Settling back in to Bundesliga life I entered pre-season still in two, or even three minds about which formation to start with. Should I stick with the 5-2-1-2 which served us well last season and won us promotion? Should I stick with my head and adopt a 5-3-2 with an anchor in the DM slot to give us extra protection? Or should I go for it with a 4-2-3-1. I decided to give them all a chance in friendlies but…
Restart the clock. We’re back in the Bundesliga Hamburger SV were in the Bundesliga for a very long time. So long, that they installed a huge digital clock showing everyone exactly how long they’d been there for. To the very second! A massive fifty four years! They were so proud that a miniature version was even installed on the team coach. Of course, all good things come to an end. After three years of narrowly avoiding relegation they finally lost…
Intro In part two of my debut season with Hamburger SV, we found ourselves in 2nd place in 2.Bundesliga. Whilst the season was going well I felt the team were only operating at around 85% so made some tactical tweaks. When I left off I was just about to navigate the perilous waters of Transfer Deadline Day before setting sail for the second half of our first season in a bid for automatic promotion. Bids were coming in for Jatta,…
When it comes to tactics in Football Manager I used to take over a team (in this case Hamburg in Football Manager 22), and force the players into my favoured 4-2-3-1 formation. And why not? It’s a system I know inside-out. This approach usually ends up working eventually (after some transfer activity). However, there’s always one pretty good player that gets left out because they don’t fit in with exactly how I want to set up. That player then…
An interesting subject in Football Manager, that can really negatively and positively affect performances is motivation and people management. You have to be able to read the personalities in your squad and figure out ways to get the best performances out of your players, beyond tactical familiarity and training methods. The ways you talk to your players are vitally important. Assessing the personalities in your squad Right off the bat, every team will be a different soup of personalities and…
A lot of teams go through dry spells during a season, some teams never get scoring at all to start a campaign. I’ve found a few ways to help this situation during my current journeyman save in Singapore. (Follow me on Twitter for updates 😉 These are scoring tips for struggling teams in Football Manager. Tactics Starting off we’re going to take a look at your tactics. Many managers play in many different ways, and there is always a way…
Football Manager allows you to approach the game in many ways. What type of manager are you on Football Manager?
You’re down 1-0 at half-time, the team is not performing well at all. In the past we had to rely on the eyeball test. Who looks like their struggling out there? Who’s getting beaten to the punch? Where were the gaps? Let’s look at the Data Analysis.
Football Manager comes with a set of pre-set tactical styles. These styles were first introduced in FM19 and they support both the tactical novice as well as the tactical veterans out there. In this article, we’ll go through the creation of Gegenpress tactical style, its roots and its use in the modern game.
Football tactics come in a variety of shapes. But, when it comes to looking at symmetrical and asymmetrical tactics one has to understand the difference between both symmetry and asymmetry. In this selection of articles, I’ll discuss the use of asymmetrical formations, their use in real-life football as well as their use in Football Manager.