The Unique Regime

Right I said I would start this thread on my tactical mould of the "Unique Regime" and so I will. I will be using Derby County to display every aspect of my tactical knowledge and hoping to make them a great team in 5 seasons. This will be a long thread guaranteed and so it will take time.

Anyone who is hoping for instant success with my tactical knowledge might as well not bother reading anymore as it just doesn't happen on this game and if it does is short lived. The Unique Regime is about building a mighty team which can conquer any country by adapting its play to take advantage of the opposition but it takes time.

Objective: To win the premiership in five years with Derby County.

Season 1: The Adaption and close challenge minimum expectation above relegation.

Season 3: The Continuation of success reinforced to challenge for the title.

Season 5: Domination of the top flight.

Now the first thing I always do is read the assistant report. In this case we have Paul Jewell's right hand man Mark Seagraves who says:

''Mark Seagraves believes that Derby need to strengthen their squad if they are to live to their expectations in the Barclays Premiership.

His main worry is that the weakest link in the first team squad is James McEveley.

Seagraves believes Robbie Savage to be one of the best players in the team at the moment and has picked out his coach reports for you to look at.''

The report gives me a great bit of information, the best and worst player in my team. Obviously Mceveley will be going and the team needs alot of strengthening due to this report but lets focus on the strength of it Robbie Savage.

Now obviously being the best player in the team I will be basing everything around him. From the report it tells me alot about how he plays and what to do with him tactically.

In terms of best positions it says he is a centre midfielder and his secondary role is a defensive midfielder. I would only ever play him MC as that is where he is natural and players tend not to be so good in secondary positions (obvious I know).

For player ability he is seen as our best midfielder but will not grow anymore potential growth due to age. To complement that he is a determined player which is great for a team such as Derby as they are more than likely going to be 1 goal down first as they are the weakest team in the league and determined will fight back when going a goal down, so he is a scrapper.

Savage has a high teamwork and workrate which are extremely good attributes to have meaning that he plays with the team while working hard to help the team. On top of this he loves the big games which is important as every game is a big game for derby.

The only weakness he has is that he has a competitive streak which can lead him into trouble. This just means that he gets fustrated, so to stop him getting fustrated we will put him on easy tackling so he doesn't get himself into trouble.

Anyway that is the assistant report done next the team report.

Now there are two ways to get the team report, either go to the assistant managers profile or to go to the team player screen and go to view selecting assistant report (as shown below). I went through the under 18's and reserves and brought up everyone who has at least a 3 star current rating again as seen below.

From this screen we can that we have 5 players who are a cut about the rest by a star. Robbie Savage (expected), Hossam Ghaly, Tyrone Mears, Andy Todd, Laurent Robert.

As these guys are the best in the best the tactic should really be based around them. Looking at their best positions we do not have any conflicting positions with 2 MC, 1 ML, 1 DC and 1 DR. The obvious thing to do now is look at their individual reports too. I have already looked at Robbie Savage so we will start with his new midfield partner Hossam Ghaly.

Hossam Ghaly-

Best position MC, secondary MR.

He is seen as just as good as Robbie Savage but will not grow anymore.

He has a normal mentality but fits in with the determined nature of the squad.

His main strength is that he is athletic, but also enjoys the big games.

His weakness is that he is an inconsistent performer.

Conclusion: Play him MC with Savage, as he is the most athletic of the two he can be the attacking MC while Savage carries out the defensive duties. Like I said before every game for Derby is a big game so its good that he enjoys them. I will not make Ghaly a playmaker or target man as he is an inconsistent performer.

Laurent Robert-

Best Position is ML but can equally play AML.

Decent signing for most premiership teams.

Not going to grow in the future.

Ambitious and always looking to win, fits in with the determined squad.

Strengths: Good technique when striking a ball.

Ability to strike a ball from distance makes him a constant danger to the opposition.

Weaknesses: Selfish player.

Puts team under pressure as he will not get stuck into rough challenges.

Competitive streak can get him into trouble.

Conclusion: Due to his inability to get stuck into rough challenges I will be playing Robert further up the field in the AML, this is also to benefit his long range ability so he is in position to make himself a danger. I will put him on easy tackling to ease his fustration and competitive streak. As he is a selfish player I will turn that into a strength by giving him certain individual tactics (long shots - always, low creative freedom, forward runs, run with ball always). This should make him a constant danger. Also being a selfish player he is not a good choice for playmaker or targetman.

Andy Todd-

Report feels he is a Centre Back,but secondary position is Defensive Mid.

Feels Todd will not improve.

Natural leader which fits in well with determined squad.

Strength: Good team player.

Relishes BIG matches.

Weakness: Susceptible to injuries.

Conclusion: I will be playing Todd DC as he is naturally positioned there. It's good that he can relish big matches as like I said before every game is a big game for Derby. A good team player means the defence can work as a line and maybe even an offside trap could be possible. We cannot do anything about injuries other then put him on easy tackling.

Tyrone Mears-

Report feels Right back while secondary to Right Wing Back.

Not likely to improve.

Normal mentality and fits in well with the squad.

Strength: Great Pace.

Weakness: Poor in the air.

Problem with injuries.

Conclusion: Will be playing right back to provide wing cover and those sort of attacks. With his great pace I will put him on a high closing down as he is fast and maybe able to disrupt potential attacks. We cannot play too deep a line as Tyrne's heading is not good. Again if we put him down to light tackling then hopefully he will keep away from injuries.

I know that defenders are boring but this is my view of them. Please feel free to comment.

Now as everyone knows the team should be made up of 11 players, we currently have 5. Now after those five players we have loads of 3 star current ability players, we need to filter the **** out and find another 6 players for the first team.

1) One process to do this is look at all the potential abilities of the 3 star players. This leaves one player looking outstanding - Giles Barnes. So he makes 6 players.

2) With these 6 players we can base the rest on symmetrical assumption to make the formation. For example we have a DR, DC so what about a DL, DC to make a back four, from this look at the players who can play these decisions and decide that way.

3) We can just look at the positions players can play who are left and make a solid formation from that.

4) You can sort the squad by using their personality such as ambitious, determined etc.

5) You can go through each coach report using the best coach/scout JPA and look at what they say.

6) Look at the assistant's team report on his profile.

There are so many different ways to select the squad so I'll let you decide on your own method while I will be using a few to display their results.

Giles Barnes

Can play both AMR and equally adept in AMC

Equally strongest winger in the squad with Mile Sterjovski.

Potentially could become a leading premiership right winger.

Ambitious and always looking to win and fits in with the squad's personality

Strengths: Possesses great pace.

Players acceleration underpins his overall speed.

Weaknesses: None. (yay!)

Has the potential to become a quality player.

Conclusion: As we all know and have seen over the last few years Giles Barnes is an amazing player with an amazing amount of potential so he is a must for this team. Because of his strengths of acceleration and pace I am leaning towards making him the right winger in the team AMR. He is always looking to win so he fits in with the squad, this is a trait I particularly like.

This is how the team looks at the moment:

Now I don't know if you guys have ever noticed but all the good teams the AI uses have a back four. I believe in the back four completely. I think that it is the right number of players so the team does not become defense is too heavy of too light.

With three defenders I feel that you can be overwhelmed by forwards, attacking mids and wingers and generally make your life hard at the back.

With five I think you will probaly on the back foot all game as you cannot mount decent attacks as you will have defensive players who do not have the attacking stats of the player(s) you sacrificed to play five at the back.

So four is the magic number, we have two defenders currently so we need two more and a goalie.

As Roy Carroll is the only goalie with at least a three star current abilty rating he will be our goalie (for now anyway.....).

Roy Carroll

Is a GK.

Is a leading star for most championship sides. (my scout hamilton reckons he is a decent signing for the premiership teams.)

Will not improve in the future.

Has a balanced personality, this fits in with squad.

strengths: Rushing off his line to sweep up any through balls.

Enjoys the big matches.

Weaknesses: None. (I find that hard to believe but my scout agrees.)

Decent Player.

Conclusion: Not a fan but he is all I have in goal. He will obviously be playing GK. He has a balanced mentality which means he can get along with any other mentality but nothing more than that. I think maybe an ambitious or determined GK will be brought in, this would match the team personality and also help a struggling team this season.

As he can sweep off his line it would be understandable to make him a sweeping keeper (thanks to FM Britain's The next Diaby for this idea). To make him a sweeping goalkeeper we need to make his mentality half bar (11 notches) and his closing down half bar (11 notches).

Now as Carroll enjoys the big matches that is going to be a big benefit, there is nothing worse than having star struck goalie conceeding stupid goals.

Now one thing about the Derby team is that their defence are not the best on normally accepted defensive stats such as positioning, marking tackling etc. Over my time playing the latest patch 8.0.2 I have noticed that one of the most important stats if not more important is Anticipation.

As a result of all the defenders left being rated 3 stars of current ability in would be safe to assume that they are of the same defensive ability so I can just sort them by anticipation. If there is a tie then I will then go on to concentration another important statistic I have noticed.

''Anticipation: How well the player can predict and react to an event. If a player has a high attribute here he can read the game well and react to situations quicker than others.'' - taken from the fm 2008 manual

The results were:

Alan Stubbs DC 13

Danny Mills DR 13

Claude Davis DC 13

Jay McEveley DLC 12

Dean Leacock DC 11

So after the anticipation we lose Dean Leacock, decide that James McEveley is the new DL (till we can get a replacement) and we have a draw between 3 players.

''Concentration: This reflects the player's on an event by event basis. A high rating here will mean that the player can concentrate for longer and be to respond to incidents late in the game just as well as he did earlier in the game. Lower concentration will see players lose focus and perhaps become more liable to mistakes at crucial times in the match. - taken from the fm 2008 manual

Now the concentration test:

Alan Stubbs DC 14

Dany Mills DR 11

Claude Davis DC 9

So the winner is Alan Stubbs as DC.

Jay McEveley-

Can naturally play DC but equally adept in DL.

Good signing for most championship sides.

Playing close to full potential.

Has a fairly professional attitude and fits in with the squad.

Strengths: Athletic Player.

Main physical attribute is stamina.

Enjoys the big matches.

Weaknesses: Injury Prone.

Conclusion: Not our best player by a long shot but is the only player who can play left back adequately which a decision I made as he is an athletic player. Will need replacing as he is not a decent signing for a premiership team. With his stamina he will be able to have high closing down, as a team we maybe able to counterattack too. Enjoys the big matches as echoed throughout this team is a great trait due to the standard we are playing against. Injury problems so will not put him on hard tackling.

Alan Stubbs-

Is a centre back.

Decent signing for most premiership sides.

Not going to improve.

Fairly determined attitude, fits in with team.

Strengths: Team player.

High bravery underlines that he wants to help out his team mates.

Enjoys the big matches.

Weaknesses: Slow player.

Slow acceleration impeding overall speed.

Conclusion: Playing DC his determined attitude will help when we go a goal down and trying to get back into a match. Team player so this helps the defensive line to play as a unit therefore offside trap is a possibility. Enjoying the big matches means he will get a boost playing against big teams and this team seem to enjoy the big matches. With his slow pace and acceleration a high line will not be possible.

Now we haven't selected any attackers yet in terms of forwards. These are my favourite positions and if you get the right chemistry when attacking you will be half way there to making a successful team. I have decided that I will be playing with two forwards which will be individual not complementory.

The reason for picking two forwards is that I belief you will get more opportunities with more men in the box. Now with a forward they need to able to do everything technically to put the ball away in the back of the net, these strikers are general strikers.

The three skills they need are heading (in box aerial), finishing (in box floor), and long shots (outside box floor). Looking at the team we have, we have two wingers = potential crosses so heading needed, two centre mids so depending on your setting I would say finishing needed where as long shots is going to be needed as we have a weak team versus strong defences but depends on the gk more.

In terms of priority heading, long shots, finishing. Let's look at the strikers and what stats they have.

Sterjovski, Finishing 13, Heading 13, Long Shots 17 Average 14

Villa, Finishing 14, Heading 18, Long Shots 11 Average 14

Miller, Finishing 12 Heading 9 Long Shots 12 average 11

Earnshaw, Finishing 14 Heading 8 Long Shots 13 average 11

Fagan, Finishing 11 Heading 7 Long Shots 9 average 9

So from these stats its clear to see that both Sterjovski and Villa are the best strikers.

Mile Sterjovski

Is a striker, but can play secondary as a AMR.

He is unlikely to improve in the future.

Resolute personality which adds to the determination of the squad.

Strengths: Good in the air.

His ability to leap off the ground makes him a force to be reckoned with.

Enjoys the big matches

Weaknesses:Set pieces are not his strong point.

Worst set piece is his throw ins

May have problems with injuries.

Conclusion:

Will be playing ST for me as that is his natural position.

With his Resolute additude it makes him a great piece of the derby jigsaw fortifying the teams determination for when we need to win games.

With his aerial prowess Sterjovski is the perfect candidate for a target man and all set pieces which include a tall target man.

Again he enjoys the big matches as the rest of the team do to and when all games are big games then its going to be very useful indeed.

With his weakness of set pieces Sterjovski will not the taker of any set piece.

Being injury prone I need him to keep away from hard tackling.

Emanuel Villa

Is a striker.

Decent signing for most premiership teams.

Unlikely to improve in the future.

Has a fairly determined attitude.

Strengths: Really good in the air.

Enjoys the big matches

Weaknesses: None.

Conclusion:

Obviously Villa will be playing up front for me.

Villa is a premiership quality player and also my favourite player so was always going to play in the team.

He has a determined attitude and so the same rules apply to him.

Again Villa is great in the air so it looks as though we have two strikers who want it on their head and so crosses will be plentiful to take advantage of this.

He also enjoys the big match so again he is going to enjoy the season.

Quality post

Thanks Cleon. Sorry about any bad language in there, I will address it asap. I just want to share my opinions on tactic/team building, loads more to come soon keep tabs on it.

Just a quick post to second Cleon's reply.

Looking forward to further updates...

Should be an interesting read. I'll keep an eye on this to see how you progress.

Subscribed

Interesting to note how you go about evaluating the players you have at your disposal prior to the season start. I have always taken a different approach; in that I will try to select the best two players for each position (ie 2 GKs', 2 DR's, 4 DC's, etc). Then I look at these pairs and decide where I am weak (for example, if I have 1 good/ok keeper and then nothing- a keeper is a priority). Basically my rational is the viewable stats will only tell me half the picture; so he may not be that good at all. Plus, injuries and form may dictate that he needs to be dropped from the first team. In other words, I focus on the 'squad' rather than who I think will be '1st team'. The only time I deviate from this is when I have a top team and are pushing for titles, when it does become a priority to go for first team recruitment.

The other thing is I'll take absolutely no notice of the scouts CA assessment on 2 grounds;

1) I dont believe it (in that I have no idea how good the scouts are until Ive been there a while). In season 1 Ill try and play around 10 friendlies: a good mix of home and away, strong teams and weak and will gain the first team insight from those.

2) CA is only a product of the stats that they have in any regard. Therefore you could have a high CA player with stats in all the wrong places; for example, a DC with high flair, creativity, crossing, etc, etc. So, you can tell as much from focusing on the core stats as you have.

However, life would be boring if we all took the same approach- its good to read someone else's. So KUTGW

I like the looks of this thread as it is giving me ideas to prodice my own tactic which I have been very poor at on 08 and gives me other things to look at and try and understand so I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

Quality post.

Subscribed here too mate. A different approach to mine and very interesting. Good luck.

Nice SKin!

Now lets look at what we have done so far. The team looks like this:

So we have ended up with a 4-2-2-2, this may look abit attack heavy but it my opinion it isn't. We have these players playing in their natural positions and farrows and barrows will define their role with in the team.

Now to make this formation official we need to give the players their individual role each, the way I do this is to the players profile of individual settings and go to the set to button.

Player Set to

Carroll GK

Mears Full Back

McEveley Full Back

Stubbs Centre Back

Todd Centre Back

Ghaly Midfielder

Savage Midfielder

Barnes Winger

Robert Winger

Sterjovski Target Man

Villa Target Man

These roles are based on what assistant has told us so far and before anyone asks I will be personalising these roles to each player at the moment this is a base.

Let's have a look at all farrows and barrows which need to be incorporated. I like to link the players natural and secondary positions together:

Robbie Savage - Will run back to dm to cover defensively when Ghaly strikes forward.

Hossam Ghaly - has a secondary position of right midfield but we will ignore this as it will probaly ruin the shape of the team.

Laurent Robert - has a secondary position of ML so we will run him back to there in the hope of picking up a pass or interception and being his selfish self attacking the opposition.

Todd - Has a secondary position of dm but I do not like running defenders up especially ones lacking fitness attributes.

Mears- Has a secondary position of wing back so we can run him into that area maybe provoking another avenue of attack.

Giles Barnes - has another natural position of amc but Giles has a weak left foot so there is no point asking him to cut in when he can be getting the ball in the box for the big men.

Jay McEveley - only has a secondary position of DC so we will keep him where he is.

Alan Stubbs - no other secondary positions.

Roy Carroll - GK should not have a farrow, barrow or any other arrow unless he is being played out of position.

Sterjovski - Secondary position of Right Wing but I want him in the box to nut it in the goal.

Villa - no other secondary position.

Right let's have a round up of the tactical instructions of each player and the team we need to include here in the tactic:

Individual:

Savage - Easy Tackling

Robert - long shots, easy tackling, low creative freedom, forward runs, runs with ball.

Todd - Easy Tackling

Mears - High Closing Down, Easy Tackling.

Carroll - Half bar mentality, Half Bar Closing Down (11 each)

McEveley - High Closing Down, no hard tackling

Sterjovski - No hard tackling.

Team:

Todd, Stubbs - Offside Trap

Mears - normal or high line.

McEveley - Counter Attack.

Stubbs - No high line.

Villa, Sterjovski - Target Man

Thanks for the interest so far guys I hope I can continue to display a different way of playing the game.

great thread!!

Surely it's a bit mad to be playing a high line and offside trap with the pensioners Todd and Stubbs in the defence?

There isn't a high line being played mate.It says that Stubbs cannot play in a high line and Mears cannot play in a deep line so I assume a normal line will be played.

Ah okay sorry, I must've misread it. Ooops.

Right now that we have formed the basics of the formation and some of the individual and team instructions through the use of assistant and team reports it is now time to enhance this by using another method being the player positioning skills.

I have heard alot about player positioning skills on forums from the recent games since it turned up as a feature on fm. Now the main one I have heard is that when you have a high creativity it lets the player use those skills how he wants overuling your tactics. Now there's nothing wrong with that theory and I do agree with it to a certain degree as these pps are the players natural skills and when told to do what he wants (high creative freedom) he will revert to something he

knows best.

Now my theory on the player positioning skills is that is what the player naturally wants to do, so why should I be the one to stop them playing the way the want to play? These skills should be seen as stengths and the individual instruction should reflect this rather than restrict what could potentially help your team. Let's take a look at the team and their skills:

Miles Sterjovski

None.

Conclusion:

Nothing to be changed.

Emanuel Villa

Gets Into Opposition Area

Conclusion:

This is a great skill as it effects alot of different aspects of the game. First of it is an attacking skill as hinted by opposition area. I see this skill as a player wanting to attack and get into the box to cause much trouble through working his way in their. It's a great skill for a forward making himself available in the opposition box helping our attacking line to get forward while putting the opposition on the back foot. This could make villa a great player to be working alongside a target man (Sterjovski) so we can give him forward runs to get in that box.

Giles Barnes

Tries Tricks

Beats Man Repeatedly

Conclusion:

These skills are for the more flamboyant players such as wingers. They are good skills and ones that we see Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Messi use week in week out. The way that I usually reflect this is through the use of high creative freedom. I also use this at the end of games making a player like this a playmaker and high time wasting. Beating Man Repeatedly would be run with ball to me.

Laurent Robert

Shoots With Power

Tries Long Range Freekicks

Hits Freekick with Power

Conclusion:

Robert is a striker from distance in my opinion. With his coach report and pps combined it looks as though he could be a handful when an attack outside the box happens. Shooting with power means when the shot is on target then a goalkeeper with a strong wrist (handling, reflexes) will be needed to stop it so we will put him on long shots all the time. Trying long range freekicks means that, this means he could not only be the freekick taker of the team but also so you can set your freekicks up to long range. Nice little combination hits freekick with power and shooting from distance as it means when its on target it's got to be a good goalie to stop it.

Hossam Ghaly

Knocks Ball Past Opponent

Dives into Tackles

Conclusion:

Knocks ball past opponent is a simple one really, he likes to pass through balls past the defensive lines. Dives into tackles is not a good thing, you want your players to on their feet and giving your opposition trouble and not missing tackles leaving gaps so to combat this easy tackling.

Robbie Savage

Winds Up Opponents

Argues with Officials

Dives into Tackles

Conclusion:

Winds up opponents is good as during the game a player may raise to the bait and do something silly due to Mr.Savages comments/actions while they are on a yellow card therefore they will get sent off so we will get him to mark someone closely in midfield to wind them up zonal but tight marking with a slightly reduced closing down to stick in the area around that player. Argues with officials to me means keep him away from the officials so easy tackling so he will not get pulled up for a challenge and by chance argue with officials leading to a disciplinary committee needing to sort him out. Dives into tackles see Hossam Ghaly.

Tyrone Mears

None

Conclusion:

Nothing to be changed.

Jay McEveley

Dives Into Tackles

Conclusion:

Dives into tackles see Hossam Ghaly.

Alan Stubbs

Hits Free Kick With Power

Conclusion:

Hits freekick with power means in this case that he can do just that, maybe a good candidate for short freekicks at goal but I favour Robert over Stubbs for freekicks anyday of the week.

Andy Todd

Marks Opponent tightly

Winds Up Opponents

Does Not Dive Into Tackles

Conclusion:

Marks opponent tightly could be beneficial against certain types of player who are of the same acceleration/pace. I will use him as a tight marker but I will reduce his closing down as I do not want him to get distracted by other opponents and make him a man marker and he can tick to him like glue. Marking tightly also means that the player and his marker will interact more as they will be closer to each other on the field so winding up opponents will work well especially against hotheads like Rooney. My favourite thing he has is does not dive into tackles so we can put him up to hard tackling.

Roy Carroll

None

Now we haven't even touched the team stats which is for a reason. The coach reports and pps are for individual players mainly but I use the attributes as good indicators of what to do with my team's global tactics. Now as everyone knows we have:

Sliders:

Mentality:

I decide my mentality among the players I have. Now as we have a 4-2-2-2 which is practically a 4-4-2 with attacking wingers then I would say that it is leaning towards the attacking ranges. Now I do not believe that Derby possess the attacking strength to play a gung ho approach or a 'we can score more goals' than you like Real Madrid so I think that we should use a more

conservative attack maybe just to attacking.

Creative Freedom

Now I do not follow what the manual suggests because you do not need a team of Brazilians to be effective a creating chances. In theory the more creative your team then the more chances they create good or bad. I base my creative freedom on the flair of my players, I do this because I believe that flair is the ability to do the unpredictable and create a chance whereas creativity

is the quality of those chances. I calculate my creativity by working out the average flair of the team. (add 10 outfield players flair and divide in by ten = how many notches on the slider)

Passing Style

This is a difficult one really as there are so many theories on what passing does. Now the way I see it as it depends on what style you want to play for eg defensive slow football would be short, direct is for fast counter football, long ball is for normal paced target man football and mixed is for the best teams knocking the ball around as they please. I know we are playing with target men but I am keen to play with mixed passing.

Tempo

Now in terms of tempo it adds to the style and verve of your team. It can make or break your team, I normally work out the average of my outfield players first touch (add the outfield team's first touch and divide it by 10 = the notches of tempo slider). If you play too quick for your team to handle then they may not be able to grasp the ball and do something constructive with or even worse if your team play to the wrong tempo then they could lose the ball too often and put theirselves under pressure of attack.

Width

Now I have always struggled with width as a concept as it is abit unclear as to whether it includes defending but even so I see it as narrow is for more central attacking teams and while also defending centrally where the goal is, if it is wide then you are sacrificing the extra support to make avenues out wide to help the attack. Now normal is exactly that, no one is pushing into any extra roles to help defence or attack out they just stick to their positions. I do not want to push my players into unusual positions and want them to take advantage of how I have them. Now we have wingers so we cannot go too narrow as they would be ineffective but if we go too wide then teams will pick us apart all day, so we will be playing a just above normal lowest wide notch.

Closing Down

In terms of closing down I do not address this on the global settings menu I put on the highest and sort closing down to the individual settings of each player but I would sometimes work out the closing down on average just to set the global setting as I think that the individual settings override the global settings.

Time Wasting

I play this low until the end of the match roughly the 80th minute onwards if we are in a leading position.

Defensive Line

Now we've looked at the defence at Derby and we've noticed they aren't exactly the fastest but also they aren't the best at heading either so I think we will be playing a normal line more towards the deep end of the scale.

Tackling

I normally leave it on normal and change the players individual setting depending on his pps.

Dropdown boxes:

Focus Passing: I always play on mixed so the AI teams do not catch on quick.

Marking: Again I leave this as zonal and change according to what the player suits.

Target Man Supply: We've got two strong in the air target men so it will be to head.

Tick Boxes:

Tight Marking: Again I leave this unticked and change according to what the player suits.

Target Man: This will be ticked as we are playing with a target man.

Use Playmaker: I do not think we have someone skilled enough to do this task.

Play Offside: We have a good teamwork at the back and so it maybe ok to play this.

Counter Attack: As we are the under dogs in more or less every match I feel

this will be useful.

Just a note, I see knocks ball past opponent as meaning that when they dribble they tap it past the opponent and try to run onto it using their pace, similar to Theo Walcott's dribbling style.

@Millwallrules: I find that an interesting point, I see it more as he is a static player, so no forward runs and then passes it past defensive lines, through balls, like Zidane. I think as there is no definition or key we make best of the description in our minds.

We now need to look at individual instructions. I have un-ticked all the individual mentalities as I like to have the team working as a unit and

having the same mentality.

Creative Freedom

Let's start with creative freedom. To start with I have given all my defenders 5 notches as I wish them to get rid of the ball and not dwell on it in a flamboyant fashion but I also don't want them to follow my tactics exactly so they become predictable. I also have given Robbie Savage the same as he is part of the defensive team linking defense to midfield. Now let's look at the rest of the team, who have been assessed by their flair to be their notches on the creative freedom slider:

Sterjovski- creative freedom 12

Villa- creative freedom 8

Robert- as coach said selfish player so no creative freedom change

Barnes- creative freedom 17

Ghaly- creative freedom 12

Passing

Now I am going to leave their passing style to the default set to positions I have done as these are premiership players and should be able to carry these passing instructions, I will assess they're ability of these instructions through the match stats and home and away stats after each match we play.

Closing Down

Now Closing down is an interesting function as it depends more on the players position than his ability to close down in my opinion. This is

how I will set it up:

GK - 11 as he is a sweeping keeper

DC - Rare

DL/DR - mixed to take on the pesky wingers

Defensive MC - despite wanting him to stick to one player I have decided

against it and going to give him a high closing down to

sweep up in front of the defenders and cut the AMC out.

MC - mixed as he is not a complete creative force he can have a mixture

of defensive and offensive instructions as alot of games can cause

alot of competition in the middle of the park.

AML/AMR - high closing down as I wish them to close down the full backs

who can be caught unaware.

ST - high to catch the DCs out with bad passing or dwelling on the ball

Forward runs

These will be restricted to 5 players as I do not want my whole team going forward so we get caught out so AML/AMR/ST/ST/MC can play as a five man attacking team.

Run With ball

To be honest running with ball is abit of a skill really, so I need to see who can realistically be of use with this skill. The defensive team of Savage and the back four are counted out straight away, but in the offensive team Robert and Barnes will be given it often, Ghaly rarely and while neither target man will be dribbling anywhere as they are not that sort of striker.

Long Shots

Now I don't want too many long range shooters in this team even though they can win you games, only if you have decent ranged shooters. Now we only have two ranged specialists, Laurent Robert and Mile Sterjovski. Now Sterjovski has a job to do as target man so he can be set to mixed, Robert on the other hand is selfish so we will set him to often as that is what he likes to do.

Through Balls

Dangerous passes in the opposition space but thats how we will score. Now the best way to find out your through ball kings is to look for someone with high anticipation and at the players in the formation around him and their off the ball skills, eg our target man Sterjovski has 12 for anticipation and villa has 14 for off the ball which is good enough for mixed in my opinion.

Sterjovski Mixed

Villa Rare

Barnes Rare

Robert Mixed

Ghaly Often

Savage Often

Cross Ball

In my opinion under no circumstances should a central player be on mixed/often crossing as he would be forced to go wide and cross leaving a gap in his position. But as we have two target men we need the balls going in so both our wingers will be crossing mixed to target man in the hope to reach them another way. I will also give the fullbacks the instruction to cross from deep as I believe our forwards would be in with a chance to get their head on it.

Now looking at the staff. I have released a few staff members who just aren't up to scratch, coaches with no training ability, scouts without any decent judging player abilities and a physio without a decent physiotherapy.

I have offered a contract to a scout with 19 for tactical knowledge to do opponent reports, another one to look at future players with 19 for judging player potential and one more to look at players by judging current ability plus we have David Hamilton who is a decent scout 17 for judging player ability.

I offered a contract to another physio who has 18 for physiotherapy.

And finally I am looking at what I can do with the current staff without releasing them all costing us money.

Now when the scouts get here I will be scouting the premier league. I will select dangerous players from Everton, Fulham and Man United as they are my first three fixtures and they can tell me their weaknesses so we can play on them.

First friendly of the season against inferior opposition. I wasn't happy with the performance to be fair. I know it is a new tactic to a new team as well as the first game they have played but it wasn't fluid enough.

I have highlighted the bits I was not happy with from the match stats screen.

As you can see I not happy about the lack of possession, passes completed and crosses completed.

Now looking at the away stats below:

We can see that the defenders completed roughly 50% of their passes so it looks as they have the wrong style of passing but we will play another game to determine this.

Very good post.

@Millwallrules: I find that an interesting point, I see it more as he is a static player, so no forward runs and then passes it past defensive lines, through balls, like Zidane. I think as there is no definition or key we make best of the description in our minds.

You are wrong on this one. It's related to dribbling Bosingwa, Kalou, Reyes, Martins, Gasbarroni etch are all players who use their pace\acc to do this.

can't wait for the next post - come on man - stop making us wait!

Sorry been abit busy with my job, but I will be posting more this weekend so keep your eyes peeled.

A very good read and an interesting approach.

Looking forward to reading more...

very very good thread ... diffrent idea on creating tactic... love it !!

Sorry guys but I won't be continuing this thread anymore as I am just too busy at work, but I will start a new one when fm 2009 is released.

It was a nice thread to read..Unlucky for us

Damn thats a shame lol, this was a really good thread i was following and incorporating into my team lol

P.S Where did you get that skin? Lol

Shame you arnt continuing this thread, it is exactly how I intended to start my FM2009 game!!!

I've picked up a few tips already though.

Cheers

Right it's been a while since I visited this thread, but after much enjoyment and pain with the new fm09 I have finally decided that I will start writing up a new thread of the Unique Regime 2009. I post the link when it is active.