A New Beginning : FM2015

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen a reference to personal health a week or two back. You guys don’t need all of the gory details, but given the likely impact on my FM time and blogging I’ll give you the potted version.

About a month ago I received a diagnosis of bowel cancer, to say it was ‘out of the blue’ would be an understatement. A bit of a shock, as you might imagine, but once we got passed those initial words the prognosis is all very positive. I’m completely fine now, and will be again in a few months. In between I’m looking at a few weeks of simultaneous chemo and radiotherapy, a bit of a break for that to take effect, and then surgery and some follow up treatment.

You can imagine that the news, and finding the best way to tell family and close friends, has been taking up some of my spare time but that’s all sorted now – rest assured that I have a great network of family and friends who will help me through what’s on the horizon. I’m putting the info out there just so folks know, I’m happy talking about it but I don’t feel a driving need to in an environment, and circle of Twitter comrades, that is focussed on football and Football Manager.

Auf Wiedersehen Karlsruhe (Hello FM15?)

Things have, fairly obviously, been coming together pretty well over the last few seasons at Karlsruher SC and I was looking to get at least one more season in before deciding whether or not to make the jump to FM2015. Would it be another good season though?

The answer is yes, but just how good?

In Search Of Control

Time for another update, but also a quick apology for those who were enjoying my weekly updates. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it) my recent promotion and new job role have eaten massively into my free time. I continue to play Football Manager, albeit on a much reduced level - I've maybe played four or five matches in the last calendar week - something I would often achieve in a single session previously, and I'd have three or four sessions in even a busy week.

I can't say that this will let up, but I will continue to write updates when I can, they'll just be longer in arriving. We'll see where things take us once FM15 is released too, although I'm thinking that I might arrive late to the party on that one.

Anyway, having made my excuses, let's dive in...

Success Stories

For the first away tie of our 2020/21 league campaign we travelled to Stuttgart, for the Baden-Württemberg derby.  Early exchanges weren’t great, and we went behind in the 6th minute before somehow equalising (through Christopher Avevor’s own goal) despite not having a shot of our own on target.

A tweak was made at half time, as well as the players being told how poorly they were performing, and 45 minutes later we left the pitch on the back of a 3-1 win.

Despite all of our success, I think it’s only now that I’m finally feeling like we’ve genuinely ‘arrived’ and deserve our berth among the top sides in the nation.

‘But wait a minute,’ I hear you cry, ‘what about last season? All what success? You’ve won one title.’

This is true, as at the last blog update we had just won the Bundesliga in a nail-biter finish, let me ‘quickly’ fill you in on what happened next – then we’ll be up to speed again, and I can hopefully try to get back to a more analytical approach.

The Payoff

Break? What Break?

The mid-season break was spent mostly wrapping up contract renewals, where I wanted to keep someone on, and trying to arrange a couple of Bosman deals. The challenge that’s starting to emerge is keeping things on a tight budget. We currently have only two players earning more than £29k per week, as a baseline salary, but with every sign that we’re set to establish ourselves at the top end of the Bundesliga in the long term players and agents are starting to push the boundaries.

The Less Defensive Arts

Whilst most of my recent detail has been around the performance of the so-called-defensive 4-1-2-2-1 formation, as I’ve alluded to previously I have been operating with a mixture of tactics – depending on the opposition, home or away venue, etc etc.

For the home tie with Hertha Berlin I decided to go with the 4-2-3-1 that I’ve been tweaking, which I’ve go to the point of operating with a narrow attacking line and (vertically) offset midfielders.  It’s still a work in progress, and I’m looking to use some of the principals of the more defensive formation – i.e. dominating the central third of the pitch (vertically) and encouraging the opposition onto the flanks.

The 'Defensive' Arts

Last time out I talked a lot about my intention to incorporate @JLAspey's Defensive 4-1-2-2-1 formation into our tactical roster. Having strengthened the squad, and played through pre-season, I set out to get an early impression of how it would perform in a competitive environment; the fixtuire list gave me an ideal opportunity to do just that against two very different levels of opposition.

Here's the notes I made as I went along. I'll refer to Jonathon throughout - as in Jonathon Aspey...

A Quick Recap. Focus Regained.

So I’ve started and scrapped this update about hUa dozen times, trying to retrospectively analyse the back end of the 2017/18 season; the simple fact of the matter is that I played through it, not taking too many notes and just enjoying the ride, so with that in mind what I’ll aim to do here is:

1. A quick recap what happened during the second part of the season.*
2. Have a brief look at the squad and plans for next season.*
3. Look at tactical plans for the coming campaign.
4. Look in a bit of detail at my transfer strategy for the coming season.

Once that’s all done, and we get off and running, I’ll be making an effort to have a closer look at our tactics in action again. So, without further ado...

*(If anyone feels that they’d like more detail on anything then just let me know, and I’ll see what I can dig up for you).

Regaining Focus

Last time out I covered the beginning of the 2017/18 season at the Wildparkstadion, and the thinking I was doing around the question of a one or two striker system.

So  where did we go from there?

Two Strikers, Or Not Two Strikers, That Is The Question

Hi folks, it’s been a while since there was a Karlsruhe update, in fact it was back before the World Cup (remember then?).

In that post I talked then about the possibility of farming out Jimmy Marton on loan, to try and make a dent in his much-needed development. The thing is that Champions League Qualification gives me a bit of a headache with the loan plan, as I need to include a number of home-grown players including four who’ve trained at Karlsruhe.

Marton is an obvious choice, but that still doesn’t solve the issue of getting him regular first team action. The alternative would be to continue to seek a loan for him, and include players in the CL squad who will realistically never play but are just there to make up the numbers.

If you’ve been following the blog you’ll be aware that I took a recent diversion to the World Cup, where I intended to just see how an experimental tactic would work out, but ended up as the toast of Mexico when Carlos Fierro inspired us on a run through the knockout phases and to the top of the tree.

I promptly loaded my Karlsruhe save back up and proceeded to check in on Fierro.

“Just forget about him son, it’s better that you just forget”  

World Cup Dreams Part 2

So here we are then folks, the end of our short Mexican adventure in Brazil, but just where does it end? Read on...

The World Cup May Be Over, But Mine Isn't.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Before we get into this update, I wanted to just drop a few links on you for great articles and threads that I’ve read over the last week or so. It’s something I want to try and remember to do more often.

This excellent piece by FMAnalysis on the Brazil vs Germany World Cup semi-final. Whilst not overly complicated in its language, it offers some decent insight into Brazil's main mistakes on the night. I have the game recorded, and will be re-watching it at some point with this article to hand. 

Next up is this very interesting post at SI Games from jpcote09. I'm going to need to read it more than once, and even then it feels like the sort of thing that I'd need to make some little summary notes from to take away just a few of the core ideas. If you want to get a real understanding of how individual Team/Player Instructions impact your tactics in FM14 then look no further. 

Finally take a look at this little beauty from @Cleon81 on the SI Games forums. Along with its connected 'Discussion' thread it promises to be really interesting. I've already spent a good period of time on the first match, and feel like I'm taking something away from it. 

Okay, enough with the homework already, what about the World Cup?

A Temporary Diversion (World Cup Fever)

I hadn’t originally planned to join the ranks of FM players running short term World Cup saves, but I got swept along in the real life event and it coincided with my preparations for the next season of my Karlsrühe save. Also, because of spending time watching events ion Brazil, and a bunch of social commitments, I've not progressed the Karlsrühe save any further than last reported.

Given that I’m looking to make some tactical tweaks I wanted a chance to have a play with some of the concepts without having to ‘live-prove’ them in that save and risk our season; ‘what the hell’ I thought, ‘why not have a play around with one of the teams that everyone’s getting excited about’.

Player Analytics FM14 Style - A Pet Project

*** UPDATE ***

Here's a link for the latest version of the FM player analytics spreadsheet, with a bunch of new data being captured and manipulated. Feel free to give it a go, and shout if you have any issues/suggestions. 

Just remember that this is a macro-enabled Excel workbook, as such you may need to store it in a Trusted Zone or manually enable macros each time you load the document. 

Cheers. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B090aaUk7oDZcmNjRHJ5VE1EaHc/edit?usp=sharing

Expectations Exceeded, To Say The Least

Last time out you’ll recall that we’d reached the winter break in a lofty 3rd place, courtesy of one of the best scoring records in the league combined with a surprisingly effective defence – Ryan Donk making his mark in style.

Coming out of the break we’d suffered a league defeat, and then a DFB Pokal exit at the hands of FC Bayern, and I’d expressed concern that we were in danger of getting onto a bad run as we closed in on a trip to Dortmund. The slide, such as it was, was slowed by a goalless draw at home to Nürnberg but we made it four games without a win despite scoring twice against the title contenders.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, momentum – in either direction – plays a big part in FM and I was conscious that we were in danger of getting on the wrong side of the curve. Cue the visit of mid-table Köln and a game that couldn’t have gone much better...

A Brief Update on Performances, and Making Changes (or Not)

Last time out I talked about trying Henri Lansbury out in the central midfield slot, the Central Winger of sorts. Marcel Büchel was performing well, but it was noticeable that he wasn’t delivering what was probably the key part of @JLAspey’s original idea – i.e. the penetrating runs on the ball; Büchel was averaging less than one successful dribble per match.

I dropped Lansbury in for a few games to assess how he would perform, and what impact his absence might have on the flank. Our form continued through three league games – Lansbury in the centre for two of them, as well as our DFB-Pokal 3rd Round tie as a late substitute. Averaging over two dribbles per game was an improvement, although when reverting to the flank he made three. He made two or three key passes without registering an assist, and netted a couple of goals to help extend our scoring run – earning me Steam’s “Attack!” achievement in the process (‘Your team scored a goal in 20 consecutive competitive matches’).

Nosebleed Time

Last time out I covered the new additions to our squad, and then raced excitedly into the new season. After the previous campaign, the big question was whether we'd make a better start this time.

The short answer: Yes!

For the longer answer, read on...

One Season Ends, Another Begins

Last time out I posted a quick discussion of potential transfer targets, and had some great feedback (with very varied opinions) as to how you guys would approach the decisions that I was facing. So, whilst pondering which players to approach (and whether I could actually afford to offer any them deals) I played through our final four games for the season.

At the best of times it feel like the summer period flies by far too quick, but in this particular season - where I was still recovering from the disillusionment of the early campaign, that was even truer than usual. Here's how things rounded out in the 2015/16 campaign, and the flurry of activity that saw me playing pre-season friendlies, with new faces, before I knew it...

QUESTION TIME: HAVE YOUR SAY

Hi folks, when I left you last time we were just coming out of the winter break on a run of draws, edging our way closer to my survival target of 36 points from 34 matches.

Two defensive mistakes at the left fullback position saw that run end in a 1-2 defeat at home to Hoffenheim, and resulted in me tightening things up by switching that position to a FB-D Role and Duty combination. It could have just been a case of a player (Bijker, on this occasion) having a bad day, but as my plan was already to try and develop a more solid defence it seemed the way to go.

At Augsburg we went in at half-time with a 2-0 lead, which I thought we were going to throw away when they scored early in the second half, but Jimmy Marton’s first goal of the season – combined with some good defensive play – saw us finish with the two-goal cushion restored.

A narrow win at home to Frankfurt buoyed our spirits for the trip to Munich, where a brave showing saw us concede only twice in a fairly one-sided affair. With ten to play, and 30 points on the board, I revised our target to 40 – more than enough to survive in either of the previous two Bundesliga seasons during the save.

Thanks to some patient play, and more good defending, we notched three wins and three clean sheets to take us to 39 points – adding the 40th with an excellent 1-1 draw at Leverkusen. With six to play we were as good as safe...

Chipping Away At Our Target.

Having had a short break from playing the game, it occurs to me (once again) that my issues are less about adapting to handle deficiencies in my tactics, and more about identifying them in the first place. That and recognising how much of any given problem is down to tactics and how much down to the quality of my players.

Given that I hadn’t played the game for two or three weeks, having left it during the winter break - and then played through the winter friendlies at pace, I decided to jump back in by attempting to view and analyse a full match to try and pick out the main points. Realistically what I probably need to do is view a few matches, potentially with different players occupying certain positions, and look for repeating themes - seeing something happen once or twice can probably be attributed to ‘luck’ but something happening more frequently is likely to be down to the player or the tactics; the latter, in particular, if it’s evidenced with different players in the same position.

I’d initially started the first post-break game in our counter style, but having reached half-time without much in the way of attacking play I’d switched up and watched us boss the second half to offset a two-goal deficit. Because of that, preparing to face Koln I lined up the best squad I could for our 4-3-2-1 shape and dived in.

Promoted Too Soon?

** WARNING ** 

This update is a bit ‘all over the place’ – as was my head for much of the period covered herein. I can only apologise.

Based on the table for the previous two Bundesliga seasons, I set myself a points target of 36 for survival, a tally that would’ve seen us stay up by a country mile last season, although would only have been enough for a relegation playoff spot in 2013/14. So, with a 34 game season, that’s a little over a point per game on average.

That was my only goal, and after three defeats in three games I wasn’t exactly full of confidence...

...particularly as we were to play host to the Hispter’s dream-team of Borussia Dortmund next.

Preparing for the Bundesliga

Last time out I covered the back end of our promotion winning season, and closed out with some nice stats around how we’d topped the league in terms of team goals, and individual goals (Micanski). Those, along with our huge unbeaten run during the season, were causes for optimism.

It’s not all rosy though, in fact it’s quite the opposite. With Alibaz and Yabo having agreed moves to new clubs before I had the budget to tie them down, and Pietz’s contract running out, things look a little thin in midfield to say the least – particularly if I continue with the 4-2-3-1 project, dropping one of the strikers.

Here’s what I’m expecting in terms of squad depth, although that’s assuming that no-one starts to poach our other prize assets.

KSC : Season 2014/15 Finishes

Last time out I was talking about our pseudo-4231 formation, using a tweak on the Central Winger concept developed by JLAspey, and I left you with some detail around the superb performance against Aalen. 

After the Aalen game we continued our fine post-break form with three more wins (conceding just twice in the process), before a 1-1 draw at home to Sandhausen reined us in slightly.

Progress Report: The Fake 4-2-3-1

Last time out I talked about trying to work towards something akin to my old FM2012 4-2-3-1 tactic, and I began to toy with the idea of utilising a different formation that 'morphed' into the more attacking shape when we were on the offence.

So how did that work out for me? Here's my notes from that period of the season - as usual I've played way past this point, which you'll realise if you track my comments (moaning and griping) on Twitter, so whilst these were written up in the present tense, they actually represent stuff that is half a season or more in the past.

A Long-Term Tactical Vision

As the title suggests, this update is primarily about setting out a long-term tactical plan for Karlsruher SC. It is, however, also at least bit about me being a moody so-and-so – let’s get that part out of the way first, shall we?

Introducing the Three Amigos

Early season saw us off to a great start, despite suffering a run of injuries that included losing Yabo and Mast for a couple of months each. We hit the ground running with two league wins, followed by a DFB-Pokal victory over local minnows Saarbrücken which featured a brilliant performance from young Jimmy Marton (1 Goal, 2 Assists). The latter would earn us an away tie against Borussia Dortmund in the next round.

So So Close.

I’d already mentioned on Twitter that I was in two minds about promotion, on the one hand we have a handful of quality players, and a number of decent prospects, but on the other I just don’t think that we have the strength in depth to even battle for survival in the top flight. Of course I said that at Strasbourg too, where we promptly had a good run at European qualification two seasons running, but that was after I’d spent two or three years moulding my squad. 

Realistically I was looking at this season at Kalrsruhe being one of finding my feet, and preparing to build a squad for a promotion push next time around.

Diamonds Are Forever... Annoying Me (Pt 1)

I’m not sure what it is about a 4-4-2 diamond formation, but for some reason I struggle to deal with it. Whether it’s a wide diamond (DMC, ML, MR, AMC), a narrow one (DMC, MCL, MCR, AMC), or even a non-diamond narrow formation (2x DMC, 2x MC) it seems that my sides struggle to carve out chances against them compared to the more familiar flat 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 type of shapes. Defensively we don’t necessarily find it any tougher than any other match, but up front it’s another story and we’ve been frustrated on a number of occasions.

I’m not sure why that sort of shape change should impact our attacking, the most likely thing being that the addition of that pesky DMC makes all the difference, but I can’t say that I’ve noticed the same issues against a pair of DMCs in 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 variants - perhaps as those shapes then tend to leave a lot of space in the middle of the park?

Whatever the reason, with my Karlsruher SC side sitting in a very nice spot as the season closes out, and the visit of Union Berlin and their wide diamond, I decided that it’s probably time for me to have a go at seriously analysing their approach and working out what to do about it.

Early Progress With Karlsruher SC

Hi folks, after a week of sunshine, and destroying my ‘better living’ regime thanks to all-inclusive hotel tariffs, I’m back in the FM saddle. Purely fortuitously the holiday came at a good time, giving me an opportunity to reflect on my first half-season with Karlsruher SC – a run of 18 league games (plus an early German Cup exit) which has seen us win 10 matches and lost the rest; still no draws for us.

Starting Over. Karlsruhe, Baby!

(WARNING: PICTURE-HEAVY POST)

Following the loss of my RC Strasbourg save the consensus, albeit narrow, seemed to be to start a new save; thanks everyone for your input. 

So, without further ado I’m off to Germany, with a team picked on the basis of:

1. Decent facilities 
2. The fact that a mate of mine moved out to live there about a year ago.

Welcome to Karlsruhe SC

Let That Be A Lesson To You. Autosave Is Your Friend.

So my PC just did one of it's occasional 'crash & reboot' routines, something I've been trying to get to the bottom of for a while, and when it came back my FM14 save-game is corrupted. The issue is that I've not been maintaining a rolling backup, and the last accessible save I have is three games into the 2017/18 season.

I'm feeling rather deflated, as you might imagine, but also somewhat torn about how to proceed. On the one hand I would love to turn this save into a success story for Strasbourg, on the other I'm not sure how I feel about replaying the season over.

It's not that I don't have the time or the inclination, but rather that there are decisions that I'd probably want to make differently. Signings I wouldn't make, etc.

So I'm going to sleep on it, but I'd also appreciate your input here guys. The way I see it there's three options, and I'd like to know what you think...

Should I replay the last season, or start a new save?
	Replay it, but try to make all the same decisions around signings etc.
	Replay it, and pretend the first play through never happened.
	Don't do it, a fresh start is the only way.
pollcode.com free polls

So Much For Taking It Slowly.

So much for taking it slowly. I’m sure you’ve all been there, assuming that you play Football Manager and don’t just read about it; you get on a roll and you don’t want to stop, or you hit a slump and you want to play through it – then, when you do, you get on a roll and... yada yada yada.

The next thing you know you’re feeling peckish, there’s nothing in the fridge, so you decide to pop out to the local corner shop…

People In, People Out, More Tinkering - Shooting for Survival.

THE BEST LAID PLANS...

So the 2017/18 season is looming, and our chance to prove that last season's 6th place wasn't a fluke... 

Was it?

As I started to prepare for the opening of the transfer window, I got a surprise bid from Heracles for Abdoul Karim Sylla – worth around £1.4m but over a 30 month period. I’ve already noted that he’s very similar to Balde, and therefore I didn’t immediately knock back the approach. I don’t think that losing Sylla would be a huge blow, as I’m confident that we could find a suitable replacement, possibly someone who would better complement Balde’s strengths and weaknesses; I’m pretty sure, in fact, that we could do that from within our own ranks.

That being said I put the ball back in their court, suggesting that they aim higher and with more of the outlay up front if they were serious. I’d prefer to hold onto Sylla for now, but if the Dutch club are keen enough to find a decent sum then I could be tempted. Heracles backed out at that point, but of course Sylla’s agent then started making noises about a new contract. Fortunately his agent isn’t a hard-ball type, and a mutually acceptable offer was arrived at.   

I hoped that would be the end of the transfer action, we’ve not really come under a great deal of pressure for our players so far, within a matter of days things took an unwelcome turn though; if I’d not considered it before, I was faced now with the realisation that we’re going to be seen very much as a selling club until such time as we can consolidate our position in the top flight (and, realistically, the top half of it).

How Did It All Go So Right?

First up, the headlines. Did we make it into European competition? No, we did not, thanks to SC Bastia’s inability to beat PSG in the French Cup final. Despite their 15^th place finish, the fact that they got to the final gives them the final qualifier spot for the Europa League. Had they somehow won, we would’ve been in, but I suspect that they never had any intention of actually trying, why bother? They'd already stolen our thunder. 

Selfish bunch of wasters.

How Far Can A +9 Goal Difference Take You?

So here we were, embarking upon RC Strasbourg's first season in the top flight since the run of eleven successive defeats that saw them relegated at the end of the 2007/08 season - a record for post-war French football. Not only had the intervening time seen them drop further still, but liquidation of the club in July 2011 saw them removed from the league - later reinstated in the fifth tier. 

This was our chance then, a chance to return the Alsatian side to the French elite and, hopefully, battle hard to stay there. 

Are You Ready For The Big Time?

Warning: Minimal tactics. Or detail, for that matter.

Per my previous update, I'm trying to give a reasonable overview of the time elapsed in game, whilst bringing the blog up to date to match my current game state.

So, after achieving promotion via the Ligue 2 title, it was time to think about...

Playing Catch-Up : The (Brief) Story of 2015/16

I’m already in danger of falling into old (bad) habits from my FM Stories days. Back when I used to write on there, I would get to a point where I was writing and stockpiling updates whilst forging ahead with my game(s); on one occasion it ended up with a situation where people were commenting on what I was posting, whilst I was playing the game four seasons down the line.

That’s all well and good in a pure fiction environment, but given that my intention here is to try and learn ‘on the go’ I want to try and get to a point where what I’m playing is no more than a month or so removed (in-game) from what I’m posting. With that in mind I’ve set up a couple of FMC saves* that I can use to scratch the gaming itch now and then, and I’m also going to do some fairly large scale updates to try and get us back close to ‘real time’.

*(One of these might well be producing a one-off update sometime soon)

Without further ado, here’s how the 2015/16 season played out...

Four-Four-One, Plus One : Settling on a Core Shape.

As well as the issues I was experiencing with width, the other factor in my decision to look at our tactics again was that we were getting a lot of possession with the 4-3-1-2 but not a lot of penetration. I actually got criticised by the fans for a negative approach, which seemed off given that it was our only 2-striker formation, it had an AMC in behind, and I was encouraging a number of players forward. It’s seemed likely that the issue was down to individual roles/instructions though.     

A brief conversation with @RTHerringbone ensued, and he explained how he’d been playing with 4-1-4-1 and 4-4-1-1 shapes, functioning with a lone striker. His outlook seemed to be a combination of ‘back to basics’ and giving players the licence to make their own decisions; it was very light on specialised roles and that appealed to me, although given the personnel at hand I could imagine mixing it up a bit.

  

Looking at the options I had in central midfield positions, I considered my approach to such a formation and arrived at the conclusion that I could look to build a fairly uniform 4-4-1, leaving me a ‘floating’ player to deploy as most appropriate. A DMC would help against shapes like the 4-2-3-1, whilst someone like Coco sitting in the hole behind the striker would add to our attack where viable. If it came to it I could always run with two strikers, although I still have a (completely unjustified) dislike for the bog-standard 4-4-2.

If my wide midfield men, who are mostly more suited to the AM strata, could supply from a deeper position then this could well be the shape for me – and as you can see from the Tweet exchange above, I'd started to see encouraging signs. 

New Faces. Tactics in Detail. Kicking Off 2015/16

Just before we move onto a look at the individual formations that we’ll be operating, exciting news on the transfer front as we moved for two central midfielders to potentially fulfil that role of ‘midfield general’ that I was concerned with. Two new names and, apart from Loyalty Bonusses and fees to agents, I’ve not had to pay a penny for either.

First up Jordan Ferri, a long time servant of Olympique Lyonnais – albeit that he only ever made seven appearances for them, along with another thirty or so for their Reserve side in the lower leagues of the French Game.

The suggested roles that our coaches highlight are primarily in the DM strata, but whilst he may play there as a Deep(er) Lying Playmaker, I see him in the middle of the park. His work rate and physicals suggest that he’ll be a good option in the Box-to-Box slot, but his fellow new joiner is more likely to take that role on and I’m expecting to use him more as our central pivot.

Operating alongside Ferri will be our first ‘big’ name at the club during my tenure, someone with extensive experience of top-flight football, and a limited spell in the French game. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the understated, the reserved, and the never controversial Joseph A Barton.

Squad Building and Tactics: Into 2015/16

SQUAD BUILDING

So it’s time set about prepping for next season (2015/16). Given last season’s performance I’m shooting for a top half finish as far as the Board is concerned, but secretly I’m hoping to have a good push at a promotion spot if – and it’s a big ‘if’ – we can bring in a good four or five new players. We’re going to losing some over the summer, and in addition there are a couple of others who really aren’t keeping up with the standard that we’re going to need.

Having filtered things down my senior squad is set at 20 players, and of those three or four might reasonably find themselves on the fringes.

Onwards and... well, not upwards unfortunately.

Frustrations and Patience 

or ‘How not to give up and start a new save just because you’re not tearing up the leagues’.

First let me qualify that title by stating that I’ve never been one to crave success to the point where I just keep flitting between different top teams, but in the past I have had a history of starting various saves that only lasted for a season or two. That wasn’t due to performance, but was more down to my writing on the Stories Forum over at SI Games – and the fact that my imagination and ideas ran far faster than my ability to keep up with them. I used to have at least two saves running at all times, sometimes as many as four, and it wasn’t unusual for at least a couple of them to be very short-lived.

In terms of career games I actually prefer something of a slow-burn to start, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t occasionally suffer from itchy feet when things get into a rut. Towards the end of the 2014/15 season I found myself beginning to think that way at times, but more on that later.

WHEELING AND DEALING

Two factors dictated the deals made in December, firstly the concern that we were effectively operating with just two first-team strikers, and secondly the fact that one of them (David Ledy) refused my continued attempts to extend his contract and signed a deal for a summer move to Angers SCO. Even ignoring the potential for injuries, it made no sense to just keep plugging away with David and wait until summer to bring replacements in, so with that in mind I picked out the following players from my scouts’ reports.

Survival? Pfft! Piece of Cake...

PERFORMANCE

After an opening day draw, and the solid Cup win over La Berrichone, we went on something of a run. Nine games undefeated, eight of those in the league, and we were firmly in the top four slots. For the most part I was sticking with a lone striker formation away from home, mainly the 4-1-2-2-1 outlined in my pre-season update, but at home or against poor performing hosts I leaned towards a strike partnership.

Sometimes I would take the same ‘proactive’ approach as I did to the Berrichone game (see below), tweaking things ahead of kick-off, but not always as I wanted to get the squad familiar with my base formations and instructions.

We had a blip in October, taking just four points from six games, but then another unbeaten run took us into mid-December still sitting pretty. That run included four back-to-back away games (two league, two cup) which saw three wins and a draw.

Building for Consolidation

RECAP: WHAT HAVE I LEARNED

So far, probably not a lot when it comes to actual execution in the game. Many of the threads and articles that I’ve read have made a lot of sense to me, however it’s going to take more work before I can reliably watch the match engine and get a feel for what’s going right or wrong.

Furthermore I know that I’m not in a great position to be making major changes and seeing their impacts immediately. Our players are semi-professional, training on a part-time basis, and our coaching team is minimal. Promotion should see inroads made on both of those fronts though.

All that being said, there were definite forward steps made in my first season, especially around learning to think more about the players' roles and what I expect them to do as opposed to formations and leaving the game to it.

Key points have been:

• To spend more time looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the whole playing squad, and to consider how two players in the same slot might be better suited by playing very different roles.
• Don’t just work on the assumption that every player up front is a source of goals, or that players sitting deeper aren’t.
• At lower levels, a good Target Man is worth his place in the squad even at the expense of a ‘key’ player elsewhere.
• Tactics: Train them in pre-match prep, not general training. Doh!

In all honesty that’s not a lot of great insight, but these things will all start to add up over time; I’m hopeful that moving into the professional leagues will see a good step forward as we pick up some quality players, and that I’ll make progress too – particularly starting to look at a reactive approach, and better analysing the raft of data that FM offers. With that in mind, time to take a look at the closed season.

A Breakthrough (?). Season's End.

If they’ve done nothing else, the early stages of my blog will doubtless have evidenced just how one dimensional my thinking has been in trying to make early inroads at Strasbourg…

...Okay two dimensional, I’ll be generous to myself.

Whilst I’m fully aware that the days of plug-and-play tactics are long gone, and I have no expectations of a quick fix, I’ve still been somewhat guilty of just scratching the surface in terms of my initial approach. In my desire to iron out single issues (long shots) I’ve tended towards looking at sections of my formation in isolation, rather than considering the eleven men as a whole. To give myself some credit I did recognise from the off that it’s not a simple question of telling a player to shoot less, and that it’s about creating better chances and space; it’s doubtful whether the changes that I’ve tried to make actually address that though, even given that I’ve been looking at a very brief period of time for the team to adapt.  

Pressing On. Questions Questions.

SCHOOLBOY ERROR

Right, first up it's time for an admission. As a long-time player of the series, and not helped by the fact that the advent of digital delivery has removed the paper manual, I have a habit of assuming that I know roughly what I’m doing. It seems that’s not always the case.

Thanks go, as usual, to @Cleon81 for some useful information I discovered whilst reading his excellent piece on player development, as part of his Santos Project.

I’m halfway through my season in the French 3^rd tier, and my team aren’t ‘getting’ my tactical approach. Whilst most elements are nailed down, their level of familiarity with the Formation itself is still rated as awkward. Now I appreciate that it is a fairly non-conventional setup, and also that I have a grand total of two coaches – with Tactics rated at only 2 stars – but I would still expect things to have started bedding in by now.

It was only when reading Cleon’s piece that I realised my approach of setting General Training to ‘Tactics – High’ was not working, as it’s apparently Match Training that is used to increase the overall tactical familiarity. You live and learn. The upshot of this is that, for the remainder of this season at least, I’ve decided to go for a more familiar formation in the hope that it’ll give us some consistency.

It’ll still allow me to work on my understanding of tactics, but I do also need to make sure that we maintain our push for promotion. However, for much of the below, I was still experimenting a little.