A Promotion Winning Tactic - With NO Tweaking At All - Home or Away!

I used to go by the theory, to win matches you must dominate them possession wise. Now I find that is not true!

Then I thought that you had to alter the D-Line according to what was in the scout report – another mistake that was a constant thorn in my side.

So I decided to try and develop a tactic where I need never change the D-Line, or even better – no more tweaking at all!!!

People will be quick to say ‘it can’t be done on this version’, what happens when the AI susses your tactic? It’s happened to me plenty of times, a tactic works wonders then barely works at all.

If you play with a deep D-Line you opponents have too many choices.

They can play deep themselves; push up or anywhere in between.

But what if we chose to push up?

Your opponents have to fall back. But WHY?

Because we are using the offside trap. If they push up, then their tactic won’t be effective!

But we’ve tried the offside trap before and it doesn’t work?

If you push the D-Line up and play with FIVE defenders, none on man marking, it seems like common sense but make sure ALL your defenders have suitable pace.

Because I’m using 5 men in defence, I choose 2 in midfield and 3 in attack (5-2-3)

I’m playing a direct style of football so I think 2 men in attack will be to easy. THREE gives them a lot more to think about!

I set the centre one as a target man with flicks to either side and I find this causes chaos amongst the opponents defence. They always mark the target man but his superior heading often wins the flick ons, then they have to try and stop another TWO strikers. They can’t do that with a FOUR man defence!

This formation is perfect against the 4-2-4 and punishes any team that tries it.

Also if I get a man sent off, I often go on to win anyway!

HINTS AND TIPS

I started using this during the season and I found it took a minimum of six games before I started getting a pattern of results.

Even from a new season it took about 15 games until the team gelled and really went from strength to strength.

This is optimised for the lower Leagues. Untested at higher level, so far.

At the Lower Leagues make sure every defender has double figures in pace.

I asked the board to find a parent club, this is a huge boost at this level. My board offered me West Ham or Crystal Palace. They pay you £15,000 per year AND a friendly AND you get to loan their best young players while THEY pay ALL their wages!

Mark Sale is available on a FREE and will fit the target man role in the first season.

I was intending to wait until the end of season hence the title, but I would be amazed if we blew promotion now!

LENNONS 5-2-3 TACTIC

A big claim Andy, will have a go now and report back. If it does what you say, then I salute you. Will try it with an experimental Blackburn save game I have. I know you say its untested for larger teams, so we will now have some primary data....

Looks alright! Beat Everton at home 2-0 despite being underdogs to start....hopefully onwards and upwards the table! Its Feb now, so will run the rest of this season

CelticWiseman: Victory is always promising, but i need more than that!

Are you playing with really fast defenders? In the Premier you will need them. Even one weak link (slow player) will damage the offside trap discipline.

Have you got the Target Man (centre) selected?

After about 6 games it will show better signs then after 15 games, you'll know the truth!

I'll find out!

My defenders are all quick, worst being 14 for pace. My TM is Iversen, so he kicks butt, although he wasnt the default option as the near post flick on, so rectified that! Will let you know. I have now gone into an online game with a mate, so playing as Swansea in the Championship. Its Nov, I am 20th, and now trying your tactic. Will report both.

BTW my Swansea team is built on pace, but dont have a TM. I cant get one til the transfer window I dont think, so gonna have to just deal with it.

Hei andysafc what kind of players do you use in midfield DMC AMC CM and in the attack ST FC ...thanks

Ricard0 Soares: In midfield i use two central midfielders, but i make sure atleast one can tackle and pass.

Don't start pushing the FB's forward, they are crucial to the defence. With direct passing they don't need to.

When looking for the tactic, it is

5-2-3ATT Nuneaton Nov 2008.tac

LENNONS 5-2-3

Originally posted by andysafc:

Are you playing with really fast defenders? In the Premier you will need them. Even one weak link (slow player) will damage the offside trap discipline.

To succesfully execute the offside trap, pace is irrelevant. You need things like anticipation, positioning, teamwork etc.

Pace is needed for when your defenders have screwed up and someone has to go and chase the striker who broke through.

To succesfully execute the offside trap, pace is irrelevant. You need things like anticipation, positioning, teamwork etc.

Pace is needed for when your defenders have screwed up and someone has to go and chase the striker who broke through.

Benoit2: Those attributes may be reqired at a higher level but i found pace suitible at the lower level. After all, the proof is in the pudding

What Benoit is saying is that it is high Positioning, Teamwork, Anticipation which increase the probability that the opposing team will be caught offside.

High Pace and Acceleration only allows them to be able to recover if they misjudged it and the player was onside.

What are your players doing, catching them offside or just recovering?

Gonna give this a try andysafc . Newly promoted with Leeds and struggling quite a bit i the premiership. Got Eddie Johnson as the targetman - excited to see if I will succeed with this

Cheerio from Norway

First match was a little strange (Charlton at home). Eddie Johnson was banned and I had to bring up a player from the reserve-squad with 18 on heading. After 45 mins my right back was sent off, so i decided to sub one of my strikers. Had lots of shots against, but only one on goal. Funniest thing happened; my reserve-player scored in the 89th minute and I won It might seem like the chances they got were'nt that big.

Next game is Arsenal at Ashburton.

Very good tried this tactic with bolton and after 10 games i am 3rd with a game in hand results like newcastle H win 5-2

Basel H win 8-0

chelsea H win 4-1

only lost 1 and that was to villa away but it was a ver close game also with this tactic i am averageing 3.2 goal a game so anyway so far very impressed

This is a great tactic. My Blackburn team have reached the FA cup final (not yet played out) and finished 9th when I was 15th during Feb. While I was Swansea, it got me from 20th in Oct to the playoffs. You wont win every match, and I dont think that matters, its more that you can just let this tactic run, because the really smart thing about this formation is that the AI will defend when its got a lead and then often gives it away in the last 10 to me! It then goes 4-2-4 which just wont work as the tactics are too similar.

Hats off to you Andy, really good job and one I wish I could have thought of. Starting to enjoy FM07 for a change now....

anybody have a screenie of the tactic please? im at work so i cant check it out yet

thanks in advance

Pleased to see it works for other teams too as i put a lot of thought into it.

Have you read threads like 'Does the AI cheat'?

Well all things they show happening in the game doesn't happen when using this tactic!

I also used to suffer those problems, regularly having more shots than your opponant then losing, but not anymore!

I'll put some screenies up shortly.

I just tried this tactic with Inter. To my surprise, my first game ended in a 1-5 loss to Chievo Verona...granted this tactic may be for promoting teams, but it was surprising I got thrashed with Inter.

The formation is 5-2-3 with no arrows.

Team instructions.

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Marseille07: I made this tactic with the smaller teams in mind, if i was the manager of Man U, Inter or any of the super teams then i wouldn't try to play this kind of football.

IRL Lewes would not try to play like Inter, so why would Inter try to play like Lewes?

MISSION ACCLOMPLISHED!

It was a little tougher then i expected but mainly because of an injury crisis which saw all FIVE of my defenders out in one match! Also the G/K and Target Man were out.

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great to see you gained promotion but poor farnborough it is still going well for me

i have tried this tactic for 3 games.

lost 1-0 away to burnley

won 2-0 at home to barnsley

lost 3-1 away to ipswich

not a massive test but shows it int that great.

mike

Originally posted by xmikejsx:

i have tried this tactic for 3 games.

lost 1-0 away to burnley

won 2-0 at home to barnsley

lost 3-1 away to ipswich

not a massive test but shows it int that great.

mike

mate, read this carefully.

I started using this during the season and I found it took a minimum of six games before I started getting a pattern of results.

Even from a new season it took about 15 games until the team gelled and really went from strength to strength.

I'm not an advocate of the 'need X games to adjust to it' theory and interestingly my teams never seem to need it...

I tried this for 3 games as Norwich (season 2 Championship),

Palace Away, won 3-0 (comfortable)

Palace Home (Mickey Mouse Cup), won 1-0 using 'back-up' team.

Leeds Home, drew 1-1

In both home games I was slight favourite and Palace were slightly favoured when I played them at home.

I stopped playing it for 2 reasons;

1) Its not the type of football I enjoy-long ball, flick on etc.

2) I couldn't use my recently acquired £1.8M left winger!

All in all, a good tactic (at least from my limited test) but you should expect to get a low possession stat (I usually got about 43-45%), so if this bothers you-then it's probably not your thing.

All in all, a good tactic (at least from my limited test) but you should expect to get a low possession stat (I usually got about 43-45%), so if this bothers you-then it's probably not your thing.

That is the reason i wouldn't use tactics like this before, the possession stat. But is it better to have 65% possession and lose frustratingly, or 44% that wins mostly. I'll let you decide.

Give the tactic a try with Sunderland just to see how it works at a different level.

Firstly though i want to say that i used a saved game. I used Arteta is God's 4-4-2 to gain promotion to the EPL and winning the League Cup. But that tactic was struggling in the EPL so i switched to Glassy's Best. That did really well, moving us into the Top 6.

Then i give my tatic a try from then to now.

Here's the results...

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Far to many draws in the League, but in Europe it was been nothing short of SPECTACULAR!!!

It looks as if the tactic preforms better against superior teams. Note the last result against Man U? It said a fully desereved win, i've beat them before but not very often is it 'fully deserved' so the tactic is on the right lines.

Hows it going elsewhere?

You don't always lose out on possession or even over use the long ball. I find that although you tend to do that early on, once the team gells the style of football changes quite a lot. I find it nice to watch.

Using the Man Utd game as an example...

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Nothing wrong with that possesion stat, is there? But to me that is an irrelevent stat anyway. Look at the shots on target, Man U only had ONE during the whole game!

The Premiership ended slightly disapointing.

7th place was excellent considering we had just been promoted that season, but at one stage we were 4th and looked good to improve on it.

The UEFA Cup though is something i have NEVER achieved with any other tactic. Absolutly amazing to achieve that with this version of FM.

UEFA CUP FINAL AT OLD TRAFFORD...

]Uefa[/url]

cant find the tac in there can anyone post a link please.

would be very much appreciated

It seems that SI have deleted all files, nice of them huh?

Anyway try here...

When you click the link, lower the page slightly and... theres the tactic!

Easier to find then FM Downloads anyway!

thanks mate

What i've noticed is that the tactic performs at it's best when you are the underdogs. Hence the UEFA Cup success.

However it dropped points whenever i was the favourites.

So... i found that when you are favorites ***reduce the D-Line to the middle (10)***. It just means when your oppnents are the underdogs they ten to sit back and this makes some space to open them up.

I know i said the tactic needed no tweaking, but that was true with the team i created it with.

Anyway reducing the D-L to 10 is acceptable. It's when you start messing with the width, tempo etc etc...

***reduce the D-Line to the middle (10)***. It just means when your oppnents are the underdogs they ten to sit back and this makes some space to open them up.

I should add though that when doing this be weary in case the opposition change to an attacking mentality.

TWO THINGS TO WATCH FOR...

If your winning by one or two goals, they may decide to try and have a go.

The old 4-2-4 later in the match.

Any suspicion of them doing this then move the D-L back to it's original position, it's the perfect antedote to stopping them!

Not sure why it's not getting more feedback from other users but it continues to amaze me.

I now can add a European Supercup victory over Barcelona to my honours.

]ESC[/url]

I've now been offered, and accepted, the dual role of managing Sunderland and the... USA!

I like the new challenge but it's harder than i thought, i don't mean tactically as they are suited to my tactic but i am finding out that their are no coaches in the American database.

This means i MUST take control of all teams and not just the National squad.

But as i said they are suited to my tactic anyway which i just as well as i can't buy anyone!

Just taking the U-23's through to the semi finals after beating Germany. Now i'm up against Argentina! That is just the U-23's i've been told i MUST get the main team to qualify for the World Cup.

Come aboard and join me, this is a great game once you get on the right side of it.

Notice the thread Arteta had closed?

I NEVER suffer from those problems now, so is it the game - or the user?

Have been searching for a tactic since installing 7.02 as it naffed up my perfectly good tactic for 7.01!

I have to say that this tactic is curious but great so far!

I say curious because some of the player instructions are al ove rthe place and also imbalanced. I tried adjusting them for a better balance but didn't work as well. So now I just play the original home and away.

I have made a Defend Lead version and more atacking version but most of the time this works great.

Gonna start a new lower league game and will let you know how it progresses.

Well done, AndysAFC

is it possible you could upload it to a different place, having trouble downloading it

thanks in advance

So far so good with my yeovil team took a few games to get into gear than wam bam thank you mam

highlight so far is knocking qpr away out carling cup 3-2 after they beat me in a friendly 2-0 at home

This link still works.

timcliffsmith: Let me know how it goes, so long as you try to use the right players where needed it should be fine.

wazup: Your phrase summed it up! Slow start but once it hits top gear, theres no stopping it!

With the USA i'm still on 100% win record during the qualifying phase.

has this been tested in the premiership.

are taking on wigan and want to see if it can be done

cheers.

lost in the next round to Darlington in extra time although that is probably because I haven't got a proper target man yet.

Hey Andy,

Can't seem to open it either and I'm quite keen to try it. Quick question with the 3 attacks do you use 3 strikers up front or one striker and a right and left amc ?

Cheers

Lyons

Sunny: Should work fine with Wigan in the EPL. I wouldn't use it with Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona etc.

It was 'indifferent' with Sunderland in my first season in the EPL but in the second season it is looking brilliant, so far.

Lyons: Send me an email (address in my profile) and i will email it to you.

With the 3 attackers i use strikers/forwards NOT AMC's.

but why wouldnt it work with the top teams, you need great defenders, good targetman.

and if they are parking the bus you can just lower the d-line.

i might try this with liverpool later and see what happens.

Ok, this tactic is officially a legend as far as I'm concerned.

Playing as Newport Co. in the Conference South.

You're right that it takes a few games to gel - I was rubbish in pre-season and didn't win for 4 games and looked arse, then...off we went!

Now second (joint top) with Fisher - we are well clear.

Well done andysafc.

Oh yeah, I have made an away version which is genius (if I say so myself).

My away record since using it is...

P:15 W:10 D:2 L:3 F:30 A:11

What I have done is: (sorry rubbish at uploading pics and stuff)

1) put long barrows on the R and L sided strikers back to the R and L midfield positions

2) put mentality to top of defensive (i.e. one below normal)

3) tick counter attack

4)Full backs - no FWR, no RWB

Right Centre Mid - no FWR, no RWB

Left Centre Mid - mixed FWR, mixed RWB

Everything else is the same.

I will try top upload it...

Errr...how do I do it?

Legendary status? Not sure about that but i'll take the compliment

Have you noticed how people (myself included) complained about how hard this game is?

Now i find it ridiculously EASY!