FM Blog #8: Went Mental For A Bit

My last update was sadly misleading. While WE were “back” – I certainly wasn’t. January just kicked in so let’s get an update.

We had picked up some great results including an utter dominance over Everton. However then I went into a mini meltdown mode.

After the win against Everton, we had the following results:

Nothing too bad – but I was REALLY hating the way we were playing. Especially against the big teams. That Newcastle game was a massive one for me – we only had 3 changes to their 56. Yes – 56 chances!!!! We went into the Man City game and lost and I felt I lost my grip on the team.

I ended up reading the crap out of tactics over the next few days. I was also up at the hospital for personal reasons for hours on end so I was able to think alot about my tactics there. Quite funny telling the person I was with to “just lay back and rest” as if I was all concerned about them. In reality I was busy trying to figure out how to line out my midfield.

I spent hours reading and reading and reading on the SI Forums. I read all the stickied threads, looked at tactics people were using, researched various positions etc. Things then look like they may be going well:

But they honestly weren’t. Southampton vs Hull were fine, but that Cardiff game was again where I couldn’t figure out the away tactics. Against a team who go in defensive we fuck them over – against a team who were taking it to us(Yes, Cardiff) we got our arses handed to us.

I admit I reloaded that game time and time again. Not for us to “win” – but so I could get an actual competitive tactic as well as understand it more and more.

I spent 2 hours on that game today while watching Man U vs Chelsea, no joke. I’d spent 20 minutes setting up a tactic that would come undone in 10 minutes of FM Time. It was a fucking mess.

I took a break when I had an ephiphany – to go back to the same tactic that worked against Everton. The problem was I was back to overcomplicating things. So I finally did that and we walked out 4-2 winners.

It’s not all been smooth sailing since then:

Yes, that is a 2-2 draw against fucking Gateshead.

But I’m feeling a lot more comfortable about how things are going, and understanding the issues. I’m realizing our issues in defense, and am feeling more confident about tactics. I was overthinking things – when you read a lot you tend to do that.

For example – my Suarez issues of last year. I kept throwing him in every position with every playing style completely not thinking about how it would work tactics wise. Now I have him in the Inside Forward left position in attack – I have player instructions such as “Dribble More” and “Shoot More” because obviously I want him to do that. But then I also have Lucas as a DLP – Support and Robinson as a Fullback Support and even Rhodes on the left side as a DLF Support – what this means is Suarez is a lot more involved and I’m feeling good.

Anyway – it’s January 1st. Here is my current lineup which I will be slowly tweaking as time goes on:

And the league table:

Last season, even 7th wasn’t enough to get into the Europa League. Of course with our game in hand we can leapfrog as high as 5th if we win it. I’m feeling good we can get in the Europa League and an outside chance of the Champions League if we can simply figure out how to get points away.