Advice on staying up after rapidfire promotions - getting flogged every game.

[Michael Price]

Hi all,

I've just returned to Football Manager after skipping a few new versions of the game. There's sure been some nice changes/additions, although I want to strangle the "agents" and some of their ridiculous demands for their clients!

Anyway, in the game I'm currently playing I'm in my sixth season with Forest Green who started in the Conference.

First season I barely survived relegation -- second I just scraped into the promotion playoffs, won the first game and lost in the final (loved the money from the final even though I lost).

After that I won the Conference, L2, and L1 in three consecutive seasons. The L1 win was helped tremendously by a parent club arrangement with Tottenham who provided me with a slew of awesome youngsters who smashed the competition.

Now my first year in the Championship and my dream run has come to an end. I'm generally weaker than most of the other teams, however I have pretty much solid 3.5 star average in most positions with a few fours and one or two 3's. I feel like I should be struggling, but I am getting flogged in every single match - I am talking scorelines like 6-1 and I even lost in the first round of the League cup to a L2 side.

Can anyone give me some advice on what sort of strategy to employ to cling to Championship status? Previously I had been using Attacking/Fluid, but it's clearly not working anymore.

 

[JalenTigh]

The stars do not indicate the players over ability, only how their ability measures up compared to the rest of your squad. That same player with 4 stars on your squad may only be a half star player on your competitions squad. Hopefully someone else can explain it better then I did.

 

[TJD07]

What Jalen means is the star rating system is only relevent to your team not the league.
You could put a conference team in the premiership with the same players and they would all still have the same star ratings.


You should consider changing to a much more defensive formation, work on counter attacking rather than trying to "outplay" the opposition.
You should compair your players to the teams around you, if they really are much better then best thing to do would be to just cut your loses and play super defensive and just try to avoid getting smashed every game.

I'd recomend signing some players for midfield first, not sure how much money you have but that's probably the area you should work on first IMO. I find a decent midfield can often make the difference in games even if my defence/forwards are somewhat behind.

 

[Camb0dia]

Try getting more loans

 

[Michael Price]

Thanks for the help so far. Since I posted I had already switched to "counter" with some success. I'm about 10 games in and I am sitting 19th, about 5 points clear of the zone, but it's still pretty ugly.

I have about 500,000 to play with in my transfer budget - down from about 1.4 million at the start of the season (I bought a few players).

I would make loans, but my host club has stopped letting me have them for free for some reason. They want huge loan fees for 3 month loans and sometimes even want me to pay their wages even though the agreement says I don't have to. Not sure what's up with that. I tried ditching Tottenham and asking for a new team - Got Chelsea which was good as I get more money per year, but again, other than the player they gave me at the start of the agreement they want me to pay.

 

[Shaneckham]

Is say spend some time hunting through the free players, and you will find some little gems in there always. Just need to be prepared to waste an hour 2 searching through them. Personally I think for lower league a 4-4-2 is the best versatile formation, rigid tight formation of course. But thats IMO.

 

[AndySams10]

I try not to make too many changes, but always have reliable Goalkeeper, and a Striker that will score regularly! Also I look at the stars to see how good they are compared to the league they are in, as if u ask for coaches report, they say either he is good for a league 2 side or is a leading championship player, then the stars reflect that in your team report. Otherwise how u going to improve your weaker areas if they are based on your team. That's my opinion, and that way of looking at it has consistently helped me.

Hope it helps you.