TM Ireland - Trophymanager Ireland

1. Introduction to how players train

I decided to write an article about training players as this is the probably the one aspect of TM that is truly complex from the users' perspective! Its a lot longer than I planned but hopefully you can focus in on what is important to you! The core part of the guide is chapter 4, detailing by position; which skills are important and that was the original intention of this guide!

Firstly, here is a look at the rules of player development for those who are new and/or are too lazy to read the manual. Experienced players can probably jump to the next section. All young players are pulled on Saturdays aged either 16 years 1 month or 17 years 1 month. The two things you need to increase are their skills and routine. In order to improve their skills, these players train every Tuesday. They get a Training Intensity indicator (TI), which contributes to increasing their skills. How much TI they get depends on their age, training ground, bloom, potential, coach effectiveness and what skills they are trained on. There is also a randomness factor week to week. You can view what skills they are training and how much TI they have in the Training Overview under Training in the menu.

2. Factors which influence training intensity

Age – Players aged between 16-18 get a physical boost where their base TI is tripled with the extra TI going towards their four physical skills: Strength, Stamina, Pace and Heading. I’m sceptical as to whether heading really increases like the other skills, who knows for sure? Age also defines what bloom stage they are at and regardless of other factors, TI will drop as the player gets older.

Training Ground – This begins at level 0 and can be increased to level 10. Exact formulas for how training grounds affect TI can be found in the manual. To increase TG you will have to pay a fixed cost every time it moves to a new level and also higher maintenance costs every week. How high you should have you TG level depends on your game strategy which I will hopefully discuss in another article. But if you want any kind of youth strategy I recommend doing everything you can to get to level 10 and that will pay off in the long term (you’ll have to wait a while!).

Bloom – Players can start blooming at anytime aged between 16 and 24 and it will always start on their birthday (e.g. 17 years 0 months or 18 years 0 months). The bloom will continue for 36 months in total (3 seasons). The bloom stage usually results in a dramatic increase to a players TI each week and is the most crucial period in determining how a player’s skill set develops. Get yourself some scouts with good development skills (19+) and you can scout your young players to estimate when they will start blooming. Early bloomers will start aged 16 or 17, normal bloomers will start aged 18 or 19, and late bloomers will start between 20 and 24. Most players will start aged 17 or 18. Also note that some players will have already started blooming when you pull them. So if you pull a player aged 16 years 1 month he may have already started aged 16 and will have had 2 weeks bloom already. A player pulled aged 17 years 1 month may have had 2 or even 14 weeks bloom already. This can be advantageous to new managers who can get good players quicker and they will have developed at a higher TG, as pre-blooms are trained as if the club had level 10. However experienced managers will want more control over a players bloom and will prefer he didn’t have a years bloom already.

Potential – A player’s potential level is between 1 and 20. This defines how high their starting ASI is likely to be and affects how high his TI will be. YD potential ratings are unreliable at the earlier levels, but by the time you get to level 10, you should be looking at pulling every player 12 or above. Right now I’m at 13 or above, and that keeps me just under the 60-player maximum for my squad. Bear in mind DM R/L and OM R/L often sell for dramatically less than other positions and you may want to consider dropping 12/13 rated late bloomers; so this might influence what youths you decide to develop. For real first teamers in the long term, pay a lot of attention to the players between 18-20 potential (possibly 16+ for goalkeepers). Get scouts with good potential and they can give you a more accurate picture of a players’ potential than the original YD rating. Personally, I find it easier to judge players by their current skills and bloom stage (and TI if I know it) and not really potential; but that’s something that you will learn with time.

Coach Effectiveness – In general, you will want to hire coaches with high motivation and high levels in 3 skill areas. This is used to calculate a coach’s effectiveness when training players in those 3 areas.

In the past I would have said 86% minimum for coach effectiveness. However, it seems the developers have changed it so it is near impossible to get anything over 84%. This was probably done to combat skill inflation (too many good players) which the developers see as an issue. This is unfortunate as it will clearly punish new teams only; the teams who weren’t around when the good coaches were being handed out, while older clubs will be allowed to keep their existing coaches. If this is made overly public it will only turn newer clubs off the game; another way that makes it harder for new clubs to catch up.

Much of this article will go towards debating what areas to train players in and what type of coaches to use; the overall point will be that a player should not just be put in with whatever coach has the highest effectiveness, regardless of what skills are being used. Some big clubs advocate this but I think that’s madness. It’s much more important to choose the training regime that will maximise a player’s important attributes and TI.

Skills chosen to be trained – You may find that last sentence surprising if you think that the higher the coach effectiveness, the higher the player’s TI. However this isn’t always the case. If an attribute is below 5, it will train twice as fast as an attribute between 5 and 15. Skills over 15 and above will be twice as hard as that to train, and 18-19 are slightly harder to train again. This guide is aimed at 18-20 rated players; the idea for these is that you should ignore irrelevant skills for a position, train the important ones to 15, and maximise perhaps one or more very important skill sets for a certain player, which you can train regardless of its current level. This is easy for real players, potential 18 – 20 although there will always be a couple of skills higher than you need, and a couple which don’t reach 15. By understanding the manual and using squad analysis, you can focus on exactly what skills are needed and which ones aren’t.

3. Other factors to consider when developing a youth development strategy

Should I have a B team?

As soon as you have 1 player who might make your first team, or who might be worth a bit of money, get a B team. It helps you get his routine up. When you reach the point where you have a lot of players, don’t fall into the trap of picking the players who will help your B team doing well in the league. Instead, pick the future first teamers, and then the rest in order of potential. The only use of the B team is to get routine up. You won’t have any idea how a player will do in the upper leagues until he plays there. You should aim to have a first team with no out of position penalties, so testing players in other positions might not be too valuable and again you will have no idea how they will perform in a higher league. So focus on building routine. You can even promote some youngsters to play for the senior team against much weaker teams in the cup, which you will probably win anyway. I don’t advocating ignoring the cup either – I think it’s very important! But again it depends on your chosen game strategy.

How the Match Engine Works

I think it’s worth giving a brief summary here of how the ME works so you can better understand why certain skills are important or not important for each position. The match is full of what I call “events.” Each open-play event consists of a chance creator who fights a one-one-one with a chance preventer (known as key defending situations in the squad analysis page). If the chance preventer is successful, the event ends. The event may also end at this point with a foul and yellow card to the chance preventer or with an injury to the chance creator. If the chance creator is successful, the possession changes to a finisher who fights a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. It then results in a goal, save or shot off target. There are five different types of chance and three different types of finishes. According to the manual; in addition to saving the three types of shots, goalkeepers also can intervene before the action gets too hot to handle, with specific skills listed for this. How this works, and who the one-on-one is against (chance creator or finisher) I’m not sure.

In addition there are set-piece events; from indirect free kicks or corners. Here, there is a chance creator again who takes the set piece. According to the manual the chance preventer and finisher fight a one-one-one, if the original corner/idfk taker is successful. The goalkeeper doesn’t seem to come into play; according to the squad analysis page; all shots on target in this situation are goals. With direct free kicks there is just a finisher and goalkeeper. With a penalty event, the player who is selected to take penalties is shown as having brought down by a defensive player, but this is just for visual effect. It seems the only battle is between the finisher and goalkeeper. The fact that the penalty taker is always the one who is fouled (even if it’s a keeper that has been selected to take penalties) suggests a penalty attack type has been decided before the play begins and is presumably independent of individual attributes (perhaps more dependant on overall team attributes? I don’t know. It would be interesting to know if choice of penalty taker influences the likelihood of your team getting a penalty. I doubt it, especially as goalkeepers have been known to win penalties when selected as the penalty taker).

For open play events: The player’s position on the pitch determines the likelihood of playing the different roles: chance creator, chance preventer, finisher and goalkeeper. Goalkeepers can take the role of goalkeeper (all the time obviously) and chance creator (rarely). DRs and DLs are involved mostly in key defending situations, but are often involved in chance creations; but they never play the finishing role. D C’s are involved in key defending situations even more often than full backs, but they are very rarely involved in creating chances, maybe 1 every two games. They also never play the finishing role. All Midfielders can be involved in key defending situations, creating chances and finishing, but obviously the further forward in the tactics page the more chances created and more finishing, and less defensive situations. Forwards are involved mostly in finishing, sometimes in creating chances and never in defensive situations. There are 5 types of chances which can be created: Short passing, Long Balls, Crosses (also known as wings) Direct (also known as counter) and Through Balls. There are three types of shots: Short range finishes, Long Shots, and Headers. Which position, and whether the player plays central or wide, also impacts which of the 5 chance types they will try to create. The chance type determines which finishing type is likely to be used. All chance creation attempts and finishing styles require different skills for both attacking and defending against them. See the manual for more details.

For Set Piece events, you obviously choose the taker from the tactics page. A penalty or DFK results in a shot. Your corner taker is also your IDFK taker. For a set piece like this, all shots on target will go in. There seems to be 2 attacking players (chance creator & finisher) vs. 1 defender. The finisher is always one of the three best players on the team in terms of strength and heading. The defender is always, a defender!

According to the manual the finisher plays a one-on-one with the defender, but clearly the corner taker’s attributes have to be taken into account also. Obviously there are numerous possibilities but I’m not sure which one is correct. I have come across an example where a match report claimed the keeper intercepted the corner; however the keeper’s name was not mentioned. In the livematch, a named defender cleared the ball. I’m guessing the match report line about the keeper is for show, as if he was involved you would expect his name to be mentioned. In the manual, it mentions that Communication is important for a keeper when defending set pieces; my guess is that it impacts his ability to save Direct Free Kicks.

In addition to all these there seem to have been the recent addition of individual solo moves resulting in goals. No mention of the goals appears in the livematch; however they are mentioned in the match report and seem to be rare incidents by really great players.

Which team and which player begins each possession seem to be based on the various skills of each individual player, tactics and in addition the home team will have a greater chance of possession than the away team (all other factors being equal of course).

4. Choosing which skills to train

Primary vs. Secondary Skills:

When I talk about primary skills in this guide, I am talking about skills which you should try to always train and get as high as possible. Secondary skills are ones which you should try to get to 15 and then move on to skill sets with weaker skills (below 15), thus maximising the players Training Intensity. Of course if you get a chance to maximise these skills go for it. All other skills should be ignored (unless they are part of a skill set with primary or secondary skills, obviously).

Note on specialist skill:

Each player has a skill which will increase a lot regardless of anything else and will usually hit 20 (gold star). Obviously this is beneficial if the skill is an important one but it can also make the player easier to train. If, for example his specialist skill is work rate, and he has good str+sta from his physical boost, you can ignore the physical skill set for some positions where it is not so important. I will list numerous examples below where specialist skills can make a players training easier.

Note on physical skills:

I may say to train Str, Sta and Pac until they get to 15 (for all players) however if they are under 19, consider the possibility that their natural physical development between 16-18 will do the job for you and they won’t need extra training in these skills. Put an estimate that each skill will increase by 2-3 a season while they are between 16-18, and then decide if they need any extra training. This can be useful is a player already has good work rate (or it’s his specialist skill) and his str+sta are already at a good level, you might not need to train physical. The same logic applies with the pac+cro skill set.

Note on dual position players:

My advice is to focus the players training on one position. This can depend on his starting skills and what is most useful for your team. If you are training a player for sale, choose the position most profitable (F instead of OM, D instead of DM). Also consider which position is easier to train – for example OM L/R are harder to train as they require more skills than F, or OM C. F is easier than OM C. M R/L are harder to train than M C. However OM L/R's are easier to train than M L/R as they don’t require defensive skills, but M L/R are usually more profitable. D C's are easier to train than DM C or D L/R. D L/R and DM L/R require similar skills but D L/R would be more profitable. This is all in general but depends more on the individual’s skills obviously.

Note on the Set Pieces Skill:

For the purposes of the following guide, I’ve pretended the Set Pieces skill doesn’t exist. So when I say M L/R need every skill, I mean “every skill except Set Pieces”. Set Pieces is a special case which I’ll discuss at the end.

Players for sale vs Players for the first team

When developing players with the intention of selling them to make money, you will probably want to put a little more emphasis on ASI and doing what you can to get the players’ overall skill total up (without training pointless skills). This is because ASI is normally what first attracts managers to players in the transfer list. However, REC is becoming more important in the transfer market so its about getting a balance.

When developing a player for your team, there should be less emphasis on ASI and more on training the right skills!

Training Goalkeepers (GK)

You don’t have any choice when it comes to how you train your Goalkeepers. To find a good GK coach just search for good motivation and Goalkeeping.

Goalkeepers can start two types of attack: Direct and Long Ball. Direct uses the throwing attribute and long ball uses the kicking attribute. This might come into play when deciding which tactics to use. Of course other skills are used too but it’s hard to know from the manual exactly which ones the keeper uses.

According to the manual:

Each type of finish (headers, regular finishes and ranged drives) demand different things from your keepers. When trying to save a header your keeper will be using his reflexes and handling as well as a little jumping and one-on-ones to make the save and not give up any dangerous and unnecessary rebounds. To intervene before the action gets too hot to handle your keeper needs aerial ability, jumping and an ok strength and stamina. If your keepers are to succeed in saving ranged drives it demands quality handling, jumping and reflexes, while whether he gets into a good position for the save relies on pace, aerial ability and stamina. For regular finishes your keeper needs stamina and pace to get into position, while reflexes and one-on-ones are key combined with good handling and jumping.

In addition, another part of the manual lists Communication as important for set pieces.

Note for newbie’s: Goalkeepers often scout much lower than other positions with similar ASI, due to the fact that they need less TI to increase their skills in comparison to other positions, as they have only 11 skills rather than 14. YD scouting takes this into account, scouts don’t.

Training Full Backs (D L and D R)

Full backs spend most of their time defending but also create a reasonable amount of chances. Most attacks created by full backs are crosses. They also produce an even number of long balls, through balls and counter attacks, but no short passing attacks. Passing is not required for crossing so this may influence your tactics if your full backs have poor passing. Passing is required for the other attack types so you will want to train it but any emphasis should be placed on the wing training, as crossing is so important and pace will help with all attacks and with defending. They will also need technique, work rate, positioning, strength and stamina to create attacks. A good attacking full back should be close to 15 in all those skills and a bit of extra crossing + pace will help to.

However full backs will spend most of their time defending; particularly against crosses, short passing and through balls, but a fair amount of counter attacks and long balls as well. So they will basically need all physical and mental skills, with a particular emphasis on Marking + Tackling.

Full backs will never shoot in open play, so you can ignore finishing and long shots.

If a full backs specialist skill is work rate or crossing, you might be able to ignore Phy or Win, depending on his physical skills – this is very useful.

Primary skills: Mar, Tac

Secondary skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Wor, Pos, Pas, Cro, Tec, Hea

Summary: Train Defence (Mar and Tac) as much as possible throughout his bloom to get them as high as possible. If he is really good and his other stats are ok, you can also focus on Wing training (Pac + Cro). He will also need physical, heading and technical training.

Training Centre Backs (D C)

Training centre backs is easy. They are involved in many key defending situations and not much else. They might create 1 chance every two games but very unlikely to be much use in assists even over a season. I recommend to simply train Mar, Tac, Str, Sta, Wor, Hea and Pos as high as possible, and his physical boost should hopefully bring his pace up to scratch.

They can, occasionally create short passing, long balls, and through ball chances, and a very low amount of counter chances, but in my opinion they are rare enough (sometimes 1 every two games) to be ignored. Maybe get passing up to 15 and along with his good mental and physical stats he should still be ok. It's much better though in my opinion to focus on his defensive stats which include strength and heading. These two skills are used much less than the other mentioned skills in defensive situations however they have the added benefit of allowing the player to become an asset from attacking set pieces. They are also tied to other important skills (Sta, Wor, Pos) in the training skill sets so they are worth training. Centre backs are never involved in goal scoring chances from open play so finishing and long shots can be ignored. Such focused training will normally result in your centre back having lower ASI than other players in your team. If you are training the player for sale as opposed to being a member of your first team, you may consider also training technical and wing to get his ASI up (sacrificing Phy and Hea only as high Mar + Tac will stand out in the transfer market).

Primary Skills: Mar Tac

Secondary Skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Pos, Wor, Hea

Summary: Focus mostly on Physical, Defence and Heading training skill sets, unless he has poor pace in which case he will need some wing training. Sacrifice heading or physical in this case, depending on the individual players’ skills.

Training Wing Backs (DM L and DM R)

Wing backs require similar skills to full backs, but they generally play the role of chance creator around the same number of times as being involved in key defending situations. This means you might want to put a little more emphasis on Technical and Wing training than for full backs. They mostly create crossing attacks and quite a few long balls, which makes crossing important, but they create enough other types of opportunities to mean they need really good passing. They need less emphasis on Marking + Tackling than full backs, but it still needs to be good! They get a reasonable number of short distance chances (1 every couple of games), but given the amount of other skills they need, you can probably avoid training the attack skill set (unless he’s really good and he can afford to sacrifice elsewhere).

If you are going to train a wing back for your first team, make sure its one with high potential and good starting skills as they are going to need a vast array of skills. A DM R/L who is vulnerable in either defence or attack could cost your team. They also go for very little in the transfer market so best to avoid these if you are looking to make money by buying young and selling later.

Primary skills: Mar, Tac, Pas, Cro

Secondary skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Wor, Pos, Tec, Hea

Summary: Lots of defence, technique and wing skill sets training, maybe for two seasons of their bloom each rather than three as with other positions’ primary skills, as they will need physical and heading training too.

Training Holding Midfielders (DM C)

A DM C will engage in slightly more key defending situations than chance creations, so the defensive side of things is slightly more important. What complicates it further is that they have enough shots on goal to justify a reasonable level of attack training. They never create crossing chances and although they create some long ball chances, you can probably ignore training crossing. Strength and Heading are less important than for defenders, as they don’t deal with so many crosses and long balls, but probably should get them up to 15 if possible. They will need the defensive mind of a defender and the creativity of a midfielder.

Primary skills: Mar, Tac, Pas, Tec

Secondary skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Wor, Pos, Hea

Summary: Lots of training in defence and technical throughout his bloom, with enough physical and heading skill set training to get those skills up to 15.

Training Central Midfielders (M C)

Central midfielders need similar skills to DM C’s but they don’t need the same emphasis on Defence, instead, they need more goal scoring skills. They will mostly take part in chance creation, but a lot of key defending situations and shooting also.

They don’t create cross chances and only a few long ball chances, so I suggest avoiding training crossing to reduce the number of required skills. It’s useful, yes but not necessary.

With regard to Strength and Heading, they don’t create wing chances and rarely defend against long balls or crossing, so those two skills are not necessary in those contexts. Nevertheless, they shoot a lot with their heads, making it worthwhile getting these skills up to 15. They shoot from long range much less regularly, so long shots isn’t so important.

They are, along with M L/R’s, the only positions which need skills across all 6 skill sets, making them quite difficult to train. Hopefully you can reduce this if the midfielder’s physical boost satisfies the pace requirement (so you don’t need to train the wing skill set).

Primary Skills: Pas, Tec

Secondary Skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Mar, Tac, Wor, Pos, Hea, Fin

Summary: Train the technical skill set throughout the player’s bloom, and vary all the other 5 skill sets according to the player’s needs.

Training Wide Midfielders (M L and M R)

These are probably the hardest to train – every skill is useful, and they need particular emphasis on a lot of skills. It may well be that these are the guys with the highest ASI in your team. They will take part mostly in wing attacks, making crossing important, but they can also take part in all other chance types, so Passing and Technique are just as important. They will shoot a lot, mostly short range finishes and headers. Marking and Tackling are less important than for M C’s, as they take part in less defensive situations, but I recommend getting them up to 15 if possible, as a wide midfielder with poor defensive abilities may leave you vulnerable. A great wide midfielder will reward you with excellent productivity and an extra line of defence.

Primary Skills: Pas, Cro, Tec

Secondary Skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Mar, Tac, Wor, Pos, Hea, Fin

Summary: You are going to need a top player to get the most out of this position. He should get lots of wing and technical training but you should also give enough training towards the other four skill sets to not leave you vulnerable. Perhaps sacrifice defending or the heading attribute (not positioning) if you are stuck.

Training Attacking Midfielders (OM C)

OM C’s will create plenty of chances and take plenty of shots, so they need be like the best of both midfielders and strikers, and thus can be your star man. I wouldn’t worry about their defensive attributes, as it’s extremely rare for them to take part in key defending situations. They don’t create long ball or crossing chances so they don’t need crossing. Most of their shots are from short distance or headers (about equal) with much less long shots, but enough to make it worthwhile to train it to 15. They create quite a lot more chances than they finish, so the main emphasis should be on the technical skill set.

Primary Skills: Pas, Tec, Hea, Fin

Secondary Skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Wor, Pos, Lon

Summary: Try to train them on technical, heading and attack throughout their bloom; hopefully their physical boost will sort out their physical skills, and maybe sacrifice some heading or attack to train physical for a bit to get work rate up.

Training Wingers (OM L and OM R)

Very similar to OM C’s except they also need crossing as a primary skill. Lots of wing chances, some short passing chances, not a lot else. They attempt quite a lot of short range finishes and headers, not so many long shots. These guys need to be awesome in a lot of attributes, but if they are then they can cause havoc in the opposition penalty area. You can ignore their defensive skills.

Primary Skills: Pas, Cro, Tec, Fin

Secondary Skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Wor, Pos, Hea

Summary: Lots of technical, wing and attack training; hopefully they are already good in one of those areas so you can sacrifice one for some physical and heading training, also very important.

Training Strikers (F)

Forwards require skills across 5 skill sets but generally they aren’t too difficult to train. Try to focus training on the Attacking and Heading skill sets throughout his bloom. He will also need Technical and Physical training. They don’t create crossing or long ball chances so you can ignore Crossing, but obviously Pace is useful, hopefully his physical boost will be enough to give him good pace so you can ignore this skill set. They are never involved in key defending situations so you can ignore Marking + Tackling. Being able to ignore 4 skills is what makes him a little easier to train than other positions. Ideally you’d like a forward to have Finishing or Heading as his specialist skill to be a great player and to make him easier to train, as it might enable you to ignore one of those skill sets once his Long Shots or Positioning reaches a reasonable level.

Forwards are probably the best option for the buy young sell later brigade, as a striker with good finishing and heading will always stand out regardless of ASI, and they tend to go for more money in the transfer market than other positions.

Primary skills: Hea, Fin

Secondary skills: Str, Sta, Pac, Wor, Pos, Pas, Tec, Lon

Summary: Focus a lot on Attacking and Heading skill sets, while making sure physical and technical skill sets, along with his pace are upto scratch.

Training a set piece taker

I left out set pieces in the analysis. Penalties, free kicks and corners can be a good source of goals, and the manual sets out which skills are needed. I don’t think I would sacrifice a player to train hard on set pieces. Probably better to get one who has specialist skill set pieces (from your yd or buy one) and then train finishing (penalties) long shots (direct free kicks), crossing (corners/ indirect freekicks) and technique (all set pieces). Side midfielders or wingers are probably the best choice as they need those skills anyway. Or even better if you have 11 good players, chances are you will have a couple with good set pieces (15+) who can fill those roles.

5. Scouting the transfer market for talented youths

Without giving away every secret, here are a few things to look out for:

• ASI Calculators
• ASI2TI Calculators to work out a players current TI
• Players who fit into your existing training schedules, i.e. if you have a coach with 90% coach effectiveness in three skill sets, buying players who need most of their training in these skill sets would be better
• Late bloomers – they are bargains and are often easy to spot in the market (by checking their TI difference) but its anyone’s guess as to what their TI will be once they bloom – could be good or could be bad
• Goalkeepers’ ASI will improve more dramatically than outfield players. They will also appear to scout at a lower potential
• Building a team around DMR,DML,OMR and OML maybe a good strategy as these are much cheaper in the transfer market – whether its not a good tactical strategy is for another article
• Remember to scout a players hidden skills as much as possible

Other tips:

• The focus of your team should be on your homegrown youths, with foreigners filling the roles your youths can’t fill
• The 5-foreigner rule makes youths from the same country invaluable, especially if you are a team in a small country
• If you have limited training regimes, prioritise your homegrown future first teamers, then foreign future first teamers, and then players who you plan to sell later, in order of value

6. How do I know all this?

I got this information mostly by reading the manual but also by analysing some of the top leagues in the world – both player stats pages and squad analysis pages. There was an old player positions page (its still there) in the time of the old Match Engine. However clearly this is out of date or just wrong. For example, for OMC’s Marking and Tackling were considered important but Pace wasn’t. This despite the fact Pace is used in all creative situations and heading, which OMC’s do a lot of, whereas Marking and Tackling are used in Defensive Situations, which OMC’s rarely are involved in. Also the usefulness of long shots is exaggerated for some positions.

Of course without knowing the exact formulas the Match Engine uses, it’s impossible to know which skills are the most important. I believe that they are listed in the Attacking Style and Finishing pages in the User Manual in the order of importance for each event; as they seemed to be logical when looked at in that way.

Another way to guess (apart from the manual) is to look at the squad analysis pages. For example, it can be seen for example that heading is very important for headers. This seems obvious. But finishing doesn’t seem as important for short range finishes and it seems heading is a more important skill in this ME, whereas finishing was very important in the last ME. No way of knowing for sure and its something the TM community can guess about!

Finally this is my approach to training and I’ve built a top LOI team with players almost entirely trained by me (in my current first 11 there are 5 players from my yd, another 5 trained by me from the first season of their bloom or earlier, and 1 signed with one season bloom remaining). Other teams will have different approaches I’m sure. I will probably edit this many times as I carry out further analysis or in response to angry PM’s giving out that I don’t think creativity is important for defenders or long shots for wingers. Anyway I welcome almost, criticism, and even the odd insult if it helps get your point across. Also, if anyone wants advice on how to train a certain player, let me know and I’ll try my best to help you. The quickest way to get a response is to PM my team on TM (ID:119341). Thanks and I’m hoping this guide was useful for some!

7. References & More Information

Squad Analysis Pages

League/Cup Stats

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Attacking%20Style&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Coaches&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Finishing%20Types&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Goalkeeping&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Player%20Training&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Player%20Training%20-%20Simple&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Special%20Tactical%20Settings&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Training%20Grounds&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=Training%20-%20Advanced&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=training%20overview&language=uk

http://trophymanager.com/manual_show.php?page=reserve%20teams&language=uk