James M

Choosing the Correct Assistant.

As you may, or may not know, the Assistant Manager is your most important member of the background staff. He handles the training, motivates the players through good and bad times, and becoming more common, he is the one who shouts instructions to the players from the sidelines. Basically, without him, you're job is made much much harder.

Every good manager knows they need a good assistant to, well, assist them. Look at Alex Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz, Rafael Benítez and Pako Ayestaran. In FM, your assistant, if 'used' correctly, is the most dangerous tool a manager could have. I am going to continue on now and help you decide who is the right assistant for you.

Coaching
When browsing the hundreds of thousands of assistant manager the Football Manager has to offer, you should be looking for high attributes in two main areas; Mentality and Tactical.

Mental
There are three key attributes to consider in this area. Firstly, Motivating. You don't want an assistant who just lets the players get on with training and in a match, if your team is losing, you want your assistant to help inspire or motivate them. Look for over 15 attribute in this area. Secondly, Tactical Knowledge. He has to know his stuff and should be good at arranging set pieces, formations etc. Once again, I would look for an attribute of 15+ in this category. Lastly, we come to Judging Player Potential. Your assistant needs to know exactly how good a player can be, when you look at his report on your young players, he could advise you to 'look to offload' the player in the near future. You could, and understandably, sell this youngster. You then notice in 5/6 years time, he has turned out a pretty good player. Look for 17+ in this area, it is VERY IMPORTANT!

Hopefully that's me done my bit, but if you are really lazy and can't be bothered to look for your assistant yourself, here is a few suggestions.

*Suggestions will be added tomorrow (10th April), complete with information, screenies and pictures of them, please check back sometime tomorrow.
Cheers,
James M*