Originally Posted by
pinballgkh
look at the league table and see if you're drawing lots, losing too often, are you not scoring enough goals or are you leaking too many.
Whatever you find out from doing that gives you a clue as to the tactical changes you could consider in league games. If you're going well in the cups, leave things as they are there. I believe there's a reason teams in real life are far more successful in cups than the league as playing the 1st or 2nd leg of a knockout tie is (for me at least) a different mindset to playing league games. The thought of 'well 1-1 away is an ok result, we'll get it done at home' doesn't come into it with away league games, so maybe your tactics are conservative enough for the cups but not clinical enough for league games where a score draw away is not so acceptable.
I'd say you try and promote, even from 5th to 7th. I know people will disagree, but at the moment you're not playing well enough you say in the league to promote as you're 8th and thats a problem you need to fix if you're the highest quality team. Do your best and try to fix the long term problems rather than worry about the short term problem of no champions league for 1 season