Morale in Football Manager has a serious effect on the way your team sets out to play. Confident happy players will be more lethal in front of goal and less prone to make silly mistakes. At the start of the game or even at half time team talks can not only have a massive boost when your side isn’t playing too well but if you get it wrong, heads may drop and a game could be over before you get the team back together.
How to spot poor morale
Watching your players on pitch is the best place to start. Obviously when you are at home or playing a much weaker side away you will want to be the dominating side. Assuming your tactics are sound. The inability to control the game, losing the ball too easily and missing easy chances maybe a clue that players morale is low. If you look at the match statistics, what is your pass completion rate and possession? Having low results here may mean that your team really isn’t able to keep the ball because of making silly mistakes. But remember these statistics aren’t everything, use your own judgement as you watch the match.
Open up one of the motivation widget in the TV View. This will give you feedback about how the players are playing, live. When your players are dejected and feeling down after a bad team talk, your players will begin playing nervously and looking complacent, signs that they have not had the right talking to in their ear in order to jeer them up for the game in hand.
Although bad team talks can have these affects on your team, it has to be remembered that other factors can affect the morale of your side in the game. Morale before the game, the ability of the opposition, performance and personality can all have affects. Teams talk though will be one of the few ways that you are able to manipulate morale before and during a game.
How to deal with the side before you meet them again
The trick is now to make sure that your team is able to hold on to the game until you next meet up with them. Nervous and complacent players may ship enough goals in the first half time make it a mountain to climb in the second half. If you play cautiously you will be less likely to ship goals, it might not be worth the risk to go looking for an early lead when your players aren’t looking too bright. Consider three changes:
Counter or Defend -
Moving your philosophy to a more cautious outlook telling your players to keep it tight at the back and to defend. Making less forward runs and taking less risks to go forward will mean that you will have extra players behind the ball. Taking less risks your players will make less mistakes, having more men at the back and your side will be able to cover for mistakes much easier.
Make a substitute – it is never too early to make a substitute if it is going to save the game, players in key positions such as central defence may not have the time to make mistakes, changing them as soon as possible may be the best tactical change.
Reduce creative freedom – Creative freedom will make your players decision making skills more emphasis in play, high creative freedom is the equivalent of telling your players to just go out in play. But players with low morale, will increasingly make the wrong decisions, pick the poor pass. Shoot when their really isn’t a clear cut chance or lunge for a tackle he is never going to get. Reducing the creative freedom may see your team stick more to getting the basics right.
Have any more tips? Please share
What should I say at half time
With team talks and other player interactions, trial and error is needed, don’t be afraid to make these mistakes as you will learn from them and the different personalities of your team, their ambition and professionalism will have alot to do with how they react to what you say. But for a general rule to start, players playing nervously or without confidence will need more support, worrying that the occasion maybe too big for them.Encourage these players and reassure them that they are the right men to do the job.
Complacent players could be over confident, you have told them that you expect a win and they think that playing these minnows may not need as much effort. You therefore want to show this player that you expect more from him, complacency can cost games and if you are looking for consistent results and trophies you need to drive this out of your players.
Have you ever had any disastrous team talks at the start of the game or even at half time that have cost you the game? How did you deal with them? Have you been able to utilise team talks to ignite a massive fightback in important games? Please don’t hesitate to visit the forums and comment.
Source : http://www.fm-britain.co.uk/2010/03/01/how-to-handle-bad-team-talks/
March 1st, 2010 by Thomas Levin
Just read through this as i like to check FM Britain from time to time. Thought it was worth sharing.
Defiantly a site i recommend visiting and joining there forums.
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