Drew 0-0 away to Burnley

Drew 1-1 home to Bayern(1-0 would have qualified)
 
Have you tried training them or maybe your defense is rubbish? A lot of people assume all you need is a tact and it's all gravy.
 
Have you tried training them or maybe your defense is rubbish? A lot of people assume all you need is a tact and it's all gravy.

I have a very strong squad with big clubs after a lot of them. I always leave training to my staff and it usually works when I use the decent downloadable tactics, but when I put my own together its always the above.
 
Have you tried training them or maybe your defense is rubbish? A lot of people assume all you need is a tact and it's all gravy.

Following decent media may also help to an extent. The downloads can't be a benchmark, as they target defensive weakness in the engine. You will have a shot to goal conversion advantage unheard of in football as poor players appear in space no matter much. Without them, the game may just be a bit more football-like. AI having a shot advantage is a non-issue unless you set up to have such. Actually, they can be quite poor, and their struggles are oft the same that human players have: breaking down packed defenses as one of the top/succesfully teams. My highlight in more recent releases was an AI managed Bayern losing up to 8 matches in the BL first season, and frequently failing to score more than 60 goals in one of the db's most one sided competitions. On the bottom end, their conversion goes down to 1 goal from 20 shots -- seasonal. Then again, you only have to beat such AI, not anybody else. Maybe they're coding it such on purpose.

FM's ingame stats are pretty rubbish. As a remark, it doesn't surprise me that rage of this ilk is far less common this year. The downloads are just pretty efficient. With it, naturally also game and AI flaws. I personally would be additionally concerned though if tactics like these wouldn't gift opposition opportunity on a silver platter from time to time, as contrary to the bloke on the SI forums with his parking bus tactic, they visibly just cram every player forward, likely every matchday, every minute of a season. This never happens in football, anywhere. The failure iin parts is that none of FM's data picks up on this... the stats page doesn't even display how many counters a sides concedes ffs.. http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/shar...cs/373123-sir-goalalot-tweak.html#post3173328
 
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The problem is, when you are using more than one tactic you lose consistency. I have played and tested so many tactics and so many tweaks that I can say without doubt that that is true.

This is why so many FM'ers are looking for that 1 tactic that beats all, which usually means having to find weaknesses in the AI code.

Its like the game tells you one thing but then only works by doing the exact opposite.

If the game allowed me 10 tactic slots instead of 3 without losing consistency then I doubt i'd ever lose.
 
The problem is, when you are using more than one tactic you lose consistency. I have played and tested so many tactics and so many tweaks that I can say without doubt that that is true.

This is why so many FM'ers are looking for that 1 tactic that beats all, which usually means having to find weaknesses in the AI code.

Its like the game tells you one thing but then only works by doing the exact opposite.

If the game allowed me 10 tactic slots instead of 3 without losing consistency then I doubt i'd ever lose.
You can have 1 tactic or 5. Just know what you're doing. Not all plans will go 100% all of the time. Sometimes you concede through a mistake and will now need to change to get goals against a defensive opponent trying to see out the win. Or you face a formation that your tactic typically struggles against. Or maybe any team with a tall striker causes you issues, etc.

Just posting match stats without context around it, shows very little. The ME, for a start, has always had some weaknesses in calculating CCCs. Then also, what if they scored in the first 10 minutes and decided to shut up shop after that? You'll "dominate" possession and shot stats, but if you can't break through, it looks like you were "FMd". Or what if they were defensive for the entire match, you can't break through, and at the end either you went too attacking or they went a little less defensive, resulting in a breakthrough?

It's one thing to have a good starting tactic, but decisions in matches are where you can really earn your money. If those matches are a common occurrence for you, you need to look at your tactic or decision making (or lack of) in a match. If they're not common, then it's just one of those things.

Not winning when dominating the shot count or possession isn't that rare IRL. On average, in happens probably about 10 matches out of a 38 match season, but these stats are a few years old. Not sure what the current stats are.
 
Not winning when dominating the shot count or possession isn't that rare IRL. On average, in happens probably about 10 matches out of a 38 match season, but these stats are a few years old. Not sure what the current stats are.

Unless you're Zidane and managing CR7/Real Madrid. Or may rely on a low block defendingn system such as Burnley last term. At that point, little of FM's feedback would make much sense anymore, including all the post match media arguing you were lucky to win each week (and you just keep on being "lucky").

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...land-Premier-League-2017-2018-Chelsea-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...emier-League-2017-2018-Burnley-Crystal-Palace
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...land-Premier-League-2017-2018-Everton-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...ier-League-2017-2018-Burnley-Newcastle-United
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...-Premier-League-2017-2018-Southampton-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...and-Premier-League-2017-2018-West-Ham-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...nd-Premier-League-2017-2018-Burnley-Leicester
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...er-League-2017-2018-Manchester-United-Burnley

Relying on FM's MOTD TV style audience data in the meantime, to be a bit flippant, you may as well play lottery. Not saying it should be.

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...arting-hate-football-manager.html#post3003897
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/feb/24/football-numbers-game-gary-neville

Then again there's no manager in football who logs on to whoscored, takes a look at the shot count and concludes... "must have played pretty rad footie". The "penalty" for a loss of consistency is so small it's neglibly in comparison to making a decent decision, like not throwing all players forward for every minute of a season. Those "3 slots" are esentially the same 3 "everybody go forward" tactics anyway, no matter which mentality you chose. A supporting/attacking player will still be a supporting/attacking player moving up the pitch regardless. "Unfortunately", not doing such may also break the exploit, so the key to having a bit less of such matches may be only ever applying an actual plan B in precisely such matches. It's the same vanilla pudding in slightly different colours of vanilla. Last year's exploits were comically bad against teams sitting deep and playing a back five with 2 or 3 defensive midfielders shielding it. They all tried to exploit that in the engine, the wide midfielders would rarely come inside to help defending the centre of the pitch, so all played super narrow, overloading that centre. The shot count didn't show this, watching the shots back to back in the analysis blatantly did.
 
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Unless you're Zidane and managing CR7/Real Madrid. Or may rely on a low block defendingn system such as Burnley last term. At that point, little of FM's feedback would make much sense anymore, including all the post match media arguing you were lucky to win each week (and you just keep on being "lucky").

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...land-Premier-League-2017-2018-Chelsea-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...emier-League-2017-2018-Burnley-Crystal-Palace
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...land-Premier-League-2017-2018-Everton-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...ier-League-2017-2018-Burnley-Newcastle-United
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...-Premier-League-2017-2018-Southampton-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...and-Premier-League-2017-2018-West-Ham-Burnley
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...nd-Premier-League-2017-2018-Burnley-Leicester
https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...er-League-2017-2018-Manchester-United-Burnley

Relying on FM's MOTD TV style audience data in the meantime, to be a bit flippant, you may as well play lottery. Not saying it should be.

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...arting-hate-football-manager.html#post3003897
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/feb/24/football-numbers-game-gary-neville

Then again there's no manager in football who logs on to whoscored, takes a look at the shot count and concludes... "must have played pretty rad footie". The "penalty" for a loss of consistency is so small it's neglibly in comparison to making a decent decision, like not throwing all players forward for every minute of a season. Those "3 slots" are esentially the same 3 "everybody go forward" tactics anyway, no matter which mentality you chose. A supporting/attacking player will still be a supporting/attacking player moving up the pitch regardless. "Unfortunately", not doing such may also break the exploit, so the key to having a bit less of such matches may be only ever applying an actual plan B in precisely such matches. It's the same vanilla pudding in slightly different colours of vanilla. Last year's exploits were comically bad against teams sitting deep and playing a back five with 2 or 3 defensive midfielders shielding it. They all tried to exploit that in the engine, the wide midfielders would rarely come inside to help defending the centre of the pitch, so all played super narrow, overloading that centre. The shot count didn't show this, watching the shots back to back in the analysis blatantly did.

There's a monumental difference between the type of games we are talking about compared to real life.

You wont see Christiano Ronaldo miss 3 open goals in real life, but in FM he could miss as many as 10 and that is FM's way of telling you you got it wrong tactically. Its always been this way and its an absolute farce. One of the main problems is that the game is not as vast as we are led to believe, the parameters set are actually very small. SI will tell you that the opposition set up to hit you on the break but this is not how you concede when you watch the match.
 
There's a monumental difference between the type of games we are talking about compared to real life.

You wont see Christiano Ronaldo miss 3 open goals in real life, but in FM he could miss as many as 10 and that is FM's way of telling you you got it wrong tactically.

I'm personally glad that FM doesn't simulate near the **** that happens in football -- consistently. Well, not really, as it plays a significant role in perceived under- and overperformances in any competition. On FM, you at best drop a few points a season (and things are far more predictable). In football....

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/feature...ids-major-problem-season-he-can-also-be-their
Borussia Dortmund's crisis isn't a crisis at all, and stats prove they will rebound

Then again, if random chance would play a bigger role, it were less of a game after all. On FM, there's almost always a solution to anything. One of my personal experiences with players "struggling" here is that they vastly overrate the chances they create. To illustrate, a match uploaded by somebody who's argued he would have destroyed the opposition left right and centre. When in actual fact, he barely created a single shot from open play ( all in packed boxes after set pieces -- tactical due to his narrowness not stretching defenses positionally, so that they would get a foot into every other move easily. He did this of course in the misguided attempt to max his possessions stats -- easier to drop the ball when players spread out). Whilst the opposition was a bonafide counter, due to all his players pushing forward. He still raged of course, even though he won regardless -- his goals where the very definition of "lucking out". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4rX1XHuQgI Even if he would have had one or two decent openings in there, those would be missed with some frequency.

FM's feedback, in either case, needs to be a lot better. Perhaps even the UI and assistant advice.

Oh, and MOTD et all would need to stop broadcasting garbage. You don't only ever concede only off counters. However, for as long as it's impossible to go without conceding zero shots, you will concede, and may it be off a corner, or a fluke, or error, or anything. Defensive AI in tendency always only scores from such (unless from a counter), as it just doesnt push enough men forward to build up decent attacks. That's also the reason why its seasons shot conversion can be as low as 5% or less in the team report (bottom pile teams almost always playing defensive football). This would be akin to Guardiola who finds that on average, he concedes less than 6 shots per match (whilst the EPL average is double than that). Yet he still concedes 30 goals, just as many as some of his rivals. Now he logs on to whoscored and looks excluisvely at the matches where he at all concedes. He finds he concedes goals off very few shots in all of them (what a surprise), on the occasion 3 off 4 against United last term. He likely still won't draw much conclusions from it, as he may understand context and confirmation bias and that it would negatively impact his future decisions.
 
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I've personally witnessed games where by making the wrong initial choice has seen me losing 0-2 in a game where the opposition has not had a single shot on goal(2 own goals of course). This is why a lot of FM'ers rage quit, cheat or look for plug and play tactics. Playing the game as SI intended is just not viable as the game stands today, its a lot of work for little or no reward.
 
And I've lost a match where the opposition scored 3 direct free kicks in a row. Isolated matches are irrelevant. (Almost) anything could of happen, and should. Think Martin Palermo, Morata missing 3 one on ones in January (realistically, he should have scored one, despite commentary going apeshit and saying he should have scored like 5) -- and all the crazy overreaction that comes from it. If you're one of those teams though that benefit from such regularly, you will have more point drops than someone who doesn't. This is all over FM's community -- at least where people are actually managing, rather than just downloading.

Some will always keep downloading though, as the overall results will just be better. It's always easier to cheese AI on any game, and yes, that is a massive game flaw as old as FM too. The key is that they don't understand why their download works though, so every once in a while, as all AI prefer differemtn formations, and play a bit differently, they don't know what to change. Unless there will be a "cheat tactic" that allows players to field like 15 field players, there will be holes, always. It doesn't help that the perception of football of many FMers from years of watching MOTD doesn't go much beyond: "IF I dominate possession and shots, I must be getting it right." That's what all the worst "rage quitters" have in common. The other thing is that they want the game to be significantly less random than football is. In one-off matches, it's debatable, perhaps. Long-term, football is tons more random -- despite top class managers actually managing rather than downloading and hitting continue.
 
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And I've lost a match where the opposition scored 3 direct free kicks in a row. Isolated matches are irrelevant. (Almost) anything could of happen, and should. Think Martin Palermo, Morata missing 3 one on ones in January (realistically, he should have scored one, despite commentary going apeshit and saying he should have scored like 5) -- and all the crazy overreaction that comes from it. If you're one of those teams though that benefit from such regularly, you will have more point drops than someone who doesn't. This is all over FM's community -- at least where people are actually managing, rather than just downloading.

Some will always keep downloading though, as the overall results will just be better. The key is that they don't understand why their download works though, so every once in a while, as all AI prefer differemtn formations, and play a bit differently, they don't know what to change. Unless there will be a "cheat tactic" that allows players to field like 15 field players, there will be holes, always. It doesn't help that the perception of football of many FMers from years of watching MOTD doesn't go much beyond: "IF I dominate possession and shots, I must be getting it right." That's what all the worst "rage quitters" have in common. The other thing is that they want the game to be significantly less random than football is. In one-off matches, it's debatable, perhaps. Long-term, football is tons more random -- despite top class managers actually managing rather than downloading and hitting continue.

Yeah but even the game itself thinks that possession is everything. I remember a recent loss away to Arsenal in which I counter attacked the whole game, they had 60 plus percent possession but no hc's or ccc's whilst I had 3 of each and the report read that Arsenal "deserved" their win which was based solely on the possession stats.

So its crazy to keep telling customers to do things a certain way or understand whats actually going on when the game itself doesn't even get it.
 
Yeah but even the game itself thinks that possession is everything. I remember a recent loss away to Arsenal in which I counter attacked the whole game, they had 60 plus percent possession but no hc's or ccc's whilst I had 3 of each and the report read that Arsenal "deserved" their win which was based solely on the possession stats.

I fully agree. It also mimics the bad commentary, like displaying a hundred thousand variations of the old "HOW DID HE MISS THAT?" chestnut under every other shot. What kind of manager listens to the bloke on telly? The reports are actually even simpler.... basically, as soon as a side had more shots and didn't win, it was "unlucky". Keeper ratings seem to be affected to. A keeper makes tons of (however simple) saves, such as this guy's gk against a PSG AI that barely creates space -- the keepers side doesn't lose, MAN OF THE MATCH. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnsFfXvLsFI XD

It's all super simple Maths, when what is required is something intelligent.
 
I fully agree. It also mimics the bad commentary, like displaying a hundred thousand variations of the old "HOW DID HE MISS THAT?" chestnut under every other shot. What kind of manager listens to the bloke on telly? The reports are actually even simpler.... basically, as soon as a side had more shots and didn't win, it was "unlucky". Keeper ratings seem to be affected to. A keeper makes tons of (however simple) saves, such as this guy's gk against a PSG AI that barely creates space -- the keepers side doesn't lose, MAN OF THE MATCH. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnsFfXvLsFI XD

It's all super simple Maths, when what is required is something intelligent.

Absolutely, but when these things are pointed out to SI they are either dismissed out of hand or told they are "looking into it". Yeah but you've been saying that for the last 8 years, either fix it or admit you cant/wont instead of warning FM'ers to stop going on about it and even taking away posting privileges.
 
You sound a lot like Garry.
 
What the game apparently needs is people thinking in simple football terms (UI as well as feedback). In simple terms, how do football teams increase the chance of scoring, and how do they increase the chance of conceding (that parking bus bloke on the SI forums). All the whilst balancing both; may also be influenced how opposition actually plays (sitting deep / pushing forward ////// using a formation that packs the middle where the space to be had is on the flanks vs one that is more balanced).

The tricky thing about possession too is that it is oft much too easy to come by in-game. Take this FM 17 sequence--- that's a third division team (AI) dominating the middle of the park against a first division team (AI), because the wide midfielders don't defend (hardcoded), and the two forwards don't help out the two guys in that 4-4-2 either. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAVqYbrsOF0 The one AI has a 3 vs 2 training match in the middle of the park. That's been rectified by FM 18 at least. Still possession means ****. And the shots are only barely better. Go beyond stats, in particular of the level FM provides, and you're getting somewhere.

Either way, Zidane who considers this did rage last term a ******* lot (as did Burnley's opposition -- who didn't even try to keep opposition from shooting). ;) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/sports/soccer/burnley-arsenal-premier-league.html
 
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