Last updated on January 12th, 2023
Attributes are the most important piece of data Football Manager throws your way. Not only do they let you know immediately what a footballer can do, they also tell you precisely how good (or bad) he is at these certain things.
Generally, when I need to choose which roles some of my players are going to play, I prefer looking at roles instead of what the game tells me he’s supposed to be doing.
Football Manager is such a complicated piece of art that sometimes, you’re better off following your own knowledge about football instead of mindlessly listening to what the software tells you.
The beauty of attributes is that they can be improved, and by a lot in certain cases. You can take a promising youngster and forge him into the best defender known to man, for example.
But, how do you do that?
Well, you’re in luck: today, I’m going to take a look at how exactly improving attributes works and what the best techniques are to turn your players into consistent, hard-working champions.
How to Improve Attributes on Football Manager
From training to improving structures, I’m going to go over everything you need to know in order to improve your squad’s attributes.
If you employ every strategy detailed here, you’ll end up with a squad much better than the one you started with, without having to sign a single new player.
Alright, let’s kick off the list.
#1 Train Your Team Effectively
Alongside tactics, training is one of the most important aspects of managing a club. You’re not going to fare well if you don’t put some time into learning what it’s all about.
Even if you’ve crafted the most brainy tactic out there, if you don’t pair it with a well-thought training schedule, you’re not going to go far.
I highly suggest not leaving training to your assistant. I know, it looks complicated and scary.
Take your time, explore all the tabs, and you’ll quickly notice that it’s much easier than expected.
First of all, you should think about your game schedule.
Are you in pre-season, or do you already need to deal with league and cup matches?
If you don’t have any fixtures to deal with, it’s probably time to amp up your training intensity. This will bring back players into shape and improve a lot of attributes really quickly.
For example, here’s what my training schedules look like at the start of a save, when you have plenty of time to set up more demanding sessions.
However, once the matches start coming, that kind of intensity will put a strain on your players, which can lead to some pretty awful injuries down the road.
Here’s what an average mid-season training schedule looks like for me. In this case, I’ll be up against a stronger opponent, so I’d focus on sharpening all defensive attributes.
What I like to do is go all-in and train at high intensity during the pre-season, only to switch to average intensity when the season starts.
This strategy will help develop physical and mental attributes during the pre-season, while taking care of technical attributes the most throughout the season.
Don’t forget to include some goalkeeping training sessions as well, especially during the season. Your goalkeeper’s stats are going to improve dramatically!
Individual Training Is Your Friend
Individual training is one of the most esoteric parts of Football Manager, at least for the majority of people out there.
If you’ve never felt like learning how to set it up, you’re not alone.
It took me a whole year before I felt confident enough to tackle it. I mean, I failed miserably the first time I tried it out, but that’s not the point.
I’ve figured it out and I’ve gone out of my way to learn from the best. I’ll tell you exactly what you need to look at and what you can dismiss.
The first thing you need to know is that individual training is useless without a well-crafted training schedule.
You should make sure nobody is being over-trained and everybody can keep up.
Next up, let’s bust a myth: role familiarity doesn’t exist. You heard me right, the green circles are lying to you, sort of. They represent how well a player is suited to play in that position, purely based on his attributes.
So, you can’t improve “role familiarity” with individual training, but you can improve attributes, which brings us back to the scope of this article.
You can use individual training to do a bunch of cool stuff, like retraining somebody or making sure a promising youngster breaks through. Let’s talk about it.
If you’ve got your hands on a wonder-kid with much room for growth and all you want to do is improve as many attributes you can, you can start by training them for the most complete role available for the positions they can play in.
For example, here I’ve selected the Central Midfielder (support) role, since I believe it’s the best option for the number of traits it’s going to develop.
Alright, say you’re managing a youngster that already has a solid base of attributes. Now, what you should focus on is molding them to fit in your system. You can do so through individual training as well.
What if you want to iron out a couple of issues one of your first-teamers has? Well, you can do that with individual training as well! Set it for a role that takes care of the attributes you’d like to improve.
Additionally, you can always introduce new traits through the “Discuss new trait” button.
If you notice that somebody in your squad possesses certain attributes that would make them a force to reckon with somewhere else on the pitch, you might want to retrain them.
To do so, you should set individual training up to make him train in the desired new role. Keep in mind that, moving on from a certain point, you’ll have to start playing him in that position to see more improvements.
Finally, if you need to deal with somebody who has been injured for a while, you should probably think about including a “Injury Rehab” focus in their individual training. You’ll quickly see attributes stop degrading and eventually come back to their pre-injury level.
There are also Recovery and Rest sessions, and you can find out how they differ here.
Improve Your Structures
Our final tip is aimed specifically at those who have managed a team for at least a couple of seasons, have decent finances, and have established a positive relationship with the board.
Better structures means better training, and better training means better attributes.
To get better training structures, you have to ask the board. If you’ve managed to hit some or all of their goals in the past seasons, and if your club’s finances allow it, your request will be granted.
By the way, here’s how you ask the board to improve your training structures: first, you need to go over to Club Vision. Then, you’re going to click on Board. Finally, you can go to the upper right corner of your screen (by default) and click on “Make Board Request”.
You’ll be able to choose between several options, but you’ll want to select “Improve Training Facilities”.
It will take some time to improve your structures, but it’ll be worth it!
Subscribe to Telegram and Twitter to get the latest updates!
Are you passionate about football and want to earn some side income?
