Friday 30 January 2015

The Best Laid Plans

“I’d prefer not to bring in a whole raft of new players, especially as our base group of 15 or so seem to have gelled so well...”
- Me, last time. 



Friday 23 January 2015

Putting It All Into Practice

After two rather lengthy posts about how I spent the extended winter break, did it all do any good at all?

Let's find out....

Friday 16 January 2015

The Long Cold Winter - Part II



Okay, so last time out I took a lot of time to consider our defensive game and arrived at the decision that I’m generally satisfied with the way we’re playing at the back – although I do have a minor tweak to consider in the first instance.

I also picked out some interesting stats about our attacking game, and the ‘economy’ of our shooting and goal-scoring. Whilst I was writing that up, however, it struck me that I’m not entirely sure about the best way to deploy my strike partnership. Furthermore, as I started to dig deeper, I realised just how much info there is in Football Manager that I (and, I suspect, others) pay very little attention to.

Actually that’s not entirely fair, I always knew that it was there, I just never really looked at it. What I’m looking to do this time out is to start to scratch the surface of some of that info, but first I’ll get back to the question of the strike partnership.

I’ll apologise in advance, some or all of this may seem quite disjointed. You may feel like I’m stating the bloody obvious or that I’m just not making sense. This update is going to be something akin to me thinking out loud, and when I think too hard it’s not unusual for me to go in circles!
Anyway, on with the update...

Thursday 8 January 2015

The Long Cold Winter – Part I

WHO KNEW?


So I was merrily playing along when I got the usual request to assign first team players for potential slots in the Reserve side for their imminent match. The first thing I did, of course, was check the ‘Next first team match’ info...




...then I checked it again. And again. Then I went to the schedule page.

So it seems that the Danish game takes a winter break, and not just your two or three week break like the Germans or French. Who knew?

Thursday 1 January 2015

Kolding Part 2 – Evolutions



RECOMMENDED READING


Welcome to 2015!

Before I get started with an update on all (well, some at least) things Kolding, a quick link list for some of the excellent stuff I’ve been reading through lately – some or all of which may have had an influence over our early progress...

The return of the Central Winger from @JLAspey / Cheekydeeky . A role that I used a lot in FM14, and will continue to do so in the new incarnation.

Some nice thinking around set pieces (specifically corners) in FM15, from @MerryGuido. I noticed, early on, an issue with defending corners when the ball came out to an opponent somewhere in the 12-18 yard range. I’m hoping that this might help.

A really great piece by @RTHerringbone on the thinking behind his 5-3-2 (or 3-5-2, or 3-3-2-2 – who knows?)

Finally, from the SI forums, a nice ongoing thread from Jambo98 on his gradual tweaking of a 4-5-1 formation. I’ve not had the chance to read all of it yet, but what I have makes it look like a very good template for those wanting to spend time in a process of continual tactical improvement.


Now, without further ado, on to my own stuff...