I remember staring at the screen in disbelief during that brutal November stretch of my Football Manager 2017 save with Liverpool. We'd started the season flying with that beautiful 3-1 record, playing what I thought was revolutionary football, only to crash into a five-game losing streak that completely negated our promising start. The frustration was real—I nearly abandoned the save altogether. But that painful experience taught me more about FM2017's tactical engine than any winning streak ever could.
What I discovered through countless hours of testing—and I'm talking about putting in at least 300 hours across multiple saves specifically to crack this game's code—is that success hinges on understanding the subtle interplay between three core tactical elements that most players overlook. The first revelation came when I stopped treating team mentality as just "attacking" or "defensive" and started seeing it as a dynamic slider that needed constant adjustment. During our losing streak, I'd been stubbornly using "Control" mentality even against top opponents away from home. The breakthrough came when I analyzed the actual match stats—we were conceding an average of 18 shots per game during those losses while only creating about 8. The solution wasn't about going more defensive, but about being smarter. I developed what I call "situational mentality shifting," where I'd start matches on "Standard" regardless of opponent, then adjust based on first 15-minute performance metrics. If we were dominating possession but not creating chances, I'd switch to "Control." If we were being overrun, I'd drop to "Counter" but with specific player instructions that maintained offensive threat.
The second game-changer was understanding that player roles need to complement each other like instruments in an orchestra, not just fill positions. I used to just slot players into their "best" roles based on the star ratings, but that created disastrous imbalances. During that awful losing streak, my midfield consisted of a Ball-Winning Midfielder on defend duty alongside an Advanced Playmaker on attack—sounds reasonable on paper, but in practice, it created a massive gap that opponents exploited mercilessly. The fix came from creating what I now call "role partnerships." I started using a Central Midfielder on support duty alongside a Deep-Lying Playmaker on defend, with the instruction to "hold position" for both. This simple change reduced the space opponents had to operate in by what felt like 40%, though my rough tracking suggested it was probably closer to 30% based on the heat maps.
Then there's the aspect most FM players completely ignore until it's too late—training and match preparation. I used to delegate all training to my assistant, thinking it didn't matter much. Big mistake. After that five-game nightmare, I took control and developed a system that boosted our performance dramatically. I created what I call the "match-focused training cycle"—three days before matches, I'd focus on match tactics and team cohesion; after matches, two days of defensive positioning; and during fixture-congested periods, I'd prioritize recovery sessions. The impact was immediate—we went from that five-game losing streak to a 15-match unbeaten run across all competitions. Our goals conceded per game dropped from 2.4 during the losing streak to just 0.7 during the unbeaten run.
What truly transformed my approach was developing what I call "tactical presets"—three saved formations with identical player roles but different mentalities and team instructions that I could switch between during matches. Preset A was my standard 4-2-3-1 with "Standard" mentality, Preset B was the same formation with "Attacking" mentality and higher defensive line for when we needed goals, and Preset C was a more conservative version with "Counter" mentality for protecting leads. This system allowed me to make comprehensive tactical shifts with two clicks rather than manually adjusting multiple settings while the match engine was running.
The beautiful part about these discoveries is how they work together. That initial 3-1 start wasn't a fluke—we were playing cohesive football, but opponents had figured us out. The five-game losing streak forced me to evolve, and the system I developed afterward took my Liverpool save from nearly abandoned to completing a historic treble in the second season. We finished with 94 points in the Premier League, won the Champions League with a dramatic 3-2 final against Bayern Munich, and took the FA Cup too. The moral isn't about finding one magic tactic—it's about building a flexible system that can adapt when things go wrong. Because in Football Manager 2017, as in real football, even the best starts can be negated by stubborn tactics, but the most disastrous slumps can be transformed with the right adjustments.