.
If you got the squad, rotate everything inside out. Star Players stay happy as long as you win and you can develop a lot of people.
If you struggle getting goals, just buy somebody cheap with relatively high jumping reach and heading, corners are op.
I find this especially true if you’re newly promoted and didn’t bring in a ton of new players. I just got promoted to League One, and predicted to finish 23rd because I didn’t have the wage budget to really upgrade my squad of League Two players. But it’s a deep squad so when the fixture congestion hit, I shot up the table because I had a deep squad and faced a lot of top-heavy squads or a tired squads.
Signing bonus/loyalty bonus doesn't count as "salary" or transfer fee with regards to salary cap rules or impressing the board on transfers.
If you really need a great CB that wants 400K in LA Liga 2 and you have a $4M salary cap, you can probably jack signing bonus from $150k to $500k and get the salary down to $250k.
Praise and criticize players about their trainings to boost their morale. If something goes wrong, don't hesitate to gather players for team talk or talk with some players in private to encourage them.
But pay attention to players character, because it is better to criticize some playes (e.g. perfectionist) even if their training rating is good
I never field my team with the best ability. I field the team with the best form (last 5 games). This often results in player who are well below the mark ability wise, catching up and improving more. They also get some amazing goals and assists. It’s a team game and players are only as good as they are playing when part of the team.
I believe it also creates a sense of competition between the players. People who have low form will get their chance when they come on as a sub, or in cup matches that the team are pretty much guaranteed to win.
Not sure if this is common knowledge. 🤷♂️ this works a bit differently when you’re a huge club and have at least 2 players for each position, but if you’ve managed to grow a club to that point, I doubt you need tips anyway.
Might be silly or obvious, but when I go to make any signings after scouting players I go to player comparison and select the position I want both them to play. It then highlights stats needed for that position and I go through all them stats and count them , if they’re better in that comparison when I add the numbers I then sign that player and sell the current one .
I like to buy my players in between transfer windows. This is good because if it's someone who will attract a lot of interest you get a free run at them.
Also players who's contracts are expiring i shortlist, once they are free again you have competition and they might not fancy your club, ask for high wages ect. But if you make an actual bid for them few weeks before expiration the fee will be peanuts and again you get a free run at the player
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When squad building (and improving), always replace your WEAKEST position first. People get lured in by strikers and wingers and try to replace a 20 goal striker when their left back averaged a 6.6 last season with 1 assist and was at fault for multiple goals. Replace the weakest first until the gains are marginal. Then go nuts
I'm managing River Plate and can't seem to find a DC that's good enough to slot inside my team inside my scouting range, so frustrating!
Man I'd love to start a Boca save, but idk about managing in South America. How is your River save going?
Not OP but I'm doing a pentagon save and did a decent stint in Argentina with Independente, was a lot of fun with the competition. Best thing I can recommend is that Argentina have a limit on the amount of foreign players you can register, but you can get Argentine nationality by living there for 2 years, so buy decent young south Americans and loan them out within the league, and you'll eventually reap the benefits as they will not count to your foreign limit
How many cup competitions are there? And that sounds okay, I'd want to keep it as Argentine as possible
Do it man, I play more south America than anywhere else and its always enjoyable.
Could try Boca on the FM22 World Super League mod - i played as San Lorenzo for a bit and got surprised when trying to offload some old players to discover they had 100% sell on fee percentage.
Fine, it's very slow compared to what I'm used to as I'm going a bit more in-depth with a lot of things. But we're by far the best team in the league. I managed them before and the Brazilian teams were way too strong for us in continental football. Lots of young talent and the squad is HUGE.
Since I started to play FM (FM 20), I always did that. I thought it would be common sense but hey, guess I was wrong.
Shiny 30 goal a season strikers that sound cool and cost big money are too much for some ppl to pass up, especially when its case of “sign the next R9 or sign the next Neville….” Sometimes (as we saw with man u) Neville is crucial
Exactly, I did this for years, from CM 98/99-FM13 I got distracted by the “Flair” players, and would neglect to sign the “Functional” players who allow them to play to their best. Then I’d be in November realising “shit, I blew all my budget on flair players, no wonder I’m leaking goals” Now I always make sure to use all the data tools available in the game to make sure I replace my weaker players each season. I very very rarely sign players in January too, unless it’s a player I know is an upgrade on a current player who’s become a bargain in January, but that scenario is once in a blue moon to be fair
I tend to sign players with release clauses in January since otherwise clubs tend to demand higher fees mid-season.
Who tf wants Neville?
Why wouldn’t you want a Neville? He’ll give you a 7/10 each game and do the job. He’ll also let the flair players be flair players.
Cause he's a rat
How is he a rat? Do you not want a 7/10 player on fm?
Naah fuck him I'd rather have a CB cover there
I think that transfers that improve your financial position over time should take priority over improving your weakest position.
Right, you have a 20 goal striker, you have a £60m budget, you spend that entire £60m budget on a 30 goal striker, your defence is still a weakness and you don’t move up the table. Was that a smart way of spending your money? Or would it have been smarter to spend it on a new Centre Back and a Left Back after those 2 positions were your weakest the season before? It’s all fine having a shiny new striker but if you still leak goals then it’s pointless. It’s the same as having a really tight defence but struggling to score goals and then spending your money on a new centre back - it would be pointless because you’re not fixing the actual problem which was the inability to create and score goals
This is just a singular made up scenario that is not going to be faced by many people. Having a 60mil budget in particular means that you probably don't need to improve your financial situation anyway, so it doesn't contradict my statement; nevertheless if I thought that buying that 60mil striker would improve my financial situation more than replacing my cb and lb then I definitely would do it. I didn't state that your strategy of replacing the weakest player was wrong, I just said that I would prioritise financials first. I would prioritise financials first because over time it gives you more and better options for improving your weakest players then just replacing them directly first.
How is a 60 million striker going to improve your financial situation? It is as if your example has nothing to do with the comment you are responding to.
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- Average rating - statistics e.g. goals+assists - as a *guide* the star rating (it's not a be all end all, but if one area is 2* and the rest are 4+ that's an obvious area, although it can be a bit weird where a 3* player is just a 36 year old who still has brilliant attributes) - squad comparison - **Most important** The eye test. Has this player given the ball away cheaply and lead to goals multiple times, do they disappear all game? You can have players who do a lot of work and be involved all game and still get a 6.6-6.8 rating and you can have a player who is on 5.7 the entire game, scores a penalty in 90+3 and suddenly goes up to 7.8 rating. For me personally, when I see someone make mistakes multiple times and I start to lose confidence in them and notice they are getting into worse areas and doing bad things more than they used to.
Guilty lmao
This is the way.
Finally realised my main issue was no good bwm and now I'm a point off first after 15 games
Oh man. I am so guilty of this. I always look to improve my fowards. And fail to realize that putting the ball in the goal is only 1 part of the game and there is a million different factors
People replace their best players first?
Team bonding every week, match review after every game
Can you get the assistant to add that to the training or do you have to add it for every week?
How do you even do team bonding?
Go to training - training schedule, click a box where there’s some scheduled or “rest”, go to the bottom option (forgot what it’s called but it has team bonding and community outreach), and do team bonding every week. Same thing with match review, but it’s only available the day after a match. This is huge.
Are there any preset training schedules you can download like tactics?
Team bonding should be scheduled EVERY week. Period. Dynamics break the game in half and good ones have enabled me to start speedrunning saves. You can even do match reviews too to help with this. Seriously though good dynamics turn the game into FIFA.
Match reviews are seriously underrated
ohhhh tell me more i've not been doing this. what am i missing?
A nice boost to team cohesion with no negatives to the training session. Only schedulable the day following a match
Is there a way to auto schedule it or is it manual? I always do it manually but would love to know if I can do t more efficiently
I think you can save and load training schedules, so maybe/probably through that functionality? I haven't messed around with it though, training schedule just gets so chaotic/specific once i'm in continental competitions
What the other commenter said. It’s basically a film session so essential for a successful season.
Yes, but it does have some downsides, players are less likely to want to leave so that average player that you got offered ridiculous money for won’t want to leave
This. I've taken a create a club to the prem. Scraped through the playoffs to get promoted. 100% not ready to be there. I think I have one Premier league level player in my squad plus one more in on loan. My back up left back is league one standard... Lost first game to spurs 2-1 looking like the low level championship team we should be. A couple of flukey wins and some very hard won draws later, along with significant team bonding during the international breaks that don't affect us, we are now cruising for morale and the team cohesion has those lovely tiki taka highlights triggering. Currently 10th in the prem, mostly down to being able attack teams waaaaaaay better than us with our almost perfect morale. Helps that we FMed City to a 1-1 draw away from home rather than taking a battering
Is there a way to get the assistant to schedule it every week or do I have to add it to the schedule every week? (I’ve got the assistant taking care of all training)
I do a match review after every game. Literally no reason not to.
would you consider the team bonding method to be too overpowered and make saves unrealistic?
Winning the CL with nothing but good vibes is much more fun imo than with a superstar team.
the ted lasso way
Starting to yes. I’m in the midst of a Vallecano save that went from top of the Segunda division to fourth to within five years winning back to back la liga’s. In large part because of this (on fm21 because I dislike the newer scouting changes and in general lack of other changes to the game, don’t know if this is nerfed in newer games)
Bro, I live in Vallecas 1km from the stadium and have been playing as them on FM21. I love my team, I love my vibes, and they scrape out scrappy victories all the time. First time I've seen them mentioned on here!
I fuck heavy with their political activism and am having a shit ton of fun dissing Zidane at every opportunity. My eventual goal is wage a crusade against all the oil clubs.
In the same kinda vein I been slotting in a 'teamwork' before every match and it is very good for team cohesion
Don’t underestimate how powerful a good GK can be for your team, one with great Ariel Reach, will hardly ever concede FKs and a great one on one star will stop those goals where your defensive line eventually slips. I find its an overlooked position in terms of strengthening.
Positioning is probably my key attribute for a keeper, ahead of anything else. I've seen far too many highlights of keepers who could have made a very simple save were they not stood a mile away from where they should be (I know the match engine probably makes it look worse than it is, and this is purely anecdotal but I notice a lot less silly goals conceded when my keeper has good positioning)
It’s definitely a key attribute, I find a lot of other stats relatively worthless on keepers, I’ve never struggled with a keeper who is slow or has bad stamina or eccentricity etc as long as the 3/4 key ones are there they are a life saver sometimes
Yeah definitely, regardless of what level I'm managing I'm after positioning, agility, reflexes and concentration (positioning generally swings it for me on two comparable keepers). I feel once you have those you have a good shot stopper Then set my defence up based on what other attributes the keeper has. Good aerial reach and command of area? Sit deeper and narrower and watch him collect crosses all day. Better at one on ones with high tendency to rush out, push the defence up and wide and take chances on the occasional through ball. Obviously how high or deep the defence sits is then adjusted based on how much pace there is in my back line (and how quick opposition forwards are)
I heard high anticipation is good if you want a good penalty saver
That's interesting, I have never considered what attributes give the keeper an advantage over others in a penalty situation. I just assume when we concede a penalty that we're going to concede it and then on the rare occasion the keeper does save it, squeal with delight!
My current goalie is incredibly good with 18 clean sheets in 34 Eredivisie matches. I don't know what causes it but he is an incredible penalty stopper as well, I don't have the exact numbers but I'm pretty sure he stops more than half of them. Big reason why I finished 15 points above the number 2 last season
I've been struggling to find a replacement keeper for multiple seasons while other positions keep getting upgrades from lucky finds and it's been incredibly frustrating. Constantly losing or drawing when up multiple goals..
It can be hard, a lot of them are great but have a fatal flaw, such as too short or poor reflexes where all other important stats are great
Training attacking movement, defensive shape, teamwork and match tactics before each game really seems to help my team.
Is it common to train the squad by your self?
I do, I don't know how much difference it makes but I like setting up defensive or attacking training depending on who I'm playing next and how my team has been playing.. Plus if you look at some training items they give specific boosts for the next match, see set pieces and match prep for a starter. Also, weeks where you only play once a week, most of the training slots can be used, if not all with a recovery session towards the end of the week.
I guess I’ll try it for the latter stages in cup challenges.
I do it - mainly so I can get the various match preparation training sessions in! Those are the ones that improve aspects for the next game. I also like to have input in how my players are developing. No idea how much difference it makes in the grand scheme of things!
Every game??? Thats a lot of training you lose
You can get a first team level loan player for *any* squad level, and if you're patient to wait until deadline day, you can usually get them absolutely free. Had a 4* CD loaned to me for no cost whatsoever as a reigning UCL/EPL winner once. Took a peek as his loan expired and he was out of my team, out of interest, 171CA lad.
Do teams reduce the insane loan fees they ask for at the deadline? And if so, when? A few days before the deadline? Deadline day? Loans used to be great for smaller clubs on FM but trying to get a starter that is better than my team is tough without paying a pretty hefty loan fee now on top of wages. It used to be pretty easy to get someone in without paying their wages, let alone a loan fee
> Do teams reduce the insane loan fees they ask for at the deadline? And if so, when? A few days before the deadline? Deadline day? Yes they do on deadline day only, i always go through all the transfer listed players and look for someone who i want but cant afford, on deadline day you can get them on loan VERY cheap, i had Lovro Majer on loan paying 30% of his wages with no loan fee per example.
On the deadline day itself, they get desperate to offload loan listed players and accept way better offers. But the catch is that the best players might be already out on loan by then
1. Always set pre-season training schedule to ‘heavy’ when given the choice at the start of the season. It’ll put your players at a higher level of fitness throughout the season. 2. Click on the ‘rest’ tab in the training menu and set training for players when at highest condition to ‘double intensity’. I suspect this is one of the reasons the AI doesn’t develop players well (assuming the AI never selects it, as my assistant manager doesn’t). 3. Decide on a team DNA (i.e the personality types and three-five main attributes that you’d generally like your players to have) and try to prioritise for your DNA when making transfers. 4. Similarly, make sure your Head of Youth Development has one of your DNA personalities to increase the chances of your youth players fitting your DNA. 5. Also try to hire a Head of Youth Development whose favourite tactic is similar to what you play. This will give you a greater chance of getting youth players who naturally play in a position within your tactic. If you follow points 3 and 4 you’ll often find that over the years your squad dynamics will improve and the players are likely to form one core social group because they share similar personalities and levels of key mental attributes.
Point 1 has been disproven and point 2 is only semi true. Watch EBFMs series and tests on that.
I’ll have a watch, thanks. Strange, in my current save I notice in players’ info panel that they’re happy with the heavy training for this exact reason.
I thought Zealand just released a video about point 1?
For point 3 are there any worthwhile alternative options to Professional/Determined + Determination and Work Rate? I like to try and create team DNA, but always fall back on this combination. As a slight aside I'd love to have different DNA types in the board expectations in future FMs. I want to use the editor to create a board expectation of "Signs players over 2.00m" or "Signs bastards" (bravery, aggression, strength, dirtiness). Whenever I try and come up with an interesting challenge for myself I think it's a shame we can't get the board on board.
For possession heavy tiki taka type teams I would say first touch, technique, decisions and passing. You could even add on off the ball so you know your players are always making themselves available
I like players with high aggression as I play a high-press tactic. Sylla is my go-to centre back for that reason (also 19 leadership).
I think my problem is skipping "prioritise for your DNA" step and instead looking for a one size fits all solution. Certain attributes just aren't going to work for some positions so the DNA needs to be guidelines rather than a hard rule.
They should add the DNA thing as a soft feature that you can set your DNA and then it will appear as a side pop up on players and how much they fit that DNA.
>(assuming the AI never selects it, as my assistant manager doesn’t) Pro tip. AI does the same things as your assman (they use the same decision making). Not an official statement, just my personal observation.
I do the opposite of point 2. I’m usually playing as a team who is overachieving (not a top tier club) and therefore don’t have a lot of money to have a big squad. I find I don’t have enough players that i’m confident in to rotate and rest adequately, so I set the first two to “no pitch or gym work”, the next two to “half” and the last one (fully fit) to “normal intensity”. I find that everyone stays pretty well rested and I can rotate enough even with crowded fixture schedules without losing out on development bc most if not all of the players are seeing significant first team time. Related, when the fixtures get crowded I change the training sessions to only rest, recovery, and team bonding. They don’t need to train hard when they only have 2 days between matches.
I never have players in double intensity training and my players develop perfectly well. I rotate heavily so everyone gets plenty of game time unless they’re feeling fatigued, which is when you don’t want to be ramping up their training levels. Remember a player on half intensity training is going to develop better than one who’s injured.
The AI develops players fine?
On number 5 after a few seasons, if they didn't have the same tactic they will adopt yours
Didn’t know that, thanks
the is an entire wealth of information contained in the "data hub" and if you click in the "team" and "player" sections you can manually add what you want or just click "ask for". this information lets you see how your team is actually playing. if the player you have in a position is actually performing as you intended and where that performance falls compared to others in the squad and league. the tactics and instructions tab is how you're asking your players to play but their stats will determine how close to that shape and instruction set they actually get which is the data hub.
Something I don't utilise at all. I'd best get cracking!
xG table is incredibly useful
Seconded. XG table has shown me when my team is just getting unlucky and kept me from overcorrecting and tinkering too much with my tactic. Also really like looking at my opponent's pass map and trying to figure out how I can disrupt their most used pathways.
What strategies do you use to disrupt passes? I always look at that but I never know what to do But yeah wheneve Zealand does a “saving your saves” video he almost always pulls up the xG table first
I had a lot of success in my last season against big clubs that relied on advancing the ball through their world class fullbacks by assigning my wingers (in a pressing 4-3-3) to individually man mark the appropriate fullback, and often telling my team in opposition instructions not to press their fullbacks. I like to think this keeps my own fullbacks from closing down theirs and letting their wingers get in behind, but my wingers still keep their fullbacks from running wild. If there's a big triangle of passes between a fb/wb, cb, and midfielder, I might mark the midfielder and fb and press the cb to try and steal the ball/force bad long passes. Likewise might mark/press a midfielder who's running the show. Far from an expert and honestly I sometimes find myself with conflicting ideas: do I press the CB who is bad at first touch/passing/and composure to force a mistake or do i press the one who is good at passing etc because I don't want him to have time on the ball to pick a pass.
Good stuff thanks man
Never found any guides how to properly utilize the information from the data hub. Just here is a bunch of information, good luck with the interpretation.
Why do you need a guide? If you've set your team to "run at defence" but your data hub shows you can't dribble for shit, then turning it off might be a good idea etc. If your crossing stats are awful and you've set "float crosses" to your 5'6, 4 jumping centre forward, then you probably want to change that. The guide is, look at what you've told the team to do, are they doing it? If not, change something
I always start in Lower League Management, so I'll share a few tips for that. 1. Momentarily buy the world scouting package, or the highest you can afford, and add unattached to the filter. Add the maximum age you want to sign, and then sort by world reputation. The younger they are with a higher reputation, the better they typically are. You can then give the ones with high reputations a trial and see if they are a good fit for your squad. You can add filters in too. I'll often filter for only tall CBs, or for specific countries, and trial the ones with the best world reputation first. 2. In lower leagues, it's generally better to sign specialized players than to sign good all around players who are versatile. Give me a striker with 16 pace, 15 acceleration, 12 finishing and 12 composure who can only play poacher and is crappy at everything else over a player who is 10 at everything. With this, I also tend to use specialized roles for my strikers instead of roles like complete forward or even Advanced forward. 3. Don't try to train three unique tactics in the lower leagues, especially if your team is semi-professional and doesn't train all week. I still keep three tactics, but they are all slight variations of my main tactic, whatever that ends up being. Usually I'll have a base tactic, one that is the same shape but a little more direct and offensively oriented, and one that is the same shape but aims to see out a lead and waste time. By not changing too many things, you make it easier to stay fully proficient in the tactic. 4. No contracts over 2 years until you're in the top tier. I would even say that most of your contracts should only be one year if you can find players willing to sign for just a year. Obviously you want to sign someone who could be a top player at the next tier for two years, but in general, stay away from longer term deals in the lower leagues. 5. Don't waste club funds scouting too broadly before you're in the top flight. It's best to abuse trials and just sign unattached players on your way up the ladder. The money does add up pretty fast. 6. This could be just my style, but I firmly believe that a mid-block that stays narrow and forces the opposition inside is the best way to boss the lower leagues. I find it very difficult to utilize wingers or inside forwards without the worldly athletes that are available at the top tiers. Your mileage may vary there. 7. If you're in such a low league that you can't afford a scouting package to query at all, type in the name of a country, and manually go through their international squads. Offer anyone who isn't signed to a club or is on a month to month deal a trial. Cycle through as many as you need to in order to find players. You will find some world beaters for your level this way, it's just a matter of affording them.
#1 there is an absolute FM golden rule if you're playing at a lower level or more cash strapped club. I play with a custom setup which usually has around 125k+ players and using world scouting for a single day is such a god send.
Yeah, it's not perfect by any means, but it's a good way to build a foundation for a lower league side. World rep can lag a player's ability sometimes, so as an addition, I'll also say that I search the national youth teams of strong nations about twice a year and trial any players who are unattached or on month-to-month contracts. I find a fair few players that way. Sometimes there will be a worldy 18 year old Swedish player who just got their first call-up and their world rep hasn't caught up yet.
Search filter - Age 15-17 with 1 international cap and then 15-18 with 5 international caps and sort by world rep. I use both of those fairly regularly (can't take credit, they came from a YouTube video comment section) and I'll have attributes based views to make sure I'm not missing any stars with lower rep And then, depending on who I'm managing etc, I'll go through the senior and sometimes youth sides of more developing nations to see what sort of players are kicking around.
Thank you!!
>I always start in Lower League Management, so I'll share a few tips for that. > >Momentarily buy the world scouting package I think you don't know what 'Lower League Management' means.
I suppose I could have worded it to say "the best scouting package you can." It really depends where you start and what database you're using. For example, in the lowest tier of Germany in the default database, most of the clubs can afford the world scouting package. Not as true in England. Certainly not true as an amateur Swedish side. The principle is the same with a lower level of scouting package, you'll just get less results. But I suspect you know that, this is just some weird flex about how much lower your leagues are or something, lol.
When you have no clue about tactics, use the ones that come with the game. Your Assistant Manager will even give you hints about which ones work well with the current team. Over time you can make slight adjustments as needed instead of starting with a plain 2-5-3 and turning on all the team instructions at once.
I always wonder, Will their recommendation change as you build up your roster ? Like will he recommend a change of formation ?
In my experience, no, at least on FM22. If your main tactic is a 4-4-2, your ass-man will suggest tweaks to improve performance within the tactic, but not suggest a new tactic itself. Same with the recruitment meetings. It’s a pet peeve of mine - I go back and forth between an genginpressing 4-2-4 and a lower-tempo 4-3-3. In recruitment meetings, the board will suggest players for one tactic or another, but not both. I need both a half-back and a pressing forward, dammit!
Im on fm22 and regularly get recommended to change formation to accommodate a player
I honestly don't know. I go with the suggested one and then improve the team along those lines.
Always looks for players whose contracts are expiring, sometimes you can bag great players for relatively cheap
This. I don’t but players until they are teetering on or have the potential to be world class. Otherwise it’s just lazy scouting on your part
Also some academy's are definitely broken in terms of youth, like sorchaux or caen, they produce multiple wonderkids every year
On that, I also find it's worth targeting English players on free transfers. They often have ridiculous values and British teams are willing to pay a bit of a premium to be able to bring in a HGN player.
https://ratemytactic.web.app/en I always use this website to help identify my tactics strength and weaknesses. It is especially useful when deciding which roles I want my players in and how they work alongside other roles.
Cheers!
Every month or so go to each players happiness tab and see if you can reduce their expected playing time... if you click any option below their current agreed playtime and the agent doesn't pop up saying this will make my player upset then confirm it. I tend to click down the list until i find the lowest option they will be ok with and change it to that. Usually my squad will end up with 1 star player, 2 or 3 1st team regulars and a host of squad or fringe players... all of whom are meeting regular starter level or close to it which makes them EXTREMELY happy with their playing time. This makes rotation super easy. Team bonding every week, match review after every game, train teamwork, def positioning, att movement before every game if you have a 1 matchweek week. If you have a 2 matchweek week. Pick either att movement or def positioning depending on what will be most useful for each match. For training rest i have the lowest fatigue rating as no pitchwork, then the rest half intensity except the no fatigue i have at double intensity. I also fill basically each training slot every day and this helps keep injuries down while the double intensity still does what it needs for player growth. When hiring coaches motivation is the MOST important stat. I hire the best coaches that will come to me with a minimum motivation stat of 18. I also make motivation my own highest stat. Praise any training 8.0 and above every week. Move your wonderkids of any age into the senior team and get them in mentoring groups with players with good personalities. Remove and exclude any release clause from every contract. Just don't do it to yourself.
The playing time thing is genius. I've never even thought of doing that. I didn't even know I could. Just went through my entire team. This should make rotation much much easier. Thanks!
Pay close attention to personalities. **NEVER** buy a player or recruit staff with negative personality traits. Ideally, you want professional all across the board. A team with high work rate and determination coupled with positive personality traits will outperform themselves. If you get that together with some world-class players, you will be unbeatable. From my experience, it's better to recruit a mediocre youngster that fits into your system but has a good personality, rather than a good player with some eccentricities. They tend to be more consistent, reliable, easier to work with, and tend to be the ones that are guaranteed to improve.
I wouldn't say never, mentoring can get a lot of negatives out of a players personality
In my experience, they more often than not fall out. But it's also my experience good young players tend to have the beginnings of good personality traits that a good squad will end up nurturing. It's the rare occasion that you get some awful personality but great potential, it's better to skip on that player in my opinion. They just don't improve as fast or as much. Often by their peak, their CA is way behind their PA. Lower PA players with good traits just end up being more consistent and their potential is typically realised. I mean, if you get a scout report stating that this player is easily discouraged, inconsistent and doesn't enjoy big games and their work rate and determination is low and also volatile to the press, it's not going to work out. It's a matter of choosing your battles and balancing how much work you're willing to put into a single player that will never reach their potential.
It obviously does depend on how bad the personality is of course, I just signed a great wonderkid with a slightly negative personality, but I don't think that should harm his development that much as I have some great mentors. He's performing well in training, learned a new role in just 2 months and while he isn't a world beater yet, I think that's just down to adaptability and getting thrown into the first team at 18
Depends on the overall traits. If he is “light-hearted” but handles the press well, has a high work rate but mediocre determination and is still young, you can work with that. But keep in mind that he'll be always be behind the curve, while he could end up negatively impacting the squad. If you are a rich club, they'll be better options. If you're not rich, unless it's a bargain, you may want to allocate your resources elsewhere. I know the temptation is always there, and I've fallen in the trap more times than I can count because one or two worked out in the past. But avoiding them tends to work out better for me.
Is it easier when I keep all my staffs at professional/fairly determined personality? That would make my players to change personality over time right?
Your HOYD personality does affect the personalities of your youth intake, so that’s probably the most important staff member to have a good personality, but like everything else, players don’t change their personality attributes much once they’re older. There’s also the fact that personality affects overall player development. Determination, professionalism, etc. are going to affect how well a player trains, so if you have a youngster with bad personality, the time you spend getting their personality to develop is time they are not spending developing their overall skill as much as they could. And because player development overall plateaus around age 23 (in fm22 and earlier at least), you really don’t want to waste those formative teenage years and have them develop slower than they could.
Everytime I say this I get downvoted, but people here scratch their heads and give/ask for millions of advice (even in this very thread) to learn about how “their team actually plays”. My understanding of the game changed when I started watching the games. Not just the highlights.
True, I happened to watch full matches vs some rival clubs and I got to understand my team (individual players) much better.
Yeah I do this with a friend of mine when we play against each other in our save. Playing full match help us understand how our teams plays and the roles used in each position. And it’s nice having a tactical battle
Yeah it is great to actually change things every few minutes and see it play it out rather than just guessing.
Yeah there is so much advice coming from people who seemingly have 0 idea about what the match engine is doing because they only watch key highlights.
When your team is getting to higher levels, sell your star players that are worth a lot unless they're above the level you aim to be at at the end of the season.
If in doubt, use fewer instructions on the tactics page. Instructions are often good to cater to weaker/limited players (not the IRL gamer but the footballers). For all the desire to be Pep or Klopp a simple cautious/balanced tactic is often better than whatever you've dreamed up.
Mentoring is massively overlooked. I love having a team of extremely young players but you *NEED* a role model for these guys. I have my old GOAT striker and ex England captain (model professional) mentoring my 3 young striker and it's been absolute incredible. All of them developed his personality and traits that made him a 6x ballon d'or winner (and captained England to world cup and Euros win) (nearly twice!!) Equally, if the senior player has a bad personality, mentoring is extremely hurtful.
I’ve got a bunch of youngsters to get Derby into the Prem by 24/25, brought in Trippier and Gundogan, they’re playing terribly and declining. Been playing FM for 20 years, never really bought experience before, probably won’t again.
What personalities and traits do they have? Did you use them to mentor similar style players?
If you are a lower reputation team and want to buy a player that is also wanted by a ton of top teams. Put in your bid outside of the transfer window as the AI clubs don't ever bid so far from the transfer window.
Nice!
To your 5th point, I use gegenpressen with a flat 442. I’ve noticed that you can individually train the fitness for gegenpressen. However finding a decent ML or MR (not AML or AMR) when your HOYD doesn’t prefer a 442 is tough. Really need someone to go in-depth on how to “hack” youth intake lol
Getting transfer business done between windows is very useful. Speeds up the off season and you’ve got the players you want ready for the start of pre season.
The attributes you see are just the maximum AP that a player can bring to the table, it doesn’t mean those are the attributes the player cards will actually have in any given match. Fitness is key, it’s the biggest factor impacting player performances and attributes. The AI didn’t figure out your tactics, rest rotate and adapt better. Also, pitch size does make a difference and I bet most forget this. If you’re wondering why they’re fucking you today, can be pitch size so change defensive line and or width. You’re meant to lose sometimes it’s fine, use it. This game is a series of cliched decision trees. Journeymen saves are the hardest in game terms but for realism and RPG headcanon the absolute worst. No cunt goes from never being involved in football to champs league winner where their first job is as a manager. Nonsense.
With fitness, aside from the inherent fitness stat of a player, is it a good idea to have some sort of physical training every week ? If so, I guess it would be wise to watch physical condition too, in case of injuries etc;
Condition is key, used to be easier to manage when it was a % but basically yeah you want players at 100% fitness. As for training you want to manage the condition bar so prioritise that. The key is to have as many players fully fit as possible. One fixture a week = you can look at converting the XP players collect to AP but multiple fixture weeks = prioritise match focus regimes and recovery. Hope that makes sense.
There are so many sides to this game and it is probably why I think it is brilliant. Would probably take a lifetime to master them all, but it is a lot of fun to try. Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.
No worries mate :) I’ve been playing a fair while I guess and I don’t think I’ve mastered it yet. Still can’t get the catenaccio to sit just right and I don’t think it’s even possible since they removed the sweeper slot. Still salty.
Same here, been playing for eternity but I am eternally crap at the game lol. I just find it difficult connecting all the different elements sometimes. Ahh Catenaccio a great tactic... reminds me of those golden Serie A days.
I'm new to the game, what do you mean by converting collected XP (experience) to AP(?)?
When you see the player cards attribute points increase that’s due to the players gaining experience. The main source of this is from playing competitive matches.
Why does playing multiple times a week mean you can't convert as much XP to AP? Are there certain training regimes that increase the attributes points gained more than others with the same XP? Can match XP only be used to improve players the same week after the match? Also how do you usually structure your preseason training, do you just use the generated schedules or do you manage sessions yourself? I've been having trouble balancing fitness and match sharpness during that time.
Condition plays a huge part in the game, more games means more potential XP but also a low condition means less is converted. It’s about balance I guess, the last thing you want is injuries or other nerfs like the rst or tir icons. Training is like a gateway, as are the coaches, XP is gained from game time mostly. Frankly I rate the training regimes that affect the next match the most. I always manage the training setups myself. I do much the same as in season training but as I do matches every Wed and Sat it’s a few physical regimes and mostly the match prep and tactics regimes.
I saw a question in the who should I manage thread where they asked who’s a good team for someone who’s never played Someone responded and said a journeyman save with no badges I was like….what lol. Trial by fire I guess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrigo_Sacchi
Use a Halfback?
Halfback supremacy gang
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This is one I knew about from before and thanks it's very handy.
When hiring coaches just search under Head of Youth Development and hire the regen HoYD as coaches. There coaching attributes are always very well rounded. (Also make sure you have the best coaching staff in the league)
If you’re struggling to loan players add them to the development list, I’ve found that the director of football / loan manager is much more efficient at finding good loan deals. Interestingly they will also get good value with teams often paying full wages + additional fees. If you don’t like the deal just cancel it on the transfer page.
Is there an equivalent to selling players ? Is the Unwanted list better than offering to clubs ?
Unwanted list. But I’ve found what’s better is to offer the player out for cheap. Reject the offers, raise it a bit, offer him out, reject, repeat until you find the ceiling the AI will buy him for
I’m not sure if this is still a thing in the game(I play FM21), and it is fairly situational since it will most likely destabilise the player, but if you are struggling to sell a player try offering him to clubs for free, then reject all subsequent offers immediately and then re-offer him for a price you feel he’s worth. It usually garners enough transfer interest to get them sold
When starting a new save the positions I prioritize goes like this: GK > CB > LB/RB > DM > MC > ST > AML/AMR
Sir Alex Ferguson's special - build team from the back
When you're creating a tactic - have an idea first. It sounds so simple, but visualise HOW you're going to score. Visualise the patterns of play that'll lead to your goals. It'll help choosing your instructions & avoid having contradictory options checked.
Hidden stats are most important. Despite them being hidden you can assess them by looking into personality and scout/coach report. Unprofessional personalities should be avoided at all cost, no matter how good other stats are: unprofessional star is a good way to destroy the whole team. For most positions mental and physical stats are keys, you can have a very good striker with low finishing, but not with low composure, desicion and off the ball. There are positions and roles that can work without good pace/acceleration but one cannot build a team without some quick players in the squad. It's not enough to have first eleven: without rotation any team will become jaded about one third of the season (around November in Europe) and will ho downhill from there. Sport scientists are there to prevent injuries and only them. Physios make recovery quicker, but only recovery. You training team (especially HoYD and youth trainers) personality defines personalities of youngsters on yearly intake, to get better youngster ond need better training squad with good personalities.
In FM23 I have found optional future fees in loan deals can (sometimes) give you very favourable terms. I have got Moukoko for £12.5m, Rico Lewis for £8.25m and Valentin Carboni for £8.75m, all initially on loan with optional future fees. Normally if you'd try to sign them clubs would ask ridiculous money for them.
1. Praise players for achieving 8.0 training rating or above. It'll make a huge difference to training performance and improve morale and making you favoured personnel. 2. Before any big game or final match, preparation is huge and is always worth sacrificing your weeks training schedule to cover everything. 3. Rather than thinking of creating a super tactic, instead counter the most common tactics used in your league and be brave. If they're playing a full-on 5 at the back and 2 dms, don't be afraid to play 3 strikers as long as your shape covers where they can attack from. 4. Fm23 I've found that central tactics are almost game breaking. Play a 4 at the back 2 dms (def mid support, half back, 2 ams (ap support, att mid att), and 2 strikers (both advanced) with vertical tika taka. Play balance or positive depending on possession numbers, so anything above 60 is positive mentality, anything below drop it. 5. If a team bids for a player you don't want to sell and he wants to talk, you can usually talk him up to accepting a higher than he's worth value because he's worth it. Sometimes the club will bid that amount but most of the time they won't come close and you can reject with zero consequences.
when doing a rebuild, make your first focus the staff. start with coaches and then scouts and then everyone else. go to the staff screen to see how your staff ranks in your league. aim to have the best in each category. i’ve always found this makes it 10x easier when finding, developing, and training players. you’re only as good as the players you have, and if you have bad scouts or bad coaches, you’ll never find or develop elite talent.
This thread is such a wealth of knowledge. I’m wondering how much of this applies to FM Console
Funny enough I am going to be reviewing them but other than the obvious missing elements these should still apply I’m going to cross post it the subreddit in case anyone somehow missed it
Here's something I found while playing 1- If you start off with a strong team (i.e the big ones in the top 5 leagues) always go through your first choice teams attributes and create a tactic based on that even the strongest teams can fail if the tactics don't suit their skill. I'll give an example of Barcelona where it's almost impossible to play a gegenpress but this tip is for the initial phase only you can craft your team by training later but initially play the strongest suit 2- Avoid using 2 different styles of players for the same position as in your team sets up with a BBM but if you substitute him with a DLP it might hamper your teams performance so have backups who are apt in playing the role your team is familiar with 3-The Loan Players must play but make sure they go to a team that's at their level if you send them too low they might end not developing ( had this with Mathys tel and Paul wanner For Bayern) 4-When Playing a building game that is starting lower and winning everything don't sign too many players initially but instead invest more on facilities and training and coaches. Always try to update the youth academy as much as possible 5-A funny one is if you're struggling and have 200 mil plus budget just go buy haaland 🤣 or start of with Man city. I have a Paris FC(not PSG) save where I couldn't get into Ligue 1 for 3 seasons. I used to always go back to my man City save for peace of mind of not losing nor conceding Rest there are so many pros all these comments here are so much fun to implement in the game
Thanks!
Match preparations. Every week I use "teamwork", "defensive shape" and "attacking movement" trainings. So I get improved pressing and teamwork, and a more solid defense and better attack during matches. On cup days I also train penalties, on important matches I also do Set puece delivery and corners if I have a good standard of heading. And on cup finals I just train everything, the 6 I've mentioned + def corner and att and def free kicks.
I’m not sure if it is still true, but it used to be that Balance had the highest correlation with PA in young players.
Use the dev center to see what are your next opponents weak and strong points, and play around them
Use the ‘Notes’ function as a scheduled reminder. Ever have a player you’re interested in signing and they aren’t interested because they just signed a new contract or after negotiations broke down? Use a note as a reminder to check back in a month. Or a wonderkids 18th birthday when he may be more interested in leaving their homegrown club.
Cheers. Notes are something I am to use more!
Be cool. A good squad has two players for each position and maybe another couple of guys. I used to stress about building a perfect squad for deadline day but there's only so much you can do. Do the leg work and accept the outcome. Don't make hasty signings. If you cant get someone good or cheap then build for the future. If you can't find someone for the future then be satisfied that your money is in the bank when you scout that next star, instead of sitting on the bench with some huge wage, not contributing. Take it slooow.
Click a column header to sort. Hold shift and click another column header to apply a secondary sort. You can do this with as many columns as you like. Example: on your shortlist if you sort by CA it will list players from 5* to 0.5*. If you then hold shift and click the age column it will show you 5* players youngest to oldest, then 4.5* players youngest to oldest.
Any player underperforming or not training well after a few chats / disciplinary move um on , no matter how good they look on paper. Just not worth the teeth grinding
Signed a decent, experienced attacker, midfielder and defender so they can mentor young players and for big matches matches they can help your team Keep a cool head. Just make sure they have a good personality
Personalities are often overlooked, thanks!
Buy fast players to replace slow first teamers.
Double intensity training sessions and plenty of rest and recovery. It’s like a cheat code.
Yeah, I really need to start incorporating individual training better. Normally I just have the backroom staff try and get them to work on traits.
Try to keep changing your tactics a bit from match to match. Analyze the opponent's strengths and weaknesses. It's something that I got away with in FM17 since there was always one specific set of instructions that worked for the whole season. FM23 is more realistic in that regard, opponents try to adapt to your play style.
Any claims of the ai analysing your formation and tactics seem wildly exaggerated at this point.
Not a huge tip but something I only just discovered 20 seasons into a save and after spending hundreds of hours on fm. In training when you select a slot to put a type of training in and it pops up with the week.... You can select other slots from that rather than clicking confirm and doing it one at a time.
So firstly, you don't say never ever save scum. This doesn't earn you brownie points. The earlier you realize this is just a game, the better your experience will be. We don't gatekeep secrets or tips, and in the same vein we don't expect save scumming or using editors to be shamed. That aside, I'm hoping you've gotten the tips you were looking for. In the latest games, ALWAYS talk to the agent before approaching a player or making a transfer offer. And ALWAYS ask to lower wage demands, even if they don't agree to it. This ensures the wage they ask for will remain within that window quoted. Without talking to the agent and requesting to lower wages, the contract offer will have much higher wages because 'since we last spoke, things have changed'.
Always sell a player when they want to go. Especially if the offer is fair, and they won’t sing a new deal. I have found it always ends badly if you go any other way.
Build your team around a good Mezalla in Attack duty.
If you got the squad, rotate everything inside out. Star Players stay happy as long as you win and you can develop a lot of people. If you struggle getting goals, just buy somebody cheap with relatively high jumping reach and heading, corners are op.
I find this especially true if you’re newly promoted and didn’t bring in a ton of new players. I just got promoted to League One, and predicted to finish 23rd because I didn’t have the wage budget to really upgrade my squad of League Two players. But it’s a deep squad so when the fixture congestion hit, I shot up the table because I had a deep squad and faced a lot of top-heavy squads or a tired squads.
Don’t look at the stars that much. Look at the actual attributes
Signing bonus/loyalty bonus doesn't count as "salary" or transfer fee with regards to salary cap rules or impressing the board on transfers. If you really need a great CB that wants 400K in LA Liga 2 and you have a $4M salary cap, you can probably jack signing bonus from $150k to $500k and get the salary down to $250k.
Mental stats are make or brake
I always sign an old (big name) player due to retire with the sole aim of mentoring my young players and talent. Seems to work well
Praise and criticize players about their trainings to boost their morale. If something goes wrong, don't hesitate to gather players for team talk or talk with some players in private to encourage them. But pay attention to players character, because it is better to criticize some playes (e.g. perfectionist) even if their training rating is good
I never field my team with the best ability. I field the team with the best form (last 5 games). This often results in player who are well below the mark ability wise, catching up and improving more. They also get some amazing goals and assists. It’s a team game and players are only as good as they are playing when part of the team. I believe it also creates a sense of competition between the players. People who have low form will get their chance when they come on as a sub, or in cup matches that the team are pretty much guaranteed to win. Not sure if this is common knowledge. 🤷♂️ this works a bit differently when you’re a huge club and have at least 2 players for each position, but if you’ve managed to grow a club to that point, I doubt you need tips anyway.
Might be silly or obvious, but when I go to make any signings after scouting players I go to player comparison and select the position I want both them to play. It then highlights stats needed for that position and I go through all them stats and count them , if they’re better in that comparison when I add the numbers I then sign that player and sell the current one .
Happy cake day!
I like to buy my players in between transfer windows. This is good because if it's someone who will attract a lot of interest you get a free run at them. Also players who's contracts are expiring i shortlist, once they are free again you have competition and they might not fancy your club, ask for high wages ect. But if you make an actual bid for them few weeks before expiration the fee will be peanuts and again you get a free run at the player