Running from FM: Picking up the Baton

If you saw the latest issue of Latte Quarterly, you'll know that FM Adventure partook in an exciting new fitness challenge that merged his FM21 save with a daily run where the distance varied based on results on the pitch. Inspired by his work, I decided to take up the mantle and have been running (literally) the same challenge throughout September.

If you're one of my 8 followers on Twitter, you'll have seen me posting daily updates on how things went, but I thought I'd add a blog update too in an effort to grow my audience to double figures.

The Format

Simply put, I played a match on FM21 every day and would then run a distance determined by the result on the pitch: 1 km for a win, 2 km for a draw and 3 km for a loss.

According to FM the rhyme, September has 30 days and so I looked at leagues with 16 teams who play each other in a simple home and away format each season, giving me 30 games to get through, one per day. Ultimately I settled on playing in the South African Premier League, somewhere I've often been curious about but never enough to start a save there.

Choosing a team was fairly straightforward since I wanted someone mid-table so I'd get a mixture of results and so I went with Maritzburg United, aptly nicknamed The Team of Choice, and predicted to finish 8th in the division. I left attribute masking disabled and I turned off the first transfer window so I wouldn't need to worry about keeping players or signing replacements.

Football Results

The Maritzburg Utd squad is fairly small, with a lot of depth in attack, and limited options at the back. The starting XI is fairly solid though, albeit with an ageing cast, but a few young prodigies help to redress the balance. We opted for a basic 4-2-3-1 formation with the intent of keeping possession and gently probing the opposition defence looking for an opening. Below was the starting set up, with a few tweaks made over the course of the season to a more Cautious mentality, a Higher Defensive Line and swapping one of the IWs for a W, the SS for an AM and CM for a BBM.

After a successful preseason and an early exit from one of the cup competitions, the season proper got under way with an away defeat to Sundowns, before back to back wins saw us looking like we might be competitive. In true FM fashion, we came back down to Earth with a bump as we lost to Amazulu and then Kaizer Chiefs (such a riot) before recovering with 7 points in our next 3 games, including a draw against South African giants, Orlando Pirates. Another two losses followed to see us sitting comfortably in 9th place after 10 games with a bang average 13 points to our name.

The winter transfer window provided an opportunity to bring in a few additions and with limited funds available, we looked to the free transfer market for decent backups. There's also a limit on foreign players which we'd already maxed out so we opted for new South African recruits at the back and in central midfield. We also upgraded our keeper since I'm sure we'd have had more success with a more prominent figure between the sticks.

As the window slammed shut, our rocky form continued, with every win seemingly followed by defeat. That is until we reached the mid-way point where we managed three consecutive wins on the bounce as the team finally started to gel. In our next two games we only managed a draw to Bloemfontein Celtic, before a resounding defeat to Amazulu away.

Next, a decent win against Chippa Utd in which we almost gave up our 3-goal lead at half time as Chippa started to fight back. We held on in the end though and saw out a 4-2 victory as we entered the final third of the season. This paved the way for an enormously satisfying 6-0 win against TS Galaxy, in which our forward man Meza managed 3 goals in the opening 21 minutes.

Sadly for us, we were unable to sustain this good run of form and would suffer defeats to Orlando Pirates and SuperSport Utd, with a 1-0 win against TTM sandwiched in between. A 93rd minute winner saved us against Stellenbosch FC next time out with that being the only goal of the match, before real disaster struck as we suffered three consecutive defeats to some of the leagues best teams in Kaizer Chiefs, Golden Arrows and Cape Town City.

Our last two games were both winnable ones, but we laboured to a 1-1 draw against Swallows FC which was disappointing after we battered them throughout. We picked up in our last outing though, a satisfying 3-2 victory away at Baroka (must have been those effervescent tablets we dished out at half time) and a pleasing end to the season for us and the fans.

All in all, I'd say the season went exactly as predicted. We sat in and around midtable for the entirety, venturing up as high as 7th at one point, and down as low as 10th at another. The board were neither impressed nor disappointed with my performance and so a very mediocre season draws to a close for a very mediocre Maritzburg Utd.

In terms of the competitiveness of the South African Premier League, I'd say there are 4-5 teams that have a realistic prospect of winning the title, and then the other 11 or 12 sides are fighting it out for the scraps. This would make it a very entertaining league to play in for anyone looking to build a dominant side that can routinely challenge for silverware. There are some rules in place on how many foreign players can be signed for the squad as well, and so developing domestic talent is key to success.

Running Results

Despite my online alias, it's been a very long time since I was anywhere near "athlete" status and although I have been running on a semi-regular basis in recent years, I've not been out since March 2021. The first run for this challenge was over 3 km which was as good a place as any to start and it felt good to put a marker down early and have something to improve on.

Usually the aching muscles after a run (even a relatively short 3 km) are enough to have me rest for a few days, but I quickly found that within a day or two I'd flushed out all the lactic acid and I just felt good, both physically and mentally. With the 1 km runs I really tried to go for it. At the back of my mind, I had FM Adventure's time of 4 mins 14 sec as the time to beat and that definitely helped spur me on, even if I knew it to be too quick for my speed.

I should also say that it did help to keep the distances realistic which is something FM Adventure advised me on too. By keeping them shorter it was easier to stay motivated, and crucially it made it possible to squeeze it round family life and work. That said, I did end up missing a few days which couldn't be helped, and so both times that happened I ended up playing catch up in the days that followed.

After around 10 days, I was able to really push myself to try and improve on my best times over each distance, but i also found it important to sometimes be able to just go for a gentle jog on the days where I was tired. I didn't want it to become a chore so I mixed it up when I could, and fitted it around 6-aside football twice a week as well. Despite sustaining minor injuries to my knee and shoulder, this is probably the fittest I've been in close to 20 years which is both satisfying and quite depressing in equal measure!

Below are my best times for each distance, along with my starting and ending weight which didn't change much, but considering I made no attempt to alter my diet, it does at least prove that some regular exercise can have a small impact (for me anyway).

1 km - 4:48 / 4:48 avg. (Run 2 saw me get round in 5:50, more than a minute slower!)
2 km - 10:19 / 5:10 avg. (Just four runs at this distance, with Run 8 my slowest at 11:24!)
3 km - 15:07 / 5:02 avg. (Run 1 took me just under 20 mins at an average of 6:34 per km!)
Weight - 11st 9lbs (74 kg) starting / 11st 5lbs (72 kg) finishing

The thing that's hard to measure is the positive impact this challenge has had on my mental health, which for me has been the most rewarding aspect to it all. For the most part, the global pandemic has had little affect on my life. I was lucky enough to keep my job, I still had my family at home (I'll let you decide if that's a good thing or not), and I got to enjoy some unexpected perks, such as saving money on fuel costs and not having to entertain distant relatives over Christmas.

Despite without doubt being one of the more fortunate people to live through the last 18 months, I have still had days where I've struggled with anxiety, or felt lost without my usual routine and I think it's important for all of us not to judge each other's personal circumstances, but to simply recognise that none of us are immune to having dark days. As a result of the pandemic, I found myself paying much closer attention to an aspect of my health I hadn't been familiar with in the past: my mental fitness.

Not to be confused with my mental health, which I interpret as the current state of things in my head, my mental fitness is something that's more free moving, that can ebb and flow in the same way your weight might fluctuate at Christmas, or your muscle tone might drop off when you skip the gym a few times. I think of my mental fitness as something I can train and strengthen over time, but equally something that can become "injured" and in need of recovery as well, like any other muscle in my body.

For me, each daily run guaranteed me 5-15 minutes out of the house and away from any stresses and strains at work or at home. Sometimes I'd go early morning at sun rise, other times I'd go out at lunch or at dusk, all depending on what suited the rest of the day's activities. It was nice to unplug for a bit. On the days where I felt competitive, it was great to have that sense of achievement when I got round quickly, but it was equally nice to take it slow and not feel rushed when I was feeling lethargic or sluggish.

I'd say the biggest barrier to this new found freedom was getting started in the first place, hence why I'd not run since March of this year. The FM element gave me the push I needed to get going, and once I popped I just couldn't stop. Out of the 30 days, I only had 1 day where I didn't fancy it, but thankfully my wife gave me a shove out the door so I didn't end up giving it up all together!

My Verdict

Not to overstate it, but this has been absolutely brilliant for me and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone either looking to get physically or mentally fit, or who wants to add another layer to their FM save. Playing the game in short bursts like this meant it wasn't disruptive to other stuff going on at home, and as I mentioned above, because the runs were manageable distances, it meant I found motivation easy to come by too.

I'd also say that keeping a log on Twitter helped as well, and it made a big difference to know I had support from others in the FM community, in particular FM Adventure, FM Grasshopper and FM Rensie, all of whom were part of FM Adventure's original challenge.

I will be taking a short break from running to allow time for a few niggles to recover, but I have every intention of making this a regular thing from now on and will be back with a new save on the FM22 Beta in a few weeks time.

In the meantime, please let me know if you are thinking of doing something similar as I'd love to lend you my support and follow your progress.

Before I finish, I talked a little about my own experience with mental health and mental fitness in this blog and I thought it may be useful to share a couple of links to other resources, in case you or someone you know might find them useful. The Mental Health Foundation has an excellent whitepaper on "How to Look After Your Mental Health Using Exercise" while The Coaching Manual also have a great piece entitled "5 Ways Football Can Improve Your Mental Health". Both are worth checking out.

---

Thanks for reading down this far, I really appreciate your support. I have a couple of FM22-related blog updates coming out in the next few weeks in which I will share what I'm planning to do for next year. Meanwhile, if you'd like to read more of last year's antics, you can find me at coffeehousefm.com/fmathlete, or as fm_athlete on Twitter and FM Slack.

For now though, it's a fond farewell. I've been FM Athlete, you've been "playing kiss chase in the playground". See you next time.

Random Ramble | How to Employ Rugby Tactics for FM19

Last month the GrassNGear Podcast released their 29th episode called Tactical Annals where DGear86 and FMGrasshopper assessed the tactics of fellow FMers and offered advice on how they could be improved. To say the episode was a success would be an understatement and if you've not heard it yet, then give it a listen now via this link.

I'll admit that i felt a frisson of pride when the lads messaged me and asked if i'd like to feature. I eagerly agreed and sent over my tactic, along with a short description of what i was trying to achieve with it. This is important since the critique was based largely on whether the tactical set up was meeting the tactician's objectives or not.

I was the fifth FMer to be reviewed out of the six of us featuring on the show, but as i listened while driving in to work that morning, little did i know that my previous admission of knowing nothing about tactics was about to take centre stage.

Below is what i submitted, along with what i wanted the tactic to do.

Here's the tactic which is my interpretation of West Hams style of play through the years - the West Ham Way. The aim is to play exciting football with a balance of creative play makers and hard working ball winners, who break down the opposition and quickly transition through the middle to one of the forward men. Possession stats should be high with it, as well as tackles and interceptions. It's versatile too, with the AMC sometimes being swapped for a DMC when needed to add extra cover in front of the back 4

3/10 - See me after class!

If you want to skip ahead to the part of the episode where this tactic is reviewed, it starts at around 34 minutes 40 seconds. It was very funny to listen to and the more the lads talked, the more i realised the obvious flaws in my approach. I can't say I cared much for the anti-West Ham comments (what do they know?) but I enjoyed the rest of the feedback, which included some brilliant quotes, such as "I can't see how this is working successfully, if it is" and "I would start again". I have to say though, my favourite has to be "Could this be really effective in rugby?"!

Once you've finished rolling around the floor in hysterics at my expense, i think you'll agree that you can distil the advice down to these main points :

• A symmetrical approach means your team only has one way of playing. It's best to vary the roles, particularly of the wide men, to give your team a plan B or second option when they need it

• Employing a playmaker will encourage the rest of the team to give him the ball, whilst two playmaker roles will create confusion for the players as they don't know which one to pass to

• Adding too many central themed Team Instructions, such as "underlap" and "pass through middle", will limit the amount of variation and wide play, making you easy to breakdown

I don't doubt that for most of you reading this, these points are obvious but somewhere between initially building my tactic, to the point where i'd submitted it for the podcast, i lost sight of what i was trying to do, and in turn i ignored some of the basic principles of tactic creation.

I'd been given my school report, and now it was time to face my punishment.

Detention Exercise - 500 lines of "I will apply what I've learnt"

This tactic was one i'd been using while in charge of FC Emmen, and one that i'd developed in my previous role at KuPS. I've already written about how i created the first iteration of it and you can read more about that here if you so wish.

Over time, i'd made the mistake of tinkering with a system that worked, and the result was what you see above. Bizarrely (and presumably Dan will be disappointed to learn), it wasn't a total failure either! That is, i was winning some games while admittedly losing just as many others.

Taking in to account the feedback from GrassNGear (captured above) and Dan's suggestion of "starting again", i decided to do just that, sort of.

Actually what i did was loaded up the original tactic (which i'd saved thankfully) and started applying the edits accordingly. The two big differences were the swapping of the AMC back to my trusty DMC and the reinstatement of the asymmetrical roles for the wide players. Both of these changes had been implemented to suit players in the new Emmen team, and I'd become sentimental about them as i tried to keep them happy - big mistake! I immediately sold my AMC and set two of my ageing wide men for release at the end of the season.

The next thing to do was to work on the Team Instructions, of which there were a lot. I'd started off with the Vertical Tika-Taka template which includes a lot of instructions, hence why so many are included above.

Dan has talked many times on past episodes about allowing the players to make their own decisions on what to do with the ball, rather than giving them strict instructions that limit their creative freedom. FM Samo has also spoken before about the same thing and so i boldly (for me anyway) cleared every one of them and went through each phase of play to methodically re-add instructions that suited our style.

Out of possession, i want us to chase for the ball and harass the opposition to force a mistake, while during transition i want to quickly recycle the ball and utilise our playmaker to get it knocked forward to our attacking trio as quickly as possible.

From there we have the option down the left of running down to the byline and crossing it in, or the option down the right of cutting inside and attempting a long range shot or through ball to the forward.

Behind the left Winger on attack, our Roaming Playmaker should have room to move and find the right pass, while with the right Inside Forward cutting inside, we've a Mezzala moving across in the space behind him and the Wing Back on attack can provide an overlap option as well.

With all that taken into consideration, below you can see how the revised tactic looks.

A Fresh Start and a New Leaf

I don't doubt that for many of you, even with the changes I've made to the tactic, there are still some things you would do differently. In my opinion there's no "one way" or even a "right way" to play the game and so, just as in real life, this is how i will set up and while i hope it will work, I accept that sometimes it won't.

Initial results suggest it's going very well, even better than when i was at KuPS. At the time of writing i have moved from Emmen to Hibernian and now have a solid Complete Forward at my disposal. This seems to have made a huge difference to the tactic and we've managed to string a series of wins together, even against tougher opposition.

In terms of tweaks and alterations, i try to keep these to a minimum. Against superior opposition i might downgrade our mentality to Balanced or even Defensive, but usually not until we've played the first half with Attacking. Even away from home, a more positive mentality seems to put our opponents on the back foot, allowing us to profit most of the time.

In closing, I'd like to thank GrassNGear for their feedback and entertainment, and for featuring me on the show. I hope that this blog post might prove helpful to anyone out there who might be stuck or at a crossroads with their tactic. My suggestion, aside from absorbing much more sage advice from other content creators out there, is to strip it back to a shell and be methodical with what you put back in. Even it fails, you'll have a much better understanding of what's failing if you do it this way. Good luck!

Thanks for reading the blog, i hope you enjoyed this update. You can follow me on Twitter @fm_athlete and in my FM Slack channel #fm_athlete for more updates throughout the season.

Random Ramble | How to Ignore the Signs That You Don't Know What You Are Doing

If you read my last random ramble, you'll have noted my admission to not being very good with tactics. I hate to write another blog about tactics creation (not least because I just admitted to knowing nothing on the subject) but i can't help but share my recent experience, in the vain hope that someone out there might find it useful.

There's some great content on tactics out there, but for me, some of it lacks the explanation of how you apply it to your save. I don't want to plug in someone else's tactic, i want to create my own, but I need a little help to get me there. So this is my attempt to explain how i used the sage advice of Cleon, FM Pressure, DGear86 and others to create my very own tactic from scratch.

I don't pretend that any of the ideas here are entirely my own, they're not. Rather, it's an explanation into my process of applying what I've learnt from others. As always, your feedback and comments are very welcome!

Getting into the Mindset

It was a grey Tuesday. At dawn. Due to illness, I ended up taking a sick day from work. We sent my eldest off to school and in between looking after my wife (who was also sick), and the two youngest children, I fired up FM.

If you've been following my save this year, you'll know I'm currently in Finland with KuPS (if you're not following, join the other 7 that are!). We had a fairly average start to the season and I felt a change was needed, which got me thinking about creating a new tactic. I wanted to do more than be average, i wanted to win well and with a style of play that i could be proud of!

My approach to tactics has always been a bit hit and miss. Sometimes it works really well and other times it's a disaster, but if i'm honest I've never understood the inner workings of tactics and so can never pinpoint why something works, or doesn't. I blame a lack of time for that, but there's also a lot of information out there to digest which can be contradictory.

Cleon's recent blog about Creating a Tactic the Paysandu Way seemed as good a place as any to start. I read through the first few paragraphs of the blog, down as far as the section "Copying/replicating real life" and I stopped reading. This is where i always get stuck, i don't really know what it is in real life that i want to replicate.

There's a lot of chat on this topic on FMslack as well. Dgear86 and FMPressure in particular talk a lot about thinking about what you want the team to do, rather than just randomly assigning roles. Taking a methodical approach to how each role interacts with another seems obvious but is not something I've really put a huge amount of thought into, beyond reading the role name, which can be misleading as we'll get to later.

I sat and pondered all this for a good hour while I had a bath and felt sorry for myself (I was sick remember). I started to think about my real life team, West Ham, and the way they play - or at least the way I like them to play when we do well. I began to make some mental notes, and little did i know at the time, i began to create a tactic, all on my own.

Style

Perhaps a bit unorthodox, but the first thing I thought of is what we do when we're out of possession. I love it when you see the players giving 110% to win the ball back. I also love it when we win it back, and quickly transition into a fast-paced attack. I want the team to play positively (as opposed to defensively) and to quickly, but safely, move the ball up the pitch to try and score. There's a handful of things that I'd like my team to do on FM.

In addition to these ideas, I also thought about what i don't want the team to do, and i think this is the bit that often gets missed out when people talk about tactics. Here's what I came up with:

• I don't want the fullbacks running forward with the ball - i want them to pass to the midfielders or the wide men.

• I don't want my wide attackers running to the byline and crossing the ball in - i want them to cut inside and score or play a through ball

• I don't want my centre back hoofing the ball from the back to the front for my striker to try and control - i want to keep the ball and play our way to the front

• I don't want my defence to be caught out by pacy wingers or a killer through ball - i want to close down quickly or match them for pace every time

• I don't want my midfield so far up the pitch that we're under staffed in the middle if we lose the ball - i need someone i can count on to sit back, just in case

• I don't mind about possession too much, i'd like us to have the ball more than the opponent but equally soaking up the pressure of a better opponent and then hitting them on the break is just as satisfying

There's nothing wrong with any of these playing styles by the way I'm just trying to illustrate some of the things I personally want to avoid with our gameplay.

Shape

I carried on reading Cleon's post and got all the way to the end of the first part. By now, I've got in my head a team shape. I'm picturing a flat back four with some cool heads in the middle, and a bit of pace from the full backs. Sat in front of the defence is a Declan Rice or a Michael Carrick, reading the game, harrying the opponents and winning the ball back. I've dubbed this role the Disruptor.

My all-time favourite hammer is Joe Cole. I loved it when he played for us, how he could turn a game with some creative genius and i need that flair and creativity to be the primary outlet when our Disruptor wins the ball back. He'll be my Playmaker.

The final piece to the midfield puzzle is the Engine Room. I can see a Mark Noble or a Scott Parker, running tirelessly up and down, providing support in attack, and being an outlet for the other midfielders.

Up the top, i want a dynamic attack. When we don't have the ball I want the wide men to drop back and help get it back again. When in possession, i want them coming into the middle and supporting the lone striker, either making that crucial through pass, or having a go themselves. That striker role needs to be reminiscent of Di Canio or Tevez, or even the Arnautovic of last season, with strength and pace but also the determination and desire to succeed.

With all of that in mind I created a new tactic slot and set the playing style to Vertical Tika-Taka. Normally i would never opt for a style like this - in fact i've never bothered to read the description of it. Previously i have always gone for Wing Play or Control Possession but that was before I'd given it any thought!

In my mind, Vertical Tika-Taka is what the top top teams, like a Barcelona or a Manchester City side would play, definitely not a second-favourite Finnish team, but reading the descriptions of each of the base styles, this was the one that jumped out as doing what i wanted. It does the positive, forward passing when we have the ball, but doesn't risk losing it with a looping over-the-top pass you might get with Route One.

I opted for a 4-1-4-1 formation with a a flat back four, a DMC, two MCs, two wide AMs and a lone ST. Obviously this is not how West Ham set up at the moment, but in my mind it's what makes the most sense to me in terms of what I want the team to do.

Positions, Roles and Duties

As i continued through Cleon's post I quickly realised that almost everything i have described above is what Cleon had already blogged about. Just for the record, I'm quite chuffed i thought this up on my own, but I have to say that it doesn't hurt that Cleon clearly thinks it's a good system too!

With the formation set, I started allocating roles. If you read through Cleon's section on "Understanding The Roles And Team Instructions", he shares some great advice which is to ignore the role names, and instead focus on the descriptions and instructions of each role. The template had set the goalkeeper up as a Sweeper Keeper. I hadn't given much thought to the keeper and so switched him to a GK-D as the instructions seemed to make the most sense to me. I can always change it later if I want to.

For the fullbacks, i will admit to pinching this from other FMers. I'd recently read some advice on Slack from FMPressure and DGear86 that seemed to coincide with Cleon's article and thinking about what i expected the role to do. I was looking to play narrow and so I opted to use inverted wingbacks and avoid the fullbacks running up the line. I thought it was worth trying as it seemed to coincide with my theory on how the system should work. For the central defence pairing, i opted for a BPD-D and a bog standard CD-D, nothing too fancy or revolutionary and the BPD choice was mainly because i have a decent centr back capable of playing this role well.

For the midfield trio, i set the DMC (the Disruptor) as a Defensive Midfielder - again the instructions and description seemed to be the closest match to what I wanted. In front of him is an RPM-S (Playmaker) and B2B-S (Engine Room).

Both the AMR and AML are set as IF-S, while the lone striker is set as an AF-A. The striker was the hardest role to choose as I'm not exactly sure what I want him to do. I assume a CF would be best but i really don't have anyone capable of playing that role. A Poacher might be a more apt description but i worried it was too one dimensional, so the AF seemed a good place to start with.

And with that, I was ready to play my first game. I changed one thing in the default team instructions, which was shifting the mentality from Balanced to Positive. My reasoning here is twofold: 1. on paper we are the one of the better sides in the league and so should really be able to match or better most teams, and 2. I want to play progressive football, but am not so daring as to go Attacking just yet. A positive mentality implies we'll be forward thinking, rather than sitting back and letting our opponents come on to us. Other than that I left everything else as is as I wanted to see how it would go first.

Analysis

This is definitely the part I'm worst at. Usually I watch the games on key highlights and so I miss most of what's happening, although I'm never convinced I'd spot it anyway. I started as I meant to go on and set up to watch the games on comprehensive highlights and away we went.

First up is SJK, a fairly strong side who are usually in and around the top 3. Taking Cleon's advice on the analysis bit, I paused the game quite a lot in the first half. I was looking at the shape of the team, particularly when we didn't have the ball, and when we had just won it back. Without the ball, the lads were chasing down the opposition, putting them under pressure and generally looked like they were giving 110%. The Disruptor was winning the ball back in front of the back four which is what i wanted, and then was quickly getting it to our Playmaker who was holding it up while the IFs got into position. So far so good. Plenty of shots from the IFs and the AF too, around half of which were on target which I thought was good.

As i let the rest of the game play out we were hit by two very similar goals. SJK had clearly identified my fullback as a weakness and played a through ball inside him for the winger to run round the outside and pick up near the byline. A cross across the 6 yard box and a tap in for their centre forward made it look easy. Then they did it again, almost exactly the same. At this point, I'm not sure I understand why it happened yet but have made a note to watch for it in future. SJK got their third from a free kick and so not much i could do about it. Although we lost, I thought we played really well, or at least in the style that i wanted to play. We hadn't scored, but created chances and we conceded two goals in a similar way that i hope to eradicate later on.

Next up were three time champions and league leaders HJK with a 100% win record from their opening 7 games. I didn't change anything from the previous game and once again i was pleased with our play. Good hustle to get the ball back, nice passing and plenty of shots on target. We'd eventually lose 2-0, with one of their goals coming from a wide cross into the 6 yard box - clearly this was a recurring theme.

In the next two games we drew 0-0. Again the play was good in both matches, and the the clean sheets were a nice bonus. Both opponents are good sides and regularly finish in the top half of the league. I figured that the team were starting to adjust to the new system and that surely the goals would follow.

Our fifth game had us up against Honka. Could we build on our two clean sheets and score our first goal? In short, no. Another 2-0 defeat and another goal from a wide cross.

5 games, 3 losses and 2 draws. Not a good start at all, but success can be measured in more than just the final score.

Make That Change

I'm pleased with the teams performances to date and feel like I'm close to a winning tactic here, but there are some obvious flaws that a better tactician would have probably resolved by now.

I switched the DL and DR to full backs and initially set them as Defend, but decided this went against the Positive mentality that had served us well so far and so changed it to Support. I hoped that as more traditional FBs, they would not sit so narrow and not get caught out as much by the pacy wingers and this cutting inside through ball.

As for the lack of goals, we had plenty of shots and more than half on target. A lot of them were long shots though, including from my AF. I looked at the average positions and found the IFs very deep which i thought might be whats making them shoot from distance. I changed them to IF-A, and i changed my AF to a Poacher. My reasoning for this is he looks too deep as well and with all theses shots coming in, surely a Poacher would be able to snatch a few goals from rebounds and deflections.

Analysis: The Sequel

Back into the fire and this time we had a fairly average foe in FC Inter. We started bright again, breaking down their attacks and then countering with gusto. I was watching the fullbacks closely and they seemed to be in a much better position to make those key interceptions. At the other end, plenty of shots but still no goals until a penalty comes out way. Up steps out lone striker and tucks it away. Not the goal i was looking for but i'll take anything at this stage, we were off the mark. Not long after, a second goal for our poacher. Now we were in business! We finished comfortable winners at 2-0.

I kept it all the same for the next game but our turn in form was short lived as we were beaten 1-0 away from home. I wasn't disheartened though, the team looked really good and much like the other defeats, we were beaten by their only shot on target. I looked again at the average positions and liked what I saw. My only issue was my poacher now seemed too far forward to be effective. I'm relying on my midfield trio to distribute the ball to the 3 forwards. If he's too far forward then he can't get the ball. I switched him to a DLF instead, and here's why: my IFs are running into the box and shooting. If they score then great, but if the ball is blocked or saved by the GK, my DLF is there to pounce on the scraps. Let's see if it works.

Into the next game and another solid performance. A deserved 1-0 lead going into the closing stages, courtesy of my left IF. We ended with 2 goals from my DLF in the last 5 mins and a resounding 3-0 win.

And from there it was plain sailing. This proved to be the start of a 13 game unbeaten run in all competitions, with only 3 more losses for the rest of the season, one in the Europa League qualifying and 2 in the league.

Incidentally, in preparation for our 2nd Qualifying Round Europa League fixture against highly rated Romanian side FCSB, I duplicated the tactic to create a backup system. In this second tactic, the mentality was downgraded to balanced and the Wide AMs switched to an MR and ML. I thought this might be handy if we struggled in the opening exchanges but in truth i was relishing trying the tactic against tougher opposition. Turns out we were superior, comfortably winning both legs, with the score 4-1 on aggregate.

Conclusions

All told, this has been a fun exercise for me. I've learnt a lot about what I want from the team, but also what I don't want. Although the season was a success in the end, I want to work on converting some more of our chances into more goals but overall we're looking good.

More than anything, i proved to myself that with a bit of application I can create a working tactic. If, like me, you're a little overwhelmed and don't know where to start, here are my top tips from what I've learnt so far:

1. Start with an idea of what you want the team to do. Everyone says this and it's essential to get you started. You don't need to think of what all 11 players will do, just start with one basic principle and go from there. For example, do you want to run down the wings and cross in for a target man, or play through balls for your fast striker to run on to?

2. Consider what you don't want the team to do. This is as useful as working what you do want them to do. For example, if all your strikers have a poor first touch rating then drilling in crosses for them isn't going to work very well.

3. Ignore the names of the tactics, roles, duties and instructions. Instead, focus solely on the descriptions of what they do. This is the best advice and i wish I'd done this sooner!

4. Don't change the system until you know why you're changing it. It took me 5 games to work out why it wasn't working, but in the end the changes I made were spot on. You need a reason to make the change, even if it ends up being wrong, that way you get a good sense of why things work or don't work.

Credits

Huge thanks to Cleon, FMPressure, Dgear86 and the whole FM Slack community for helping me to learn more about creating a tactic and the theory behind it all. You can get a lot of insight from just reading articles and other people's conversation threads and hopefully my very basic approach and relative inexperience might help someone else to find some success.

Thanks for reading this update. You can follow me on Twitter @FM_athlete and on my FM slack channel #FM_athlete if you want to keep up with my save updates and any other Random Rambles in the future.

Random Ramble | My (Unnecessary) Opinion on a Few Hot Topics

If you saw the latest issue of Latte Quarterly, you'll know that FM Adventure partook in an exciting new fitness
I'll continue my update on KuPS progress next time, but for now I'd like to share some thoughts and key learnings that I've experienced in FM over the past few weeks. Consider this an ode to some brilliant content creators, along with some interpretation from me for good measure.

I've been inspired by reading some superb blog posts recently, including @JLAspey's updates from his Moneyball save, @accordingtofm's piece on Implementing a Recruitment and Squad Evaluating Method and the FM19 Training Module - How it Functions guide from Cleon,
Daljit and Herne79, which isn't new, but i missed when it got posted last year. I should also credit @FMSamo who has written his own piece on training, and is what originally inspired me to find out more about it, which is how i got to Cleon et al's post in the first place. I thoroughly recommend giving them all a read if you haven't already, I learnt a lot from each of them.

Cleon's (see the article for other credits) in-depth assessment of training has been a revelation, not least because it starts off by telling you to forget everything you know about training, the best advice you can give anyone on this topic! FM19 was a Christmas present for me so I'm a bit later to the table this year and with the changes to training being so overwhelming to me, I've steered clear of it so far. @FMSamo admitted a similar reaction before taking the plunge and now I'm doing the same. I'm not sure how it will work out but my initial fear that i would screw it all up has been dispelled by the fact that changes take much longer to take affect anyway, which means you will soon spot anything that's going wrong, well before it becomes a big issue for you. That's the hope anyway! I'm also excited by the prospect of having more of a direct impact on a players development, assuming it goes well anyway.

As for player assessment, the more I've read of @accordingftofm's TBPCM approach and then @JLAspey's focus on player ratings, the more I've realised that somewhere along the road I forgot how to play the game. Before the days of star ratings from your scouts or coaches, you based your assessment of a player on their attributes, their stats and their form rating. Without ever meaning to, I've inadvertently replaced this process with an initial glance to the star rating, which when good enough, I follow up with a detailed view of their attributes to give me a holistic assessment of the player's credentials. Needless to say, this approach will see some success but truthfully I'm not sure of the "why" some things work and some don't, namely because it's missing that key component - actual performance rather than what they're theoretically capable of.

In real life I might ask a scout or coach for their opinion of a player and they'd tell me what they thought of them. I could also rank my players from 1-20 in certain key skills or attributes and both of these things would assist with assessing how good a player is, but none are more telling than rating a players actual performance in a game. Going forward i'll be putting much more emphasis on player ratings and key stats before deciding who to drop, or who i should sign.

Finally, a note on tactics. I read a lot of blogs on this topic, particularly as it seems to be something I've never quite got my head around. There's some great content out there but to be honest, i find most of it overwhelming and too intricately detailed. Most guides on tactic creation begin with
"how do you want the the team to play?". I realised this week that actually, most of the time, I haven't a clue how i want the team to play, other than the obvious of scoring more goals than the opposition while simultaneously stopping them from scoring themselves.

I often think back to first time I ever realised my ineptitude for tactics, and my subsequent discovery of wwfan's 12 Steps to Play FM. It's a great article, and I find it tremendously helpful, even now 5 years on, along with numerous other blog posts and articles written over the years. What I've really come to realise more recently is that I just don't have the real world knowledge and understanding of tactics. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. In fact, if you create a template tactic and you win more games than you lose with it then you can call that success, at least I do anyway. I know this is obvious for most people but it's taken me a long time to get to that understanding, always frustrated that other manager's seem to have grasped this area of the game much better than me.

I'm a lifelong West Ham fan and we talk a lot about the West Ham Way as a desired playing style that we're aspiring to. I know a lot of fans from other clubs don't really get what we're on about and i think if you asked 100 Irons fans what they think it is, you'd probably get 100 different answers. I mention this because it makes me realise that FM is exactly the same in that we all play it differently, and no one person has the right way to do it.

My interpretation of the West Ham Way is best epitomised by a handful of West Ham players we've had playing for us in recent years - Matty Etherington, Carlos Tevez, Scott Parker and currently Mark Noble and Declan Rice to name a few. These players gave their heart and soul in (almost) every game - tirelessly running around the field, chasing the ball and genuinely trying their absolute hardest to succeed. I would happily watch West Ham lose week in week out if every player on the field was visibly giving everything they had, and that for me is the West Ham way.

Bringing this segway back to FM tactics, I interpret these traits as a combination of Work Rate and Teamwork, and rate these along with pace and first touch as the most desirable attributes for all of my players, wherever they are on the field. This is a much more stripped down version of what @accrdingtofm was talking about, but it lends itself to my very basic understanding of "how i want my team to play" which is 1. try your absolute hardest, 2. run faster than your opponents (I am FMathlete after all!) and, 3. use good ball control to stay out of trouble.

That's enough of a guiding principle for me. I'm sure it's no where near detailed enough for most people but as I've realised this week, there's a lot of detail in the game if you want to look for it, but there's also a lot of noise which can be distracting. For me, I want to get back to basics - get involved in training, put more emphasis on player performances and accept my tactical shortcomings, we all have strengths and weaknesses and this is definitely the latter for me - and I'm ok with that! Cheers for reading this far!