Assistant Coach Abilities

Even now I'm still learning things as I've just come to realise my Assistant Coach is rubbish at judging players (think he's got ratings of 3 & 4) so his squad assessment is probably not very good. This means you get 'false ratings' in the player ability & potential star ratings as most players look good to someone who can't really judge very well. So if you then replace your assistant with someone who has much better judging abilities don't be surprised when a player who previously had 4 star ability now has a lower rating.

The reason I got my assistant was for his training skills as he gave me 4.5 stars for tactics as I hadn't realised the implications of his poor judging skills. Further proof of his poor skill was that on match days the 'advise on opponent players' button was greyed out - that's because he was not skilled enough to do it. So I do that all manually which means I select 'always close down' and 'show on to weaker foot' for all their midfield and forwards. [See 'Assisstant Manager / Position re-training / Finances' section for more thoughts on this.]

Scouting

Similar to the above, when you scout a player you really need to use your scout with the best judging abilities so you get the best assessment of his abilities.

After scouting someone, if you like the look of someone, you can add them to your short list. There's a couple of reason for doing this. Firstly, you can access your shortlist at a later date to see players you liked the look of, but didn't sign. Secondly, if a player is on your shortlist then you will get notified if some other club offers them a contract. That way you can always make a counter bid if you now decide you want to player. But don’t use 'indefinitely' as they will still be on your list many seasons later. It's best to add them for a year as when the year is up you are notified they are being automatically removed from your shortlist and there is nothing to stop you scouting them again and then adding them for another year. Repeat until you sign him or lose interest in him.

Signing players

Before signing a player there are some key things I look at:
- injury history. If a player gets injured a lot it may not be worth signing him as he may only be fit for a handful of games a season.
- temperament. Some scout reports mention a player can sometimes be hot-headed so bear in mind he may get booked / sent off more than other players.
- consistency. Some scout reports mention a player can be a bit inconsistent or not do well in big matches.

As a general rule I don't like signing injury prone players unless their attributes / stats are very good. I don't think temperament or consistency are such big deciding factors, especially if I only really intend to use the player more as cover for the first team.

Goalkeepers are generally at their best between the ages of 31 and 35.
Defenders are generally at their best between the ages of 27 and 32.
Midfielders are generally at their best between the ages of 27 and 32.
Strikers are generally at their best between the ages of 26 and 31.

Before you even get to a game you need to make sure your squad is prepared. This includes monitoring their general fitness as well as making sure you have enough cover for injuries.

General Squad Management

I have two basic formations as I start either 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3, very occasionally I'll chuck in a 4-1-3-2 if I'm going defensive. But to allow me to switch formations in game I buy players who usually play more that one position. That means I can switch between 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3 during the 90 minutes and still have green dots everywhere.

Player Fitness

Another thing to watch is a players overall match readiness status - if they are not playing regularly they become 'lacking match fitness', or worse !! Smart use of reserve fixtures helps keep your whole squad match fit.

Most leagues have reserve teams whose fixtures you can use to keep your fringe players fit. But in Serie A their is no reserve league so I had to manually set up matches to help keep my players match ready.


Team Tactics

Team tactics I employ are generally 4-3-1-2 with the ability to push my attack-midfielder into the forward line if they pack their defence. I scout the opposition and take note of their peak times for conceding/scoring and adjust my playing style accordingly. So I attack more when they are vulnerable to concede and try not to be too adventurous when they score most.

Some games your team just does not perform, not matter what you try. Other times I can give the opposition a right thumping when I've expected a tight match. I think that really comes down to setting your team up correctly based on what your scout highlights as their strengths and weaknesses. EG, Some opponents struggle against slow set-up play, others do well. But I always drop my defensive line, even if opponents do well against a deep line. I use a deep line because I found playing a normal or high line, my defence conceded too many goal from balls over the top - but maybe that just meant my defenders were too slow !!

Training

Don't forget to do some 'preferred moves' training. During the coaching staff meetings your coaches may suggest specific training. I usually accept their advice, but there is nothing to stop you from suggesting training for other players, too. It is best done on youngsters, as they are still developing their skills. Players aged over 24 are less likely to agree to undertake preferred move training, but they can still agree to undertake it. Not all preferred moves training is successful so a player can take several months training but then still fail to adapt to the new move.

As a general rule the moves I usually suggest are as follows:

• Defender - don't dive into tackles / play simple passes
  
• Midfield - pass not shot / play killer balls
  
• Striker - place shots / blast shots / try first time shots / beat the offside trap

Note that place shots / blast shots are a bit conflicting so I usually only give one or the other to each striker. I think if a striker has good technique & first touch he is better suited to placing shots. Strikers with lower ratings for technique & first touch are more suited to blasting them.

Coaches

When employing coaches you need to consider their Mental skill levels as well as their Coaching levels. Motivation, Disciplne and Determination are the only 3 important attributes on the mental side. So if the coaching skills are high but let down by low mental skills then they may not be as good as someone who has slightly lower coachng levels but better mental skills. Maybe look on-line for a tool to help evaluate a coaches true worth. I use one called 'FM2010 coach calculator' - I found it some yeras ago but it (or something similar) is probably still available.

Opposition

I do think pre-match set-up is important, like the ‘always closing down’ and ‘show onto weaker foot’ options. I generally give this to all their midfield and attackers, but don’t bother with their keeper or defenders. But watch their in-game substitutions. I have the game set to only show key highlights and it’s not always obvious when they bring a sub on. That means they can bring a midfield/striker on and if you didn’t spot it then they won’t have the ‘close down’ and ‘weaker foot’ options set. A number of time this has happened to me and, surprise, surprise, that player gets a goal !!

Your Team

On the tactics screen you get an overview of a players suitability to a position. The greener the dot, the better. There are also yellow and orange to indicate less comfortable and red indicates out of position. I tend to only play someone in a position where their dot is green or light-green.








Also be aware that within position you get various play-style options. Eg, a striker can be a Poacher, Target Man, etc. See which attributes are highlighted in blue and try and get the best fit with all his high attributes !!

Even the goalie can be a Keeper or Sweeper-Keeper - best to make him Sweeper-Keeper or he won't leave his penalty box !!




In the advanced view you can refine how a player acts during a game. If he has a low score against his ‘long shots’ attribute you can set it so he rarely takes a long shot. And if he’s got a high rating then encourage him to take long shots more often. You can similarly effect tackling, passing, etc.

Below those Rarely/Sometimes/Often slidebars are a number of dropdown menu options, but I rarely alter these.



Corner Set-up

It also seems I had unknowingly used a corner cheat as I'd developed a set-up which brought me lots of goals, but I don't use that any more. I would end up with 20+ goals from corners, where every other team would be in single figures

Now all I do is try and make sure my best headers attack near and far posts and just have the ‘mixed’ setting on corner direction.

Defensive Free-kicks

This is not handled too well by the game as too often my wall would set up poorly by leaving the near side open and I've conceded too many goals this way !! To combat this I put a man on the near post, which seems to work most of the time.

Long Throws

I've never bothered with this up til now. But I now have a player who has flat long-throw preferred move. He can send a bullet throw into the box so I think I need to experiment with these settings.

Tackle hard on players with dodgy fitness

Something I like to do if I spot a player who is not in top condition at the start of a match is to set the Player Instruction tackling setting to hard. After all, if the opposition are willing to start with a player whose fitness is a bit lacking them I'm gonna get my players to target him for rough tackling to see if I can force him to be substituted !!

Similarly, if one of their players takes a knock and loses condition during the game or if a sub comes off the bench with a low fitness condition then I'm gonna target them too.

Play deep defensive line

One bit of advice I always ignore is the defensive line analysis. I always drop my defensive line back, even if I'm told they struggle against a high line. Too many times in the past my defence were beaten by balls over the top so I drop them back to prevent their being space to play the ball over the top.






Set penalty / corner takers

It's definitely worth assigning players to the specialised skills like taking penalties and corners. When I first played this game I missed a lot of penalties. Then I discovered that you can specify who you want to take your penalties and free-kicks, etc.

I suggest selecting a long list of players for each job. That way, when your main man gets injured you don't have to remember to update the list as your team already knows who is next in line for the job.

On the left hand side of the screen you can select a view which shows all the special skills and you can also sort a column to easily identify the top players within a skill.

Playmaker / Target Man

I specify a target man and usually also assign a playmaker to play the balls to him. You are able to say whether you want your target man to receive the ball to feet, head or run on to it. If you don't know which is best you can always specify 'mixed'.








The Opposition

I have one of my scouts set to 'scout next opposition' and you get his report before you even get to the pre-match set-up stage. It will identify their likely formation. He'll also give an overview on their strengths & weaknesses. For away matches he'll also comment on what size pitch they play on.

To help me further decide what approach to take I have a look at the oppenents team and created a view that specifies key attributes like Heading, Jumping, Pace, Acceleration.

For example, if I see defenders who look slower than my attackers (as is the case here for Livingston's central defenders) I would probably specify 'run on to ball' in the hope my men will be first to the ball.

Backroom advice

Your backroom team will provide advice on your opposition to help plan your strategy.

The one I take most note of is the Goal Analysis. This tells you your opponents key scoring & conceding periods. So it's unwise to go attacking when they score most of their goals. Likewise, it's sensible to pile on the pressure when they concede most.

I also think tempo can have a big impact on the result. So try to set your tactics to suit. But if you are chasing a game and a quick tempo suits them you may still have to go all guns blazing as sitting back is unlikely to get you back in the game !!

I tend to ignore the other advice but have had success when taking note of the width analysis. I always play a deep defensive line regardless of their liking to it. I also never try formations they don't do well against.

'On the Fly' Strategy

Right before kick-off you get the chance to make some final tweaks to strategy. This is done by using Touchline Instructions and you can also adjust them while in-play.

This is where you make use of the goal analysis as you can use strategies like 'counter attack', 'Attacking' or go all out to 'overload' the opposition. You can also use instructions like 'Retain possession' or 'Move ball forward'.

I usually pick 'Move ball forward', 'Pass to feet'. 'Hassle opponents' and 'Work ball into box'. As long as the ref is not too card happy I will also choose 'Get stuck in' !!



Tackling aggression can be important. I've played in the Italian Serie A and some refs can be a bit card happy, so over do the tackling setting can lead to red cards !! To combat that, once a player gets booked I set his ‘Tackling’ attribute to Normal. At times I've even used the 'Stay on feet' Touchline Instruction to try and avoid picking up yellows.






Holding on / Leading comfortably

As a rule I don't like defensive play, but I can occasionally find myself trying to hold on to a lead in an important game. It those instances I will usually bring on a 3rd central defender.

If you are leading a game comfortably then towards the end of the game you can bring on a youngster. The reason for doing this is to give him some experience and help in his development as a player.

The following came from a conversation I got involved in on a thread called 'Few questions from a nub' involving myself, aK and stacey97. It covered 3 areas so I’ve tried to restructure it into the separate topics.

Assistant Manager

I had noticed the ‘Ask Assistant’ button was not available with my new Assistant Manager on the Opposition Instructions screen that appears right before match kick-off.

The button was available for aK, though he never used it, so we set about trying to work out which attributes were likely to decide if the assistant was able to provide the advice or not.

We looked at a few attributes we thought were key, including the Country Scouting Knowledge bars, bottom right of your assistant managers.

I compared the man I’d just sacked, his predecessor and successor who both gave the advice:


Looking at the above I think it could be the skill to judge player ability & potential, rather than any of the other skills.

Position re-training

[aK] Regarding re-training players into new positions, I've never actually done it before, this is the first time I've attempted it, though it seems to be progressing nicely, he had the stats for a "deep laying playmaker" but zero experience in the DMC role, he started as a Red Dot and recently turned orange, can only assume the more i play him there it will turn yellow, then dark green then light green eventually. However, even when he was in a red spot out of position, he seems to be playing normally, i don't see him making that many mistakes. It's still confusing to me, maybe as i start getting into higher leagues it becomes more apparent and important you play in the right positions, but in this low budget, low skill league i haven’t seen much of a negative impact.

[stacey97] answer to question 1, am a nub as well but if you’re wanting your player to learn a new role as per your question then his stats will drop a wee bit but soon start getting better sometimes there morale will go low due to the fact that he is uncomfortable with being out of position but you also need to take in the aspect of how old the player is if he is young then go for it but if he’s older and set in his ways then his stats might drop dramatically , ..... hope that makes sense and helps you in a bit

Finances

[aK] Something you might be able to help me with, Club finances, I'm $129,000 in the red and losing around $30k a month, I'm not even using all of my allocated wage's budget the board is allowing me to use. Yet this club doesn't even break even, The boards confidence towards me is normal and they seem very happy, my job security is very secure, but the club continues to lose money on a monthly basis. I might be missing something, i can't remember. I checked the finances i have $34k Turnover and $66k Expenditure, most of the expenditure coming from player wages and the rest from match day expenses. Maybe as the club grows bigger i might make more money?

[mbutton15] Yeah, the budget thing is something I generally ignore. I'm now pretty solvent at Napoli but remember when I was at smaller clubs it was like how you describe. Even when I'm under wages budget, every so often the board would inject more money. So because of that I've tended just to make sure I'm under wage budget and ignore anything else. But I think some of the things that effect it are a players goal and appearance bonus payments. I even think signing on fees makes a difference, though maybe not so much for non-league teams.

[mbutton15] Another thing to maybe consider is the compensation fees when terminating contracts or signing staff. Going back to my assistant coach, I offered mutual termination never expecting him to take it. But he did... it cost me about 80k !! Usually I only sign staff who are not currently at a club, but I wanted someone who was good all round and approached Tony Coton who was at QPR at the time - that also cost me almost 500k in compensation !!

[mbutton15] I can't remember if bonus and compensation fees are shown in the finance breakdown. But a 34k turnover and 66k expenditure adds up to around a 30k loss. Even at Napoli (and I think this applies to any club really) the only money you really make is from TV and prize money.

[mbutton15] During the off-season Napoli decided to payout 3.3 million to it's shareholders !! Over the season I made a loss of 300k (from something like 180m turnover) and then got the news that the chairman decided to loan the club 4.8 million - It kind of made me think you wouldn't need the loan if the shareholder payment hadn't been made !!

[aK] Yeah i did some reading and i don't think i should be to concerned with the finances.

[mbutton15] Having a good cup run can help. I started a career as Elgin City in the Scottish 3rd Division who pretty much had a zero balance when I started. League prize money helped push it up over 100k, then I met Celtic in a Cup match and suddenly I had 500K in the bank and can only assume it came from a split of the gate receipts.

Just a few memories of my time playing this game.

Most satisfying victory
Beating Man Utd 1-0 in the League Cup Final with a goal in the final minute of extra time !!
A number of things made this great:
- Peterborough United are my hometown club
- I really don't like Man Utd winning anything
- It was part of the Premiership, FA Cup & League Cup treble for Peterborough United
- It avoided the dreaded penalties (and just like England, I always lose on penalties)






Funniest message
I think the thing that triggered the message was that it was actually 1st April in the real world as well as the game world.










Hardest fought promotion battle
This was a real fight all the way and I managed to guide little old St Albans to promotion from the Blue Square South (which is the lowest league you can play in the English leagues).

Do The Double
As can be seen I have clearly completed the leage/cup double. In fact, I have twice done the Premiership, FA Cup & League Cup treble with Peterborough United, yet still do not have the achievement.

-- One thing I want to do is to be able to grow a club so I can build a new stadium !!

-- Even after around 25 season I have still not managed to win a game when 2 goals behind at half time. OK, I only find myself in that situation one or twice a season, but still !!

Finally, I HAVE DONE IT... in my 36th season.

Here is a record of each career I have played.

Career 1 - Peterborough United
2009/10 13th Coco-Cola Championship
2010/11 11th Coco-Cola Championship
2011/12 18th Coco-Cola Championship
2012/13 18th Coco-Cola Championship
2013/14 15th Coco-Cola Championship
2014/15 4th Coco-Cola Championship [won play-off]
2015/16 16th Premier League
2016/17 6th Premier League
2017/18 3rd Premier League
2018/19 1st Premier League + FA Cup & League Cup Winners
2019/20 1st Premier League + FA Cup & League Cup Winners


Career 2 - St Albans
2009/10 10th Blue Square South
2010/11 2nd Blue Square South
2011/12 1st Blue Square South
resigned and joined Scunthorpe Utd
2012/13 1st Coco-Cola League 1
2013/14 8th Coco-Cola Championship
2014/15 16th Coco-Cola Championship
2015/16 2nd Coco-Cola Championship
2016/17 10th Premier League
Napoli approached me mid-season to help in their relegation fight and I decided to join
2016/17 15th Serie A
2017/18 10th Serie A
2018/19 1st Serie A
2019/20 2nd Serie A + Italian Super Cup Winners
2020/21 4th Serie A
2021/22 1st Serie A
2022/23 1st Serie A + Italian Super Cup Winners
2023/24 1st Serie A + European Cup, Italian Cup & Italian Super Cup Winners


Career 3 - Elgin
2009/10 2nd Scottich Division 3
2010/11 7th Scottich Division 2
2011/12 5th Scottich Division 2
2012/13 1st Scottich Division 2
2013/14 3rd Scottich Division 1
2014/15 6th Scottich Division 1
2015/16 2nd Scottich Division 1 + Scottish League Challenge Cup Winners
2016/17 4th Scottich Division 1
2017/18 1st Scottich Division 1 [Scottish Hero achievement]
2018/19 3rd Scottich Premier

I'm by no means saying this is the only way to play this game.

For instance, I'm sure there is more I could get involved with by keeping a closer eye on training schedules and even creating individual schedules for each player. Or trying to develop better youth facilities.

I also let my assistant do a lot of tasks, like press conferences and handling youth contracts.

And when I'm told my team struggle against higher quality opposition, I don't know what I need to do to address it. And the list goes on.




In the words of Porky Pig, "Duhbe, Duhbe, Duhbe, That's all folks!".

Enjoy the game !!