In a previous article I focused on the impact of one specific member of the Medical Team, the Physio. Some experiments were run using out special league and we were able to see what sort of impact a good physio (or not) can have on things like the amount of injuries, injury length and overall performance. But the Physio is but one member of the Medical Team. From the Premiership down to the lower leagues it is common for there…
Player transfers play a huge part in most FM21 saves. That’s part of the draw of Football Manager. Whether you are in the Premiership making big money deals or down in the lower leagues fighting for scraps and free transfers. Almost all of us (I’m ignoring you hardcore youth academy challengers) have dabbled in the transfer market to improve our teams. But what if we don’t want to, or can’t afford to, upgrade our teams? What if we have a…
In a previous article, I mentioned how important a Physio could be in keeping your players fit, on the pitch and from being a waste of money. By preventing injuries and reducing the length of any that happen your Physio can really help make a difference to your FM21 game. There’s a reason why top-flight teams invest in the medical team. An injury crisis can cost a team on the pitch and on the books. In this article we are…
A team is more than the sum of its parts. It is more than just the players on the pitch and the manager. For every Clough there is a Taylor. For every Ferguson a Jackal or a Phelan, or for every Big Sam a suite of analysts and happy looking agents. A club is supported and nurtured by the backroom staff. An even the lowliest coach or physio can contribute to the success of the club, and often for a…
xG in FM21 was the feature many of us nerds were waiting for. Here at DTG we’ve been messing around with manually adding stats like xG, xG against, xA and even received pass position since FM19. You can imagine our joy when we realised that with xG in FM21 we wouldn’t have to do this by hand anymore. After all it is an increasingly important statistic used by football clubs across the globe to improve their tactics and inform their…
Three strikers might seem an extreme way of going about things but there are many ways to break down a defence. Sometimes the creation of space, overlaps and overloads are less about tactical refinement and more about brute force. We don’t all manage a team of La Liga or top-flight superstars so sometimes a more direct approach is needed to force the issue for smaller lower league sides operating on a budget. In this article, we float the idea of…
I’ve recently made the move to playing FMM20. That’s not to say I’m not still loving the full PC version of FM20 but a recent change in circumstance has meant playing Football Manager on the fly. The mobile version of the game is something that I’ve tended to stay away from so using FMM20 this year has been a new experience for me, and I’m going to share how I’ve found it and whether I think it’s worth taking a…
Let me introduce you to the little brother of xG, Expected Assists (xG). Whereas xG tells you the likelihood of a goal being scored from a certain position Expected Assists tells you the likelihood of a goal being scored after receiving a pass. The two go hand in hand in real world football metrics, and there’s no reason why you can’t use them in FM20. We also add another metric to look at. There’s something to be learnt about where…
FM20 has a huge range of player traits to change, improve or occasionally disrupt your players behaviour on the pitch. In our last article we ran an experiment to see what impact ability had on certain striker traits like lobbing or rounding the keeper, and placing or powering in shots. It was a bit of a bust as we found that ability alone didn’t seem to have an effect. It was useful for partly busting myths about certain player traits…
Add-ons and Mods can give most games a little something extra. Football Manager 2020 is no different in that regard. FM20, and the whole Football Manager series, arguably gains a lot of it’s following and devoted players because of the depth and detail that already exists in the game. The stories and narratives that we add as players really flesh the game world for us and keep many of us coming back for more. That is just the…