Discussion: Tactics spam & angry comments

@everyone
In fact at the beginning I also thought he chose the database of Football Manager 22 in sortitoutsi when posting the tactic there, it happened to me too to make some mistakes (database, or team name, especially with Manchester Utd) but then I corrected it when I found out.
It's easy to make mistakes when selecting those things there but doing it once or twice is understandable, 100 times no.
Errare humanum est sed perseverare autem diabolicum
I fully agree with @Theavenger2101's opinion , I always thought so actually, sometimes I check if something happened but it didn't and it will never, This validates my choice not to post my tactics here anymore.

I don't think the issue here is the ME version set on another fansite. How can you showcase screenshots from FM26 and test on FM22? That makes absolutely no sense. Most likely he doesn't bother choosing the correct ME version there and uses whatever the default is. I was told the tactics are created during his live streams.

From what I can understand, the actual problem is that the claimed results can't be replicated. I don't have time to conduct testing myself, but I've heard from trusted tactic testers and their results were never close. I assume everyone posting in this very topic have tested a bunch of these tactics and can confirm this is your main issue?

@TheAvenger2101: Either way, I've sent that message. And no, there's no ploy. I've genuinely been busy working on FMLE.

@Stam
Yes you have your point, he may have made a mistake/ he does not bother to choose and leaves it as default. That's what I was thinking and I tried to write in some of my comments to his tactics at the beginning. But there are other ssues which are often pointed out by other users here as I have been reading through the comments, 1. tactic don't work, don't achieve the same results he achieves even using the same team with same players he used
2. In his videos in-game editor is always on , the icon is there on the top right corner of the screen, I also saw it, so if he uses in-game editor to modify his team values or the opponent values, it's easier.
3. Holiday testing issue: someone says it works , someone says it does not work (for me it never works so I skip only the pre-season friendlies matches, I mean normally if I play with AC Milan for example I may win or lose against Inter and Juventus or stronger teams and if I lose against weaker teams maybe I lose by one or two, but with holiday mode in my savegames that I don't post anywhere I won 6-1 against Barcelona and lost 4-0 in Italy cup against Vicenza). Josh states he is testing 70 % holiday and 30% playing himself or sometimes 80-20% so it's not so reliable as result.

In my opinion, if Josh only does what he is asked to (show the savegame status where it is written : in-game editor allowed = no In game editor used no , number of times the game has been saved xxx will benefit him a lot because people will trust him and not criticize him anymore.

I understand you have been very busy working at the new editor that is a huge amount of work, thank you for it Stam .

2026-02-10 23:52#309480 Tikitaka Master : @Stam

2. In his videos in-game editor is always on , the icon is there on the top right corner of the screen, I also saw it, so if he uses in-game editor to modify his team values or the opponent values, it's easier.

If this also shows up on screenshots, then it is an easy way to tell if editor has been used, and IMO the tactic post should be deleted.

IMO as far as holiday testing is concerned the ME calculates result before kick off and will be Holiday test or Instant result, and you can go back and watch the match. When playing then after any change the match result is recalculated, which means when playing the game there is much more influence over the result.

Therefore if playing the game then it is necessary to provide all tactics used and any in game tweaking to achieve those results.

@Knap
well, when I play the game I never change anything except if the player got injured then yes, if for example I have Haaland not in 100% form sitting on the bench and I play Marmoush who gets injured and then I have no choice but replace him with Haaland and Haaland despite his form scores 3 goals then yes it influenced a lot
But since I do real managers tactic emulations if I holiday test it how can I see if the players on the pitch at least do something similar to reality?
That's why I never use holiday mode for testing my tactics which I post in my youtube channel and anywhere.
Of course, if I want to play a savegame only to see which players I can buy to make a great team without focusing too much on the tactic I may holiday some games , but I don't post those savegames anywhere, and most of all if I win all trophies for 10 years in a row because I have the best wonderkids then I don't post the tactic here claiming it's an unbeatable tactic
There are many ways to achieve success in Football Manager, tactic is only one of them, for example when I started playing Football Manager more than 20 years ago, I only focused on players scouting and always managing AC Milan (my loved team since 1990) it was easy to win that time. Then Pep Guardiola's tikitaka era started in 2008-2009 and from that year I tried to emulate his tikitaka versions every year in Fm, and that's when I got interested in tactics more than everything and only since 3 years I started posting my emulations online

If you sent him this message, but he's still making his videos as before, without showing the settings that are required here... then he has something to hide, and that puts us on the right track to proving it. Then action needs to be taken, because I believe cheating isn't allowed, unless there's some kind of "Josh Clause" in place.

@Knap: That's the funny thing. The screenshots never show the top bar, but in the video you can definitely see the icon indicating that the in-game editor is being used. And if all of this gets deleted, oh boy, then Stam will have even more to do than just the new editor.

2026-02-11 11:35#309486 TheAvenger2101 : If you sent him this message, but he's still making his videos as before, without showing the settings that are required here... then he has something to hide, and that puts us on the right track to proving it. Then action needs to be taken, because I believe cheating isn't allowed, unless there's some kind of "Josh Clause" in place.

@Knap: That's the funny thing. The screenshots never show the top bar, but in the video you can definitely see the icon indicating that the in-game editor is being used. And if all of this gets deleted, oh boy, then Stam will have even more to do than just the new editor.

Can you just show me the icon, sorry don't use editor.

2026-02-11 11:27#309485 Tikitaka Master : @Knap
well, when I play the game I never change anything except if the player got injured then yes, if for example I have Haaland not in 100% form sitting on the bench and I play Marmoush who gets injured and then I have no choice but replace him with Haaland and Haaland despite his form scores 3 goals then yes it influenced a lot
But since I do real managers tactic emulations if I holiday test it how can I see if the players on the pitch at least do something similar to reality?
That's why I never use holiday mode for testing my tactics which I post in my youtube channel and anywhere.
Of course, if I want to play a savegame only to see which players I can buy to make a great team without focusing too much on the tactic I may holiday some games , but I don't post those savegames anywhere, and most of all if I win all trophies for 10 years in a row because I have the best wonderkids then I don't post the tactic here claiming it's an unbeatable tactic
There are many ways to achieve success in Football Manager, tactic is only one of them, for example when I started playing Football Manager more than 20 years ago, I only focused on players scouting and always managing AC Milan (my loved team since 1990) it was easy to win that time. Then Pep Guardiola's tikitaka era started in 2008-2009 and from that year I tried to emulate his tikitaka versions every year in Fm, and that's when I got interested in tactics more than everything and only since 3 years I started posting my emulations online

I call this observer mode , which I do use.

The point I'm making is that if you use tactic variations, then they should all be posted and explaining when and how to use them.

Squad screenshot should be posted as many do not use original squads, so user can then judge squad quality.

I agree there should not be extravagant claims.

@The Avenger2101 I fully agree with what you said.
I haven't been treated fair by this forum since the beginning while someone else can do whatever they want.
n. 1
My mistake: I did NOT know you can't post a subunlock.io link instead of the direct link to your tactic (e.g. mediafire tactic) to "force" people here to subscribe to your youtubechannel if they want to download the fmf file. I had another channel that I started in March 2023, and I always posted my tactics here and other sites (can't name it here but I guess everyone knows the most famous sites, one of them Josh posts his 22.4 database too) and in March 2024 so after one year I had only 500 subscribers, so I was working for nothing because everyone just stopped here downloaded the fmf file read the analysis that I always posted here and did not watch the video neither subscribed to my channel. I noticed that someone else (NOT Josh, he never did it) was using subunlock.io in this forum so if you wanted to download his tactics, you had to subscribe to his channel and despite some users commenting to his posts saying "No way I have to subscribe to your channel to download your tactic" and so on, he continued (he was doing that since some months ) so I decided to do it too because it may help my channel. Well, after 3 months in june 2024 I had 5000 subscribers even if I also received maybe 2-3 comments saying they did not want to subscribe to download the file. Then in August 2024 The admin sent me a PM saying he was so disappointed to me because using subunlock and other links is strictly forbidden and he had to remove my queue bypass priority and all my tactics needed to be put on queue from that day on and I replied to him that another guy was doing that for many months before I started and many people complained but he didn't do anything to him, and then the admin said he will remove that guy tactics and bypass queue priority too. So why with me he did it after only 3 months while with the other guy he did it only when I told him and after 1 year that he has been doing that ? I was so disappointed by it that I deleted my channel on youtube out of frustration (another mistake I made) . Then in october 2024 Stam gave me the priority bypass rights back so I could avoid queue. At that time I didn't even bother to see Josh tactics and post so I didn't even know what he was doing.

n. 2 October 2025 I tried to post my database update for Fm 24 (updated to september 2025 transfers window) and Stam never let me pass it because he coudln't believe I did it all alone. Well every transfer session I like to update my database with pre-game editor I do it since Sports Interactive created the pre-game editor and sometimes I let my friend help me, but I never work with any community in Italy or anywhere and for fm 24 update except for the first session (winter 2023-24) I did all the updates by myself

n. 3 Reply to this post
Stam said my reply and GYRM 's were picked up by their antispam filter, well last year I wanted to create a topic about my tactics in this forum too as some other user did (I will not name that user but it's not Josh) and it took many days before it was approved so that I forgot about it, but why that user can do it so freely and my comments or posts are picked up by anti-spam and why also GYRFM 's ? maybe because he is a great creator much better than anyone else and his tactics work and are the result of many hours spent testing, and he does not cheat?
As for me since I always provide great descriptions, deep tactical analysis both for reality and for the game tactic the admin tried to stop me and when I started commenting about Josh's tactics too Stam in december (despite having been the one who tried to defend Josh from insults and hating that is always against the law and having been attacked by other users for defending him) sent me a PM, saying that if I say Josh's tactics are cheating it's serious and asking me if I am going to talk bad about this issue in other socials and so on, I do not know if someone else of you received pms from him that time. he also said one of the solutions could be stop allowing youtuber creators to post here, that means I would not have visibility anymore because 80% of my views come from FM Scout (at least at that time, since January 2026 I decided not to post anything more here) and I said yes he can do that because this way Josh will not post anything more too. For me it would be a good solution, besides Stam himself thought about it and asked my opinion. If he waved that to scare me, he obtained the opposite result, But if I was the administrator of such a great site, established since 20 years, thanks to Stam's hard work, I would never risk to receive so many bad comments for 1 guy no matter who he is.

@Knap
yes for tactic variations you are right, Josh often uses tactic variants, while I seldom do. I always use the same tactic and same players that the coach as available at the moment he start (for FM 26 it means I used summer 2025 players until now and I will start using the january 2026 transfer windows players from now on. I always select : do not allow the firs transfer window (summer) when I create the savegame and always refuse all offers in January and never buy anyone. I do not create training and set pieces and delegate all to the staff because I want to see the tactic as it is with same players the manager uses in reality

I have not previously elaborated on his 70/30 tactics testing method. In my opinion, it is madness to do that. There are already so many variables at play in the match engine (fewer when using holiday simulation or instant result) that influence the outcome. Deliberately adding more unknown factors makes the results invalid altogether.


I believe he could manipulate the results by saving the game before important matches, allowing him to keep winning those quadruples and so on, as this helps sell the tactics.

I have tested his tactics on many occasions by going on holiday using the same setup. I also included results from the SortItOut website, as this shows a comparison. Others had tried before me, and after some time I decided to let it go, as we didn’t see the point in continuing long term. It didn’t convince those who could take action, at least up to this point.

This is some of them.

there is one of his tactics tested on sortitoutsi, he with Liverpool obtained 89% of games won and another user with Manchester Utd (not with a 8th tier small town team) obtained a great ............. 8%

another is being schedule to be posted https://www.fmscout.com/c-fm26-tactics.html?id=13489.

He read this comments and laughing at us.

@luk4sh31 yes he laughs because he know he is untouchable
The only way we have is to boycott this site and him, not to post here any tactic or contents

2026-02-11 12:27#309489 Tikitaka Master : @The Avenger2101 I fully agree with what you said.

n. 3 Reply to this post
Stam said my reply and GYRM 's were picked up by their antispam filter, well last year I wanted to create a topic about my tactics in this forum too as some other user did (I will not name that user but it's not Josh) and it took many days before it was approved so that I forgot about it, but why that user can do it so freely and my comments or posts are picked up by anti-spam and why also GYRFM 's ?

I am not aware of any rules on tactics discussion forum that would prevent you discussing your tactics.