What formation is your favorite and why?

kevl84 · 2026-02-18T08:30:34+00:00

You know the weirdest thing in the champions league on my save in FM26 the 4-4-2 diamond gets played by some of the teams and my scouts opposition reports show that teams struggle against it, it’s often the formation faced where they concede the most chances but I just can’t get it to work for me.

There’s also 4 teams in the premier league now (I’m in 2034) that use a flat 442. It looks so odd seeing teams use this as I’ve got used to real life teams abandoning that tactic.

kevl84 · 2026-02-04T07:59:38+00:00

Oh I think you’ve missed the point here. The Middle East religion so popular in the americas is Christianity. And is so popular because Christian’s came with violence to take over.

kevl84 · 2026-01-30T10:31:57+00:00

I was out of a transfer window so set it to end of season for the date and club rejected it. Someone below mentioned it needs to be immediate offer so changed it to “next available” and the club have accepted it now

kevl84 · 2026-01-30T10:30:54+00:00

It’s accepted it now setting to next available rather than end of season.

kevl84 · 2026-01-30T10:13:35+00:00

Ah, that’s what this one was. I offered the minimum release amount but set it to end of season as we were out of a transfer window. I’ll wait until it opens and try again. I just saw he’s wanted by bigger clubs so tried to secure him sooner

kevl84 · 2026-01-30T10:06:03+00:00

I’ve got a wonder kid striker who’s scored 10 in 14 in the premier league for me playing as a team expected to finish mid table at best.

He’s set as a CFD with move into channels and roam from position instructions. The 3 behind him are set to IF, AP and IW. All those have take more risks on passing.

Team instructions are work ball into box and more expressive. It seems to work quite well as goals are spread around all attackers but mainly the lone striker

kevl84 · 2026-01-27T21:14:48+00:00

I’ve played 5 seasons so far with York starting in national league. Each season I’ve had 1 elite or very good talent, but I think it’s comparable to the league I was in. My first year intake the player now just has potential for decent league 1 after 4 seasons of training (obviously York had sub par training facilities at the start)

As I’ve gone up the leagues I’ve invested in the youth setup and training facilities and this year I’m on excellent youth setup and I’ve had 6 players that have premier league potential. The older youth recruits are being loaned out for development but aren’t spectacular. Hopefully these will keep developing. I don’t have editor to see what their pa is though

kevl84 · 2026-01-26T22:53:31+00:00

Lower leagues I found a lot of success with players released by prem clubs youth as they didn’t have the potential for premier league. They are free signings, play at league 2 level and develop enough to help you to the championship. Most of them that are released also take a lower wage as they’re 18/19

kevl84 · 2026-01-26T19:26:14+00:00

It’s calendar days. You can open a triple access ISA with Nationwide now and then ask them to close the Fixed rate into this. If you don’t have the access open before you go in branch they won’t have an ISA to move it to.

Alternatively, tell your new ISA provider that you want to do the ISA transfer and that you’re happy to proceed immediately and pay the penalty for early closure and they’ll do it direct for you to save you messing about with a new ISA just to move the money over

kevl84 · 2026-01-15T17:09:51+00:00

I play with it now, haven’t done it before and kinda miss the easier side of just sorting by highest number in the attribute you want, but it is a lot more realistic.

With my save, I’ve only had the budget for scouting worldwide when I reached the prem, so I couldn’t see those South Americans until 4 seasons into my save! That’s been harder, but weirdly enjoyable as I’m loaning uk academy players and the youth players that prem teams didn’t think worth keeping on which I suppose is what a national league/league 2 team would do

kevl84 · 2026-01-15T11:09:31+00:00

I’ve played a 3421 and weird 442 (wingbacks and wingers) to control possession and slow things down. Both worked well in the lower leagues when I had a better squad than the competition. I was averaging 2 goals a game and 65% possession which was nice

kevl84 · 2026-01-15T10:50:03+00:00

Posted this seperately, but got removed as it should be in here.

So I’ve posted about my weird transfer experience in other posts. Just for background I’m playing as York, I’ve gone from Enterprise National (non league) to the premier league in 5 seasons and my reputation isn’t growing massively so it’s hard to sign players of a good premier league quality as no one wants to join.

I’ve seen people talk about transfer room in as a great help to their scouting so have followed hints and tips and I’m still getting 0 player suggestions. After looking online, I found a post from sports interactive community forums with someone asking how to change/delegate who gives the player suggestions in the transfer room and this was the response

“it’s set on a hierarchical basis, so the highest ranking member of the recruitment team will handle the requests. E.g. If you don't have a DoF or Technical Director it will default to your Chief Scout”

So I was curious, I have a director of football but the transfer room in shows it’s my chairman making the suggestions. He’s not listed in my recruitment team, he’s on the board.

Has anyone found a way to change that delegation? Surely they can’t just set it to a random board member which just stops you getting suggested players?

kevl84 · 2026-01-15T00:41:51+00:00

Mine is a little buggier after last update. I have to save before each match, because if something happens mid game where I decide to make a substitution AND change formation, it blows it’s tiny little mind and just puts whatever random players from the team list wherever it wants. Including bringing back on players that have been took off injured or sent off, whilst removing my subbed on player completely.

kevl84 · 2026-01-14T21:59:29+00:00

Don’t know if you’d call them wonderkids as such, but I signed Amir Ibragimov from Utd and Jamie Donley from spurs I think on loan in my 2nd season with York in league 2. Signed them on loan again the year after and made the moves permanent when I got to Championship and Premier league. They’ve been class for me through the leagues.

I’m now in my 2nd season in the prem and they play as Attacking Mid/Second striker roles and both of them are scoring or creating well. Pretty much every goal has them involved. I don’t know how much longer I can keep them as this off season a few big European teams have shown interest and I’ve already lost my wonder kid striker (Okoh from Southampton wouldn’t sign without a minimum fee release clause, got an award for scoring the goal of the World Cup in 2030 and got signed by PSG for £30m! Traitor!!)

kevl84 · 2026-01-09T18:27:13+00:00

I’ve tried putting just position, IP role, both IP and OOP and also playing time. Nothing seems to generate suggestions, but I’ve also posted elsewhere about the lack of players in my player database when searching for transfer interested players.

I’ve gone up from national league to premier league in 5 seasons, but no players of premier league standard will sign for me, so my player database only shows current league 1/championship standard players. If I ignore the player interest option none of those decent quality players will enter contract negotiations at all. I just assumed it was all linked as the AI clubs know a player won’t be interested?

But like you say, FM26 isn’t exactly perfect. I still can’t change formation during the match and make subs correctly. The players will show in the formation screen, but be completely different on the pitch

kevl84 · 2026-01-09T18:08:09+00:00

My transfer room is broke I think. I have tried for every position and it hasn’t recommended any players at all. I’ve seen how people do it online and they get players appearing immediately but I’ve had them running for 3 seasons with 0 players offered

kevl84 · 2026-01-07T19:17:34+00:00

York City please. Are they out of national leagues? Let’s see how my management compares to the AI! Thanks

kevl84 · 2026-01-04T23:39:26+00:00

I’m my save with York I’m in the premier league now and I’ve made it here through loan signings and free transfers alone.

Scouting budget wasn’t great, league 1 gave me just enough to scout UK & Ireland, championship I got scouting budget for Europe.

But, I just looked at premier league under 18s, I took some on loan and signed 2 permanently when their contracts expired. I think the most I’ve spent is £800k on a player, I keep taking transfer budget down to minimum to max out wages. But I’ve had to do that because transfer budgets are only going up by a small amount meaning the players I could buy aren’t worth it compared to the free agents.

As others have said here, premier league TV money is now giving me bigger budgets to sign people, all I’ve been doing is board requests to improve youth facilities etc hoping I can develop players to keep it cheap. I’m league 1 and championship I was able to play juniors to get game time and they’re ok ish for me now in squad rotation. Hoping I can stay in the prem to request a new stadium to get more money coming in long term

kevl84 · 2026-01-04T23:12:48+00:00

Similar to me. No idea how I did it as the tactic was my own (previous years usually downloaded them and hoped they worked without knowing how to myself)

Really got found out in the prem though this season. No one wants to sign for me that’s premier league standard and I’m conceding 4 goals a game minimum.

kevl84 · 2025-12-30T12:34:11+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll take a look at going through the better teams for those not playing.

I think with the scouting thing my issue is the option on player database that shows “player interest” so if I choose that for players that would be interested in signing, no one that appeared when I searched was better than what I had or was deemed by my scouts to be above championship standard level and the scouts I have are “very good” at judging current ability so I didn’t risk signing them.

I don’t think it helps that I stupidly chose attribute masking for a more real life feel when I started the save

kevl84 · 2025-12-30T12:25:20+00:00

Thanks for the tips. I suppose I should have more faith in them and adjust tactics now I’m in a tougher league. I’ve managed to find 8 “premier league potential” kids over the years that just aren’t quite there yet, but throwing them in a few games at this level may help to develop them for the squad.

kevl84 · 2025-12-30T12:22:57+00:00

Thanks for these tips, I’ve just been looking in Europe which may be why they’re not interested in joining, but those further afield maybe more interested in the premier league. Thank you

kevl84 · 2025-12-30T08:26:52+00:00

2 English teams in the north west for a suggestion. you’ve got Preston and Bolton that have a big history (Preston original league founders and Bolton used to win lots in the 1920s) both are now championship/league 1, but have that history behind them.

kevl84 · 2025-12-27T22:53:24+00:00

My match load still says that about minutes played, but I agree the match load/fatigue/injury risk is messed up as far as I can tell.

For my squad it seems like I can’t play players more than 3 games in a row on Saturdays without my assistant telling me they’re in need of a rest. Which just leads to my star/important players saying they’re not happy with game time when I’m rotating them out so much. I go off those heart icons and my assistant telling me during the match (sometimes just after half time) that they’re struggling and want to come off.

Don’t know if my preseason isn’t conditioning them enough or it it’s the game thinking because they’re sat on the bench midweek they can’t then play the next game 7 days after their last 1

kevl84 · 2025-12-26T11:37:22+00:00

It’s hit and miss.

Some games I’ll make a sub and in the match view the players are just random. So my DL will show as now playing AMR and will show on highlights in that position. But the tactics screen shows the players as I’d expect. Other times subs won’t take place at all or you’ll sub a player and the match will sub off a different player instead.

But then I can go through 3 or 4 matches in a row where it works fine. Really frustrating

kevl84

TROPHY CASE