Don't you just love it when you make a small change to your tactics and see a world

of difference.

I'm Roma in the 2nd season, I won the league after taking them over in November 1st season in the bottom half of the table. Though we were never dominant, we were buisness like and got the job done. I'd sold a few players in January and using the 48month payment method, brought in M'Vila and Piatti, while also getting Hargreaves and Maxi Rodriguez for very low fees. I never got M'Vila playing that well, though Piatti was good in patches, Rodriguez was great for his stats, got 7 goals and a 7.5 rating for the latter half of the season in 14 games. But as I said, never managed to bully my way through teams.

Similar story for the start of the second season. I actually lost my first two to Genoa and AC Milan, but won my next 3 with again, narrow, tough performances. I then decided to go and give M'Vila and de Rossi complete creative freedom in the middle of the park, while normally I'm happy to just use the pre-set levels of freedom for most positions. We're now bossing games, their average ratings have shot up since, and it's impacting everywhere else. Borriello my main striker, only got 13 league goals last season. After 11 games this season, 5 of which came before my change in tactics, he's on 12 goals. I think it's because now my CM's are looking for the risker pass and going for it, whereas before they were being limited. And it means that Borriello is getting better quality chances to put away. While my wingers (Krancjar and Piatti at the moment) are also playing better. All of which stems from giving them more freedom!

Anyone else had such sucess stories?

I use classic tactics and even if I use the TC I alter the sliders... I don't like the default settings for any role, they just don't seem "right" to me... course, this then means that any change in mentalities, styles, etc through the shouts/quick tactics means I also have to alter the sliders again...

It's right that your more creative players should have more freedom to "pick a pass" - that's what you want them for

Well Done

Well done for playing with Roma especially.

I have had a similar impact from a tactical change (with Roma on FM10). In the first and second season we were playing with direct passing, which suited players such as Vucinic and Paloschi very well, but when I brought in Macheda he started off slowly. I changed to shorter passing and his performances were much better as he was receiving more precise throughballs which suited his "moves into channels" PPM instead of the hoofballs which suited Paloschi's "likes to try beat the offside trap" PPM.

well played, good managing!

Thats what being a football manager is all about. It just goes to show you can turn a team from good to great with the subtlest (is that a word??) of changes. KUTGW

Yes, absolutely. In my Bayern save with the 4-5-1 formation, ever since I dropped my tall striker deep to get and hold the ball, while Ribery and Robben changed from "cut inside" to "move into channels" with very high attacking mentality, Robben has become my top scorer, followed by Ribery.