Training in the Football Manager series tends to become more in-depth with each annual instalment. Here, we'll look at the best FM24 training schedules you can employ.
It is estimated that around 80% of Football Manager players set their assistants to take control of training, simply because the process has become so in-depth and time-consuming. However, if you really want to get the best out of your side, then getting hands-on is the only way to do so.
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Understanding the Limitations of Training
To give an example, Bundesliga icons Bayern Munich have much better training facilities than a club such as Dulwich Hamlet, and player development will be more improved at the German giants. Likewise, Bayern will be able to attract and afford the highest reputation coaches, while Dulwich Hamlet will only be able to offer part-time contracts in the first season, limiting the quality of coach they can bring into the club and therefore restricting their players' ability to improve statistically via training. Factors such as these must be taken into account before judging any training programme, as you simply won't get the best out of your players until you are competing at the highest level.
Another obvious factor in getting the best out of your players through training programmes is making sure your players are still within the age of development and possess the physical potential to improve. The best improvements to player statistics will be found in the age ranges of 16-24, with players generally peaking between the ages of 26-31. It is always a good idea to check a player's current ability and compare it to their potential ability as any young player with a potential ability of 4 or more stars could go on to be one of the best players in the game, but only if they receive the best training programme, at the best facilities, from the best coaches, anything less and they will never reach their true potential.
What Makes the Best Training Programme?
As mentioned above, the best training programme can only be realised when you are in control of a club with good training facilities and top coaches, but the same principles can be applied to any lower league teams as long as you lower your expectations levels somewhat. The following tips on training and development in Football Manager 2020 have been gathered from fmscout.com using the advice of Rober82 and Cadoni and have been tested by FM Scout on their YouTube channel with excellent results.
Coaches
Personality traits ensure you have the most positive effect on your players' development only bring in coaches who possess the model citizen, professional, or model professional personalities. These personality traits will even enhance your coaches' personal development as well as the players they are working with. Key stats to any highly-rated coach are determination, level of discipline and their motivating ability, so if you are at a top club, then try to find coaches who possess at least a 15 in each of these categories if possible.
Intensity
Managers will often train their players in specific positions but leaving this area blank and simply playing the player in the position you wish to get them more used to playing whilst setting their individual training intensity to double will produce much better results. Remember to select an area in a player's individual training which you deem needs the most improvement e.g crossing and you could see an improvement of between +1 and +3 by the end of the first season.
Rest
When in the training tab click on ‘rest' and you will be taken to a section labelling the conditions of players and which intensity to train them at when their condition is at a certain percentage. When a players' condition is at 59% or below select ‘no pitch or gym work', between 60-69% select ‘half intensity', 70-79% use ‘normal intensity', and anything from 80-89% and 90%+ select ‘double intensity'. These selections will help you to avoid unnecessary injuries to your players as well as ensuring they get the best out of their training programme.
The best FM24 training schedules
Training schedules should follow a certain pattern depending on whether you have one, two or no matches in a week. Here is a breakdown of the training programmes and what you should assign on each day, with all three programmes being set to double intensity.
One-Match Week
Monday – S1: Possession. S2: Transition – Press. S3: Attacking Overlap
Tuesday – S1: Physical. S2: Aerial Defence. S3: Recovery.
Wednesday – S1:Play from the Back. S2: Attacking Patient. S3: Chance Conversion.
Thursday – S1:Overall. S2: Ground Defence. S3: Recovery.
Friday – S1:Routines. S2: match Tactics. S3: Match Focus.
Saturday – S1:Rest. S2: Match. S3: Rest.
Sunday – S1:Recovery. S2: Match Review. S3: Team Bonding.
Two-Match Week
Monday – S1: Possession. S2: Transition – Press. S3: Attacking Overlap
Tuesday – S1: Physical. S2: Aerial Defence. S3: Recovery.
Wednesday – S1:Team Bonding. S2: Rest. S3: Match.
Thursday – S1:Recovery. S2: Match Review. S3: Rest.
Friday – S1:Routines. S2: match Tactics. S3: Match Focus.
Saturday – S1:Rest. S2: Match. S3: Rest.
Sunday – S1:Recovery. S2: Match Review. S3: Team Bonding.
No-Match Week
Monday – S1: Possession. S2: Transition – Press. S3: Attacking Overlap
Tuesday – S1: Physical. S2: Aerial Defence. S3: Recovery.
Wednesday – S1:Play from the Back. S2: Attacking Patient. S3: Chance Conversion.
Thursday – S1:Overall. S2: Ground Defence. S3: Recovery.
Friday – S1:Routines. S2: match Tactics. S3: Match Focus.
Saturday – S1:Set Pieces Rountines. S2:General Tactical. S3: Team Bonding.
Sunday – S1:Rest S2: Rest. S3: Rest
This is a fairly intense set of training instructions. However, if you want to see the benefit of moving away from auto-training then this is a good way to do it. The best way to set this training up is to save it as a custom Schedule and then import it each week. You will need to adjust things based on what day of the week you are playing.
If your squad is suffering from major injury issues due to training. Add a recovery to S3 on a Monday.
These training programmes have been geared towards a particular style of play and formation, which can be tweaked to something more suitable to your own philosophy, but in general, produced the best development of the selected players. In testing, these training programmes were used on a Borussia Dortmund side in their first season and yielded much better results when compared with the same players' development under the training programme provided by the assistant manager.
See also: The best FM 24 wonderkids
