Dipping a toe in the water

[Marshdweller]

If you've read the thread I started in the General Discussion board, you'll know that I haven't played a version of FM since FMT17, so a lot has changed since I last started a new save. A lot. So I've decided to take the plunge and (a) start a save, and (b) share my progress on here in the hope that doing so will force me to have an actual, coherent thought process behind any decisions I make, and will also give you wiser heads the chance to offer me advice and constructive criticism as I go, hopefully steering me away from any disastrous moves and/or reassuring me that what I'm doing isn't all that daft.

I don't get a huge amount of time to play FM these days, so in order to keep playing I have to be managing a club I care about. I have a deep admiration for those of you who can pick an interesting league and then plump for a club and just go for it, but that approach is beyond me!

The club I've chosen is FC Volendam.

I first came across Volendam back in FM14 and had a brief save with them then. I followed that up with an FMC save on FM15 which is probably my best and favourite save of all time. I managed the club for 27 years, winning a lot of silverware as I merrily churned through the seasons. Apart from one misguided transfer (€140,000) in the second season, I didn't spend a penny in transfer fees for the first 6 years. I won the Champions League three times and the Club World Championship once. I had a son. You get the idea - it was a save that got under my skin. Since then, they've basically been my second team.

The main reason I chose Volendam is that their club vision sounds like a pretty soft target:

Basically, as long as we're mid-table in the first season and make upward progress, I should be able to keep my job. Considering the number of rookie errors I am likely to make, this should give me some margin for error.

The squad looks like this:

As chaodck found with his NEC save, there's youngsters everywhere!

As far as the best players go, left back Gijs Smal is one but with 12 months left on his contract I have reluctantly followed my coaches' advice and transfer-listed him now rather than lose him on a free. I also have Alex Plat (DM), Kevin Visser (MC), Jari Vlak (MC) and Francesco Antonucci (M/AMC) although the latter is only on loan for the season.

Dynamics is something new to me, but this also looks like a pretty simple starting point:

Only one social group and the only team leader is my club captain, one of the key players and should be around for a while.

I've played through about ten days of pre-season, and won my match against Jong Volendam 2-0. My next match is at home to Ajax, so I'm hoping it won't be too damaging to morale.

My assistant manager is in charge of training, though I interfere every now and then, adding some Team Bonding to quiet days to improve the team cohesion.

I've had a quick look at the staff and attempted to plug any obvious gaps. The coaching team is pretty good for the level already but the scouting and medical staff needed attention. Due to financial limits, this meant adding one scout, one data analyst and a sports scientist.

Tactics-wise, I've opted for the following as my main two tactical approaches (both straight out of the presets box for now):

Before I carry on with the rest of pre-season, is there anything else you think I should be considering, or that I've missed so far?

[Nick]

marshdweller, if you're using Gyazo, you'll need to add .png after the link and then wrap the link in IMG tags like so:

[.img]LINK IN HERE[/img]

(Just remove the . from the first tag.

[Marshdweller]

Jun 27, 2020 19:58:58 GMT Nick said:

marshdweller, if you're using Gyazo, you'll need to add .png after the link and then wrap the link in IMG tags like so:

[.img]LINK IN HERE

[/img]

(Just remove the . from the first tag.

[/quote][/div]

Thanks - I wondered why they weren't working!

[Nick]

I've cleaned up all the BB code you put in your post mate. If you edit the opening post, you can see how I've done things and then make any changes you want to the format (i.e centering the badge like you had it)

[Marshdweller]

Cheers - got there in the end!

An object lesson in how NOT to go about posting images!!!

[Nick]

No worries. It's easy when you know how, but takes a bit of getting used to!

Volendam seems like a great choice. It's always good to start with a club that feels familiar, even if it's only familiar in a virtual world. One thing to note with dynamics is that it's useful rather than being overly important. Ideally you'd have everyone in the same social group (like you have) and everyone be at least an influential player, but I've never found it to be a massive deal breaker if you have a few stragglers.

Take a look at the training thread in general discussion to get a few pointers. It's pretty in-depth, but training can be as simple as you want and there'll be a few pointers in there for you.

[chaodck]

Cheers marshdweller, great to have another manager in Holland. I found that the Eerste Divisie was fairly easy in the end, I was super irregular in the middle, but played great on the first and last periods and ended up winning the title. I think your challenge is harder than mine (Volendam ended 14th on my save), but maybe with a bit of luck you can get onto the playoffs and fight for promotion. Good luck.

[Marshdweller]

Jun 27, 2020 20:46:29 GMT Nick said:

No worries. It's easy when you know how, but takes a bit of getting used to!

Volendam seems like a great choice. It's always good to start with a club that feels familiar, even if it's only familiar in a virtual world. One thing to note with dynamics is that it's useful rather than being overly important. Ideally you'd have everyone in the same social group (like you have) and everyone be at least an influential player, but I've never found it to be a massive deal breaker if you have a few stragglers.

Take a look at the training thread in general discussion to get a few pointers. It's pretty in-depth, but training can be as simple as you want and there'll be a few pointers in there for you.

It's years since I last was active on a forum, so my BBcode is a little rusty (not that it was ever great!)

Jun 28, 2020 1:57:37 GMT chaodck said:

Cheers marshdweller, great to have another manager in Holland. I found that the Eerste Divisie was fairly easy in the end, I was super irregular in the middle, but played great on the first and last periods and ended up winning the title. I think your challenge is harder than mine (Volendam ended 14th on my save), but maybe with a bit of luck you can get onto the playoffs and fight for promotion. Good luck.

Thanks! To be honest, your NEC save inspired me to go back to the Netherlands and have another go with Volendam. I like the way the league works, with the different periods meaning that there's always another chance if the last month or so haven't gone entirely to plan.

[Marshdweller]

Pre-season, part 1

Whoever booked Volendam's pre-season fixtures needs a slap. The entire program comprises home matches against bigger sides, which seems like a sure-fire recipe for low morale.

It started off against Ajax, who brought a very strong side to the Krad Stadion. Given their obvious superiority, I tried out the Fluid Counter tactic. Unsurprisingly, they dominated us and I feared the worst when they suddenly scored three times in seven minutes. I switched the mentality to Defensive, reduced the closing down (as I feared this was pulling players out of position) and pushed the defensive line up a bit to try to move them away from my goal and it seemed to work. At least, we didn't concede any more, so I took that as a small tactical victory. I did forget that I can now change the defensive width which might have helped against the crosses.



Then came Heracles Almelo, from the Eredivisie. Just for the sake of experimentation, I went with the Control Possession 4-2-3-1. The match was a little more even and we actually had 52% of the possession, but still lost 2-0. Ratings were poor across the board though.



After that came 1.FC Heidenheim 1846, to give them their full name. They're currently in the Bundesliga 2, so a fellow second-tier side, but still better than us. This time I decided to use a Control Possession 4-1-4-1 as it gave me the security of a DM and seemed to suit the front 3 better in terms of roles. Another 3-0 defeat followed, though the ratings were a little better and the match stats suggest things were pretty even.



I now have four remaining pre-season games (all in the space of ten days too!), against Nantes, Benfica, Angers and Atletico Pamplona. All top-flight sides from stronger leagues than the Netherlands. To be honest, all I can see here are four more defeats. What concerns me the most is that my attackers may soon forget how to score.

So I'm on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, do I just roll with what the game has given me (after all, this save is just an experiment and many experiments end in failure), or do I scrap the remaining games and try to get some last minute friendlies against local amateur sides so I can hopefully keep a few clean sheets, score a few goals and get the morale back into the green?

[Nick]

100% cancel those friendlies and arrange some winnable games to a) boost morale and b) allow you to see more of your team in an attacking sense.

Also, the preset tactics, while being decent, do need tweaking in the majority of cases. They're not just plug and play tactics, more like a framework that you can add and take away from.

[Marshdweller]

Pre-season, part 2

A bit of a long and rambling post here, drafted over several separate sessions and just a dumping ground for my thoughts...

MATCHES

In the end, I cancelled all four of the friendlies and arranged four replacements, against the mighty Babberich, Be Quick '28, FC Lisse and IVS.

Fortunately, the beatings we'd taken hadn't dented morale as badly as they might have done and the Dynamics screen suggested that it hadn't led to any of the players doubting my ability already (something that had crossed my mind briefly), though their support

I also took Nick's advice on board and made some tweaks to the tactics. My biggest concern, looking at my preferred 4-1-4-1 system was that the striker wasn't getting the support he needed from central areas. With the two wingers primarily providers to an Advanced Forward, I changed the AP(s) to a CM(a) and asked him to play more risky passes in the hope that he will get forward earlier, and either provide or score himself.

The first friendly went exactly as I'd hoped - a nice, confidence-boosting 7-0 win over Babberich and the team was playing very well with the ball.



The next, against Be Quick '28 was similar, but without the flurry of goals. Annoyingly, after an hour of complete dominance and two goals to the good, Be Quick scored with their first effort on target, which will prompt me to look at my defensive corner instructions.



The third game saw the attacking performance continue, but the goals dried up even further. A brace for Nick Runderkamp (fast becoming one of my favourite players of this save for some unknown reason) saw us past Lisse, but with another three clear-cut chances spurned, it should have been more. One notable feature of this match was the number of overhit corners which went straight out for a goal-kick, so the next item on my to-do list will be to be more specific about the corner delivery.



The final friendly was the best of the lot in terms of scoreline and performance. I have no idea of the relative standards of these four teams, only that when I was arranging the friendlies in a bit of a rush they were all listed as 'Very small reputation' teams.




PLAYERS/SQUAD

At this point, as I was forming a clearer idea of who was going to be around my first XI consistently, I had a closer look at my squad, particularly the loan players. Most were OK, but one fell victim to this review. Noah Fadiga was on loan from parent club Brugge but we were still paying his €1k a week wages. Given that this put him joint-second highest earner and he was only going to be a backup, I terminated his loan spell and rued the money already spent on someone who wouldn't ever make a competitive appearance for Volendam. Into the vacancy as back-up right back came Brian Plat, who isn't going to set the world alight, but does have good attributes in two key areas for me - Decisions and Determination.

SQUAD NUMBERS

I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to squad numbers and I was delighted to see that Volendam give you a completely blank slate to work with. I think this is because, in real life, in the Eerste Divisie (and possibly even in the Eredivisie) clubs are allowed to choose whether they allocate squad numbers or go 1-11 with each match's starting line-up, and I think Volendam follow the latter approach. However, in FM, squad numbers are mandatory and so I had to choose some.



It might not be immediately obvious what I've done here, but I've applied the same system to these numbers as Louis van Gaal did at the 2014 World Cup - essentially, take the classic Dutch numbering format and assign the first-choice players 1-11 based on that. Then assign the back-up players the same number, plus ten. So, for example, in the Netherlands the left-back is traditionally given number 5, not number 3 as it is in the UK (because the Dutch number across the back four from right-back to left back) and the back-up left-back is allocated number 15. This runs into an obvious problem with goalkeepers, so the back-ups were allocated 22 and 30. One advantage of this is that it gives me a visual cue as to the pecking order and approximate best position of a player when working with an unfamiliar squad.

CLUB DNA

I've hinted at this slightly already, but for the first time really I am going to be implementing a 'Club DNA' approach from day one. In previous saves this would be something that developed over seasons as I established myself and had more room to manoeuver in the transfer market, but this version of the game really feels like one in which tailoring your approach will result in a more distinctive club culture and identity.

My club DNA is going to be based around footballing intelligence, which means that the attributes I will be prioritising are Anticipation, Decisions and then (depending upon position) Off The Ball and Positioning, i.e. can the player see what's going to happen, make an intelligent decision about how to react and then position themselves in either an attacking or defensive sense to do something positive? I also want First Touch as this will be important if I am playing a possession-based style of football. None of this is wildly original, obviously.

There are a bunch of secondary attributes that go with this - the obvious Teamwork, Work Rate, Acceleration and Pace to get the player into the right position, but it would be overkill to focus on all of these straught away - these are not particularly well-rounded players in many cases so I'll start with those I consider to be really key attributes and then build from there.

[chaodck]

That lineup of frienlies is much better my friend. Interesting approach regarding the DNA, I've always tried and focus more on the techincal or physical skills for somethink like this than your interest on mental skills, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it, good luck.

[Marshdweller]

Jul 1, 2020 21:52:06 GMT chaodck said:

That lineup of frienlies is much better my friend. Interesting approach regarding the DNA, I've always tried and focus more on the techincal or physical skills for somethink like this than your interest on mental skills, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it, good luck.

Thanks - there's two main reasons for this approach: one, I remember watching one of Rashidi's videos a few years ago (FM17, I think) where he said that the attributes have a hierarchy which is the mental are the most important, then physical, then technical; and two, I was very struck by FM Samo's Stirling save on FM18 and his 4-4-2 which had no TIs and no PIs either. This has become the tactical Holy Grail for me - a system in which the roles and duties are so well chosen and balanced that you can leave it up to the intelligence of the players whether they press or drop off, which pass to choose and so on. (This is also why I was impressed and a fan of jla's Blackburn tactic.) As a result, I now prioritise the mental attributes over all others when finding players. 

[hokster]

Jul 2, 2020 10:15:42 GMT Marshdweller said:

This has become the tactical Holy Grail for me - a system in which the roles and duties are so well chosen and balanced that you can leave it up to the intelligence of the players whether they press or drop off, which pass to choose and so on. (This is also why I was impressed and a fan of jla's Blackburn tactic.) As a result, I now prioritise the mental attributes over all others when finding players. 

I'm with you on this 100%. In my overall "Squad DNA" team view, I track the following attributes: First Touch, Passing, Technique, Anticipation, Off the Ball, Positioning, Decisions, Determination, Teamwork, Work Rate, Acceleration, Natural Fitness, and Agility. I break these out more for my defenders, supporting players, and attackers, but these are what I look for when deciding to sign a player or not (if they have a lot of room to grow, these areas should be developed by my training program, so I might relax things then).

[Marshdweller]

Jul 2, 2020 10:57:36 GMT hokster said:

Jul 2, 2020 10:15:42 GMT Marshdweller said:

This has become the tactical Holy Grail for me - a system in which the roles and duties are so well chosen and balanced that you can leave it up to the intelligence of the players whether they press or drop off, which pass to choose and so on. (This is also why I was impressed and a fan of jla's Blackburn tactic.) As a result, I now prioritise the mental attributes over all others when finding players. 

I'm with you on this 100%. In my overall "Squad DNA" team view, I track the following attributes: First Touch, Passing, Technique, Anticipation, Off the Ball, Positioning, Decisions, Determination, Teamwork, Work Rate, Acceleration, Natural Fitness, and Agility. I break these out more for my defenders, supporting players, and attackers, but these are what I look for when deciding to sign a player or not (if they have a lot of room to grow, these areas should be developed by my training program, so I might relax things then).

That's pretty much what I would aim for if I was established as a top-half, top-flight club, and I too would tweak the requirements based on position. I'm ashamed to say it was only in my last save that I really started creating my own views, so I plan to spend a little time next time I load up the save creating some views to highlight the players that tick all the right boxes. I flatter myself I'm quite a data person but I don't spend anywhere near enough time digging down and presenting that data to myself in any usable format. 

[hokster]

Jul 2, 2020 11:34:56 GMT Marshdweller said:

That's pretty much what I would aim for if I was established as a top-half, top-flight club, and I too would tweak the requirements based on position. I'm ashamed to say it was only in my last save that I really started creating my own views, so I plan to spend a little time next time I load up the save creating some views to highlight the players that tick all the right boxes. I flatter myself I'm quite a data person but I don't spend anywhere near enough time digging down and presenting that data to myself in any usable format. 

Yeah, I'm a little more flexible when I'm not a top side. At Le Havre, I know I can't be too picky about personality and determination, but since I'm only looking at younger players I can usually just see if they seem to have a decent base which can be built on to get those key attributes to where they might need to be. My thresholds are also lower, since if I wanted players who were elite at all of those things, I'd be well out of my financial range.

The main views that I've created are my DNA views (one overall, one each for attacking, supporting, and defending attributes/performances), my training overview, and my stats overview. I find them quite useful to look at once a month to get a quick snapshot of what's going on around the squad. I'm sure some others would be useful, but I haven't felt a need yet (which doesn't mean I wouldn't once I got exposed to an idea).

[Marshdweller]

Jul 2, 2020 11:51:13 GMT hokster said:

Jul 2, 2020 11:34:56 GMT Marshdweller said:

That's pretty much what I would aim for if I was established as a top-half, top-flight club, and I too would tweak the requirements based on position. I'm ashamed to say it was only in my last save that I really started creating my own views, so I plan to spend a little time next time I load up the save creating some views to highlight the players that tick all the right boxes. I flatter myself I'm quite a data person but I don't spend anywhere near enough time digging down and presenting that data to myself in any usable format. 

Yeah, I'm a little more flexible when I'm not a top side. At Le Havre, I know I can't be too picky about personality and determination, but since I'm only looking at younger players I can usually just see if they seem to have a decent base which can be built on to get those key attributes to where they might need to be. My thresholds are also lower, since if I wanted players who were elite at all of those things, I'd be well out of my financial range.

The main views that I've created are my DNA views (one overall, one each for attacking, supporting, and defending attributes/performances), my training overview, and my stats overview. I find them quite useful to look at once a month to get a quick snapshot of what's going on around the squad. I'm sure some others would be useful, but I haven't felt a need yet (which doesn't mean I wouldn't once I got exposed to an idea).

My weakness at this point is knowing how much a young player can improve - for example, if a first-team player needs attributes of 12+, what should an 18-year-old have? 10? 8? I'm sometimes taken aback by just how much progress the better youngsters can make.

The other view I created in my last save was a contract details overview, so I could see who I'd foolishly given high bonuses, or a low release clause to, or who was on a high wage for their squad status.  

[hokster]

Jul 2, 2020 12:57:37 GMT Marshdweller said:

My weakness at this point is knowing how much a young player can improve - for example, if a first-team player needs attributes of 12+, what should an 18-year-old have? 10? 8? I'm sometimes taken aback by just how much progress the better youngsters can make.

The other view I created in my last save was a contract details overview, so I could see who I'd foolishly given high bonuses, or a low release clause to, or who was on a high wage for their squad status.  

I think that's where it takes a lot of experience with different personalities and your training setup to get a feel for the development that's possible. 

That contract details overview is a *great* idea. I'm off to make one now.

[Marshdweller]

If I get five minutes this evening, I'll load up the old save and post a screenshot of the couple of useful views I created.

[Marshdweller]

Here are the views I created for my FMT17 save with Trapani:

Contract view with clauses

Squad status (similar, but with the club DNA - which will look familiar, given my posts above - included)

Training/fitness

Selection (this is probably my favourite view and the one I use as my default)

[Marshdweller]

Starting the season

August

The downside of the approach I took to pre-season is that it left me with no real idea of where my team was at. I knew we weren't good enough to beat Ajax's first team and I knew we could thrash some part-timers, but I had no measure of where we sat in comparison to the other nineteen teams in the Keuken Kampioen Divisie. We were also starting the season away from home against Jong Ajax and I won't deny that I felt a little apprehensive after the domination we experienced at the hands of their senior side.

Jong Ajax 0-0 FC Volendam

The game itself was a funny one. We basically stifled them with sterile possession, attempting nearly 1,000 passes whilst only managing two shots on target. No surprises that my centre-backs/defensive midfielder triangle were the only ones to get ratings of 7.0 or higher.

FC Volendam 1-0 Almere City

In control of this game, but didn't really take our chances, until my substitute striker El Azzouzi scored in the 83rd minute. This time, my full-backs were the best performers.

FC Volendam 0-0 TOP Oss

They were TOP by name, top by position when this game started, and yet the board are still disappointed with me that we only got a 0-0 draw. Perhaps they didn't like the fact that TOP Oss had slightly the better of the game, but at no point did I really feel under threat. I see this as a blunt attack rather than anything else.

N.E.C. Nijmegen 0-0 FC Volendam

N.E.C. were heavy favourites for this and we gave as good as we got. A few heart-in-mouth moments, but another clean sheet!

MVV Maastrict 0-2 FC Volendam

MVV were right down the bottom when we kicked off, and still there at the end. Right-winger Nick Doodeman did it all for us with both goals.

So we end our first month of the season in 6th place, 9 points on the board, unbeaten with three goals scored and none conceded. Much, much better than I had hoped for, certainly defensively. A fair bit of work needed to get the attack firing though.

Dynamics

I'm only including this because it still has novelty value for me and I was interested to see how quickly it changed.

Nick Runderkamp has risen to 'highly influential' due to being made vice-captain. Jari Vlak and Alex Plat have risen to 'Influential' after establishing themselves as regular starters and among the better players.

In summary, a very good start to the season. Things are looking pretty positive.

My to-do list:

• Modify set-pieces - there's more to be gained from them
  
• Experiment with the attack
  
• Start thinking about transfer targets
  

[Marshdweller]

Jul 2, 2020 10:15:42 GMT Marshdweller said:

Jul 1, 2020 21:52:06 GMT chaodck said:

That lineup of frienlies is much better my friend. Interesting approach regarding the DNA, I've always tried and focus more on the techincal or physical skills for somethink like this than your interest on mental skills, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it, good luck.

Thanks - there's two main reasons for this approach: one, I remember watching one of Rashidi's videos a few years ago (FM17, I think) where he said that the attributes have a hierarchy which is the mental are the most important, then physical, then technical; and two, I was very struck by FM Samo's Stirling save on FM18 and his 4-4-2 which had no TIs and no PIs either. This has become the tactical Holy Grail for me - a system in which the roles and duties are so well chosen and balanced that you can leave it up to the intelligence of the players whether they press or drop off, which pass to choose and so on. (This is also why I was impressed and a fan of jla's Blackburn tactic.) As a result, I now prioritise the mental attributes over all others when finding players. 

Quoting myself seems a bit wanky, but I found a screenshot I took for my reference of the video I mentioned:

[Marshdweller]

September

The second month of the season was a relatively short one with only four matches played.

FC Volendam 2-1 FC Eindhoven

Two wins on the trot and our first goal conceded. Eindhoven were struggling before the match but took the lead from a corner and held on well until half time. I had to give the players a piece of my mind and they put in a much improved second half performance to turn the scoreline around.

FC Volendam 2-0 FC Dordrecht

Dordrecht were bottom and this was a very routine win. To be honest, it should have been more.

FC Volendam 0-0 SC Cambuur

Our third home game in a row and one against a team around us. Cambuur were third going into this and we dominated, missing several good chances to take all the points.

NAC Breda 4-0 FC Volendam

As I kicked this match off I was already drafting this post in my head, planning to humblebrag about how we'd managed to make it to the end of September and only concede the one goal. NAC brought me back down to earth with a bump. They were comfortably 2-0 up at the break and we held them that way until the 85th minute. My only excuse was that I spent most of the first half in and out of the room while making lunch so I wasn't paying anywhere near as much attention as I should have done. However, that doesn't change the fact that our unbeaten record has gone, our defensive record has taken a big hit, as has our goal difference which wasn't great due to the stumbling attack.

Squad updates

Ironically, thanks to the way the game works, now the transfer window is closed, I can finally sign players! I wasn't planning to go into the transfer market this soon, but an injury triggered a few moves.

This could hurt us - Vlak is probably my key midfielder. His injury was the main reason I started looking for a reinforcement.

My scouting meeting suggested Dani Koks might be worth a look, so I took him on trial. I liked the look of him and then he accepted amatuer terms, so it felt like a no-lose situation. I particularly liked his Decisions, Determination, First Touch, Passing and Vision. The lack of flair and strength are a bit of a concern, but at this level nobody's perfect.

In the same scouting meeting, a load of other free agents were suggested. I offered trials left, right and centre and all came along. Only a few were interested in making the move permanent and of those, I chose the following two:

Carlos Garcia - too good for this level to be honest, so a real sign-to-sell transfer, which should satisfy one of my Club Vision requirements. This will also allow me to move Alex Plat over to cover the right-back position and put Brian Plat (screenshot in an earlier post) back in the B team to develop.

Oumare Tounkara - a little too old to be a sign-to-sell, at least for any significant profit perhaps (unless I can get a massive season out of him and flip him in the summer), but I think my striker position is the one weakness in the squad. My plan is to terminate the loan of Jelle Duin and get €500 a week back into the wage budget while taking the pressue off my two young strikers to lead the line week in, week out.

I just about had the money in the budget for these transfers, but that's it. I will look to offload a couple of players in January just to give me a little more breathing room. Gijs Smal is attracting interest but no bids, which is a double-edged sword. He's by far my best left-back, but not interested in extending his contract, so I would like to sell him for money rather than lose him on a free at the end of the season.

I'm conscious that these signings represent something of a deviation from the (real) club's ethos of youth development, even though there isn't an explicit condition in the Club Vision. I'm keen to keep the squad to as many young players as possible, with a rough nationality hierarchy of Dutch > Northern European > European > English-speaking non-Europeans (e.g. Americans, Australians etc. - as the Dutch generally speak decent English, this should help them integrate) > The rest of the world. At the moment, my scouting package is limited to the Netherlands which will make it easier to stick to this.

[chaodck]

Good transfers there marshdweller mate. García looks like a steal for the level and will surely aid your finances once you decide to cash in on him. Did you manage to not put a release fee on his contract?

[Marshdweller]

Sigh.

Rather than blind you all with lots of match stats screenshots, I'll take a different approach to reporting on October.

Results

Started badly, with a defeat to league leaders De Graafschap which had me clinging on at the end with nine men (one red card, one injury), and ended well with me knocking Groningen out of the Dutch Cup on penalties. By the time we played Excelsior, we were five games without a win and I feared that the downward spiral could become almost impossible to escape. Throughout my time, as the squad is young, I have tried to be positive with my interactions and encourage as much as possible. However, this backfired when I called a team meeting and went for the "we've been playing OK but can do even better" approach only for the entire squad to tell me I was an idiot and we were actually playing very badly. Can you tell I haven't done much player interaction since FM11?

This is where we sit right now:

Periods:

SPOILER: Click to show

Tactics

I'm no tactical expert (despite dispensing my wisdom on some other threads already ) and this is what I'm starting with at the moment:

My big issue is goalscoring. We have lots of possession and generate quite a lot of shots. I often remove the 'Work Ball Into Box' instruction because I think it makes my wide players turn down the chance to get a cross into the box, but it then leads to poor shot locations. Below is a shot map from the win over Excelsior. Their shot locations are excellent, mine are... varied.

SPOILER: Click to show

I'm generally happy with the approach play, but not the supply to the (potential) goalscorers. Any advice would be very welcome.

I have considered switching to a DLF(s) or False 9 and making the wide players an IF/IW combination, but will hold off for the time being. Playing Nick Doodeman (my top scorer) as an IF(s) on the left has caused his form to drop (though it was on the way down before that - perhaps I just didn't catch it early enough and hand out the necessary warning).

Other things that have caught my eye:

The squad is starting to split a little bit:

This season's standout player:

Any thoughts or advice would be very welcome!

[jla]

Firstly, great update and a very nice read!

Secondly, a lot of your instructions when in possession will be contributing to you feeling you're not creating enough chances. If you're wanting a possession tyle style you can achieve that without using them all. Short passing will reduce passing length, lower tempo will make them slow, work ball into box reduces through balls (again not helping with creating chances) and play out of defence makes your defenders pass very short too. All together you're playing slow, short and to feet. I'd be tempted to reduce the number of TI's you're using in that section.

Also, if you look at your roles, you've got the CM-A breaking from midfield, but you've got two support roles out wide. I'd argue you can make one of them attack to have more movement with the PF-A upfront.

[Marshdweller]

Jul 8, 2020 20:32:28 GMT jla said:

Firstly, great update and a very nice read!

Secondly, a lot of your instructions when in possession will be contributing to you feeling you're not creating enough chances. If you're wanting a possession tyle style you can achieve that without using them all. Short passing will reduce passing length, lower tempo will make them slow, work ball into box reduces through balls (again not helping with creating chances) and play out of defence makes your defenders pass very short too. All together you're playing slow, short and to feet. I'd be tempted to reduce the number of TI's you're using in that section.

Also, if you look at your roles, you've got the CM-A breaking from midfield, but you've got two support roles out wide. I'd argue you can make one of them attack to have more movement with the PF-A upfront.

Thanks for the quick reply! You've been the catalyst for me making a couple of changes that I would normally make: I changed the passing to 'Mixed' and the tempo to 'Normal'. I'm certainly agree with the quote from Bill Shankly (if memory serves - possibly another Liverpool great) "it's not about the short pass or the long pass, it's about the right pass". I'll see if they make much difference to the style of play and then look at the roles. Right now, I'm thinking of making the IF(s) into an IF(a) to get him closer to the PF earlier on, but we shall see!

[Marshdweller]

November

This month was played with the revised tactics throughout, though there were further tweaks as time went on.

Generally, all very positive and had we not conceded an injury-time equaliser to Go Ahead Eagles, we would have been up in third place. As it is, we sit seventh, mostly thanks to a very weak goal difference. This is another reason I want to improve the attack!

Tactically, the month has been an improvement (thanks for the advice jla !) with the attack seeming to be a little more potent, even if the goals have yet to flow in the way I wanted. As a picture paints a thousand words, here's my latest system:

The thinking behind the changes was as follows:

• As mentioned above, I removed the restrictions on passing length and tempo to free the players up for a more varied passing game. I'll happily sacrifice some of the possession numbers for this.
  
• 'Work ball into box' has been retained, for now, to reduce the long shots, but will probably be the first victim of the next round of experimental tweaks
  
• After the PF(a) didn't seem to be doing much, I took a closer look at Tounkara's profile and the PF(a) role. The PF(a), based on PIs is basically an Advanced Forward with additional closing down. Tounkara's strong, tall, brave, and has a decent first touch, so I looked at something more based around holding up the ball, and lo and behold the PF(s) has three PIs - Close Down More, Tackle Harder and.... Hold Up Ball. So the switch was made. So far, it seems to be working, with improved form and three goals in four matches. He doesn't have the vision/passing combination to play the DLF role and he has a PPM which conflicts with the Dribble Less PI in the Target Man role, so I'll stick with this now and tweak some of the others around him.
  
• The right-back is a FB(s) as an experiment to see if it makes much of a difference. With a W(s) ahead of him and a CM(a) in the MCR slot, I felt I might be exposing my right flank a little too much. Interestingly though, most of the goals I concede come from assists on my left flank - something to look into a little more.
  
• I wondered if having a DLP at DM and a RPM in midfield was playmaker-overkill, so I changed the DM to a BWM(d) as it suited the two leading candidates to play there, Alex Plat and Carlos Garcia (according to the all-knowing green cicrles, that is). Again, so far so good and I'm happy with how the role is playing*. This has allowed me to cut back to one playmaker and hopefully channel my creativity through one well-suited player.
  
• The AML is now an IF(a) to get forward and support the striker a little more.
  

There's still a few things I'm looking to investigate, but as always, one thing at a time.

• My set pieces need a bit of attention - I'm generally happy with the positioning of players, but probably need to make sure that the best person for each position is correct (I think I spotted my striker lurking outside the area for one free-kick recently....)
  
• Despite him being my top scorer, I don't think I'm getting anywhere near enough out of Nick Doodeman. One assist and a 6.76 average rating from 17 games disappoints me. I don't know if it's him or the role but I find he's often a lot narrower than I'd expect and most of the crossing seems to come from the full-back, so I'm not really sure what he's actually contributing (other than getting on the end of free-kicks)
  
• Ditto the CM(a) role. Not enough goals, passes etc. from here. I may swap the both of them into an IF(s)/BBM combination.
  
• I do love a counter-attack, so I may check this option to see if I get any sort of marginal gain from it.
  

*Small tactical grumble here - I find it very frustrating that to my untrained eye there is very little visible difference in playing the DLP or BWM role here. With the BWM, I'm still seeing whichever player I pick here spray passes out to the full-backs and hold the deep midfield position quite nicely. I guess I just need to learn a little more about what to look for in the roles and also take a closer look at the statistics (presumably, there will be a difference in the passing numbers etc. between the two roles).

Second tactical grumble - The advice from the Assistant Manager is nice, but it's always so skewed by their own personal preferences. My assistant has a preferred tactical style of 'Catenaccio' and so is constantly advising me to adopt a defensive mentality, so I've taken to largely ignoring his suggestions. It feels like a wasted feature, though a simple solution would be to sack the assistant for someone whose approach more closely aligns with mine.

I'm going to admit that I always find this part of the season a bit of a struggle - you're far enough into the season for things to start to take shape but still far enough from the end of the season that a lot can change and too far from the transfer window to get excited about freshening up the squad. It's just a bit of a grind really. Things will improve once I really get my own squad together.

[hokster]

Jul 12, 2020 12:21:57 GMT Marshdweller said:

The thinking behind the changes was as follows:

• As mentioned above, I removed the restrictions on passing length and tempo to free the players up for a more varied passing game. I'll happily sacrifice some of the possession numbers for this.
  
• 'Work ball into box' has been retained, for now, to reduce the long shots, but will probably be the first victim of the next round of experimental tweaks
  
• After the PF(a) didn't seem to be doing much, I took a closer look at Tounkara's profile and the PF(a) role. The PF(a), based on PIs is basically an Advanced Forward with additional closing down. Tounkara's strong, tall, brave, and has a decent first touch, so I looked at something more based around holding up the ball, and lo and behold the PF(s) has three PIs - Close Down More, Tackle Harder and.... Hold Up Ball. So the switch was made. So far, it seems to be working, with improved form and three goals in four matches. He doesn't have the vision/passing combination to play the DLF role and he has a PPM which conflicts with the Dribble Less PI in the Target Man role, so I'll stick with this now and tweak some of the others around him.
  
• The right-back is a FB(s) as an experiment to see if it makes much of a difference. With a W(s) ahead of him and a CM(a) in the MCR slot, I felt I might be exposing my right flank a little too much. Interestingly though, most of the goals I concede come from assists on my left flank - something to look into a little more.
  
• I wondered if having a DLP at DM and a RPM in midfield was playmaker-overkill, so I changed the DM to a BWM(d) as it suited the two leading candidates to play there, Alex Plat and Carlos Garcia (according to the all-knowing green cicrles, that is). Again, so far so good and I'm happy with how the role is playing*. This has allowed me to cut back to one playmaker and hopefully channel my creativity through one well-suited player.
  
• The AML is now an IF(a) to get forward and support the striker a little more.
  

There's still a few things I'm looking to investigate, but as always, one thing at a time.

• My set pieces need a bit of attention - I'm generally happy with the positioning of players, but probably need to make sure that the best person for each position is correct (I think I spotted my striker lurking outside the area for one free-kick recently....)
  
• Despite him being my top scorer, I don't think I'm getting anywhere near enough out of Nick Doodeman. One assist and a 6.76 average rating from 17 games disappoints me. I don't know if it's him or the role but I find he's often a lot narrower than I'd expect and most of the crossing seems to come from the full-back, so I'm not really sure what he's actually contributing (other than getting on the end of free-kicks)
  
• Ditto the CM(a) role. Not enough goals, passes etc. from here. I may swap the both of them into an IF(s)/BBM combination.
  
• I do love a counter-attack, so I may check this option to see if I get any sort of marginal gain from it.
  

*Small tactical grumble here - I find it very frustrating that to my untrained eye there is very little visible difference in playing the DLP or BWM role here. With the BWM, I'm still seeing whichever player I pick here spray passes out to the full-backs and hold the deep midfield position quite nicely. I guess I just need to learn a little more about what to look for in the roles and also take a closer look at the statistics (presumably, there will be a difference in the passing numbers etc. between the two roles).

I find that I don't always need Work Ball Into Box; I need it if I up the mentality to positive (players are more likely to just shoot when they see an opening with that mentality or higher) or with a balanced mentality against teams packing the box. I'll usually turn it on in that case after watching the match on full for 10-20 minutes or at halftime, if the analysis tab shows that we've been dominating but haven't been able to get good shots.

I do like not having two playmakers in the side. I think it can work, but in my experience players tend to return the ball to playmakers too often. With respect to DLP vs. BWM, I think that the BWM should be more aggressive in closing down, but I didn't see that just now when I checked the instructions. It looks like the BWM has Takes Fewer Risks as a PI, and so should play a more conservative passing game, but both (if this is a DLP-D as well) have Hold Position and Dribble Less, so they should both shield the defense nicely. I suppose it depends on the player you've selected if they're going to play differently.

I've also been struggling with the IW-S role in my tactics. My players there typically end up with a 6.3-6.5 rating and don't seem to contribute much to the play. I'm going to experiment with switching to a W-S or an IF-S and seeing what the results are (I know the IF-S will have a much higher mentality, even on a support setting). One option in terms of width is to ask the player to Stay Wider, so he'll stay wider, get the ball, then cut onto his stronger foot and look for an opportunity. 

And I notice exactly the same thing from my assistant; I have him around because his Motivating and JPA/JPP are outstanding, but we have very different footballing philosophies, so I just end up ignoring his tactical advice. If I can find an equally effective assistant with ideas that are more similar to mine, I'll make the swap.

[Marshdweller]

There's almost certainly better ways to manage the long shots issue than using Work Ball Into Box - the next step would be to identify the worst culprits and give them a Shoot Less Often PI.

I've used multiple playmakers before with success but the whole purpose of this save is to experiment, so I want to see what happens if I use different roles. I may well look at replacing the CM(a) with a Mezzala (because it's a role I've never used before), or changing the IF/IW on the left into an AP(s) to see what happens. Or maybe go with two straight wingers and get the runners both from midfield?

I'm now halfway through December and we still aren't scoring enough. We've also developed a nasty habit of conceding late on.