Ask any manager in football a question, and you’ll likely get a wide range of responses unless it’s one specific question: Are your squads asked to play too many matches? Fixture congestion is never far from the news cycle as some club is always just about to hit a patch that feels unfairly dense.
In Football Manager 26, your ability to manage a congested period of the schedule is critical for keeping a successful season on the rails. A bad spell with tired legs can quickly sink a campaign, so it’s important to learn how to deal with congestion while still picking up points at a strong clip.
Causes For Fixture Congestion In Football Manager 26
Before understanding how to get through fixture congestion, it’s helpful to understand the causes for it to see if there is anything you can do to mitigate them. The common reasons you may have fixture congestion are:
- Busy League Period: Sometimes, there is just going to be fixture congestion for you, no matter who you are managing and how things are going. Nearly every league will have periods in the year where teams are asked to play three or four games in a short period, and you simply have to figure out how to deal with it better than other clubs.
- Successful Cup Runs: Making a deep run in a cup is exhilarating, particularly if you’re at a club that would not otherwise be expected to excel in the tournament. It can also add fixtures into your schedule at times that are not opportune, leading to you facing a busier period than your league peers.
- Rapid Rises: Generally speaking, success in Football Manager will lead to busier schedules as you progress. More cup runs pile up, while higher levels can feature more physically taxing matches and the opportunity to eventually unlock further fixtures in continental play. If you go up several years in a row, this can sometimes lead to the finances available to you lagging behind the demands placed on you.
- Friendly Mistakes: Some FM players like to take advantage of friendly opportunities for squad and financial management, but it’s easy to make a mistake in scheduling and find that players have grown weary from the games that don’t count coming too close to the ones that do.
How To Manage Fixture Congestion In Football Manager 26
If you’re struggling with fixture congestion in your save, be it a tricky period or managing a thin squad across a long season, these tips can help you navigate it with as fresh legs as possible:
- Bring In Loan Signing Depth: The best way to deal with fixture congestion is to have a squad large enough to handle it, but you won’t always have the salary budget to do so. An excellent way to fill in some areas you’re looking thin around the deadline is through loan acquisitions. Late in the deadline, you can often find clubs willing to cover most, if not all, of their players’ salaries just to get them minutes, letting you add cheap depth.
- Check Your Reserves: If you’re dealing with a congested period, it may be time to start looking into your reserve squad for players who are ready for first-team minutes. The ability to give a reserve 30 minutes at the end of a game can provide your starter at a thin position with enough rest to be good to go again in a few days.
- Reduce The In-Game Workload: If you can’t bring in fresh legs for your squad, you may need to find ways to make your matches less taxing on your players. Slowing down the tempo and increasing time wasting reduces the amount of time the ball is in play to lower the workload. Further tactical tweaks can include playing a more compact defensive system with less pressing to reduce energy spent chasing the ball.
- Shut Things Down Earlier: It’s important to keep an eye on your schedule several matches in advance to always know in-game what your needs are in the days to follow. If you’re entering a game during a busy stretch of the season and jump out to a multi-goal lead, consider switching to a less-intensive and more defensive strategy earlier than you otherwise would. This can make it easier for your players to manage their energy on the pitch to leave some in the tank for next time.
- Rotate In Shifts: Rotation is a critical concept for a team trying to stretch its squad through a challenging run of games. The most basic way to navigate this type of situation is with rolling rotations throughout the busy period, swapping out a few first-choice options one game, then a different small group the next one. This allows you to still get each of your main players a rest game at some point in the busy run while still keeping your lineups fairly strong. You can choose to spread rotation around, or in some cases may find it best to rotate in platoons if you have reserve groups that are familiar due to a Cup-League rotation system.
- Look For Low Priority Games: A more drastic approach to rotation is to borrow from that familiar Cup-League approach that many clubs use, having a lineup of mostly second-choice players that you use all together in a match during a busy period. Often, this will mean playing them for the match against the worst team in that run to maximize your chances of still getting a result with a rotated squad, but in some cases, you may choose the opposite. A team in a relegation fight with a six-pointer and a match against the league leaders may opt to wave the flag on the game they were unlikely to get a result in, while having fresh legs for the critical matchup with the relegation foe.
- Ensure They’re Getting Rest: Check your training schedules if your team keeps getting run down, as it may be a sign that your team is being pushed too hard in training. Make sure to have a rest day after matches to let players recover. If a particularly busy period of the year looks challenging for your legs, you can also opt for lower intensity in that period to make practice time less taxing.
- Check Your Reserve Team Availability: Making players consistently available for your reserve team can be very helpful in general, allowing players to keep their match fitness in a period of minimal minutes. When the fixtures pile up, however, it can prove disastrous if a player is accidentally made available to the reserves on a day you need them, or if a prior reserve match appearance means they’re not ready to play another match when you need them to.
Fixture congestion can be a tough challenge, but it is often a sign that things are going well. With these tips, you can ride out these busy periods and see them not as challenging sections but opportunities to rack up points at a time when other sides struggle with the stress.
