5. Don't Tear Up Your Tactics Because Something Isn't Working
Now, I've just spoken about how certain players will always flounder, and nine times out of ten, that's down to tactics. Appearances can be deceptive and even if a player looks decent, he can soon struggle in your tried-and-tested tactics. Obviously, such things can be avoided if you scout correctly you don't sign Santi Cazorla for classic Stoke rugball, and nor do you sign the docile tank that is Andy Carroll for tiki-taka football. Yet occasionally, even though you've found a tactic that works, results just won't go your way. Players won't play to their best, the opponents appear to get the rub of the green and for whatever reason, everyone's making game-losing errors. This is the sharp-end of FM, and it can be very easy to give up at this point. To those who don't, a second urge come to mind tear up the tactics and start over again. For the love of God, don't do that. Much like you wouldn't shoot your foot off after a couple of bad tap-dances, you don't have to scrap the system for a few bad results. If anything, it ruins that hard-won team tactical familiarity, and if that goes, it can make everything a whole lot worse. Just make slight changes if your winger's had a bad run of games, try changing the role to compliment the player's attributes. If your defender keeps getting caught out, make him drop deeper. If your midfield's getting overrun, change someone to a more defensive role. Everything's easily fixable, and doesn't require such drastic changes.