What's your tactical philosophy?

Hey all,

What is your tactical philosophy?

How many tactics do you use through the course of the season? Do you change things around for each game depending on the opposition or do you stick with your way of playing and ignore what the opposition is trying tactically?

Personally, I usually have between 2 and 3 tactics, all based around one formation. However, I usually have just one tactical approach for the season and just vary it a little bit depending on my opponent.

This season I have been using the same tactic for every game, as I am usually considered an underdog. Therefore, I am playing quick, direct counter attacking football, and this style is suitable for everyone I play against.

I should mention that I always rebuild my tactics from scratch at the start of a season and I always seek to build my tactics to suit my players and bring out the best in them.

What about you?

C.

Hey all,

What is your tactical philosophy?

How many tactics do you use through the course of the season? Do you change things around for each game depending on the opposition or do you stick with your way of playing and ignore what the opposition is trying tactically?

Personally, I usually have between 2 and 3 tactics, all based around one formation. However, I usually have just one tactical approach for the season and just vary it a little bit depending on my opponent.

This season I have been using the same tactic for every game, as I am usually considered an underdog. Therefore, I am playing quick, direct counter attacking football, and this style is suitable for everyone I play against.

I should mention that I always rebuild my tactics from scratch at the start of a season and I always seek to build my tactics to suit my players and bring out the best in them.

What about you?

C.

P.S. I should say that I keep pre-game tweaking to a minimum. However, I always tweak in game and react to what the opposition is doing or what my team isn't doing using opposition instructions and general team instructions. E.g. if my side isn't keeping the ball well, I might adjust tempo and passing, or if the opposition centre-backs are winning all the headers, I might encourage my team to play into feet and keep the ball on the floor etc.

I guess I am reactive rather than proactive.

C.

i have one set formation that i have used for about 8 seasons with individual player settings being changed to suit certain players that i bring in

the thing i concentrate on is team talks and opposition instructions at the beginning of the match.

Very much score more than the opposition, if they score 3 i'll score 4 philosphy for me.

Plan A is an attacking 442.

Plan B is 433.

Plan C is usually 2-1-3-1-3

Win. Solid philosophy.

Score more goals than the opposition, a speedy team is usually a talisman for this.

I have 5 slightly altered variations of the 4-4-2 tactic. Position wise I play a straight 4-4-2 all the time but have very different mentalities, individual orders and farrows depending on the situation at hand.

I have an attacking style, defensive, balanced, counter and control variations.

I usually start with an attacking style at home and then if find myself ahead by 2 or 3 I'll keep with it. If I'm leading by 1 and the opposition have gone to their 4-2-4 then I'll go defensive to try and keep my goal advantage.

Away from home against superior opposition I'll consider countering, balanced or even defensive.

Against inferior teams who are happy to defend in numbers I will use my control tactic to slowly pass my way through their massed ranks.

Works a treat with my Liverpool team at the moment.

Massive thanks to the tactics and theorums forum for explaining how to implement all these variations.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Golden28:

I have 5 slightly altered variations of the 4-4-2 tactic. Position wise I play a straight 4-4-2 all the time but have very different mentalities, individual orders and farrows depending on the situation at hand.

I have an attacking style, defensive, balanced, counter and control variations.

I usually start with an attacking style at home and then if find myself ahead by 2 or 3 I'll keep with it. If I'm leading by 1 and the opposition have gone to their 4-2-4 then I'll go defensive to try and keep my goal advantage.

Away from home against superior opposition I'll consider countering, balanced or even defensive.

Against inferior teams who are happy to defend in numbers I will use my control tactic to slowly pass my way through their massed ranks.

Works a treat with my Liverpool team at the moment.

Massive thanks to the tactics and theorums forum for explaining how to implement all these variations. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly the way I do it with good success.

ATTACK!!!!

i have a brazil/real madrid philosophy. no matter how many we concede, we will always score more (most of the time)

I stick to the same tactic and have done since the start with no tweaking, i prefer it this way and it works for me (into the Championship from the Blue Square South in 8 years)

I play a very attacking 4-3-3 formation.

I favour the 3-2-4-1 formation.

4-3-2-1 with Fred upfront, Aguero and Matias Fernandez right behind him. works wonders.

I'm a tweeker.

I stick with the same basic formation, 4-4-2, but make changes with the tactical sliders and with barrows/farrows.

4-4-2 is arguably more difficult a formation to work with in FM08, as opposed to the single striker options, but one I enjoy the challenge of.

It does mean that I have to watch things more carefully during matches and make appropriate changes as the game and possibly AI tactics change. I never change the formation though, only the team & player instructions.

Yes it's time consuming, but at the start of a new Man Utd save, I've managed to win my first 10 games on the trot, beating Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool along the way, conceding my only goal in a 4-1 victory over Chelsea. Alot of this has to do with tight defensive instructions in tandem the "opposition instructions" menus.

This particular save is probably one I've spent most detailed time playing, but one I'm greatly enjoying, whilst also learning more about the match engine and how to combat the AI successfully.

Break some legs & then score the winning goal.

Only 2 tactics I employ

4-3-1-2 for me. Short passing, fast tempo.

It's narrow, but does the job

Formation varies from team to team, but I usually use one (lower league teams) or two (better teams) with tweakings from match to match.

As for philosophy: I'm quite defensive-minded, so stopping goals leaking is first priority for me.

plan a? take out thier best player with a hard tackling player set to mark him closely

plan b send the rest into an attacking frenzy even if i am winning 1-0 and there is 5 mins left on the clock

plan c if i am losing send every player into the box if alll else fails break something of value lol works for me

My formation depends on the team i am, but my philosophy is counter attack.

My thinking is very simple: forwards win you games, defence wins you tittles! Though if you have s forward who gets 40+ a season that helps

1

1 1 1 1

1

1 1

1 1

1

Works well with my celtic team, 2 attackin midfielders score nearly as many as my striker! Score lots of goals but this formations based on a solid back 4 and a good defensive midfielder, currently ever banega!

My tactical philosophy is simple:

Attack at home, irrespective of the scoreline, the opponents and the competition. Counter-attack with a more Normal or Defensive mentality away from home and be a little more cautious.

Always always always 3 at the back, dunno why but FBs never do anything for me, WBs all the way!

THen 2 CMs barrowing back to DMs provides a very solid defence.

This gives the WBs freedom to attack and join a Free Role Playmaking AMC (whoever this is always plays brilliantly as long as they have any creativity etc) and 2 STs.

This has given me a good amount of success, and whenever I have lost there has usually been a good reason that I can sort.

I'm the opposite of a tweaker. I get a tactic working and then stick with it. Been using the exact same tactic since day 1 with Gateshead and I'm now into the year 2022 and starting to challenge for the Premier League.

I never tweak before or during a game, the only thing I do have is a slightly more defensive version of my tactic for away games and that's it.

I'm currently using a 4-4-1-1. with the AMC being the classic 'Number 10' (free role/playmaker)

Playing quite direct and compact

i always read the oppo report just to take into account what their strengths and weakness are.

at home i have a very reliable attacking 4-4-2 with barrows on the full backs, wingers..

i look to use the width of the pitch to stretch teams out, always with a high tempo

passing is usually short to mixed

i tone down the tactis for away games to lesser teams, for the better teams or in europe i revert to my 4-2-3-1 awaydays tactic which works wonderfully well

so in summary i have 3 saved as standard, i may adjust the strikers away from home and play 4-4-1-1 but nothing too drastic

i meant farrows

I play a basic 4-4-2 most of the time, built on TT&F principles. I have three variations - attack, counter and defensive. I generally play with a target man, who is a strong forward with good jumping, heading and strength, and a fast forward. I like to use a DM as a playmaker if I have one.

I tend to watch matches closely and look for opportunities/needs to tweak. I rarely get beaten by the 4-2-4 because of this.

One ultra-stubborn tactical philosophy I did implement at Derby in FM07 though after signing Diego on a free transfer was to set the entire team to team passing and team passing always on the lowest (short) setting and always used a playmaker, never a targetman. In ~8 years after that I only regressed from that once. Didn't matter if I was losing league games, cup games, even the Champions League final, I was too stubborn to start lumping it upfield to a target man.

The one exception was a league cup 4th round match (yes, it was more important to me than the Champions league final!) when we scored an own goal at home to Chelsea and were 0-1 down against 10 men with 20 minutes to go. That was the nly 20 minutes in 8 years that we used a targetman, used direct passing, did everything and anything we could to get a goal because we were aiming for a record-breaking 5 consecutive league cup titles, something I knew I would never achieve again. We still lost 0-1 though anyway

Now I have applied that same philosophy at Werder Bremen, Fiorentia and Sampdoria, although I think Sampdoria will mix things up a little in the new season - they don't have quite the penache of my other teams and they have three 6 ft 4 strikers so it seems silly not to take advantage!

For a while, I enjoyed a very defense-minded 4-5-1, with lots of 1-0, 0-0, and 0-1 matches.

Now, I'm working on developing my own flat 4-4-2, heavily influenced by wwfan's articles and the 2-6-2 article, but starting from scratch instead of downloading.

I've been working on it from a "Let the players make their own decisions" perspective, in other words, keeping a lot of the options at the "Normal", "Mixed", etc, level.

Great success so far, though not enough to warrant posting to T&TT as I haven't tested it across enough different league levels.

I do have about five variations of it, though, so far I've used three of those to start a match, and all five at different times/situations: I'm definitely a tactical tweaker. I'm thinking of separating out a sixth as a direct counter to the 4-2-4, as I find myself making the same set of adjustments when the AI goes to it.

I suspect this "Make your own decisions" approach is working for me partly because I put such an emphasis on players with high mental attributes, especially Decisions, Anticipation, etc.

Amaroq, I'm curious to know how you reconciled the 2-6-2 theory to the Rule of One, because to me they are very different. But since that really belongs in the Tactics Forum, I am going to post the question in the TT&F thread.