Tactic Tweaking – The what, where, when and how!!!!

Tactic tweaking is probably the most important thing on the game in terms of tactics and is the main reason why so many people feel their tactic is inconsistent. Its not a simple task tweaking, it is very complex as you need to understand what to change, when to change it and what it actually changes. In this thread I hope we can give you a better understanding and generate a decent discussion about one of the most troubled areas of FM for many users. Not every bit of info will be available from the off, this is more like a work in progress and can always be expanded on. It might also be worth noting that people do things differently and just because one particular person does something a particular way, it doesn't make it a rule and mean it will always work.. These are just peoples ways of doing things and just to give you a better insight of the things you can try.

Hopefully further in the article, I will be able to show you an example match taken from one of my saved games of what I tweaked and what the results where. But this might take a little bit of time as its quite a task writing it all down, but more importantly getting a game where I need to tweak several things. I might be best starting a new game for this actually, but its something I hope to have done at some stage anyway.

Often wonder what I mean when I say tweak to suit your needs? Then read on...

Let's start off by having a look at what determines you need to tweak.

The Basics

Before A Game

Tempo

Mentality

Defensive Line

Man Marking

Counter Attacking

Passing

In Game

You go a goal behind

Opposition getting too much space

A forced injury

A substitution

You see something worrying

Your style just isn't working

These are the most common things I look out for, and is one of the main factors before I tweak something. If something is working and my tactic is doing what I think is good, then I won't change anything. I don't tweak just for the sake of it, I only tweak if its needed. If I am being really dominant in a game, its very rare that I ever change anything, after all I am being dominant. So I must be doing something right?

Before you play your next fixture its quite possible to tweak a few things here and there, before you enter the game to give you what should be a slight advantage hopefully. How I determine what I tweak before a game depends on my scout report on the next opposition says. Most of it is really common knowledge and nothing no-one shouldn't be able to work out by reading what it says. Its nothing too complex or anything and in most cases, really easy to determine what needs to be done. For example my next game is against Newcastle and my scout said ' Newcastle play a defensive 442 and like a quick direct style to hit teams on the break'. Now this tells me I can play quite attacking against them, as they tend to sit deep and hit me on the counter attack. So as long as I don't over commit on the attacking front, I should have quite a few shots if I can break them down. Another thing I can do is play a short slow tempo game and try and limit the possession Newcastle have, because they play on the counter and rather direct, I should dominate possession in this game as at times they will give the ball away. So by playing short and slow I will be making them play a style which does not suit them at this time.

I will probably drop my defensive line slightly too, as i know they got fast strikers just by looking at their probable line up. So I don't want my defence to play too high or they might get caught out here, especially as my defenders lack pace. As you can see, I can change quite a few things here, it might seem a lot of messing about, but really its not. All this should take no longer than 30 seconds to change, it sounds harder than it actually is. Newcastle line up against me defensive as I am one of the better sides in the league now, but you get the drift about what I mean with scout reports hopefully? One more thing I should add, is that if my defenders have good man marking attributes then it might be worth while man marking their fast striker who is likely to cause me trouble, I find this helps keep them at bay most games.

-------

Thats all I've done so far, hopefully I will have the 2nd part done around the new year time and it will contain the in game tweaking as well. I would have not posted this yet, if it wasn't for me formatting my PC later today. So please bear this in mind, and remember that its a progression thread and not an instant over night help one.

Is there a particular aspect of tweaking that people need me to touch on btw?

Excellent post Cleon, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Regarding your man-marking of a fast striker.

Does your defender need to have good pace and acceleration as well as marking, or is his ability to mark the opponent out of the game good enough?

I´d like to hear your opinion about closing down settings. What is the relation between team closing down and individual settings? Do you tweak closing down according to scout report and how? Team or individual? High closing down against possession football and low against direct style? Thanks for sharing your observations, they are really making FM more enjoyable!

Originally posted by EB:

Excellent post Cleon, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Regarding your man-marking of a fast striker.

Does your defender need to have good pace and acceleration as well as marking, or is his ability to mark the opponent out of the game good enough?

A good question...

I tend to go for marking alone, I believe if the player has a good footballing brain then that is generally enough for me. Pace is a nice bonus, but not essential imo. Others might think it is essential though.

I´d like to hear your opinion about closing down settings. What is the relation between team closing down and individual settings? Do you tweak closing down according to scout report and how? Team or individual? High closing down against possession football and low against direct style? Thanks for sharing your observations, they are really making FM more enjoyable!

I never ever change my closing down at all, for me thats something that can be used the same every game. The only time I will change that is if someone is having too much possession and my players are backing off. But thats about it, hopefully I might be able to touch upon this in the match that I tweak. But as a rule its not something I mess around with game by game.

Nice Post Cleon, I agree it's one of the most important things to make a tactic better suited vs different sides.

I do have a question though:

Is there anything to do about increasing the shots on target in a game?

I'm managing PSV and when I play weaker side away, I tend to use a more dominating tactic with my team controlling the play and having the ball. But I rather seem to get quite a lot of shots in the direction of the opponents goal, but not really on target. I play a 4-1-3-2 or a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with my wingers as an important asset of my team. I'm not playing down both flanks cause it's kind of predictable IMO and I have some creative players in the centre also. No-one on my team is assigned to take long shots often. Should my team be playing more attacking?

This is what annoys me a bit to be honest. the passing completion is about 70-80%, which is OK IMO and the crossing completion is about 25%, rather low, but never seen this to be at 50% or so.

Originally posted by Oeffel:

Nice Post Cleon, I agree it's one of the most important things to make a tactic better suited vs different sides.

I do have a question though:

Is there anything to do about increasing the shots on target in a game?

I'm managing PSV and when I play weaker side away, I tend to use a more dominating tactic with my team controlling the play and having the ball. But I rather seem to get quite a lot of shots in the direction of the opponents goal, but not really on target. I play a 4-1-3-2 or a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with my wingers as an important asset of my team. I'm not playing down both flanks cause it's kind of predictable IMO and I have some creative players in the centre also. No-one on my team is assigned to take long shots often. Should my team be playing more attacking?

This is what annoys me a bit to be honest. the passing completion is about 70-80%, which is OK IMO and the crossing completion is about 25%, rather low, but never seen this to be at 50% or so.

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target.

Ok thanks.

I'll give it a go, when playing a match where I dominate but don't seem to break their wall of defense.

Sounds logically to up the tempo.

Noticed that it wasn't players trying long range shots but the two strikers had to do the attacking work mostly with the two of them. So the midfielders arrived late in the box to support the attack. And further more the strikers missed some good chances. So generally an all tactic problem rather than a problem that needs in-game tweaking.

Let's see how this works out now.

Originally posted by Cleon:

One more thing I should add, is that if my defenders have good man marking attributes then it might be worth while man marking their fast striker who is likely to cause me trouble, I find this helps keep them at bay most games.

First of all, great post as always, Cleon! KUTGW!

You mean you instruct the other centre-back to man-mark and the other to play zonal, presuming we are talking about back of four? What about tight marking; do you mark that fast striker tightly or not? What about other players, do you employ tight zonal marking? I'm asking because I'm sort of having some trouble with left centre-back man-marking the pacey striker tightly while the right centre-back plays tight zonal marking and would love to hear how you deploy your defense line and especially the two centre-backs.

Originally posted by Oeffel:

Ok thanks.

I'll give it a go, when playing a match where I dominate but don't seem to break their wall of defense.

Sounds logically to up the tempo.

Noticed that it wasn't players trying long range shots but the two strikers had to do the attacking work mostly with the two of them. So the midfielders arrived late in the box to support the attack. And further more the strikers missed some good chances. So generally an all tactic problem rather than a problem that needs in-game tweaking.

Let's see how this works out now.

Ahh is a gap of mentality problem? By that I mean are your midfield too far away to support the strikers? If so you could try and make the mentalites simliar for midfield and strikers

You mean you instruct the other centre-back to man-mark and the other to play zonal, presuming we are talking about back of four?

Sorry yeah, I should have made it more clear Even in a back 3 id make them man mark, or if you wanted to, you could have a DMC man mark if you employ one. There are so many ways to combat this, but I just stick to man marking as its what works for me.

I use tight marking for fullbacks and wingers more than centrebacks

I have some questions.

First.

If the other team is playing a tactic with only ONE striker, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-2-2-1 or something like that, should I man-mark him or not?

Second.

What settings do you use on wingers...man mark? closing down? hard tackling? Please help on this one.

Third.(IMPORTANT)

I have destructive problems away. What should I take in mind when playing a middle team away? Because I tend to loose many points...

Fourth.

How do I get more quality chances? Sometimes i cant even get to the box because they have a wall of players protecting it. I am trying to play wider, but how wide? Passing? Tempo?

Fifth.

If my OM C has 10~ on long shots should I put him on rarely or mixed long shots instead of often?

Sixth

How do you play against teams who use 3-4-3(sarrows on strikers) 4-1-2-2(aml,amr)-1

Thanks in advance...

P.S English is not my native language

If the other team is playing a tactic with only ONE striker, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-2-2-1 or something like that, should I man-mark him or not?

Is he likely to cause you problems? Is he a goalscoring threat, or more a player who holds the ball up for runners?

What settings do you use on wingers...man mark? closing down? hard tackling? Please help on this one.

Im not gonna go into that in this thread, as ive stated in varioud threads already the settings I use etc. I want to keep this thread for focusing on the original post and don't want to get side tracked and discuss something else.

I have destructive problems away. What should I take in mind when playing a middle team away? Because I tend to loose many points...

Listen to the scout reports, they normally give you hints of what to do.

How do I get more quality chances? Sometimes i cant even get to the box because they have a wall of players protecting it. I am trying to play wider, but how wide? Passing? Tempo?

There is no set tempo, passing, or width to use. It varies game to game so its hard to say. If they are camped on edge of their own box though, you can normally play pretty fast tempo and quite attacking, this creates lots of chances for me playing this style. Even if im a weaker team, I can still break teams down.

If my OM C has 10~ on long shots should I put him on rarely or mixed long shots instead of often?

Depends on the level you are playing at, at conference level id have him often, but in EPL id have him rarely.

How do you play against teams who use 3-4-3(sarrows on strikers) 4-1-2-2(aml,amr)-1

Exactly the same as id play against a 451, 352, 442 etc, I don't take notice of the shape. Its more about how they play than shape. Again the scout report is vital for telling you how a team plays. Then I decide what style I play i.e fast tempo, slow tepo, short passing etc.

Thanks cleon to your answers.

First question:

Yes! He is more of a guy who holds up the ball so the offensive wingers can run in and score almost immediately. But he is of course a goalscoring threat too...Well when I check my defenders for man-marking they recommend DC ?? against one striker...I find that odd.

As you can see the wingers give me heavy problems, can you link me a page where you describe your settings vs wingers? Thx

Third and last: Sorry for asking but do you have a thread describing what the scout reports say, because I have big problems figuring out what the scout tells me.

Comments on fourth question

Well I was wondering about quality chances because I cant get any versus middle-bottom teams. I am Lazio 2016 and can't score vs **** teams because they like to build walls...

Originally posted by theivan:

Thanks cleon for your answers.

Yes! He is more of a guy who holds up the ball so the offensive wingers can run in and score almost immediately. But he is of course a goalscoring threat too...Well when I check my defenders for man-marking they recommend DC ?? against one striker...I find that odd.

Personally id not man mark him then, I would however be very wary of the wingers who he holds the ball up for. Id have my wingers man mark so they track them back for you.

Third and last: Sorry for asking but do you have a thread describing what the scout reports say, because I have big problems figuring out what the scout tells me.

I don't I'm afraid. However its normally straight forward, if they for example play a fast direct counter attacking game. Then you can generally play attacking and a slow tempo, short passing game. By doing this you have more possessin of the ball and frustrate the opposition. And vice versa if they play the short passing game, you go direct and fast.

Well I was wondering about quality chances because I cant get any versus middle-bottom teams. I am Lazio 2016 and can't score vs **** teams because they like to build walls...

I generally go very attacking against rubbish opposition, I don'tfind breaking them down a problem. It might be a case that you are playing too fast currently and a slow patient build up play might be more suited for your shape of formation.

I always get confused between Closing Down and Tight Marking.

Closing Down is when you close down a player who has the ball, to try and prevent him passing, right? So you'd close down wingers and faster strikers. Tight Marking on fast strikers would lead to the striker just leaving him in the dust as he speeds past, wouldn't it?

Whereas for guys looking to recieve the ball, you'd use Tight Marking to make sure that if a pass is made, it doesn't get to him. Correct?

So given your classic Shearer/Owen partnership, you'd tightly mark Shearer and close down Owen?

Originally posted by D-Lyrium:

I always get confused between Closing Down and Tight Marking.

Closing Down is when you close down a player who has the ball, to try and prevent him passing, right? So you'd close down wingers and faster strikers. Tight Marking on fast strikers would lead to the striker just leaving him in the dust as he speeds past, wouldn't it?

Whereas for guys looking to recieve the ball, you'd use Tight Marking to make sure that if a pass is made, it doesn't get to him. Correct?

So given your classic Shearer/Owen partnership, you'd tightly mark Shearer and close down Owen?

No, tight marking would just mean you mirror his movements and would stick to him. The closingdown would determine when a tackle was made. Higher the closing down, sooner he'd tackle

Originally posted by D-Lyrium:

So given your classic Shearer/Owen partnership, you'd tightly mark Shearer and close down Owen?

You'd give Owen a yard or two and wouldn't close him down, as getting too close and diving in would just allow him to skip past you and race away.

Is it an unwritten rule to close down players with low first touch whatever position?

If the scout reports say that you should watch out for Rooney (play maker). Is there an idea to tight mark every player around Rooney so he has no one to pass to?

The same with a target player?

Originally posted by Kristian:

You'd tight mark Shearer AND close him down, to stop him getting the knock on, or playing the clevel pass.

You'd give Owen a yard or two and wouldn't close him down, as getting too close and diving in would just allow him to skip past you and race away.

So you tightmark + close down slow players and only tightmark fast players?

Originally posted by theivan:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">

Originally posted by Kristian:

You'd tight mark Shearer AND close him down, to stop him getting the knock on, or playing the clevel pass.

You'd give Owen a yard or two and wouldn't close him down, as getting too close and diving in would just allow him to skip past you and race away.

So you tightmark + close down slow players and only tightmark fast players? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

In real life, I'd suggest no to tight marking the fast player. Get too close and he simply spins off you.

Dave Watson in his final days at Everton used to be able to put Owen right out a game simply by defending deep and giving Owen room to run and standing him up. Defending deep meant Owen couldn't thrive on balls over the top, and not getting too close meant that Owen could pick up the ball and turn, but he then had to actually think about what to do next (i.e. shoot from range or lay it off). As he was a kid and therefore played more instincively, this lessened his danger enormously.

By the way, how that translates into the FM world, I couldn't give you any hard and fast rules.

Originally posted by Kristian:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by theivan:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">

Originally posted by Kristian:

You'd tight mark Shearer AND close him down, to stop him getting the knock on, or playing the clevel pass.

You'd give Owen a yard or two and wouldn't close him down, as getting too close and diving in would just allow him to skip past you and race away.

So you tightmark + close down slow players and only tightmark fast players? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

In real life, I'd suggest no to tight marking the fast player. Get too close and he simply spins off you. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

But if you have a defender ,acc 18, pace 18 would you tight mark him then?

Thanks for an excellent post.

Those 'In Game' problem you mentioned are those that trouble me the most. I've recently started to read these forums, and thanks to you Cleon, wwfan and crazygra, I've really learned much. Thanks once again.

I always play with Liverpool. I've developed my own 442 tactic that works pretty well, but took me really PLENTY of time to tweak it after the patch. Still, it's working good, my first season after the patch I've finished second in the League, 3 points behind Chelsea (thanks Bellamy for missed penalty that could've solved it all), but I've won CL, mostly thanks to lucky draw. Still, there are few problems, main one being:

Opposition getting too much space

That can happen quite often with Chelsea, let's say. Possesion is equal, shots and passing, but the problem is they have much more space than I would like them to have. I put pressure on two of their far wingers, I close down heavily in the middle, I tried to counter them in every single way I could try, but still I lost most of the games.

It's not that I'm complaining or asking for an instant advice... just wondering how do you solve 'Chelsea riddle'.

The problem might be in my DC settings... I've tried to play with all possible Closing Down combinations, but still haven't found a solution that's working.

Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Oeffel:

Nice Post Cleon, I agree it's one of the most important things to make a tactic better suited vs different sides.

I do have a question though:

Is there anything to do about increasing the shots on target in a game?

I'm managing PSV and when I play weaker side away, I tend to use a more dominating tactic with my team controlling the play and having the ball. But I rather seem to get quite a lot of shots in the direction of the opponents goal, but not really on target. I play a 4-1-3-2 or a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with my wingers as an important asset of my team. I'm not playing down both flanks cause it's kind of predictable IMO and I have some creative players in the centre also. No-one on my team is assigned to take long shots often. Should my team be playing more attacking?

This is what annoys me a bit to be honest. the passing completion is about 70-80%, which is OK IMO and the crossing completion is about 25%, rather low, but never seen this to be at 50% or so.

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure you got 90% of your shots on target Cleon? For the entire team, or just for some specfic players?

In my current game with 8 leagues running, not a single player can equal that (One of my midfielders has the best ratio with 74% on target, for almost a whole season), so please check if it is your season average, your best player or your entire team.

Originally posted by Ans Gulrik:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Oeffel:

Nice Post Cleon, I agree it's one of the most important things to make a tactic better suited vs different sides.

I do have a question though:

Is there anything to do about increasing the shots on target in a game?

I'm managing PSV and when I play weaker side away, I tend to use a more dominating tactic with my team controlling the play and having the ball. But I rather seem to get quite a lot of shots in the direction of the opponents goal, but not really on target. I play a 4-1-3-2 or a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with my wingers as an important asset of my team. I'm not playing down both flanks cause it's kind of predictable IMO and I have some creative players in the centre also. No-one on my team is assigned to take long shots often. Should my team be playing more attacking?

This is what annoys me a bit to be honest. the passing completion is about 70-80%, which is OK IMO and the crossing completion is about 25%, rather low, but never seen this to be at 50% or so.

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure you got 90% of your shots on target Cleon? For the entire team, or just for some specfic players?

In my current game with 8 leagues running, not a single player can equal that (One of my midfielders has the best ratio with 74% on target, for almost a whole season), so please check if it is your season average, your best player or your entire team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Game by game basis I was talking about, nearly all myshots are on target yes. However you have to remember I am like 7 seasons into my game so have strong players and only players whos stats fit into my tactics. The 90% was just a figure of speech, bt at close inspections its no far off that. You will see why when i go into more bout tweaking a little further into the article.

Originally posted by Sinner264:

Thanks for an excellent post.

Those 'In Game' problem you mentioned are those that trouble me the most. I've recently started to read these forums, and thanks to you Cleon, wwfan and crazygra, I've really learned much. Thanks once again.

I always play with Liverpool. I've developed my own 442 tactic that works pretty well, but took me really PLENTY of time to tweak it after the patch. Still, it's working good, my first season after the patch I've finished second in the League, 3 points behind Chelsea (thanks Bellamy for missed penalty that could've solved it all), but I've won CL, mostly thanks to lucky draw. Still, there are few problems, main one being:

Opposition getting too much space

That can happen quite often with Chelsea, let's say. Possesion is equal, shots and passing, but the problem is they have much more space than I would like them to have. I put pressure on two of their far wingers, I close down heavily in the middle, I tried to counter them in every single way I could try, but still I lost most of the games.

It's not that I'm complaining or asking for an instant advice... just wondering how do you solve 'Chelsea riddle'.

The problem might be in my DC settings... I've tried to play with all possible Closing Down combinations, but still haven't found a solution that's working.

I touch upon this in the next part, so don't want to go into it now as it will take the edge off what im currently doing. But you will find it useful I hope what I write about

Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Ans Gulrik:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Oeffel:

Nice Post Cleon, I agree it's one of the most important things to make a tactic better suited vs different sides.

I do have a question though:

Is there anything to do about increasing the shots on target in a game?

I'm managing PSV and when I play weaker side away, I tend to use a more dominating tactic with my team controlling the play and having the ball. But I rather seem to get quite a lot of shots in the direction of the opponents goal, but not really on target. I play a 4-1-3-2 or a 4-1-2-2-1 formation with my wingers as an important asset of my team. I'm not playing down both flanks cause it's kind of predictable IMO and I have some creative players in the centre also. No-one on my team is assigned to take long shots often. Should my team be playing more attacking?

This is what annoys me a bit to be honest. the passing completion is about 70-80%, which is OK IMO and the crossing completion is about 25%, rather low, but never seen this to be at 50% or so.

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure you got 90% of your shots on target Cleon? For the entire team, or just for some specfic players?

In my current game with 8 leagues running, not a single player can equal that (One of my midfielders has the best ratio with 74% on target, for almost a whole season), so please check if it is your season average, your best player or your entire team. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Game by game basis I was talking about, nearly all myshots are on target yes. However you have to remember I am like 7 seasons into my game so have strong players and only players whos stats fit into my tactics. The 90% was just a figure of speech, bt at close inspections its no far off that. You will see why when i go into more bout tweaking a little further into the article. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK - I see. I think I have managed to develope my own way of acheiving success even with weaker sides, and though I wouldn't mind other people doing better than me, 90% made me think I had to start all over.

Looking forward to getting the kind of players I imagine one might have after 7 seasons...

I can tweek for most situtaions in a match and get some posative results from doing it, but the one situation i always struggle in is when my team goes a goal down first plus early in a match, just like in real life, it sucks the life out of my team, i normaly dont do anything and just hope that we get a goal, maybe this is where i go wrong, maybe there is somthing i should of done as soon as the goal went in?, So half time comes really quickly with my team hardly getting a shot on goal, even if we have a fair share of possesion, we just seem to have lost our bottle and cant create chances even half chances, so half time comes and i stick my team out with a more attacking approch, but the other team just kills the game and mostly scores again, anyway time goes by and nothing happens, now theres one possible mistake im making in my game, i let my assistant manager do team talks as i find them so boring, maybe this is why early goals are conceeded maybe this is why my team cant get back into a game even after half time and my attacking tactic, maybe theres a trick im missing when you go a goal down early.

It dont seem to matter who im playing when this happens, good bad or evil if i lose a goal early i nearly always suffer, so any tweeks on this topic would be greatfully recived

I may be a bit late but I would echo the comments about pace being irrelevant: I have Petkovic with 4 pace and 11 acceleration which would seem abysmal but with 20 for every key defensive stat and 17 jumping he has the best strikers in the

game in his backpocket for most of the time. Personally this delights me since in the old days physical stats were all, CM 03/04 was particularly bad, and so encouraged a Rio Ferdinand mentality as supposed to a John Terry one; a game based around physical ability with pace to cover errors in contrast to one where positioning and timing are all.

Best twek i can do after last patch: go on holiday

Quick question about tweaking , is it a good idea to change your tactics before you press the kick off button. Because usually i wait till the match itself then i change it to suit my needs in that match before the kick off , just wondering if that would have a adverse effect and add confusion ?

Originally posted by theboss332:

Quick question about tweaking , is it a good idea to change your tactics before you press the kick off button. Because usually i wait till the match itself then i change it to suit my needs in that match before the kick off , just wondering if that would have a adverse effect and add confusion ?

Doesn't make no difference really

im sorry to complain as it was a very good post but i don't feel you have really explained how to edit your tactic and what to change.

Most of it is really common knowledge and nothing no-one shouldn't be able to work out by reading what it says. Its nothing too complex or anything and in most cases, really easy to determine what needs to be done.

This doesn't really help the complete dunces such as myself as i still don't know how to how to tweak tactics except for when they line up similar to your newcastle example!

If somebody is able to explain to me when and why you should alter the:

The Basics

Before A Game

Tempo

Mentality

Defensive Line

Man Marking

Counter Attacking

Passing

i would be very grateful as i have no idea what to do before a game!

many thanks

im sorry to complain as it was a very good post but i don't feel you have really explained how to edit your tactic and what to change.

Re read it, and read and take note of the part where I say this is a progression. The what to tweak etc will fall under the in game tweaking. I can't spoon feed you everything, you need to do some work yourselves

i would be very grateful as i have no idea what to do before a game!

I gave you an example, most of it is common sense. I'm sorry but ig you cannot work a scout report out what gives you hints as to what to do, then you have no chance long term at the game. Sorry if thats harsh, but why can't people work out the scout reports? Its not hard, if it says someone is a threat mark them, if it says you playing against fast strikers then play deep and so on.

Surely its simple enough already?

Lol Cleon, it might seem crazy to you but you're on another plane of FM2007 existance. Most of us haven't really been 'enlightened' yet. We havent been unplugged from the matrix.

Originally posted by manufan:

Lol Cleon, it might seem crazy to you but you're on another plane of FM2007 existance. Most of us haven't really been 'enlightened' yet. We havent been unplugged from the matrix.

My brother made sense of what needed to be done, and he doesn't play the game. The scout reports tell you what to do ffs most of time.

If I've read carefully enough, then I understand that even having 4 tactics (home, away, defend lead and attack) isn't enough.

I should alter these tactics every match again, and again?

Originally posted by Cleon:

My brother made sense of what needed to be done, and he doesn't play the game. The scout reports tell you what to do ffs most of time.

Yeah they do, but it doesn't mean me as a player would know how to transfer that to the pitch. You understand damn near everything tactically about this game, and what each thing does. Most of us dont, that's why we continously struggle. You see your central midfielder getting a rating of 6 so you look at the away stats, and from that jumbled mess of numbers, somehow you figure out what sliders to adjust and BOOM he finishes the match with a 7 or 8. That's just how it is, you either 'get it' or you dont.

That's why you won the prem with Sheffield United of all people!(no offense) while I struggle to hang on at home against West Ham as Manchester United. I, and a lot of people just dont 'get it' yet. It's gonna take more trial and error and a few eureka moments.

Just think of it this way. Picture yourself as a pickup artist, and you're trying to teach a bunch of shy, hopeless guys how to meet women. Everything might seem so easy, so clear to you, but it wont be that way for the guys.

But who teaches me and helps me when I struggle? There comes a point when you need to try and understand it yourself, without help from others

You struggle? Could've fooled me. When are you coming out with more of your article type threads. I've read all of them so far, and each one teaches me a little bit about how things work in the game. So far I'm having zero success with individual slider settings so I'll stick to my simpleton global mentality settings for now until I get a better understanding of the game.

Looking forward to your other threads!

Originally posted by manufan:

You struggle? Could've fooled me. When are you coming out with more of your article type threads. I've read all of them so far, and each one teaches me a little bit about how things work in the game. So far I'm having zero success with individual slider settings so I'll stick to my simpleton global mentality settings for now until I get a better understanding of the game.

Looking forward to your other threads!

Yeah sometimes, I wasn't born good at FM

More threads will be done when I find the time maybe

cleon: just had a quick browse through the thread, and i've been doing the same thing with my tactic recently - changing my tactic to what i'm told in the scout report.

as well as the scout report though, i also take into account the manager profile information - their pressing, mentality and marking.

not too sure how to look at a marking style, but a higher pressing may mean that you have to play a quicker tempo so that your players aren't closed down too quickly and lose possession.

as for mentality, then i've found that when i've played against an 'adventurous' manager, it's better to have gone slightly more defensive and use a counter attack. this is because they're more likely to attack me, so i'll have to be tighter at the back but will get some decent opportunities on the break.

not too sure how to look at a marking style, but a higher pressing may mean that you have to play a quicker tempo so that your players aren't closed down too quickly and lose possession.

I don't play faster tempo, I would tend to play direct passing though.

well, a closing down pressing means your player on the ball won't get as much time to think about the pass, so you should increase the tempo a little so that he doesn't lose the ball.

so you'd still want him to make a short pass but you'd want him to pass it quicker so he's not caught out. however, i'd make the passing more direct if i increased the tempo anyway as i always have these 2 settings the same in team instructions.

Closing down (as I understand) relates to how high up the pitch the opposition will press. Therefore a high closing down will mean the opposition presses you in your own half when you have the ball. Cleon's solution of direct passing would therefore make sense ... if the opposition are pressing your back four you don't want them passing short and risking a loss of possession in a dangerous area. In addition because the opposition are pressing high up the pitch it should mean there is space in behind their defence for your strikers to exploit so it would make sense to get the ball up the pitch as quickly as possible.

I see your point crazy gra over how a fast tempo could theoretically work however if you think of closing down as a positional thing a team on 'rarely' closing down would press just as hard as a team on 'often' closing down ... the difference being they would wait for you to get well into their half before they start the press.

I'm curios about the "tempo".

Does that mean how fast the players move the ball around, or does that mean how fast they get the ball up the field to try and finish the attack? Should'nt the players figure it out by themselves if they're getting closed down then they're spending too much time on the ball?

How does the "tempo" work vs. the "width", if I play wide, does that mean slow tempo won't work?

About the "closing down" instructions.

Sounds newbie, but do basically the forwards have it on "rarely" and the defenders near "often"? Whatever personal preferences. I just would like to know if I'm understanding the basic things right here.

Because if defenders close down often it means they can be easily be undone with neat passing and that means there's nobody left between the opposition attacker and my goalkeeper. So to me, defenders need to not commit themselves too often, but rather rare (closing down).

And because the whole team defends, the forwards need to make an effort aswell whem the team is without the ball, so with closing down rarely the forwards are just jogging around without pressing the oppositions back line at all?

Originally posted by josefk:

I'm curios about the "tempo".

Does that mean how fast the players move the ball around, or does that mean how fast they get the ball up the field to try and finish the attack?

According to the manual, its the second.

Ok. But how can you make them pass it around then without getting it up there too fast?