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....

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...

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?

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...

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.

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.

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.