Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder

hmm.

Not going especially well at the moment, went about 6 games without a win yesterday. I'm suffering from copious amounts of ME bullshittery at the moment. To be fair, I have one of the lowest abilities in my division so I should be losing games, but why do I have to dominate the games then lose ? Why do I have to lose in the 94th minute ? Why do I have to be completely robbed of every single result by some freak event ? Because that's what FML is about - destroying your soul.

Anyway, i've found a bit of time to write a blog post now. After my entire midfield got injured, it's time for my entire strike force to be injured. My main striker got injured for 1 single game so now it's going to take around 10 CPU games before he's in a state to play my last AI game of the day. Fun times. It's so demented.... your striker hurts his hand wanking, misses one game then needs another 10 games to get his fitness back... riiiiight, okay. Most annoyingly half the challenges go to bloody extra time too, meaning there's no fitness benefit to the extra 10 minutes worth of wasted life. Just come back to a CPU game where i've not watched anything whatsoever, to see 30 shots on goal against a level 1 team and i'm apparently not winning. gg wp.

Predicted points has me 2nd still despite the amount of times I have been robbed but i'm going to be away tomorrow so will miss all my AI games and wont have time to play 20+ CPU games to get fitness back. I just need to be in top 4 for promotion and then i'll be happy. I didn't expect to start this high in the FA so i'm a bit ahead of myself and had not planned for this, just need 2 more promotions to hit the big time.

Anyway, all these shitty CPU games has got me thinking again. There needs to be some better PvP experience in FML rather than playing these pointless challenges, not paying any attention to what is going on then waiting for the match to finish so my striker can gain an extra 1% fitness.

Lets get some real teams going on in the CPU leagues instead of "Random Uninteresting Town" Obviously the player licences are in place because we have the players, so I find it hard to believe that they don't have the rights to use real life teams.

So instead of playing boring CPU challenges why not let me enter my team in the English League starting in the Conference and working my way up, playing real teams like on FM ? Maybe I could go play in Spain or Italy instead, against the likes of AC Milan and Barcelona. Now you instantly have a great PvE experience and reason to stay on line longer.

So you could play a full season in your own time, play as few or as many games as you like against real life teams and work your way up into the Premiership to see how YOUR team competes against the real life big boys.

But would people be more interested in playing these games rather than the normal FA games ? Maybe, but lets say you can be challenged while playing these games (while not in DnD) and we can use SI's awesome new match recovery system to auto resume the PvE game when you have done with your live game.

Come on, even if for some reason you can't use real teams, just use real players and make some fake teams or something. There's about a million and one ways you could make this awesome.

Forget about youth academies and crap like this, it's just a yawnathon, sort out the PvE aspect so people have reason to stay online more.

On another side note, the forums are still fucking shit. I can't believe how badly they have managed to ruin the site. Every every time load a new thread you have to wait about 3 seconds before you can even start scrolling, then it's a massive lagathon just scrolling down the page. Honestly, I can't think of another website which is worse which I use. Even if I refresh the forum, then switch to another tab while it's refreshing, it lags out my entire browser....

Sort it out so I can moan about things more please because visiting the forum is now a massive pain in the arse.

Moving on Up

The first run of the EFA is over and I have managed to take the title, so here's my first promotion after 6 days and only 3 more tiers to climb. (Yes, this is the full league and yes there are only 11 teams..)



It's funny that everyone seems to be complaining about the ME at the moment but i'm kind of happy with it from a selfish point of view because as long as you do a few things right then you generally win most of your games.

I'm especially annoyed with cup games right now though. We are told you only have minor and major form, but whatever controls results, call it form or something else (I like to call it bullshitery) My team has a complete inability to perform in any cup game.

It's such a joke, I play fine in league then as soon as a cup game comes up, no matter what strength the opposition, what the competition is or the venue. My team either don't turn up or I get super keepered and one shot wondered. Yet in the league I can do no wrong. I had exactly the same problem on my old GW with my Premiership team too.

I've played and watched far too many games to know this is happening and it's not my imagination. There's a distinct difference between how my team PLAYS - not necessarily the result, but what they do on the pitch in cup games compared to league games.

I already don't play any non major games due to the different form in those competitions but i'm thinking about asking to be withdrawn from the FA cup competitions next season too. All that happens is I get half my team injured and robbed by the result.

I'll leave the specific ME feedback to everyone else and stick with what I posted on here in February - "they have fixed the game but broke the ME"

Check pretty much anything I posted in February when I was still bothered/angry. Other than the outside the box corner, nothing has changed.

Fire

Not much happening, had a request for a picture of my new striker so here he is:



I have had some funny old games today though. What kind of annoys me about FML is it totally refuses to let you lose in any kind of fair manner. How often have you played a game, been a bit better than the other team and won the game or vice versa? This barely ever happens, I don't think I could name more than about 1 game a season this occurs.

Lets take a game I played earlier. I'm playing an all youth team, i'm 3-0 down within about 15 minutes to the only 3 shots he has had on goal. This is annoying for two obvious reasons.

I say to myself, it doesn't matter, i'm going to win anyway. A short while later and following my own tactical advice, of course it's 3-3 now. I didn't need to do much, because you don't need to. So now we have a ridiculous comeback in play. Next thing is i'm hammering him off the field, 7 CCCS later and his GK who's on a 5.8 has suddenly become the reincarnation of Gordan Banks. This is annoying. Then he has a DC sent off. Good times a ahoy, he's offline, he's not got anyone in the middle of his defence, lets get the ball down here. Alas, this makes no difference whatsoever and he proceeds to start hammering me into the ground. This is annoying. I manage to hold on then win on penalties. But come on, why does every game have to be like this ?

I'm 3-0 up after about 20 minutes, i'm cruising, all my players are playing with confidence while the other team is looking angry, looking furious, making mistakes. But this doesn't matter, they are going to keep coming at me like a battering ram. It's 3-2 now, i'm holding on for dear life. I win, but again... come on ffs, just let me win a bloody game normally.

Every single game I have lost this season has a common theme.... yep, I conceded every single shot on target.

I'm playing in the GW Cup and I don't think i've made it past the 1st round once post reset. I'm 2-0 down after the only 2 shots he's had on goal. It's a tight match, this is okay, maybe it's not my day. But it can't just leave it at that can it ? Of course, not. I now have 3 midfielders injured. I now have a DC sent off, i'm now 3-0 down.

I just want games where one team is better than the other and wins the match...Normal games.... This actually does kind of happen a lot in foodball ya know.

Plus, what's with these injury patches ? Last season I went through a phase where I only got strikers injured having 5 out at one point. This season it's my mifield with one going off every bloody game. As soon as one comes back another two get kung fuud off the pitch.

Regardless, i'm top of the league so promotion should be on for the first EFA run.

Crazy Low Down Ways

I'm sure by now people have realised I have many crazy theories and tend to act irrationally at times ;)

So yesterday, I lost my first game and decided I was in bad form and needed to do something about this. I remembered this quite late this afternoon, so logged on and headed of to the market place. About 5 minutes later I bought the first player I was offered for a transfer record of £2m. Remember this is my first full season so that is quite a lot, bringing my total spending to about £2.5m.

I decided what I needed to fix my bad form was a new striker. So I bought a winger. He can can also play up front though. He only has 11 finishing, like that matters! But he has an higher AF than any of my other players so it should provide a nice little CA boost to my squad.

4 games later, he has scored 6 goals, 1 assist and an average of 8.57 and things are back on track. My other striker has returned from injury so my strike force should be fairly handy at this level I reckon.

So I guess we will never know if I was in bad form, but another one of my 'crazy superstitions' has seemingly worked out quite well.

Whenever people complain about results on the forum and there's some kind of official response it often mentions that the average CA of teams is similar etc. So I reckon it's always useful to try and bump up your average CA in times of crisis.

In other good news I notice i'm not actually in the lowest tier of the FA. I guess because I won the Reception FA and gained a bit of rep I got placed a bit higher. This means I'm only in the 4th tier of the EFA, which runs 3 times per season.

So it's actually possible I could get to the Premiership in my first season. I reckon i'll settle for a position in the Championship though to be on the safe side. I've spunked my emergency transfer fund pretty early but my squad is big so I can cover injuries hopefully.

Retreat

So erm, I started my campaign to win the Premier League in an existing GW within 3 seasons tonight.

It's bad news. Very bad.

I lost my first game to an all youth team who are 4 ability points below mine. Of course, I completely dominated the game, got super keepered and they scored with their only shots of the game.

But this is badness of epic proportions. It was a home game, my striker went off injured, it stuck and I was done over big style.

This means one thing and one thing only. I'm in bad form. There's no way out of this other than to buy a new team. One game played, but I already know it is all over unless I make massive changes. I need to spend several million to fix this otherwise I will be stuck in bad form for the rest of the season now. I can tell from just one single game this is going to happen, FML really is that predictable, i've seen this so many times.

Losing the first game, and a home game no less, is a complete and utter fucking disaster.

Finishing work early tomorrow, so I may be able to fix this yet. I saved a couple of million in case this happened so I need to bring in some big players before I can play another game.

Bad times... bad times indeed.

Orange Crush

I've been avoiding this for a while because I reckon anyone who actually reads my blog will already know all of this, but seen as the orange arrows of doom debate rages onwards I thought I may as well.

Short Version

Does your player have orange arrows ? Ignore them, there is no problem here.

Long Version
(yeah i'm copying and pasting some bits of this from what i've wrote before)

Lets talk about player development first and how it works.

Potential Ability (PA) – Every player in the database has PA between 1-200 and a Current Ability (CA) between 1 and their PA level. PA does not change and if a player’s CA hits their PA then they will have become as good as they possibly can. As an example, Cristiano Ronaldo will have a PA around 195 and his CA will be around 190 as he is a world class player at his peak. On the other hand a player like Toni Kroos may have a PA of 170-190 but a CA of 145 because he has not hit his peak yet.

As attributes increase so does a player's CA, once all the PA points are used up then a player will have peaked and no more progression is possible.

Once a player has reached neared CA, this is when you usually start to see orange arrows. Players on FML are actually on training schedules behind the scenes. I don't know how these are set up but I suspect they are set to be conservative and generic and don't shape players as well as you can on the FM series.

So even when a player has reached his potential ability, he will continue to 'develop', so a striker is probably still training something like passing in the background and one day he's learnt to pass a bit better so passing increases. But he doesn't have any ability points left to learn this new passing ability, so something else goes down a little bit to free up the points.

This is known as attribute bounce. Now, I can understand why people might be a little bit confused why a striker is losing something such as composure to get better at dribbling. But the attribute change is tiny ! It's NOT going to change how that player performs on the pitch to any noticeable extent. If you have a striker with 16 finishing and it's gone down by 0.04, he has lost 0.25% of his finishing ability. Think about that, how is that going to change his performance ? erm, it's not ! Things such as morale, home advantage, tactics and about a dozen other things influence how these attributes interact with the ME to a much larger extent.

Orange arrows are one of the most useful tools you have as a manager. Once you see them starting to appear you know your player isn't going to get much better so you can make a decision on whether you want to keep him, knowing he wont get much better, or whether you want to move him on and bring someone better in. It looks like we are actually going to lose this knowledge due to people moaning about arrows now.

Before we had orange arrows and just red arrows, it used to work like this:

Attributes are displayed in the 1-20 range on the screen they are actually stored in the 1-10,000 range behind the scenes to give extra accuracy during progression. Because they are rounded down to be displayed a small change behind the scenes can manifest itself as a fairly big change on the screen. For example a player with 19 for finishing on the screen may have 9,050 behind the scenes. If they then drop to 8,950 during processing this is only a drop of 1 or 2% however on the screen it is the difference between 18 and 19 and so a red arrow is displayed and it looks like a drop of 5%. Rest assured though that for all processing the 'real' figure is used.

The skills have a 5% bonus per level, so Coaching 5 will boost positive changes by 25% - what this means is that if, behind the scenes in the 1-10,000 range, a player's finishing increases by 400 points it will actually increase by 500 points (the 400 plus the 25% boost.) If the player doesn't improve though the skill won't make him improve.

So when orange arrows were introduced we started to see these micro changes instead.

The other thing people are usually whining about is how strikers are losing something like finishing to gain tackling. This is not what is happening. He is losing finishing to bounce other attributes around maybe, but not to gain attributes like tackling.

The most important thing to understand is attributes are weighted so an important attribute costs more CA points than an unimportant one and some don’t cost anything at all!

Put simply physical attributes are generally the most costly. Pace and acceleration are the biggest cost for most players. Every wondered why so many medium potential youth players with high pace and acceleration are rubbish or not developing? The answer is because they have used up all their potential by having high pace because it is such a costly attribute to possess. So if you see a low potential player who has very high physical attributes then his career is over – that’s it folks, he has nothing left in him, he will not get much better. Most physical attributes are very costly because they are important to just about every position on the pitch.

The next thing to realise is that attributes are weighted depending on a player’s position. So it will cost a lot of CA points for a striker to increase his finishing, it might not cost as much for a winger to gain finishing and for a defender ? It’s free!

If a player gains an attribute which is not linked to his position then it doesn’t cost anything, no CA points, nothing!

I can’t confirm the accurate of this page but I reckon it’s about right:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/fmr2008/freeattributes.html

So what about high potential youths with orange arrows ? I'd need to see the players really, but there could be numerous reasons. The most likely is your JP is wrong or you are over estimating it. A 4* player might not actually have that high a PA, i'm not sure what the ranges are in all honesty but i'd guess what you see as a 4* could easily weigh in at about 130CA. Now if he has high physical attributes, he's used a crap load of PA points just by having those - pace, acceleration, jumping etc... So, he can't get any better!!

There's very very few super world class players in the database that have enough PA to sustain mega attributes all round. I think there are only 10 players in the FM10 database who are -10s. (170-200) CA. Think about this, we know the integrity of the database is maintained, so it will only ever generate enough high potential players to remain in line with what it started with, and then you have to wait for those to retire.

There's other factors too like, if you come across a youth player who is competent in several different positions you need to be wary again. It actually uses up CA points just to be able to play in all those positions!

If these points have been used up by being able to play many positions, it may mean less green arrows. There is a second huge impact to this too because you are losing lots of free attribute potential. Crossing for a MC is free, Crossing for a ML/R is not free. So if you find a player who can play MC RLC and you intend to use him in MC, bear in mind he has to use CA points for ‘pay’ for his crossing ability which may mean less potential to develop something such as passing.

Do you really think all 5* players are superstars ? Dream on. They are probably players you would associate with mid table Premier League teams in the majority of cases.

Finally, why is this a problem now ? It has always happened ! Ever since FML has existed, this has happened. It is not new.

Low and Behold

So my first half season has finished in Turk.



Pretty much business as usual then ! I couldn't face playing my last couple of games after the shit storm the ME was throwing at me. I think I literally had 2 strikers injured every single game for my last 8 matches in a row. Less said about the game where I had 8 CCCS the better. I had about 5 strikers out at one point along with half of my midfield ! Funny thing was I had no injuries all season prior to this and have pretty much blitzed physio 3. With the season drawing to a close, I couldn't see any point bringing in fresh faces so started games with 2 players on the bench.

It's quite comical with poorer players, the games don't actually look any different to when you are playing in a top tier. The only difference is you have about a million more chances, and miss them all.

I'd picked up a 32 year old striker who was pretty hot in my initial squad. He was my money man and banged in 30 goals in 34 games for me, bringing the title home. Alas, he was dying badly and his physicals were taking a turn for the worse.

Rather inconveniently, due to my striker crisis, but also fortuitously, someone took up the £1m auto accept I had set on him. Rule 1 of FML - No matter how stupid you are, there is always someone even more stupid ;) So he won me the title and brought me in about £800k pure profit, not including prize money.

This leaves me with a rather healthy looking £3.4m projected to spend in wage auctions to build a squad to win the lower tiers. The aim is still to win a top tier title within 3 seasons. Obviously the last couple of weeks don't count, so it's 3 seasons from the start of next. I reckon the EFA offers my best chance of progression at this stage, so i'm going to head off there and battle my way up the leagues.

I'm tempted not to bother learning any more skills as I don't think there's much point, i've already got pretty much all I need.

The only problem is i've actually found a girl who is even more insane than me, so i'm going to be busy most of the weekend while wage auctions are on so squad building could be problematic.

As for T-Bag Town, not even logged in to see where I finished, I suspect my AI didn't do me proud as I didn't set the match plans to activate.

Stayin' Alive

So here's another tactical insight for the night, seen as i'm still feeling generous.

What to do in games you are losing ? What to do in games you are playing really bad in ?

First off, use the tactical changes I have suggested in my recent post.

But, the main thing you should do to comeback and win a game is - nothing. The ME is that cool. There is a kind of logic to it I suppose. Do not panic, have supreme confidence you are going to win the game no matter what the score is, i've seen it all on FML, anything is possible.

Do not go attacking.
Do not make pointless subs.
Even consider going more defensive - as in playing narrower, FML makes that much sense!

Look back at your recent results, how many games involved a clean sheet? FML doesn't like clean sheets. You are more than likely going to score a goal, once you get one, the flood gates will probably open.

For no apparent reason, the losing team always seems to get a massive boost around the 50th minute regardless of what player confidence is doing. This is the time you are likely to score and should exploit this, once one goes in your team will keep hammering forward without you having to change a single thing. You just need to wait for this period of the game and don't make things worse prior to this.

At half time, you can sub off one player who is averaging <5.x. Do not sub defenders, do no bother subbing your DM, NEVER sub your money man striker. Do not sub your corner taker (assuming you have a good one)

If you have had lots of long shots, make sure you go turn them onto rarely in all individual player instructions.

Lets take some examples.

Game #1 - It's 1-1, i'm away from home, i'm playing awful. I've made all my tactical changes and some sensible subs but nothing has changed, nothing is working. My main striker is having a mare, i've had players off injured and i'm struggling. Kept calm, stayed on standard strategy, play narrow, pump ball into box. Then it comes, it always comes... 80th minute they get a player sent off. Your time is now. Take off narrow and go attacking, score 2 goals in 4 minutes and the game is won. Wait for the opportunity, there's always an opportunity, then exploit it.

Game #2 - I'm away to 3rd position, who look like a strong team. I'm 2-0 down and generally getting a pasting. I've done my normal tactical changes but nothing else. 70th minute I get my goal, you always get a goal, FML doesn't like clean sheets. Do nothing, 86th minute I equalise. I know the game is now won as a 93rd minute corner goes in.

Obviously this is less likely to work if you are about 4-0 down, but if you are playing my away tactics then that isn't likely to happen.

I'd suggest having some inspiring mp3s to listen to at the time.

Mitigate comebacks against yourself by playing as I have suggested previously.

So in summary, don't spunk your load too early. Just sit back, wait, and the wonder which is the ME will do most of the work for you. Don't lose games by making pointless tactical changes, don't bother going attacking unless it is appropriate.

Going Missing

I've quite possibly had the most bizarre weekend of my entire life, needless to say it's going to result in less FML time.

Main account remains cancelled, T-Bag Town is due to expire very shortly... The end of an era :(

Anyway, I am still "on a mission" to win the Premier League in 3 seasons with a new account with zero skills.

Have you read my last post yet ?

I signed a team as per my attribute templates, and while I have been away my AI has managed to play 14 games, not lost a single one and of course i'm sitting pretty at the top of the Reception FA while sitting 2nd in the bronze rankings. I haven't set up any match plans, I haven't done anything except sign a team as per what i've been banging on about for several months. I've not even bothered learning any new skills for the last few days.

It's too easy.... Game on, the Premiership title is calling. The problem is still going to be how much time I have available to do this!

Is it 'cos i'm cool

Oh well, seen as I have given up, here it is, how to be as awesome as me.

This is a somewhat an amalgamation of a previous post, combined with other stuff I have learnt plus some new stuff, but here it is:

How to win stuff:


The Formation

Set up a simple 4-3-3. You can use the tactics creator to do this. You want to set it to be more fluid, standard strategy. Passing should be set to more direct and roaming set to stick to position.

The Tactics

Set all individual long shots to rarely. If you have a midfielder with especially good long shots you may want to allow one or two players to be set to sometimes.

Set corner aim to far post. You want to be taking inswinging corners so a corner taker for the left foot and one for the right would be useful.

You want your best header on attack far post and your second best header on challenge GK (both of these must be DCs, it rarely works with other players) and a third player on near post flick, a defender isn’t essential for this. Ensure you have plenty of players back so you don't get caught on the break - at least 3.

Set free kick aim to best header

For defending corners, the default instructions actually work fine most of the time, just ensure you that you don’t have more than one player forward when defending. You can use mark specific on opposition instructions if there’s an especially problematic player.


The Players

For all players you should avoid anyone with stamina below 14, you can compromise on DCs.

Technical and mental attributes are not especially important, it's all about the physicals, you want players with very strong physical attributes.

Fullbacks should have the following attributes. Pace & Acceleration must be at least 16 (the higher the better) and tackling around 13+ will do. Nothing else really matters but other defensive attributes are useful, but mainly look for the physicals. Jumping will help improve average ratings but it’s not actually that essential for a decent full back.

Central Defence - Heading/Jumping - at least 17/17, this is important for corners. Pace & Acceleration should be at least 12. (higher is preferable but hard to find on a budget) Strength is probably the next most important thing followed by tackling and marking but they are of less importance. Filter on heading/jumping at 17 and tackling 14 then pick the best. Your best defender needs to be your corner banger, he needs to be a good quality DC with jumping ability. You can compromise with any old crap for the 2nd DC as long as they have heading, jumping and decent physicals in other areas.

FCC - This is your money man. This needs to be your best player, he must have pace & acceleration at least 16+ (preferably higher) with strong dribbling ability. Finishing, composure etc are not important although they are obviously desirable. Also look for flair and off the ball. The faster and strong the better, this is the key. Remember, this is the player you need to break the bank for, this is the man that is going to win you games, don’t get it wrong.

Forwards, right and left - Pay attention to the footedness of the players, you want to ensure you have a left and right footer if possible. You can sometimes find players who are massively right footed who can play fine on the left, but there aappears to be absolutely no rhyme or reason to why some players can do it and others can’t. Experiment, chop and change until you find someone who can play on the left if they are not left footed. Again, pace & acceleration is required here, you want 17/17 ideally with good dribbling attribute. Nothing else really matters but again, finishing and the likes are desirable.

Midfield - Doesn't really seem to make much difference what you do here. Just go for the physicals, as strong as possible. You obviously want to be looking for good passers and those with beneficial midfield attributes, dribbling is beneficial too. You want a DM in the middle then and at least one decent AMC on one of the sides. I've always been a bit crap at finding midfield players tbh, what i'm trying to say is go for someone who's reasonable in midfield but has very strong physicals.

Make sure one of the above players has at least 17 in corner taking and ideally you need someone who can take a free kick.

You should pick a captain who has at least 16 in influence AND is who is going to average high most games. So don’t pick some guff striker as he’s likely to be inconsistent. A defender or a top MC is a good choice usually.


Duck N Dive

Also known as DnD ;) Ok something you need to understand now. The quality of your team and tactics actually has very little bearing on the result at all. This is absolutely crucial, you must manage your form. It's all about the form.

Therefore you need to ensure you have good form and mitigate any potential dips. You have a massive advantage in home games so you need to start your league campaign by playing a weak team at home to get a strong result. Pick your games carefully, you ideally want to play as many home games, against weak teams, as possible to start you off. It doesn't matter if you leave yourself with a load of away games as you will be on top form by then.

I really can’t stress this enough. This may require you to be a massive arse, someone challenged you to a game, is it away? Does it look tough ? Start a CPU game to avoid losing AI rights. Sit in DND and check the league table/online managers and target the weak teams, target the home games against the weak teams. Get at least 4-5 games in against teams you are fairly sure you can beat. Spotted a manager who is 'away' ? Get him challenged if it's green balled to make sure you win AI then play him while he's offline.

Hopefully you have now won all of your early home games, now in top form. You are almost unbeatable so challenge the good teams now ! If you go more than 2 games without winning - be that a draw or a loss. STOP !!!!!! Get yourself on DND. Stop what you are doing, you are about to enter bad form. You need to find someone bad to play or someone suffering injuries, someone else bad form. Duck in and out of DND and snipe your targets, you MUST get yourself back to winning ways or you are screwed.

If you are serious about this, you need to aim for 0% AI. Any game played against your AI is a serious disadvantage as you wont be able to deploy the correct tactical changes in game. You may need to be an arse again here. Take note of what time AI is awarded, make sure you are online and auto start as soon as possible. If you have one of those pesky managers who are constantly starting AI games, then add them as a friend and sit there ready to pounce as soon as you see their match has finished. Don't forget to remove them and neg feedback them afterwards ;)

Pay attention to who is injured and suspended for your team, try and play home games when you have players missing and try and snipe the better teams when they are having injury problems.


Matches

So what to do in matches ? This is quite key and one of the reasons why you need to play your games because you can’t replicate much of this with match plans.

Once you have submitted your team, do not click kick off, instead wait for the opposition manager to submit their team. Now you need to set opposition instructions and show every offensive opposition player onto their weaker foot. This is a right ballache, but do it. I don’t think many people actually do this but it helps massively. In a 433 just the strikers will do and any dangerous midfielders, in a 442 you want the strikers and wingers. Just use common sense – but don’t forget to do it, every game!

Home Games

Due to the strength of home form, you should be looking to win every single home game regardless of the strength of the opponent. Start the match doing show opposition onto weaker foot and shout run at defence. If you are not dominating after 10 minutes, so you haven’t had many shots, they have had too many shots, whack on hassle opponents. Is it still going bad ? Shout play narrower. Is it still going bad ? Drop your MC into DMC. Is it still going bad ? Replace run at defence with ump ball into the box if your players are not getting enough space. Have you had lots of shots but haven’t scored ? Is your FCC averaging badly ? Rotate him with one who is averaging higher. Is it still going bad ? You’re doing it wrong! You can look to replace a striker at HT if they are averaging <6.00 but don’t bother with other positions.

Away Games

Okay, you are not trying to win these games, you are trying not to lose them. A draw is a result. You need to stifle play, stop them playing, then you will hopefully win the game on the counter.

Show players onto weaker foot (never forget this!!) Start the game with hassle opponents and play narrower.

Watch the game, are you getting space ? Add in run at defence. Is it going bad ? Use pump ball into box instead. Consider dropping your MC back into DMC if needs be. It doesn’t actually seem to matter if they can’t play DMC or not.

General

Circa 60th minute you need to start looking to make your substitutions. Have you ignored my earlier advice and bought some low stamina players ? They need taking off about now so you can continue pressing and pressuring. Unless they are playing exceptionally well consider replacing them. Replace any strikers who are not contributing much, except your money man – you NEVER sub your money man no matter what his average rating is.

Always leave one sub unused in case you get an injury. You should only use your final sub if you are desperate.

Regardless of venue, if you are winning past the 60th minute and the other team is starting to come into the game more, shout play narrower. You can continue attacking just fine with this shout but it stifles them.

If you are dominating the game but not winning past 60th minute go to control strategy, you can leave play narrower on, I know this is counter intuitive If you are still not winning go attacking 75th minute and overload from about 85 minutes. But he careful, only use this in games where you are the better team.

If it gets to the 75th+ minute and you have clearly won the game, then take of hassle opponents to reduce the risk of injury.

Some games you are just going to lose, accept it. Don’t go all out and suffer a bigger loss than you need to. It hurts form and morale. Most of the time you can just hang tight anyway, if you are on good form you are pretty much unbeatable anyway and will score a last second equaliser or some crap.

Use youth or CPU games to increase condition after a player comes back from injury, don't play any games until they are 96%+ fit. Even if it is a senior player, a youth game magically increase the condition of a player returning from injury.

Morale seems to randomly increase about 10 minutes after playing a match regardless of whether you won it or not, so consider waiting a short while before jumping into the next match.

Final thoughts

Player ability doesn’t really count for much, i’ve consistently being one of the lower ability teams in every league that I have played in and consistently finished at or near the top. You don’t need good players, you don’t need expensive players, you need the RIGHT players, you need the right blend and that’s it.

If the above doesn’t work, then you have the wrong players.

Had Enough

Game over people. Main account is cancelled.

Completely fed up. The key to being successful at FML is to dedicate a huge amount of time to being online, doing nothing.

This season I had to move FA as I was going to be away for 5 days so obviously when I come back i've not really got AI over anyone and in the traditional FA there's only few games a day. So you log on, play those then there's no reason to stay on so you log off, which means you lose AI to rest of your games and there's no reason to log on again!

So this season i'm not going to win the league due to the fact i've lost AI to too many teams and AGAIN due to not being able to beat bottom of the league in utterly farcical games. Results versus bottom of the league have decided every single title in every single season so far.

Still i've won 4 top tier FA leagues and runners up twice and should get runners up again this season so i've done decent enough without any good players. But it's "too easy" i'm just bored. There's absolutely no skill to the game any more because of the state of the ME. There's absolutely no sign of any change or even admission of a problem with it.

It's so simple, jumping, pace, acceleration, 433, play narrow, set up set pieces, make sure you don't lose AI = win the league. I'm just bored of doing the same thing every single game because so little else works. But it actually takes a lot of time and effort to make sure you win AI to every game and to make sure you make all the correct tactical changes. It's a grind.

I was hoping for a fun busy engaging environment, but I can't actually play in the XFA due to this competition form crap. What's the point in playing in those games when my form is completely different to that of my FA form ? When I win every FA game but simply can't string two passes together in the XFA ? I'd enter every competition under the sun if I knew my team wasn't going to draw every game because I have bad minor form. Aside from this there isn't really any decent competitions to enter if you discount the quick plays ! I did mail a request a while back but never even got a response.

So i'm stuck, having to be on 6 hours a day so I can win the league, to simply play a couple of games a day. What am I doing ??

I'm not so fussed about all these youth teams doing so well. Well, I was when I was complaining about it January, only to be told the average CA of my team was only 20 points higher. I believe I said I could accept no possible explanation for losing to a team of 16 year olds.

To be honest there's not a lot wrong with the game now, it just discourages you from playing games due to the form crap and there's nothing else to do instead, no decent PvE or anything and most of my friends have already given up.

But do you know what the final straw has been ? The way they have fucked up the forums.... It just demonstrates the amazing ability SI have to take something which is good and mess it up.

I've still got the second sub I took out last week, so i'm going to carry on with that casually for now, as I reckon it might be fun bringing up a team through the lower divisions. But I suspect I will suffer the problems outlined above as in not being on enough to win AI.

On a Mission

So the main account moved to the to the Traditional FA while I was away for a while, so it's like a couple of games a day.

So I decided to crank up a second account in one of the launch GWs, so I find my self in Turkyimaz (I think)

Signed up an initial squad as per my attribute templates, loads of choice and didn't really need to compromise in any area. Duplicated the tactics from my my main team, played a few games, looking good.

The mission is, win the Premier League within 3 seasons. This will most likely require the EFA for quick progression and perhaps some strategy FA hopping. I reckon I could easily win the 3rd tier of an FA with the squad i've got now in all honesty.

But i'm projected £1.7m already and wage auctions are coming up before the season starts ! I can't see how this can possibly go wrong, I should easily be able to put together a Championship quality squad if I have the time.

I've created a new account too, so no skills. This can't catch up sentiment is bollocks, skills stuff is bollocks. Premiership Champions within 3 seasons, it's happening. Anyone want to take the bet I wont do it ?

I'm Alright Me

I have returned, from the greatest week ever, so there's not likely to be any rage for a while. I wasn't even feeling mad when I logged in expecting to find my team had lost every game while I was away. In a strange turn of events, they had actually won every single game. I've not got AI over anyone but my match plans seem to be working and i'm just winning them all so it seems I don't really need to play.

Anyway, I have to laugh. Looking everyone who is still complaining about the ME pretty much everywhere, but what about me ? The whole reason I created this blog in the first place, and the reason I revived it was due to my hatred of the ME. Well, actually, i'm loving it ! I can't seem to lose.

But looking at the complaints, it's all stuff myself and others were complaining about over six months ago on the beta forum. Look back to my old posts on here in February and I was complaining about youth teams being too good, corner goals, random results,433, while others had raised very valid concerns about physical attributes.

After it taking around 2 months to get the outside the corner box goal being acknowledged as a bug and then only when it came up in FM10 (There would have been outcry if this went live) I realised giving ME feedback was actually completely pointless. It seems to be deemed that results on FM10 make sense therefore it must be completely fine for FML when totally different circumstances occur.

How many teams on FM10 have players with all high jumping ? All youth teams ? All playing 433 etc ? It doesn't happen...

So anyway, I took everything that I had learnt, that I and others had feedback, that was completely ignored and used it to my advantage to create a nice little team. To be fair I don't have all high jumpers or anything, but I coped just fine with a 16k DC in defence for 4 seasons and funnily enough he's STILL better than my £2m DC. Not lost a game again all season yet, P13 W12 D1 with a very average team and only one big star player.

Seriously, don't hold your breath waiting for things to be fixed, i've been waiting 6 months. If you can't beat them.... join them, win some games and enjoy :) I'm really hoping they DON'T fix the ME! This is like when I had my 460 all over again, the ME was shit but I couldn't lose apart from when I got BSed.

I'm pretty sure I have this cracked and i'd post up a total guide if I had time but people will no doubt moan when it doesn't work for them.

22 days left on my subscription, I think I probably will renew for a while as winning is always fun.