For many Football Manager 2020 players, one of the most challenging parts of being in charge is the training side of things.
Training is a vital part of being a manager, as it’s how you best develop players to fit your own needs. Turning that hard-working winger into a rampaging wing-back can be done; you just need to know what factors are most effective to consider!
Here, then, are five simple but effective tips to throw into your next training schedules on Football Manager 2020. You might just find it maximises training output.
Listen to your players
If you notice that you are getting inbox messages telling you that your players aren’t happy with the training, investigate. You might find that you are focusing too much on the physical side of things, either tiring your team out or creating monotony in training.
Try and avoid that and make training more diverse. If players keep mentioning you are doing too much strength and/or quickness training, dial it back a bit for a few weeks.
Make use of Match Review
A great way to help bolster the tactical prowess of your team is to add in a Match Review session. You can add this to any training day the day after a match. It’s a good way to help improve your team's tactical focus and to help minimise repeating the same errors.
A match review is easy to set up and can be added in without increasing training intensity on a post-match recovery day excessively.
Use training for team cohesion
A tremendous little tip that I can give you for making training more effective is to utilise the two sessions under the Extra Training section at the bottom. This includes things like Community Outreach and Team Bonding sessions.
If my team plays on a Saturday, I’ll schedule these for the Sunday. At the very least, your team will be going into Monday with a morale boost on-top of what was hopefully a win for you.
Add in more set-piece focuses
While many people take the route of modern managers and see set pieces as a waste of vital practice time, it’s not the case at all. I recommend that you add in one of each of the training modules under ‘Set Pieces’ – Attacking and Defending Corners & Free Kicks, Set Piece Delivery, and Penalties.
Add one to the end of each training day and watch your set-piece goals increase and concessions decrease.
Don’t worry about delegation
One thing I always do, since I trust my Assistant Manager with my life, is to leave him/her on the Individual Training for all of my players. Then, any player I am specifically working on I can take over their individual training and mould them myself.
By having him coach most of the squad on what they are already working towards well, I can focus my energy on working on the four or five players who need specific focus and development.
With a few conversations about Training Rating with my players per month, I can keep them focused on development while my number two keeps everyone else ticking along.
More guides on Football Manager are available in our newly released eBook, Guide to FM - Edition 2. And if you want even more guides you can check out the Guide to FM - Edition 1 eBook which contains some evergreen guides that you'll definitely find useful.
