Bizarre Streak

Hi there

I am new to Football Manager 2011 but I feel I have a fairly good grasp of it now and am currently playing a game as Cardiff City, first season 19 games in.

Here is the situation.

About 14 games in I am a comfortable 2nd in the league 2 points behind Leicester, I come up against them so naturally if I win I would take 1st position. It's a tough match and it ends 0-0, the first game in the entire season both league and cup games that I have failed to score a goal....but they are the form team so it's not unexpected.

However then I go on to draw my next 4 consecutive games 0-0 also, some against some bottom table sides.

I can't for the life of me find out why.

I realise that these kind of things happen in the real world too, but to go from the most prolific goal scorers in the league, 2 points behind first place to a run of 450 hours without finding the net? I have now slipped into third 6 points behind Leicester

Of course since I drew all those games it's not too bad as I am still on a 12 game unbeaten run.

Any ideas what I can do to stop this drought?

Try using a different formation, or change the roles of your striker(s).

Could set match preparation focus to attacking movement

I would like to share that i have very recelntly started a Nottingham Forest save in the english championship and playing a basic balanced 4-4-2 and had simular scenario happen to me, except my draws were not goaless

game 1 - away at qpr won 4-0
game 2 - home to swansea won 4-1
game 3 - away at cardiff won 1-0
game 4 - home to leeds utd won 3-1
game 5 - home to coventry drew 2-2
game 6 - away to norwhich drew 1-1
game 7 - away to scunthorpe drew 1-1
game 8 - home to barnsley drew 1-1

I was still unbeaten and top of the league so i refused to change a thing tactically as i was playing well in the draws, and glad i did

game 9 - home to watford won 2-0

got knocked out the 3rd round of the league cup though by wolves lost 3-1 (played half reserves though as dont see league cup that important)

This just happened, players do get in and out of form, but these things won't happen so often later in the season when the team has gelled in and the players are more used to each others.

You will notice that comparing the first half of the championship with the second one you will always get more points in the second one, or at least this has always happened to me. So I think this is just something naturally, so if you still get scoring chances but the strikers fail to score, then don't change the tactic as it is working fine, just rotate strikers if you can, or just hope for the best

another thing is that your players may have started to become complacent thinking that they don't need to give it their best in every game, try beating them senseless unless you're in the lead by half-time against weaker sides and say that you expect a win before the games, this might help!