sigh. i was so excited by the possibility of it working as intended. :(ahh, got it. my apologies. :)

It's similar to FM Scout from older versions of the game. It's basically a little 'cheat' program that tells you the current ability and potential ability of every player.

Uhm, I am not saying my physical training programs did not work. I just may not have done them right, or may not have had the correct guys in them. I am far from a top notch trainer in this game. I am still messing with it, I just don't want to put any of my current guys in that training right now.

I too am tempted to purchase via D2D though I have told myself I would only purchase the boxed version this time. Basically I only have a couple of day windows here and there to play the game when I have the itch. Usually since the release I have only had the itch when I new I would purchase and not have time to play when it arrived 4-5 days later so I have not purchased. I am really impressed with the improvements they have made this year over 07 based on what you guys are saying I may finally be able to get into Lower League play rather than only playing with Spurs.

one more silly little things that I feel they have done right, or at least better, in this version. Referees now feel like real people, not some number. You see the name of the referee for your upcoming game, and I even saw one pregame email where it mentionnned the last time that referee did one of our game which prompted me to take a look at how he treated us, cool...

FM

Found out something cool today about my grandfather, thanks to FM2k8.

I know my mom had mentioned in passing that my grandfather loved soccer and had even played in some organized league when he lived in Scotland. So I enquired, wondering if perhaps the team he played for is in FM2k8. My mom showed me a picture of my grandfather and his brother in a team photo, when they were members of the 1923-24 Parkhead F.C. squad, which won the Scottish Junior Cup. Sadly, this club doesn't exist anymore; if they did I would definitely play as them in FM.

Very cool indeed.

I used to be a regular at Scottish Junior games, I worked for my local team doing part-time fundraising when I was in school. The Juniors are great, hundreds of local teams with semi-pro players who generally earn only their travel expenses. Players who play for the love of the game and not for cash.

One thing that confuses people about the Juniors is that they're not youngsters. They are called Juniors to separate themselves from the Seniors (the professional leagues), but the Junior leagues have no age restrictions. Recently the top Junior teams have been stealing away players from the Scottish 2nd and 3rd divisions cos the top Junior teams can afford to pay more than the lower league teams.

If FM had the Scottish Junior Leagues, I'd be more than happy :)

sounds like you need to break out the editor and create them yourself...I'll be happy to help if you need it. We can stick Parkhead in SD3 and you can have a grand old time :)

Grr.

Back to work, can't finish my offseason. People raided poor Notts County, and we've got several holes to still fill.

And those crazy British officials won't grant me my work permits! Bitches!

I heart this game. It just pulls me in to the world so much better than any other sport sim. I love playing in the lower leagues in England, and have forced myself to play with a fictional universe to keep my curious eyes from looking up the best prospects.

I'm currently running Rushden & Diamonds in the Blue Square Premiere, and I've got a striker, Jay Cooper, who epitomizes everythign I enjoy about playing FM. I picked him up on a free transfer, after he had just turned 19, and his attributes are pretty middle of the road, hasn't trained particularly well, and I have half a dozen guys who look much better on paper. If I ask my assistant manager's advice, he doesn't even mention Cooper in his best line-up, and every time I sit down to figure out my starting eleven there's always someone that I'd love to put in front of him.....but the thing Jay Cooper DOES have is SPEED, baby! 20 pace, a 20 acceleration, and a 17 agility make him just a straight-up monster on the pitch (at least in the lower leagues).

In his first year as a Diamond, he crushed the Blue Square Premiere, with 37 goals, 8 assists and an average rating of 7.45 in 42 appearances. not bad for a 19 year old kid....good enough, in fact, to lead us to promotion into League 2. I was worried that the step up, small as it was, would expose him for the one-trick pony he is, and I nabbed another, more talented, young striker from a Championship squad, in the hopes that he could take the reigns from Cooper and lead the squad towards a respectable finish in League 2. Cooper, however, had other plans, and continued to score leaving me with no choice but to keep him in the line-up, as long as the goals kept piling up. Flash forward to the end of the season, and Rushden & Diamonds finished at the top of League 2 with a +34 goal differential, thanks in no small part to Jay Cooper's 33 goals, 17 assists and 14 man-of-match performances in 45 appearances.

It makes me giggle with joy every time I watch this kid take a ball from mid-field and steak all the way to the penalty box, put a deke on some poor keeper and bury the ball in the back of the net. I can't wait to see if he can keep it up in League 1.

And I wept in pain when my now departed uber striker, Francis Doe, couldn't hit a goal on a breakaway to save his soul. :)

Dude could score on headers and volleys at will, but my god he was awful on 1 on 1's.

I'm slowly driving Exeter into the ground. Again. Every year, every version of this game, I drive Exeter into the ground. We're not even to Christmas yet, and I've got us about 8 spots down in the standings from where we should be, and we're out of the FA Cup after failing in the damn 4th qualifying round. In order to improve our defense, I signed a full back on a free transfer. It put us over our wage budget. After a few games, the fans hate him. In order to get back under the wage budget, I had to give our captain away. When the transfer window reopens, the captain is gone. The fans and the players will probably hate me after that.

All in all, I will feel very fortunate if I even finish my first season at Exeter. Ah, it's so familiar.

I'm gambling a bit right now on my current team. I'm now coaching Giugiano (sp?) in the C2/B league in Italy. I've picked up 4 players for 1,200/week salaries. This has put me 4K over my salary budget of 14K for the team. Currently, the gamble appears to be paying off. While the board is not too happy about the financial debt, my team is leading the league at the halfway point of the season, which they are very excited about. Overall, my feedback level is 'satisfied'. My performance in the Italy cup also drew rave reviews, as my team managed to advance out of the group stage and make the 1st round, before losing on away goals on a tiebreaker.

My hope at this point is that my team can win the division and advance to the next level, which should help the financial situation. If not, I'll likely end up as one of the best coaches from a W/L perspective with a horrible rating for my financial dealings as a coach. Pray for me. :)

You're FIRED!!!!!! :D

I wish I could do a dynasty for Notts County, but I always find I play this game in massive spurts, and would not wanna stop to update the dynasty. :)

I came to understand the some of the intricacies of the English leagues (and the lower leagues in particular) ages ago....but I'm still pretty much a ham-handed mess when it comes to finances. I'll usually start out by releasing 3/4 of the team, going $1MM in debt (which is a lot of cash when you're only bringing in like 3500 fans a game), in the hopes that bringing in low-salaried, quality players will pay off in the long run....and I can usually work this strategy with some degree of success, but surely there has to be a more graceful way to go about things?

How do you all handle clearing out your rosters of unwanted/high priced talent? It's very rare that I can find another team with any interest in one of my crappy players, and it sure seems like there should be a better way to go about things than my simple cut & burn approach.

wait out the first season with the crappy players that the game dealt you, then clean house after season 1 ends and most of their contracts run out.

And offer them to clubs for ultra cheap/free. Usually at least a couple will be taken.

Well, that seems smart.....but I'll be DAMNED if I'm going to wait a year watching those scraps hump around on my pitch!
:p

Agreed. You have to play through and let some of those players fall off the squad when their contracts expire. Especially in this version of the game, whacking players through paid releases is a VERY bad idea. It leads to major debt, fan unrest, and a total lack of cohesion on the team. Even if you do manage to bring in the right players when you rebuild the squad, you'll likely be fired before your team even reaches the point of being a competitive team. It's always better to struggle through a couple of seasons with the old players and slowly bring in some better players than to cut the fat immediately. It often produces disasterous results.

Or try to loan them out, but only take deals where the other team pays 100% of the wages. That will keep them off your books for the time until you can just let their contract lapse.

Does anyone think parent clubs are a bit too powerful? I've started my first career in England, as Worcester in Conference North, and the first thing I did was request a parent club. The board hooked me up with Birmingham, and I've got half their reserve team playing for me -- and I'm not done, since I'm loaning in one player at a time. It's early, but we've won 4 out of our first 5, with the only loss being 1-2 on the road to the team at the top of the table, Tamworth (who is really just tied with me, only beating me on goal differential). It seems like I've brought in a ton of talent, and we should only get better as the Birmingham guys learn to play with my Worcester guys, and as I bring in more Birmingham guys. Anyone else found this to be true, or am I just getting lucky?

I haven't had much luck at all with what my parent clubs have offered me thus far. I have 2 parent clubs right now and neither has offered me much to get excited about. The one that I did take is causing me problems because the fan base and board think he's worthless. I wish I wouldn't have bothered. Judging from my experiences, you should count your blessings.

Have you tried making offers to players on the reserve team of your parent club? When I formed the relationship, they sent me 2 players who were pretty good, but then I went through the roster and offered to loan more of the players. I guess most of my loans weren't a direct result of the parent-feeder relationship, but maybe the players on that reserve team were more willing to play for my club because of it?

I can't speak from experience but I read something similar on the SI boards.

Basically, you'll reap the rewards from this approach in non-league football but I believe you'll have to deal with restrictions on the amount of players you can bring in through loans once you hit league football (ie: league two and above). I think you can only have four guys or so brought in via loan at that level.

Once you get there, you'll have major cohesion problems since your whole squad is new and haven't played together and you'll have trouble getting results to stay above the relegation line.

This is something I've been trying to avoid. Bringing in too many loan players can cause some major cohesion problems down the road.

I have not tried much of that. I'll give it a whirl and see what happens.

Very cool -- that will be a fun challenge. I don't think I've ever got past League Two whenever I've started as a Conference North/South team.

I was wondering about loan limitations. In past versions, in England, you were limited to four long-term, eight short-term for the season, and four short-term at any given time. Is that how it is once you get to League Two?

I'm thinking now that I should feel lucky. I started with a Conf. North team in the 2006 game and won the Premier League in roughly 20 years game time.

Well, I've probably also never gone more than 4 seasons into a career.

I believe it is supposed to happen how you said. WHat I mean is that even if a player from a parent club is not offered to you, that player will be more acceptable to going on loan with you. It is not a sure fire thing though. I have asked for a guy to come on loan with me from a parent club and he didn't want to. The other two times I did that they did. One is a major player for me right now. I haven't done it enough to say which happens more often though.

Yeah -- I've had guys refuse, too. But I think in the short time I've had a parent club, something like 4 out of 5 have agreed.

I formed a relationship with Coventry, and they immediately sent two players down to Exeter to play for me. One of them is doing fairly well. The other got seriously injured after only a couple of matches. He's been out for a couple of months, and we're still not sure when he's coming back. At least I don't have to pay him.

On the other(big club) side of things, I wish I had known to activate the leagues in the countries where I had pre-established feeder clubs (eg. Belgium). I can send players to the feeder club, but since they aren't playing anything except friendlies I don't think they can get much out of it. I'm trying to get another feeder club, but haven't been successful yet.

Still loving this game!

You really ought to be able to activate leagues in the middle of your career -- maybe only once per year or something?

They'll have stats simulated for them for the season. If you go through the course of the season and aren't seeing any stats, it's not because games weren't "played" it's because the player was not good enough to play.

I play as Galway United in the Irish Premier League in WWSM2007. We have Aston Villa as a parent club and are able to take players on loan but every time I try to loan players, they always refuse to report to us.

You might have to go after players whose reputation isn't as high as those are...

I'm still not quite grasping how mentoring works, although daedalus has tried to explain it to me, so let me try approaching it from another tack.

I suggested to two players that they might benefit from studying under a couple of my veterans. Both of the vets were 'delighted' to teach the kids. One of the kids responded in kind, while the other was 'unsure' as to any potential benefit.

Is their response an indication of whether the tutoring will do them any good?

Wow. I just got the result of one of my new kids (June 19th) crop and he's listed as one of the best players of his generations. Woohoo! At age 16 he already has 17 listed for pace, 18 for agility, and 19 for accerlation. 14 for passing and 13 for technique! :)

I play with Luton Town (League One in England) and have Arsenal has my parent club and the same thing is happening to me. Thing is if I go to lower reputation players, they are simply just of no use to me. For example, got a striker to accept but my coaches are saying he is like the 5th striker on the squad or so, assessment with which I agree, so I'm not gonna give him playing time ahead of my top 3.

FM

yea, generally the better the youth responds the better his learing experience will be. most of the veterans are pleased to be mentoring, but for youth its more of a crap shoot. sometimes they are delighted, other times unsure and occasionally refuse to be mentored by a certain player. if your youth is similar to a type of player (mentioned in his personel screen) he might take to mentoring from that player better. i have a wonderkid right now, who refused 2 times to be mentored by different people, but the 3rd time i tried with another player and he accepted it


dola.
just because a youth is unsure as to a mentors benifit wont mean it wont be of any good to him. he still might learn a few of the old guys prefered moves ect. but also he might stop the mentorship a month into it saying he cant learn from someone so different from him and both the guys can take a moral hit

*cums* wow he sounds awsome, bet his future ability is around 190. in a year or 2 all the top teams will be trying to get him

Ever realize too late you've gone batshit insane in the offseason and realize you're fielding damn near a whole new team?

Got partway through the Conference Premier in second season before realizing I'd screwed things up badly in the offseason.

So it looks like I'll be quitting my Thurrock game and starting up with someone new at another time.

dude...

Try January of the 1st Season for me...I don't recognize half the squad! I don't know how it got so out of control...

I always seem to end up with 2 keepers, 4 defenders, 2 strikers, a couple of wingers and 15 central midfielders in my squads.

Can't resist a central midfield bargain.

Well, in both cases the players recommended were the ones I suggested do the mentoring.

Do languages spoken have an effect on the kid's response? The one who was delighted spoke English, same as his mentor, but the one who was less sure didn't have a language in common with his.

Thanks a ton Frog Man.

I guess I never posted my original thank you note, because I was too busy trying to keep Dag and Red in the second division.

Oh yeah, and I've always struggled with the si site. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one. I'd think web design thoughts would be the same on both sides of the pond, but it appears that some things just just don't translate.

I feel good. I only have 4.

...on a team that only fields 1 central mid. :)

for me it's DMC's.

I'm that way with Strikers, I always end up with 6 and I only use a 3 Striker rotation on the first team, with a fourth on the squad in case of injury. So invariably I end up with 2 Strikers on the reserve squad pissed off at me because they thought they were going to be important first team players.

yeah, there's that thing of fielding damn near a whole new team, but then again, being sooooo much overbudget on your wages cause, well you know those free transfers in seemed sooooo tempting back in March...

FM

I tend to overstock on wingers. And central defenders.

After going from 4-0 to 4-4 in a Champion's League match with Ajax, I think my current crop of defenders should fear that tendency.

Well, he plays the MC and MR and I dont feature a CM so he'll be playing on the right by the time he's ready. My current captain plays at that position but he also plays the WB(R) so he'll move back to that spot. My current WB playing there will probably be pushing 31 so he'll likely be transferred out.

I've never seen a kid ranked that high, I often get the kid is one of the better players to come through our system, but never one with such high praise. I'm just glad he wasn't a goalie. :)

When I look at him in the best 11 feature via my AM, he isn't my highest rated kid though, but when I look at the coaches report, he's thought of higher then that and rated as a 5 star future talent on the highest level. Hopefully everything will work out well. Not sure whether to work him in spot playing time or loan him out. (I'm Crystal Palace and arguably the top club in 2028 Europe)

I *have* to overstock on wingers. My tactics run those bitches ragged.

And you know, after all the money I blew in the offseason, we still don't have a go-to striker. The crop I have is good, one is potentially going to be lethal when he gets older, but there's not my usual guy I feel who can just come out and rock.

Talk about a tank job.

1st season in SD1 so I am trying not to be too down about this. We had been playing well all season and sat in 3rd. The top 5 teams all pretty close though. After 4 straight league wins heading into February, my team has just collapsed. It drives me nuts because I have no idea why, and I haven't been able to fix it. I am now hanging onto 5th place when 6th place had been a ways away from this top group.

When March 20th came around I had not won it 8 matches, with only 3 draws. :( My last victory had been a SC 5th round match against SD1 team Dunfermline, and my Quarter Final matchup came in this winless streak of course. The on March 20th Stirling comes to town, a team who sits in 10th with 7 points in 30 matches. Yes, they are 0-7-23 coming into the game. I only manage a 1-0 win, but I am more then happy to take it.

My scoring seems to have dropped dead, my goalies playing like crap. I am pretty much a lock for a second season at SD1, which isn't the worst thing in the world. It's just that my team has gotten so much better (via training) over the season and now they are sucking it....? Asses.

Leeds United has asked me to take their job. They are 17th in the Champ. League when expected to be 8th. They want me to be Champ League champions in two years. Typing this whole thing has helped me decide not to jump to Leeds. Pretty training facilities will have to wait.....

Dola- ANd my tank job doesn't have anything to do with bringing in a whole new squad in Jan. :) Since that is the topic on hand right now. I actually behaved, being very happy with my team and only brought in one DM/MC.

Before my SD2 season I did bring in almost a whole new squad.

i'd loan him out for a year to a decent club where he'll be first team (ie not a shit club), and then try to work him in here and there second year. depends on your squad and how comfortable you are making those kind of changes you just mentioned in mid-game. (ie: "i'm up by 2-3 goals in the 2nd half, time to bring the kid in and push the MR back to WB and take the WB out)

why oh why. there are some things that just bug the crap out of me. perhaps there is an explanation. no mattter what, If I set a player to stand on the near post of a corner, the kick 75% of the time is sent at him wherein he inevitably head's it to nowhere and directly out of bounds. Not to mention the 3X a game that the kick never actually makes it inbounds and hits the side of the net. These things I dont think would happen in pro soccer this often. any ideas?

Happens to me a bunch too.

That happened to me a TON in Second Division Northern Ireland, but much less often in England Conference North. I just figure it's really hard to direct a header off a corner kick -- you usually have to be right in front of the goal to head it in easily.

I don't know what level or country you're at, but three guys who've been really reliable for me were Sherjill MacDonald and Craig Beattie at the Coca-Cola Championship level, and Collins John at the Premiership.

If you're anywhere near those levels of play, those are three real good guys to take a look at for your striker.

Happens to me too, way too much, IMHO. Even though I've seen very few professional soccer matches in real life, I just can't imagine it happening that often.

I almost wonder if this is a result of the new FM feature where pitch dimensions are configurable. Perhaps the game thinks the near post player is closer than it is appearing on the 2d pitch. I just gotta believe it's not meant to be this way.

Since I've been playing this game an insane amount lately, I've got a list of things that are bugging me - that just don't seem realistic. The other at the top of the list is the high number of one-on-ones, and the poor striker performance on these one-on-ones. I can't believe a professional player would approach the keeper, then shoot it either (1) over the net (2) far far wide, or (3) right at the keeper 98% of the time. Plus they seem to strike it from way to far out.

It's like in basketball when a player has a fast break does he pull up at the free throw line for a jumper, or does he dunk it? The striker (to me it seems) should be holding on to the ball longer on one-on-ones before shooting and not striking from 25 yards out.

No arguments here. My tactic is BUILT around fast, hard hitting counterattacks, and I see just a shit-ton of 1 on 1's shot straight at the keeper. Thoroughly irritating.

It annoys me as well, but the way I get around it is by saying: "The circle that represents the keeper is much bigger than the Keeper would be, so my strikers aren't hitting it at the keeper, just close enough where he is able to make a save."

Just my rationalization, although I think it does make a bit of sense.

Regarding the near post corners thing, some of the folks over on the SI board seem to think it is a bug being looked at, and I would tend to agree that it is a bug. It certainly wasn't the way it is now in any of the past version.

I think it got tweaked too far the other way. In the beta patch, you could score corners off the near post almost at will.

i believe it was mentioned earlier in the thread that 'near post flick on' is pretty much broken -- switch that guy to 'attack near post' instead. i follow frogger's method of 'challenge keeper' with my centrebacks which seems to work solidly and i keep one of my centre mids at lurk outside area since at least 2-3 corners per game will get punched out there.

huh, I do that? :D Forgot about that one, and I've not done much tweaking on my corners on this career, maybe it's time to do some... :)

FM

dola, and click that thumbnail, look at it carefully and tell me this is not the most freakishly evident offside call you can make?




Walsall are attacking from left to right, kick has just left #27 (Morris) from right inside the penalty box. #9 and #12 at the time of the kick were not only behind the last defender, they were freaking BEHIND THE KEEPER, they are running back towards the kicker!!!!! Damnit, for sure the freaking idiotic assistant referee can't make the freaking call right, he's not even lined up with the freaking last defender.

We were simply holding it together in that game. Started it with the lead early on, then let one in. They scored on that sequence to make 2-1, and we lost our composure, letting another one in a little later to lose the game 1-3. But no, nobody thought that one was even close, nobody complained about it, not chances to complain in the media or anything. Not that it would have meant much, or that I would even have tried to, since I'd already been given a touchline ban a couple weeks before that, and boy did that suck...

/rant over

FM

edit to add that #27 picked up the ball to score...

Passive offside? I hate the rule, but it seems like it was probably the right call?

I'm debating starting over with a new game tonight. Want to turn off real players (I like the facegen way better), get a full game started with the latest patch, and build the team for a different tactic.

Have you seen this implemented well in the game? Because I have started assuming it's not implemented after three or four offsides calls where a CM or mine took a long shot, a winger (literally thirty yards from the play) was offsides, and the whistle was blown.

nah, no way. The two guys are right in the middle of the action and one of them received the pass straight to him, not off a long rebound to the side or something (which I also think should be called as offside). The two guys were blatantly offside, BEHIND my keeper, in the 6 yard box, and they received a pass right there...


yup, agree with that assessment too. Many, many times I've seen passes sent to the one side of the field with a guy borderline offside (but yeah, he was in an offside position) completely on the other wing, and the offside would be called no matter what...

FM

Has anyone had any success in a 3 man backline?

I'm planning on dusting off my quasi 3-4-3 (more accurately a 3-4-1-2) and seeing what I can do with it, just wondering if 3 man backlines are basically the kiss of death.

I've been able to play a 3-4-3 with 3 great strikers and 3 rock defenders. But it's really difficult to put that all together at the lower levels.

Whelp, that's my goal tonight. Think I'm going to start fresh and bring forth the counterattacking 3-4-3 of unending doom.

I play a lot of 5-3-2 attacking, but mix in some 3-4-3, 3-4-1-2, and 3-4-2-1. It works pretty well, I think.

It's a lot of fun when you can make it work. I found 3 young strikers for a League Two team and went with the 3-4-3 system. 4 years later, my team was in the Premier League using those same 3 strikers. I just fell into a gold mine evidently, because all three of those guys ended up developing into multi-million dollar strikers.

I am playing with a very attacking 4-3-2-1 adapted from an idea found on the SI boards. The wingers and attacking mids overlap to basically make it a 4-1-5 when we have the ball. Defense is a bit dodgy, but I have two great CB's and a goalie on loan from Spurs, and it generates at least 15-20 shots per game.

So far, so good. Top of Conference National with Weymouth, who weren't even supposed to be in the top half. Anticipating the February slump and hoping to at least make the playoffs.

I used this for awhile in FM06.

It's basic idea is a fast paced, direct style that pushes long balls from the wings into the box, where you've got 2 strikers and an AMC behind them who can either take a shot himself or push through balls to the strikers.

The two MCs are both back arrowed, and their primary duty is to protect the fullbacks. The wings and the 3 men up front are more important in the attack, the middies are there to break up attacks and get the ball forward. The wings, who I work to death, are also instructed to man mark their counterpart across the entire pitch. You don't survive in this system as a winger if you don't have high stamina.

When it works, it produces some lovely looking attacks.

I'm playing a 2-3-2-2-1 tactic and while getting cleansheets are tough, I can generally score a crazy amount of goals

Do you adjust it for the opposition's winger settings, or do you generally leave it as it is and try to take it to the opposition?

I'm running something very similiar to that.

It is interesting, i usually lose the time of possesion battle lke 44 to 56, but I generate more shots on net then the other team. My passing % like 55 to 60ish which is pretty low, but I get alot of good break away goals and i really hammer them with the physical play.

I start the game and go with a quick tempo counter attack. If I get up on them early, I move the arrows back to a shorter distance with my Wing Backs. I then go more defensive and slow the tempo down.

Mine setup with 2 strikers, one set to play through balls and hold up the ball. My other striker is set for forward runs and no through balls and dribble.

AMC is my playemaker and hits througballs and has a great long shot.

My two Wing Backs, are good defenders. I have them set to basically harras the other team and tackle hard, but I don't bring the ball up the sides. I have them set to hit long passes up the middle.

My one MC is set to offensive and he goes up arrow, my second midfielder is set to a back arrow and I have him man mark and hard tackle.

Then I have 3 solid midfielders, who I have play deep.

One thing, is I lead the league in cards, both yellow and red. I'm currently playing with Barrow in Conference North.

I'm in 9th place and moving up, since I abandoned, my 4-4-2 and changed over to this setup.

I lost my first FA Cup game after getting through the qualifing round. I got hammered like 5 to 0.

I am still going strong in the other two tournaments. FA Trophy and the Supporter Shield or whatever it is called.

My board is kind of pissed off, because I told them I would guarantee a promotion. Their expections going in were a safe mid table. I shouldn't of over promised.

I almost always leave it as it needs to be. The most important part is to have a striker who can finish and two imposing DC's. The season before last, I had my ML set up 27 assists so they get the ball up there

This is when this game always starts to drive me nuts. After a 5th place finish in my first SD1 season I head on into season two with hopes of only improving. I let all my scrubs from a couple years ago and were on the reserve team walk away, signing a bunch of 19 year olds to take their place. I also signed a new strike to compete with the two main guys I have had there and brought in another on loan to be "the star." Also coming in was a couple DC's who I had on loan last season, and a DM that I liked enough to sign, and a veteran (36 years old) goalie to compete with the younger guys and teach. Leaving was my ML, who's sissy English ass couldn't take playing with the men on Scotland and wanted to go home to England. I sold him for a nice $500,000.

Next thing I know I am making the national news with Celtic and Rangers because I brought in 12 guys. Oops. :( Even though most of those guys are Reserve guys, I think it must be making it's impact. After a nice 5-0 win on the road against Dumferline, I have gone fallen to a 3-0-4 league record with losses in my first games of both the Challenge Cup and the League Cup.

I really do hope this is just because I brought these guys in and my team will adjust as the year goes on. I have tried a couple different tactics with no improvement. My team should be better. The key starters I brought in were an upgrade. My returning players only keep getting better. It is driving me nuts. I turned down a Championship League job to stay, these bitches better start playing.

Can you post a screen shot of the formation and a quick note about the tactics? I've tried something similar and can't score the goals needed to make up getting rained on all day.

I had a couple questions earlier and now I forget one, so here is the other one...

-For training, should I follow what the arrows are saying on the overall training screen when I am trying to figure out if I guy is still getting something out of that training schedule? I can see arrows slightly pointing up, or 3/4 up and then open the player page and see nothing but an arrow pointing down for one or a couple ratings where he has just dropped, with nothing shown going up. And vice-versa, guys not showing any improvement on the overall screen who show improvement on their individual page. I have never really understood why these views always seem different.

I can't take most of the credit for the tactic as I found the idea on the SI forums. But I did modify it for my own purpose. My ML and MR are almost always AML/R because they generally have the pace to keep up. If you can find WB/AM combo players it gives you different looks. If you are trying to kill time, the more defensive oriented players can be moved up to the MF spot and you can bring in another WB for that spot. Having two shutdown DC's are key. The least key position on the field is actually the DMC IMO as I generally have a simple DC/DMC combo player in that position. It's also the reason why you see so many on my team as I substitute them quite liberally. I rarely buy a F/ST as you dont really need too many on the roster. I have a stud forward with a speedy ST as his backup whose actually ended up quite good. One of my starting AMC's also can play forward and I usually loan a mediocre F/ST as an emergency player.

that's one crazy looking tactic!!!

Ya, but I finished 28 points clear of #2 last season in the premiership. :)

It's terrible in the Cups though, at least the FA and League Cup

Well I was planning on starting again and trying a more attacking formation (I was planning on a narrow 4-3-3) so I'll steal that idea and see how it gets on :)

Looks a good deal different from my standards, do you make adjustments for home and away?

At home it's lethal but on the road it's still very good. If I'm going to rest a starter I always do it at home. The more cohesion you have the better the team plays (naturally) but I started this current season now with back to back 0-0 ties so obviously so things need to be looked at here soon but I also switched my captains so that might have hurt

Dola

I did try it with Braintree down as a LLM and was promoted in the first year. But it wasnt as fun for me so I went back to this team.

Just so it's known as well, I play very hands off and often just sim through the games

Dude, that's sweet - thanks! I'm gonna give it a try in the PLA and see what happens!

If you want the teactic to send to you, shoot me a PM with your email

This guy has a good question. :D

anyone have a good set of training schedules zipped up to share? I only have a set of 3, attack, mid, and D and I think im missing out on something here.

I make one for each group. The difference is usually that I put Strength training higher in one, then Aerobic higher in the other. They also slightly differ in the others.

Example- Defenders1 will have higher Defending and Tactics, Defenders2 will lower those and raise up Set Pieces and Ball Control. Both will have attack and shooting lower then the others and about the same.

I will also take a defender and throw him into a Midfielder tactic once in a while, or Midfielder into a Forward schedule. Mix it up some and see how they react.