novice fm07 manager needs help!

ditpoker

morning... i'm a graduate of the championship manager era, and have obviously played my fair share of seasons in the FM's (havent got the new one yet). whenever a new one comes out myself and 2 mates play a multi player game (im united, their arsenal and chelsea). This is the only fm07 game im playing at the moment and as such cant things out before playing with the 2 lads. i've found that the first time you play the new releases it takes a good few games to get into it.

so far we've only played about 5 or 6 matches in the season. The guy who is chelsea (and owns the game) is doing fine as you;d expect chelsea to do. Myself and the arsenal guy are struggling, yes struggling with united and arsenal... i.e. go to watford, get stuffed 2-0. any quick fixes? or are we destined to get our a$$es handed to us on a plate for the first season?

PS: i see bohsman posts in the FM forum, no PM-ing the 'chelsea manager' about this thread!

bohsman

You can have a lend of my fm07 if you want it. No excuses to struggle with Utd. And you call yourself a Spurs fan???

Notorious

Yeah if you've done well with the previous championship managers you shouldn't have a problem here, Man Utd should be the prefect team to get you used to the game.
I'd advise signing a strong set piece-taker (maybe Wesley Snijder [sp?] from Ajax? He did a great job for me, being amazing at both free kicks, corners and excelling on the pitch), unless someone like Giggs is on form. Your original squad should work brilliantly together, there should be no need to make a load of signings at all. You should have great players on every aspect of the pitch. In my game the Chelsea team didn't play well together at all, which almost removed them from the Premierships strongest forces.
Fix up your training, mainly the schedules for the coaches - make sure to assign them to the training programs that match their strengths, having a coach dealing with every program isn't a good idea.

Vokes

@ditpoker: If you can, you should get the disc and take a few days to play a single player game for the sole purpose of getting your formation / tactics setup just right.

Set the Highlights mode to Full Match for your games. The beauty of this is of course you're not just going to see the goals but you'll see everything - things like...

How your team defends as a unit
How it attacks as a unit
Is your defensive line playing to far up the pitch
Is your midfield too far away from your defence
Are they too far away from forwards
Is your DM sitting on top of your CBs
Do your Fullbacks stray too far forward leaving space for opposition wingers
+ potentially 100s of other things you'll notice

Anyway, the point is, you'll notice all these things (the good and bad) in Full Length matches, and accordingly you can tweak the various team and individual sliders (mentality, creativity, passing style, defensive line, etc) in-game to get better results as you see whats going on.

And hopefully after a couple of days you'll get to a point where you need to tweak no longer and your new tactic is ready to be unleashed upon your buddies


Aside from that, I would also say pay attention to those opposition scout reports + pre-match odds and make in-games instruction tweaks at the start of matches.

e.g. Do they have a fast striker? - Play a deep line + close him down
Do they benefit from a strong organized defence? - Play patient football, play it wide.
Are the pre-match odds vastly in your favour? - then play fast, direct, take the game to your opponents.
Are any of their players on low condition / stamina? - It goes without saying, i think, break their legs
etc.....