Building your Club with a Plan in Football Manager

It is a common belief that Football Manager is limited in key areas when it comes to interpreting real-world ideas, especially when it comes to tactical replication. Admittedly, there is truth in this.

However, most of the tantrums are far-fetched. Okay, that’s a strong word, but the truth is, there are ways to make things far more accurate than previously believed (in tactical replications too).

In the real world, the season before offered insight into an interesting way to build a club. The likes of Manchester United, Brighton and Hove Albion, Arsenal, and Newcastle have been interesting case studies.

We can all agree that Arsenal are better than they were three years ago when Mikel Arteta took over. Many would say their title charge last season came out of nowhere, but the truth is, it didn’t. It took three years of sourcing the right players, characters, tactical ideas, philosophy, training schedule, and, most importantly, trusting the process, to get to where they are now.

Trusting the process was the buzzword last season, but there is evidence to believe that it does work. Trusting the process simply means sticking to your principles, approach, or plans, knowing it is aimed at getting your club from its current state to the ideal identity you want.

You might (or might not, depending on your obsession with tinkering in FM) be surprised at how well this works in Football Manager and possibly beyond it. In this article, I will walk you through the things I’ve learned about replicating this notion of “trusting the process."

Who are you?

This might sound trivial, but every manager has an identity. Pep Guardiola was once stated, by Thierry Henry to “rather die going forward than stay alive defending”. That doesn’t mean he is inflexible, but that he wouldn’t do what he doesn’t believe in (tactical philosophy).

Many FM players don’t even know what they want from their squad or how they want to play. They know they want to attack or keep possession, but these are on the periphery. The one thing they subconsciously don’t know is their football identity and how to ensure consistent progression towards it.

There are two distinct types of managers; those who live and die by their philosophy (Pep Guardiola) and those who are extremely flexible.

The first type of manager wants players to adapt to their demands (fit players to tactics) and would get rid of anyone who fails to meet their footballing philosophical expectations.

The second manager does things differently. They would work out how best to use the squad at their disposal, essentially changing their tactics, playing style, and/or philosophy to suit the team. More often than not, they tend to focus on getting the best out of two or three vital players rather than the whole team.

Most FM players tend to go the second route without realising it. They say they want to play one way and, before long, would start tinkering with a single player’s role or duty to fix their game output.

Not that this is a bad thing, but it can harm the whole team, especially when they don’t consider how that new role affects the entire structure or playing style they initially conceived or intended to achieve. However, the opposite is also true.

This is not to say that one type is better than the other. Hell, no! One could even start one way but, with a distinctive plan, work towards their preferred identity. However, whichever way you go, you should stick with it if you want to create an identity for yourself and your club.

Clubs in FM have their own philosophy and culture, which also drives the type of manager they look to hire. Even you, as a manager, have an identity in the game.

So decide what type of manager you want to be and stick to it, preferably.

Tactical Philosophy and Identity

This is a crucial aspect of the game as it drives everything else, including player signings and sales, tactics, training schedules, and scouting. This ensures there is no confusion among players about what is expected of them.

Tactical philosophy is indicative of what footballing school you love; positional play (ManCity, Arsenal, Barcelona, Liverpool), counter-attacking (West Ham, Nottingham Forrest), and Functional Play (Real Madrid, Fluminese, Gremio, Napoli).

Knowing the principles behind these philosophies can assist in helping identify targets, structuring training, and identifying players that won’t cut it.

For those interested in positional play (my preferred identity), there are a few questions to ask when creating tactics that embody the philosophy (some of these apply to other footballing schools).

• Width and depth (Maximum or Minimum)
  
• Who holds the width (Wingers, fullbacks, or a winger and a fullback)?
  
• Who’s responsible for the half-spaces (Midfielders, wingers, or fullbacks OR a combination of either)?
  
• Overloads (Midfield or wide)
  
• Attacking shape (325, 235, 244, 217, 316, and more)
  
• Rest defence
  

Width in the context of the game is attained either by playing wider or, more precisely, by using the right role to create it.

Here’s a little-known secret; if you want your frontmen to hold the width in settled possession, even when they’re close to the final third, then train them to hug the line while also switching their roles to wingers on support duty.

You can get the best of both worlds by also training them to cut inside when they have the ball. I'm still at a loss as to why, in the winger role, these PPMs don’t compromise the primary duty of being a winger.


Image of widemen with the PPM hug-the-line while on winger duty and supporting role.

However, for this to be effective, the fullbacks have to either be inverted wingbacks or fullbacks on support (told to sit narrow) or on defence (told to sit narrow).

The game has roles that supersede one another when it comes to positioning on the field. A wingback would always be the widest player, no matter the role used for the frontmen ahead of him. Fullbacks on attacking duty would also be the same.

You can also enhance this with the use of a complete wingback on attack and train him to get further forward/get forward whenever possible. This works quite well in replicating Xavi’s 433 last season.

This is why I believe that some of the PPMs should be easier to attain and/or be an extension of player instructions, which, in some ways, they are.

When it comes to the half-spaces, using a wideman would mean using an advanced playmaker, inside forward, or an inverted winger (still not sure of the ME’s interpretation of the Reumdeuter).

The inside forward would encourage more through passes or long balls in behind. The inverted winger would encourage more possession play, sitting mostly in the half spaces (with the sit narrower instruction or the role of his accompanying fullback).

Try as much as possible to incorporate modern tactical trends like the rest-defense, structured fluidity (fluid and very fluid team mentality already covers this in the game, but it requires two attributes to make it very effective), and the box midfield in creating your tactics.


Image of a box midfield and rest defence using a 226 attacking shape.

Squad Appraisal

Understanding your tactical philosophy and playing style would enable you to decide the type of players you need. Here is where having a squad's core attributes (or DNA attributes) come in handy.

This isn’t a new idea, but the extent of its usefulness has not been explored to its full capabilities. These attributes should not depend on the role or duty of the player or the formation. But rather, it should be dependent on your playing style and philosophy.

However, the acceptable minimum value for these core attributes can be dependent on the roles and duties, but my suggestion would be to let the level of the league you’re playing be a major factor in this decision.

The key thing is that these attributes should have high value throughout the entire squad.

Below is a video that better explains this and how useful it can be.

Core attributes ensure that you are surrounded by players who can do the fundamentals of your style of play (playing style) and tactical philosophy.

Not only will this allow you to know players worth keeping, players that need upgrading in the long-term, and players that need immediate moving on, but it will also allow you to know the right players to sign for YOUR SQUAD instead of picking up any new shiny object like Manchester United do in real-life.

Remember, it's all about building towards a club culture and playing style worthy of you, as well as ensuring increasing competitive dominance.

The Right People

No manager is an island, and no manager will ever be. FM is big on staffing, hence the introduction of staff meetings. Having the right backroom staff does ensure you get the right input concerning your team.

So, getting the right staff in place based on their attributes for the specific role chosen is quite important.

The right DOF can ensure you get the right money for a player you want to sell (either based on selling value or importance). The right Loan Manager can sort the right club for your loanee. However, ensure that the Loan Manager shares your tactical and playing style.

Speaking of tactical and playing style, these are other things to consider when hiring coaches. Having coaches who share your style of play and identity would ensure that what is learned in training correlates with what you want from your players.

This is just a theory anyway, but one that is not far-fetched. Say, hypothetically, that you have a coach who has a high value for defending coaching attributes but a gegenpressing style of play. Wouldn’t he encourage more pressing from the front, especially when your training schedule has defending from the front? I’m just saying.


Image of a coaches tactical style and playing style

This is my first few games for a West Ham team I took over from a friend to save. This was the first year of the rebuild. My aim was to control possession, irrespective of the quality of the opposition. However, not just possession for possession sake.






Image of West Ham statistics in three of the first five games. Controlling possession was the first step.

This is what we did at the latter stages of the season. Same idea, same training schedule, same tactics, playing style, and philosophy. We won the league against an Arsenal team that’d won it twice on the bounce before.







Most of my coaching staff had either controlled possession, tiki-taka, or gegenpressing tactical styles (with the aid of the in-game editor to test these out). But also standard or passing playing styles.

I’m not saying it is the only reason why my team played in the manner I wanted them to, but it is not beyond the realm of reason that it is a contributing factor. Probably more so than most. It will make sense in the context of training.

Coupled with your training schedule being an extension of your tactics, tactical philosophy, identity, and style of play, your players will be able to interpret all these to an almost flawless degree.

Also, coaches' mental attributes should play a significant part as well. Especially their motivation and level of discipline. Motivation enables them to prepare players for a variety of situations on the training ground, depending on the session taught.

Image of in-game description of valuable mental attributes for coaches 1. Determination; 2. Level of discipline; 3. Motivation

Working On It

Tell me you weren’t surprisingly amazed by how brilliant Brighton and Hove Albion play on FM. Despite the quality of your team, Brighton in the game plays a crisp, patient, attacking game in FM, reminiscent of how De Zerbi’s Brighton and Hove Albion play in real life.

My first encounter was humiliating (not in terms of scoreline but in performance), and it prompted me to look at the game from a different perspective.

Scripting is a term in football that involves players creating specific patterns of play with specific movements to aid with different aspects of play. Something quite prevalent in football these days with teams like Brighton and Hove Albion, Manchester City, and Lazio (which performs the most extreme of this called coding)

Scripting is also prevalent in FM. If you’ve played against teams that play a double pivot, one thing you’d notice most of the time, especially when they build from the back, is that they bait your press, send the pass from the centre back to the defensive midfielder that drops deep before sending the pass to the fullback who has moved up following a press from your wide man. It is a common theme, like 80% - 85% of the time.

Scripting is designed to help place more focus on execution than thinking because they know where each player will be at specific times and phases of play. Mastering this requires creating muscle memory, and the only way you do that is through repetition—practicing the same routines over and over and over again until it becomes second nature.

Even if you don’t agree with the idea of scripting, which is accurate, by the way, training is very essential in FM.

You can create your very own schedule, but if you want to keep a consistent progression towards your ideal tactical philosophy, identity, and playing style, you should treat training as an extension of your tactics and philosophy.

There is little point in training possession or attacking patiently when you want to sit back and hit your opponent on the break. That would be an exercise in futility.

Just looking at the description of a session like Play From the Back is proof enough of how effective training is in creating patterns of play from defence to attack.


Image of in-game description of Play from the Back training session in FM

Not sure about this yet?

Try practising set pieces in training, say three times a week. There is a 90% chance you will see a set piece routine you’ve never witnessed before, depending on your setup. If you want more, I have previously written an article about this.

However, I’d like to update something here. First, you might want your training to depict what you desire in-possession, out-of-possession, attacking and defensive transitions, and set-pieces.

In-possession is divided into buildup, progression, and finish. Out-of-possession is divided into goal protection (low Block), containment (mid-block), and pressing (high block).

Attacking transition means what you do immediately after winning the ball. It is an either/or situation. Do you want to consolidate possession (hold shape) and restart your attack or instantly hit the opposition on a counter (counterattack)?

A defensive transition is similar to an attacking transition. Either you’re counter-pressing or regrouping.

Knowing these can help you break your training schedules and play into sessions that are designed to deal with each phase of play. I will go further on how this translates into Football Manager either as an article or a tutorial on my YouTube channel.

Training and tactics go hand in hand, especially if you wish to get the best out of your tactic. If you like to use multiple tactics, pay attention to which tactic is the “primary trained tactic” for the week before a game, as more time would be spent on training the elements of that tactic.

It is another reason why your training schedule and sessions should align with your tactical instructions. For a better understanding of this, I recommend you view this article.

Conclusion

Building a club is one of the best forms of saves one can do in football manager. Taking a club from ruins and turning them into league and European giants is extremely satisfying.

There is definitely more to explain about using training appropriately and how each session creates various patterns of play for different phases of play. However, I hope this has indeed open your eyes to a different perspective.

Let me know in the comment section below.