Sevilla - having a disaster! Help! What formation shall I play?

It has recently come to my attention that I am rubbish at Football Manager. Now, I do not particularly struggle if managing the likes of Real Madrid, Man U etc, but give me a slightly weaker team and I really struggle. I feel I should emphasise that I have never once cheated in my entire Football or Championship manager careers - until now. But to all your purists out there, know that I am merely doing this as an experiment. I recently took over Sevilla as manager, and had a pretty bad first season. Finished 8th in the league, last 16 of the Spanish cup, and First Knockout round of Champions Cup. It's a wonder I was not fired. It was after this first season that I decided to change things around a bit. Firstly, I have a great backroom staff put together. But I have made some serious alterations to my squad. Which now lists:

GK: Akinfeev, Palop, Varas

DR: Azpilicueta, Diego Renan

DL: Navarro, Adriano

DC: Demichelis, Sakho, Fazio, Mathias Jorgensen, Escude, Toprak

MR: Navas

ML: Capel

MC: Veloso, Moutinho, Romaric, Renato, Bernardo (of Cruzeiro, out on loan at the moment)

FC: Kanoute, David Villa, Hulk, Lisandro Lopez, Neymar (out on loan)

As far as I am concerned that is a strong squad. Yes it has cost ridiculous amounts to put it together, and some fairly dodgy dealings along the way, but that is not the point. The point is, that I believe that kind of squad should be able to compete for the league and champions cup. I am currently 16th in the league after 9 games, and the champions cup aint goin so great either. My resuluts seem to be affirmation that I am rubbish.

So my first question would be - is there any area of my team that you guys think needs serious improvement?

The formation I am currently playing is a 532, 3 centre backs, 2 wing backs, 3 centre mids (though recently I have put veloso back into the DM positon as we are leaking goals for fun), and 2 strikers. My starting 11 usually goes as follows:

GK: Akinfeev

WBR: Renan

WBL: Adriano

DC®: Fazio

DC©: Demichelis

DC(l): Sakho

MC®: Navas

MC©: Veloso

MC(l): Moutinho

FC: Kanoute

FC: Villa

It is my belief that I am going wrong with the formation and settings etc. There is no way a team with this kind of quality in it should be playing so badly - so the only possible explanation is that the manager is getting it horribly wrong. So, please help me - I need to learn!! Please help me with formation and tactical settings as a team and for the indivduals! Thanks in advance!

maybe change the formation if you keep losing and keep a formation for a few games, you change in one season almost all the starting players, they need to adapt you have Sakho and Akinfeev dont even speak spanish, give them time to adapt .....

Hey man, no worries, maybe you're not that bad, only because your team hasn't gel yet. I suggest you to try basic 4-4-2, setting your ML and MR to Wingers. Sometimes performance are not up to expectations with great players due to a complicated formation, so that's why IMO 4-4-2 should be a good try. just relax and your team should do fine! cheers

First off I would suggest at least skimming over the TTF&F guide as it would help you to understand the various roles/tactics available - Link

Probably worth pointing out that if you've made large changes to the squad as you seem to have done in one go then it can take up to half a season for the players to settle and get a good understanding of each others games.

I also think wingbacks are a difficult formation to balance, too attacking and you get caught at the back, too defensive and you struggle to score.

Looking at what you've got I would start with the following using the tactics creator:

GK: Goalkeeper - Defend

DC: Central defender - Defend

DC: Central defender - Defend

DC: Central defender - Defend

WBL: Wing Back - Automatic

WBR: Wing Back - Automatic

MCd: Ball Winning Midfielder - Defend

MCa: Advanced Playmaker - Support

MCa: Box to Box Midfielder - Attack

STd: Deep Lying Forward/Target Man/Complete Forward - Support

STa: Advanced Forward/Poacher - Attack

I would play the advanced playmaker on the opposite side to the STd as well to give some balance.

Thats only a starting point though and depends on which players you select for each role. The choice of roles in midfield & attack could probably be improved upon but without seeing the matches its difficult to comment.

I would also consider as an alternative giving the wingbacks attack orders and using two holding MCs depending on the opposition.