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.