Three years ago, I wrote an article that explained nine common misconceptions with Football Manager. For example, I stated the ‘wonderkid’ tag has much more to do with a youngster’s current ability than their potential, and that having a higher xG than the opposition doesn’t mean your team played better.
Of course, there are still some things about FM and football that many players – particularly new ones to the series – don’t fully understand. So I think it’s time to look at a few more of these…
‘FICKLE’ IS A BAD PERSONALITY
Most of us know what personalities to look out for when signing players, or when it’s youth intake day. Resolute, Professional or Driven players are more likely to reach their potential, while Model Citizens and Perfectionists are the holy grail. On the other hand, newgens who are Slack or Casual should be avoided at all costs.
Many FMers like to put Fickle players in the latter category. But I don’t think it is that bad a personality.
According to this guide, Fickle is actually more positive than negative. A player with that personality has at least very good Ambition – one of three key attributes for player development. Determination won’t be the highest, but it could still be very good. It doesn’t tell you anything about the player’s Professionalism, though.
The only real negative is that Fickle players have poor Loyalty. Combine this with their high Ambition, and as soon as a bigger and wealthier club comes calling, they’ll want to leave. But even if you have a high-potential Fickle player at a small club, you can still develop them well until that day comes.
I think back to my Rennes save on FM21. Our talented but fickle right-winger Jeffrey Loricourt made his senior debut aged 16, but was then courted by Manchester United before we had offered him a professional contract. There was just no way we were going to keep hold of him after that.
ORANGE ARROWS = MY PLAYER IS DECLINING
You’ve got an exceptional young talent in your team. They’re playing well, training well… and yet they have a load of worrying orange arrows next to their attributes pointing in a south-easterly direction. Have they stopped developing and started to decline already?
There’s no need to panic. In Football Manager, player attributes aren’t actually rated on a 1-20 scale – it’s more like 0.1-20.0. Under the hood, these attributes are graded in increments of 0.1, but the game rounds them to the nearest whole number. If you see an orange arrow and notice that a player’s Stamina has dropped from 17 to 16, it might just mean that it has gone down from 16.6 to 16.4.
On the other hand, a red arrow pointing straight down shows that an attribute has gone down by a larger amount. This could be because of injuries, mentoring, off-field events, or just a natural physical decline. A dark green arrow pointing north-east shows a small attribute increase, and a bright green arrow pointing straight up is showing a larger improvement.
But what’s with the orange arrows – particularly on a youngster who should be improving?
There is an in-game cap on how far a player can develop in a short space of time, otherwise it’d be too easy for them to reach their potential. Their Current Ability score can also NEVER go above their Potential Ability. If any large attribute gains take them above either of these caps, FM has to ‘rebalance’ this by reducing their attributes across the board by 0.1 or 0.2 points. There’s an interesting thread about this on the SI forums.
These orange arrows can also appear if a player is being retrained in a new position. The extra versatility will eat into their Current Ability score – so again, FM has to balance that out with small reductions to their attributes.
Think about it like this. If you’ve asked a player to focus on improving their set-piece deliveries, or on building up their endurance, they might not have as much time to work on other areas of their game.
And one more thing. Player development is not linear; even the hottest wonderkids have peaks and troughs. As long as their important attributes are improving in the long-term, you shouldn’t worry about these short-term blips.
PLAYERS ASK FOR NEW CONTRACTS TOO OFTEN
If you’re managing a top-division club, you know all about this. Your star player who signed a new five-year contract only last season is now in your office demanding a new one – and another pay rise.
Well… you’ll be surprised how often top players renew their contracts. For example, Harry Kane signed FOUR contracts at Tottenham in less than four years. The first was just before he established himself as a Spurs regular in August 2014, with that new contract running until 2019. Kane then signed further renewals in February 2015 (up to 2020), December 2016 (up to 2022) and finally in June 2018 (up to 2024).
Those two contracts Kane signed in the 2014/2015 season bring up an important point. If a young player improves dramatically and becomes a regular starter in a short space of time, it makes sense to swiftly bump up their wages accordingly. Just be wary about the risks of giving them too much too young.
Likewise, if your team rises through the leagues quickly and make it to the Premier League, that key playmaker who’s still on League One wages will probably want PL money.
Players will be aware of what they and their team-mates are earning. They might be miffed if they aren’t being paid what they feel they deserve, especially in comparison to their peers. In this scenario, the length of their current deal is utterly irrelevant – especially when Chelsea are giving out eight-year contracts like they’re sweets.
They’ll also be more likely to ask for new deals if you frequently agree to such requests. It might be too risky for team dynamics if you refuse to discuss a new contract with a team leader, but don’t be afraid to say no to a less important player. In my opinion, having one or two sulking players on the sidelines is better than your entire squad seeing you as a pushover.
THE AI CAN MAKE MORE SUBSTITUTIONS THAN ME
For the past few years, teams in most major competitions have been allowed to use up to five substitutions during matches. However, there is some confusion about this rule – with some FMers complaining that they can only make three substitutions while AI teams can use all five.
You should remember that these five substitutions can be made in up to three stoppages of play. The half-time break does not count as a stoppage, though you can still make changes during this interval.
If you use all three stoppages but don’t use your full quota of five substitutions, then any remaining subs will be lost – unless the match goes into extra-time, when you’ll get another opportunity. If a player gets injured and you’re out of either stoppages or substitutes, then you’re also out of luck; you’ll just have to play on without them for the rest of the game.
For example, if you bring on ONE sub at half-time, ONE in the 60th minute, and ONE in the 75th minute, you can use another stoppage to make either ONE or TWO subs. If you only bring on one substitute at this time, you won’t have any more opportunities to use your last remaining sub, so think carefully.
Similarly, if you sub off an injured player in the 30th minute, and then make another personnel change in the 60th minute, you’ll have one more stoppage in which to make up to THREE substitutions.
OFFSIDE IS ALWAYS OFFSIDE
Fernando Torres vs Barcelona. 2012 Champions League Semi Final. There’s a moment Chelsea fans will never forget in a hurry. (Or Gary Neville’s wife, for that matter.)
Every now and then, though, someone will post something on the SI forums or Reddit wondering why a counter-attacking goal like this wasn’t called back as offside.
Here’s the thing. According to the Laws of the Game, you cannot be called offside from your own half of the pitch.
This rule has been in place since 1907, but it’s something many people who watch football and/or play FM can easily forget. It has even slipped my mind from time to time, so you’re not alone.
It’s also worth remembering that offside only applies at the moment the ball is passed by your team-mate, NOT when you receive the ball. If an attacking player is in their own half when a team-mate passes to them, but they are in the opposition half with just the keeper to beat when they receive it, they are still considered to be onside.
ALL OWN GOALS ARE MISTAKES
Another regular sight on Reddit is when FMers post the calamitous own goals their unwitting players have conceded. Perhaps they’ll slide an opposition cross into their own net, or perhaps a communication breakdown between defender and goalkeeper leads to a back-pass sliding across the line.
These own goals are often embarrassing (or even hilarious). Yet some FMers will accuse their bumbling players of utter incompetence… or even match-fixing. No, seriously.
That’s a bit harsh. Very few own goals are scored deliberately – aside from that game in Madagascar that finished 149-0 – and not every OG can be put down to ineptitude.
Sometimes, the ball can take a wicked deflection or a bobble (think Gary Neville and Paul Robinson vs Croatia), or the wind can play havoc (like this Thurrock own goal for my local club Romford in 2015). In these cases, the poor player(s) involved often can do nothing to stop the ball from ending up in their net.
It’s also not that unusual for a player to score TWO own goals in a game. Jamie Carragher, Michael Proctor, Jonathan Walters and most recently Wout Faes have all done it in the Premier League. South Africa defender Pierre Issa also got an unwanted brace against hosts France at the 1998 World Cup, though his second OG was later credited to Thierry Henry.
DOMINANT FIRST HALF = DOMINANT SECOND HALF
Ever had one of those games where everything goes perfectly in the first half, and your team is leading 4-0 or 5-0 at half-time? Perhaps you’d expect that dominance to continue in the second half, so you’re hitting (or close to hitting) double figures by the final whistle?
A lot of the time, what happens instead is that your team switches off and coasts through the second half. Things might peter out into an anti-climax with no more goals – or the beaten opponents might get a goal or two back to salvage their pride.
This happened to me a couple of times on my short-lived Wieczysta Kraków save, against the same opponent. Twice, we were 4-0 up on relegation-threatened Podlasie Biała Podlaska at half-time. Twice, we eased off and allowed Podlasie to ‘win’ the second half.
Don’t be surprised. If a team is so far ahead at half-time that the result isn’t in doubt, they could take it easy after the break and save up some energy for their next match. The manager might also make a bunch of subs, which can disrupt their momentum. Conversely, the losing team might resort to damage limitation to keep the scoreline down… and they might actually relax, because they’ve nothing left to lose.
This happens surprisingly often in real-life, but here are just a couple of examples. In October 2023, Wales scored four first-half goals against Gibraltar, then made a load of changes after the break and didn’t score again. And in a Championship match during lockdown in 2020, Wigan were thumping Hull 7-0 at half-time, but only added one more goal after the interval to win 8-0.
A BALL-WINNING MIDFIELDER IS A DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER
Look… I didn’t want to go down the ‘common tactical mistakes’ route here. There’s already a post about this on FM Scout. But there is one mistake that so many Football Managers make when setting up their tactics.
Fairly often, you’ll see someone ask, “My tactic is great, but we concede so many goals from counter-attacks. Why is it so easy for the AI to score goals against me?” You ask them to post their tactic, and lo and behold…
…their most defensive midfielder is a Ball-Winning Midfielder. Sometimes, they’ll have a ‘Defend’ duty, but they’re usually on ‘Support’. In many cases, they will be the only DM in the tactic.
A BWM’s job is to close down the opposition, win the ball back, and quickly move it to a more creative player to start a counter-attack. Yes, they will be instructed to ‘Hold Position’ if they are on a ‘Defend’ duty, but because of their aggressive nature, they will often be too far out of their position to sufficiently protect the defence.
If you want to give your defence better support for seeing off counter-attacks, you’ll need to select a genuine holding midfielder role – like an Anchor Man, Half-Back, or even a basic Defensive Midfielder. A Deep-Lying Playmaker on ‘Defend’ is also fine. In other words, you’ll want a Declan Rice rather than a Leon Goretzka.
Those were just a few more misconceptions and misunderstandings in the Football Manager community. If you can think of any more, then please leave a comment below or tweet me @Fuller_FM.
You may be aware that I’m not playing FM24 anymore, but I had already written much of this article prior to burning out last month. I thought I would finish it off now before real-life events have to take priority. Thank you for reading.
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