Creativity and Flair.

Something that keeps FM entertaining for me is having a "big club" save and attempting to build a team that plays the most beautiful and silky and slick football I can achieve. Indeed it is a bit of a philosophy of mine in FM that the best form of attack requires very little tactics and instead comes from letting genius play however they wish, and play a game of football together that is ultimately unstoppable.

In my quest to build this "unstoppable attacking football" in FM10 I have come to have an even deeper appreciation for certain attributes, namely Creativity and Flair. Though these are particularly obvious attributes to choose to build "unstoppable attacking football" I have come to view them not simply as good, not simply as great, not simply as important, but as head and shoulders above every other attribute in the game for the purposes of attacking football. Obviously a high level of quality in other areas is important, with Movement and Passing and Technique and Composure all being very important and indeed there is very little you would not want to see your players have high ratings for but for me there is nothing that quite gets close to Creativity and Flair.

Creativity

Creativity is the ability to see things on the pitch. And not merely see possible passes but to see all possible options. From watching my team in action it is apparent to me that Creativity affects the ability to see every possible opening, opportunity or option. Creativity affects the ability to see finishes, to see ways of beating a man, to see where a first touch or dribble can go, to see targets for crosses or corners or the options for a freekick. Creativity is not merely an attribute for a playmaker sitting whipping the ball around the pitch, it is an attribute for everyone to see everything.

I had always valued Anticipation as the creme de la creme of Attributes, the ability to react quicker, to be mentally sharp, to be one step ahead of the play. I had always considered low Anticipation to be a crucial flaw for players in every aspect of their play, especially when in possession as the timing of passes and the Anticipation of movement of players on both sides would be terrible. In my Pre-Season just finished I opted to play a young Fullback that had very low Anticipation even for a youth player at my club, but was blessed with decent Creativity. While he did show his weakness at being mentally sharp and was caught out a few times by passes into his defensive area, in possession he was calm and assured, playing good solid passes all around the pitch and finding players in space every time. I did not think he would be capable of this.

Flair

Flair is the desire to attempt the audacious and the ambitious, to take on risky options and try something. A genius without Flair is a conservative player taking the simple option and not expressing his ability. An idiot with Flair is someone you can be sure will always try to attack and try to make something happen but 9 times out 10 will completely waste possession.

A genius with Flair is a sight to behold. You give him options and make the game easy for him in terms of passes and runners and space and delivery to his feet and he will tear teams apart in a huge variety of ways. You slow down your Tempo just enough to make sure he doesn't rush and you can expect defences to be unlocked, the ball to be kept, opponents to be skinned, passes to be linked up and flicked accurately around.

Flair is the vital second component to Creativity. Without the ambition and desire to attempt the very things the player is capable of his talents will be wasted.

My Attacking Philosophy

My attacking philosophy is perhaps not quite what everyone would go for but I am sure a lot of people have the same ambition. Instead of Ronaldos and Agueros and Villas and Robinhos and all those players that can take several players out of the game with dribbles and runs, my attacking philosophy is to pack my team full of players that can ping the ball around and slice open teams from anywhere on the pitch with the most brilliant of passes and moves. I don't want to play Tiki-Taka and move the ball around for hours in midfield while hardly moving 2 yards forward, I want my wingers to drop a perfect ball onto the toe of my striker to backheel it into the path of my AMC who chips it over the head of a fullback for my other winger to side foot the ball into the corner of the net.

When I win the ball around my own area I want my midfielders to rip an inch perfect 60 yard pass to send my striker clean through on goal. When the midfield is congested I want my CM to play it out to the flank for a first time pass from my winger into my AMC who lays it off delicately for my CM to send the ball through to my striker.

I want to surround my striker with a midfield full of Creative players playing passes that you simply cannot defend against even if somehow you manage to spot the danger.

A Midfield Full of Cantonas

Perhaps not quite but I wanted to give you some idea of the football I am building here.

The lowest Creativity in the advanced six players is 16. That is the lowest Creativity. The lowest Passing in the midfield is 16. The lowest Flair for the front four is also 16.

Although this team looks incredibly Attacking due to the "A" symbols under each player, I play a Control Strategy and use TC Roles with Maximum Creative Freedom. I also have two exceptionally high quality DM's in those midfield slots. It is infact a highly balanced formation that does not pile forward gung-ho but plays a composed but utterly brutal build-up game.

My Defensively Strong Midfielders:

The formation doesn't look quite so rediculously attacking when you see the attributes of just about the ultimate defensively minded player in the game. Because my players have to be able to play and this lad can play.

Essien could muscle him off the ball and beat him at a physical contest. Xavi could outplay him, and Mascherano would play a slightly better defensive tactical game under extreme pressure but no one comes close to the combination of power, defensive intelligence and creative playmaking in a single player. Sandro is, in my opinion, the ultimate defensive playmaker.

Take note of his Flair. 11 for Flair means he is not afraid to attempt the decisive, defence splitting throughball or the first time "around the corner" pass under pressure, but he doesn't go looking for these options when they are less than ideal. 11 for Flair is just a hint above the middle between conservative and outlandish.

Unfortunately his First Touch and Technique let him down slightly, but when considered in the context of Marking 17 and Tackling 17 these are fair sacrifices.

And here is Carrick, a rather mixed bag of excellent playmaker attributes let down by his Flair and excellent defensive Mental ability let down by his Tackling, Marking and Determination. But so long as he is in the right place at the right time and can keep the ball flowing sweetly with the odd defence ripping throughball then I am more than happy to play him.

And that folks is the defensive players in my midfield. Both of them Positionally strong, Mentally sharp, decent in the air and with a strong team work ethic, and both of them more than capable of hitting a pass. Lowest Creativity in my DM's? That's 16.

A Quick Glimpse Into the Future

Before I post some screenshots of my Attacking players and look at some examples of play, I thought I would post a screenshot of a young lad I just signed to develop for the future in this team. My scout Oliver Bierhoff (a potent scout at 20 Det, 20 JPA and 19 JPP, and a nice name to have around the club) reckons this lad has the potential to play at the same level as Gourcuff, and that is no doubt why he cost me the princely sum of £3 Million.

Unless I misunderstood the accent and Bierhoff was telling me he has the same potential as the the guy on the till in the stadium cafe then this is the biggest theft to happen in England since Ronny Biggs in 1963. The guy is an attacking genius AND a battleaxe and he is only 19. Looks like Berbatov has some competition for that AMC slot in the tougher matches where a bit of defensive effort would be useful.

Look at the state of him. Off The Ball 16, Workrate 17, Determination 16, Creativity 16, Composure 16, Anticipation 14, Decisions 14, Technique 16, Passing 17, First Touch 16, Strength 17, Finishing 14. Wow. The only concern is his Flair but at 13 that's a decent bias towards the flamboyant from a position of preferring the perfectly balanced option. I'm thinking a quick and easy retrain to CM as the replacement for Carrick to add a little bit more Physical and Attacking bite to the centre, what do you think?

He should link up quite well in the future with this young chap I managed to pinch for £6.5 Million:

That's a grand total of £9.5 Million spent on two under 20 players that would walk straight into most first teams on the planet let alone the league.

Barring his Composure this lad is already a good striker. Again Creativity and Flair even for a striker are important to my team. His Composure is quite poor but we can rectify that with training at the same time as making him the most awesome finisher and longshot artist at the club. Crank his Composure up to par and he is automatically turned into a player that can't miss the target from any range unless he buckles under the pressure. And with inch perfect delivery a forward that can't miss the target from any range is something I don't mind having.

But these lads are for a couple of years into the future minimum, lets look at today.

My Attacking Players

The Striker

A battleaxe of a player, which I always like, that is Physically and Mentally lethal with a good First Touch and good Technique. Rooney is not the epitome of a "Striker" but he is a battleaxe forward that is constantly in action, extremely dangerous with his movement and pace and physical ability, is intelligent and Creative and has a high team ethic, and has the right Technical attributes where it matters, his Touch and Technique. His Average Rating for me last season was 7.74.

Rooney is not the same kind of player as your Aguero or Benzema or Villa or Ronaldo or Robinho. He is not so able to create something out of nothing. The advantage Rooney has over these players is that he creates something out of nothing for other players. If someone else has the ball then Rooney battles his guts out to provide an option for them and with his awesome Off The Ball movement, his good quality acceleration and pace, and his good strength and First Touch then he is quite simply an absolutely lethal frontline battler.

Rooney is the battleaxe pass-option maker, and with a team full of utterly lethal providers there is never a lack of options in attack for them to aim at and there is never a lack of the quality and creativity of delivery that exposes Rooneys technical weaknesses.

But even more than this, his Creativity and Flair means that Rooney is never short of a passing option, never short of a move to get himself out of trouble with a pass or a turn, and never short of a way to finish. Movement, workrate, power, Control + Technique and improvisation, and top level "good" at everything else.

I'm sure certain "tactics" could get 100 goals out of him a season, but playing the game in the right spirit I managed to get 52 goals and 16 assists out of Rooney in 59 appearances last season. No narrow, wingless formations exploiting the FM Fullback weakness here. Just a desire to produce the sexiest looking football you can get from the ME.

The AMC

What can you say about Berbatov that hasn't already been said? Creative, calm, takes up lethal positions off the ball, loves the flamboyant option, has an excellent touch and technique, good at passing and a decent finish and is difficult to challenge in the air or on the deck, but can't really be arsed to do much especially if you don't have the ball.

He is the guy that leaves everyone else to do all the work, but then pops up with something really special right on the edge of the box. Whether it's a run, a pass, a shot or a quick turn you can rely on Berbatov to annoy the hell out of you and then single handedly unlock any defence in a huge variety of ways.

In FM he is the kind of player you always feel you need to leave out of the team but at the same time know that if you keep him in the team you are far more likely to score. And if you can embrace that element of his game instead of hate it then he is trully lethal. If you think Ibrahimovic is good in FM then take a look at Berbatovs superior movement, composure, decisions, first touch and flair. Similar players yet at the same time completely different. Ibrahimovic is the striker, the "Ronaldo" type player and Berbatov is the playmaker, the space exploiter, the move builder. Ibrahimovic will run inside your Fullback and receive the ball then dribble past your Centreback before slotting the ball home or squaring it for Xavi, Berbatov will stand between defenders and flick the pass over the Centrebacks head onto Rooney while he stands there puffing his cigar. If this guy could be arsed we would have to invent new words.

The Right Winger

Wants to move to a bigger club? Mates with the manager? £17.5 Million? I'll have a shot of that.

I like a battleaxe and this chap is decent, but Creativity + Flair + Delivery? That's the whole point.

Gourcuff is quite simply a genius. There is almost nothing he can't see and he has all the relevent attributes to pull it off. Flair means he is likely to try it, Touch + Passing + Technique + Composure + Crossing + Dribbling means he is likely to execute it. Teamwork + Decisions + Anticipation + Concentration means he is likely to get all of it right.

The guy clearly has some flaws, but not for my team and style of play. How fast you can run is pretty meaningless in my team unless you are the lone striker ploughing the field in the rare situation where I am pinned in my own half. Was Beckham fast? Was he hell. Was Zidane quick? Not on your life. Did Cantona have pace to burn? Ha! Is Scholes a speed demon? Now you are taking the mick. Still 14 + 14 for Acceleration and Pace isn't awful.

This guy can see just about everything. Has excellent delivery on almost all counts, and has the attributes to try it all, remain calm when doing it, and do everything else pretty well. That's what I call a player.

The Left Winger

Not a battleaxe by any stretch of the imagination but with Creativity and Passing and Teamwork of 19, Technique and Decisions and First Touch of 18, Flair and Off The Ball of 17 this guy is something of an utterly daft attacking playmaker. He has the PPM "Tries Killer Balls Often" and this means his first thought when receiving the ball is to look for a way to split the defence wide open with a pass. And if he can't find it and pull it off then only Xavi can. But Xavi doesn't have this guys Flair. Or his Off The Ball movement. Or his Teamwork.

Ozil is a completely loose cannon of a player. Streets ahead of Messi when it comes to seeing opportunities on the pitch and not far behind him when it comes to taking players out of the game with the ball at his feet. His game is all about delivering the most defence ripping passes imaginable, time after time after time. He will easilly flick an awesome backheel over the head of a DM simply to retain possession, but more often than not he will unleash a throughball that is completely beyond all reasonable sense untill it lands completely square at the feet of the striker.

This player more than any other I have ever had the pleasure of managing in FM shows the beauty contained within the ME. Creativity + Flair + Delivery equals football you never get tired of watching.

And that is my attacking players. There is more than a clear trend here, Creativity + Flair + the required delivery skills is the heart of the football my team plays and it is players all across the pitch.

Creativity + Flair in Action

For those that are about to whinge about inferior opposition I have a pkm from a match against Liverpool I will upload for you. For those that like to see the best examples of things in action then I have the following to show from the first match of the season away to Fulham (a game I have yet to finish as the quality of play excited me enough to write this post).

Ozil in Action

Here we see Ozil in action, receiving the ball on the left wing from Evra. With such brilliant Creativity and Flair, see if you can guess what his next move is before looking at the next image. Don't cheat, try and have a guess.

That's right, throughball to Rooney...

To even spot that pass requires a level of Creativity approaching genius. To attempt it requires nerve with a capital nerve.

And here is where Rooney and ball meet each other. The perfect position for a left footed striker to thrash the ball into the net. Unfortunately Rooneys First Touch is heavy and the ball spins into the keepers arms.

A great example of how quality players with high Creativity and Flair and good delivery can turn a tightly marked position inside you own half with your back to goal into a goalscoring chance...

This was with Control Strategy, low Tempo, Average Mentality and Mixed Passing. It is too early for me to start attacking aggressively. It's only 24 seconds into the match.

A Nice and Creative Goal

After a bit of a tussle in midfield Ozil gets the ball under control and dribbles infield before laying off a short and simple pass to Sandro.

The wholly right footed Sandro uses the outside of his boot to curl a chipped throughball into the path of Gourcuff.

The calm, creative Gourcuff lets the ball bounce before slotting it into the bottom near corner with his left peg.

Conclusion

And that is my attacking philosophy played out. Every touch of the ball is an opportunity to rip the opposition apart and through Creativity + Flair it is played that way. Creativity enables the players to see everything or almost everything available on the pitch and Flair encourages them to try it.

The point is not simply that Creativity is good for playmakers, but that Creativity produces a team where players can see so much more than everyone else on the pitch. This is the kind of football, the kind of threat, that comes from every single player in my team outside the back four. If they don't rip you open straight away then they keep the ball and ping it around before you have the slightest idea what is happening. The tiniest half inch of space will be brutally exploited, even if the target is five yards infront of the defence.

This dancing, bouncing, pinging, creative football is absolutely lethal, but it is also an absolute joy to watch and is pretty much the whole reason I keep playing FM regularly long after having done this and tried that and worked out X new feature.

My team is miles above the opposition but that's the point. I want to create and produce and most importantly watch the sweetest, sexiest, silkiest football the ME has to offer. And that means building an attacking team packed to the rafters with Creativity and Flair.

Who needs tactics when you play like this?

I hope you enjoyed this set of posts, but more importantly I hope you try this way of playing, and I hope you get to see the kind of football I get to see. Because it is never dull watching it.

Something that keeps FM entertaining for me is having a "big club" save and attempting to build a team that plays the most beautiful and silky and slick football I can achieve. Indeed it is a bit of a philosophy of mine in FM that the best form of attack requires very little tactics and instead comes from letting genius play however they wish, and play a game of football together that is ultimately unstoppable.

I tend to do this on my Sheffield United saved game after a few seasons for something to do. It is hard to achieve and not as easy as people believe. Especially getting it to work at a consistent level.

In my quest to build this "unstoppable attacking football" in FM10 I have come to have an even deeper appreciation for certain attributes, namely Creativity and Flair. Though these are particularly obvious attributes to choose to build "unstoppable attacking football" I have come to view them not simply as good, not simply as great, not simply as important, but as head and shoulders above every other attribute in the game for the purposes of attacking football. Obviously a high level of quality in other areas is important, with Movement and Passing and Technique and Composure all being very important and indeed there is very little you would not want to see your players have high ratings for but for me there is nothing that quite gets close to Creativity and Flair

Creativity and Flair are definetly the way to go for good attacking football. FM10 has made me focus a lot more on attributes rather than the actual tactics a lot more. Compared to other versions of the game. Not sure why that is but I have a good understanding now of the attributes which to look out for when playing a particular style.

Creativity

Creativity is the ability to see things on the pitch. And not merely see possible passes but to see all possible options. From watching my team in action it is apparent to me that Creativity affects the ability to see every possible opening, opportunity or option. Creativity affects the ability to see finishes, to see ways of beating a man, to see where a first touch or dribble can go, to see targets for crosses or corners or the options for a freekick. Creativity is not merely an attribute for a playmaker sitting whipping the ball around the pitch, it is an attribute for everyone to see everything.

I had always valued Anticipation as the creme de la creme of Attributes, the ability to react quicker, to be mentally sharp, to be one step ahead of the play. I had always considered low Anticipation to be a crucial flaw for players in every aspect of their play, especially when in possession as the timing of passes and the Anticipation of movement of players on both sides would be terrible. In my Pre-Season just finished I opted to play a young Fullback that had very low Anticipation even for a youth player at my club, but was blessed with decent Creativity. While he did show his weakness at being mentally sharp and was caught out a few times by passes into his defensive area, in possession he was calm and assured, playing good solid passes all around the pitch and finding players in space every time. I did not think he would be capable of this.

The low anticipation will be a bit hinderance defensivly most of the time, especially against equal or stronger opposition. But from an attacking point if his other attributes are relativley high then he should be fine. Although like you mentioned it is noticeable at times. I'm guessing throughballs and the final ball if player b is static is an issue though. But if player b is already moving even poor anticaption should be enough to allow him to see the movement.

My attacking philosophy is perhaps not quite what everyone would go for but I am sure a lot of people have the same ambition. Instead of Ronaldos and Agueros and Villas and Robinhos and all those players that can take several players out of the game with dribbles and runs, my attacking philosophy is to pack my team full of players that can ping the ball around and slice open teams from anywhere on the pitch with the most brilliant of passes and moves. I don't want to play Tiki-Taka and move the ball around for hours in midfield while hardly moving 2 yards forward, I want my wingers to drop a perfect ball onto the toe of my striker to backheel it into the path of my AMC who chips it over the head of a fullback for my other winger to side foot the ball into the corner of the net.

It's my preffered way to play this, especially the further I get into a game. It's also hard to implement especially been patient at times. Although the end result looks good when you watch a game, some of the movement you can get the forwards to do is awesome.

This is an excellent thread, nice work

I would be quite interested in how you set up the personal instructions for the front four in order to get the kind of football you describe!

I must say this is terrific, I was only introduced to FM last year and this forum only a few days a go properly and the amount of things I have learned is quite astonishing. Until now I never really paid too much attention to what each attribute does exactly but this has shed a lot of light on the issue for me. Top job and keep it up

Great thread SFraser. This is one topic that I've been thinking about lately as well. I pretty much agree on all your points. In my own games, I also tend to construct my teams with players possessing the same types of stats as you've outlined. I pay attention especially to their anticipation stat, which, in my opinion, simply work great for any player, anywhere on the pitch. It just helps in so many ways. I can't even recall how many times my strikers would simply get onto a pass just a split second earlier than the opposing defenders or GK, and then slot it into the net.

Also, Cleon makes an interesting point about how he's began to look at FM. Paying much more attention to attributes rather than tactics. It's kind of funny, but I have began looking at FM10 in the same way in the last few months. I spend much more time looking at specific combinations of attributes these days.

It really does please me to see people taking a finer look at player attributes, in relation to their roles, positions and overall tactical performance.

My approach for a number of releases now, has been to set out a tactical approach from scratch, then build my teams around it. I'm delighted that people are now discussing these things in more detail that I ever perhaps did, or could have.

Players come and go. A core tactic can last pretty much forever, whilst as a manager, you concentrate on the simplicity of putting square peg in the square hole, instead of the round one.

Attributes and Tactics are two sides of the same coin that is performance on the pitch. You can't build what you want to see without paying due attention to attributes and it is ultimately attributes that define whether players are capable of doing what you ask of them or not. It's attributes that define what players are capable of, and therefore it is attributes that define the kind of tactics that work for your team.

That's what makes the game a great simulation of football even if it is not absolutely realistic. The Tactical Instructions combined to the utterly vast differences in players makes for an uncountable variety of options. You can beat teams and be beaten in so many ways and it's not necessarilly down to a weakness in tactical plans on a "theoretical" basis but on the actual players in the team, the differences between X attribute and Y attribute within those tactics and your failure to realise this and account for this. Just like real football.

For myself I wanted to produce Creative and Flamboyant football, but Creative and Flamboyant football all across the pitch and between multiple players. For me it is great fun to watch all this silky passing, creative finishing, skillfull players doing clever things with the ball without necessarilly skinning everyone in the opponents team. I don't want to dribble through everyone, I want to pass and flick and swerve and curve and dink and chip my way through the opposition and when it comes off it is very nice to watch.

I would never say that this is the best way to attack because that would be daft. There is no "best way" to attack so long as you score goals. But for me this is the most enjoyable attacking football to watch, this is the kind of football I want to make my team play. So long as my team scores beautiful goals I don't really care about the opposition. What's the challenge you ask? The challenge is to build a team that plays football that is fun to watch, that plays a style and quality of football where you don't want to speed up the replay or even "shock horror" switch to rapid fire text commentry. I didn't get FM to skip past all the football, to rush through the game and condense ten seasons into a months worth of playing time. It has taken me 20 full days playing time to get into my third season on this save. I got FM to play football, and if I can create football that is very enjoyable to watch in detail then I am a very happy customer.

SFraser, PLEASE upload your pkm, I'm really excited to check out this game.

I do have a quick question; when you lower the creative freedom instruction, if I understand your explanation correctly, are you really hindering the players ability to use his FLAIR, and not so much his CREATIVITY? Theoretically he can still 'see' the moves opened up by his high creativity, but by lowering his creative freedom you are telling him he is not allowed to try them.

The reason I ask is because I'm beginning to re-think if I should weight Flair or Creativity more when setting up my player instructions. I always thought creativity but from your explanation I'm wondering if Flair is actually a little more important. For a team against lower-quality opposition (who is easily handled with a solid back 4) even if the player has a fairly low creativity but high flair it seems I could win alot of games by just letting him sling the ball around even if he only hits a few of his chances.

Attributes and Tactics are two sides of the same coin that is performance on the pitch. You can't build what you want to see without paying due attention to attributes and it is ultimately attributes that define whether players are capable of doing what you ask of them or not. It's attributes that define what players are capable of, and therefore it is attributes that define the kind of tactics that work for your team.

That's what makes the game a great simulation of football even if it is not absolutely realistic. The Tactical Instructions combined to the utterly vast differences in players makes for an uncountable variety of options. You can beat teams and be beaten in so many ways and it's not necessarilly down to a weakness in tactical plans on a "theoretical" basis but on the actual players in the team, the differences between X attribute and Y attribute within those tactics.

For myself I wanted to produce Creative and Flamboyant football, but Creative and Flamboyant football all across the pitch and between multiple players. For me it is great fun to watch all this silky passing, creative finishing, skillfull players doing clever things with the ball without necessarilly skinning everyone in the opponents team. I don't want to dribble through everyone, I want to pass and flick and swerve and curve and dink and chip my way through the opposition and when it comes off it is very nice to watch.

I would never say that this is the best way to attack because that would be daft. There is no "best way" to attack so long as you score goals. But for me this is the most enjoyable attacking football to watch, this is the kind of football I want to make my team play. So long as my team scores beautiful goals I don't really care about the opposition. What's the challenge you ask? The challenge is to build a team that plays football that is fun to watch, that plays a style and quality of football where you don't want to speed up the replay or even "shock horror" switch to rapid fire text commentry. I didn't get FM to skip past all the football, to rush through the game and condense ten seasons into a months worth of playing time. It has taken me 20 full days playing time to get into my third season on this save. I got FM to play football, and if I can create football that is very enjoyable to watch in detail then I am a very happy customer.

Hat's off to you Mr. SFraser, your philosophy in terms of attacking football is really impressive, exactly the way i see it, i always try to get the players with most creativity, flair and passing, not only in attack or midfield, but across the whole team.

Really encouraging to know there are people who still believe in this form of attacking football on these forums.

Out of curiousity SFraser, did you set up the 2 MCs and the 3 AMs as advanced playmakers with attack duties, or did you tweak them yourself ?

If so I'd be interested to know how you instructed those 5 players, and also what tempo are you playing at ?

There's a reason why you are my favorite poster SFraser, and that's your passion for the game and also your passion to get your team to play creative attacking football.

after reading this thread I have decided to up a pkm on recent friendly, which to some extent highlight what this thread speaks about, I would recomend taking a look at it in key highlights, build up play for my first goal in particular, anyway here's my Sporting team in action playing x-mass tree formation:

http://www.filefront.com/17179747/Sporting-CP-v-Liverpool.pkm/

SFraser@ Ibrahimovic is and always was a playmaker or treqaurtista type of player, both irl and ingame, he got a lot more in common with Berba then the player you mention

batata169@ what SFraser speaks about in this thread is pretty much what I have been doing since fm08, thought i have mostly used narrow shapes with packed midfield

Excellent thread SFraser. Quite similar principles to what I was trying to get across in my thread about the use of playmakers Here

Another top thread:thup:

That sure does look like a very attacking formation! I think you might just have motivated me to try something similar with Arsenal. I think they'd have a great set up to build on. In your opinion SFraser, do you think that Fabregas would have enough defensive nous to play the Carrick role?

Another top thread:thup:

That sure does look like a very attacking formation! I think you might just have motivated me to try something similar with Arsenal. I think they'd have a great set up to build on. In your opinion SFraser, do you think that Fabregas would have enough defensive nous to play the Carrick role?

I managed to get away with playing Xabi Alonso as the most defensivly capable midfielder out of my five playmakers when i did a test save with Real Madrid a while back in time (won everything possible that year), so Fabregas should indeed preform well in such a role

playing a team looking like this:

SFraser, PLEASE upload your pkm, I'm really excited to check out this game.

Here you go.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ajg86u2px7ml2g8

I do have a quick question; when you lower the creative freedom instruction, if I understand your explanation correctly, are you really hindering the players ability to use his FLAIR, and not so much his CREATIVITY? Theoretically he can still 'see' the moves opened up by his high creativity, but by lowering his creative freedom you are telling him he is not allowed to try them.

Yes that's right.

Creative Freedom affects Flair. Flair affects how much the player is willing to express his Creativity, or any of his other attributes.

If you watch the behaviour of Michael Carrick you will see what low Flair does to a very intelligent and creative player. If you watch the behaviour of Nani you will see what high Flair does to a player that is not the sharpest knife in the box.

The reason I ask is because I'm beginning to re-think if I should weight Flair or Creativity more when setting up my player instructions. I always thought creativity but from your explanation I'm wondering if Flair is actually a little more important. For a team against lower-quality opposition (who is easily handled with a solid back 4) even if the player has a fairly low creativity but high flair it seems I could win alot of games by just letting him sling the ball around even if he only hits a few of his chances.

That is a fair point, but if you have a player with high Flair and you want him to be flamboyant then you really want him to be able to see things around the pitch, otherwise he is just going to try and dribble past players or hit longshots over and over. If the dribbles/shots come off then great, and the player might skin a few players and then do something flamboyant with the cross, but flamboyant players and a lack of intelligence and creativity are generally not the best combination.

HatOut of curiousity SFraser, did you set up the 2 MCs and the 3 AMs as advanced playmakers with attack duties, or did you tweak them yourself ?

If so I'd be interested to know how you instructed those 5 players, and also what tempo are you playing at ?

I would be quite interested in how you set up the personal instructions for the front four in order to get the kind of football you describe!

I suppose I should spend some time describing my tactics, because tactics do matter even if the "philosophy" is to design freedom into a team.

Formation and Basic Shape:

The reason for this formation and basic shape is first of all defensive in nature. Just because I am building a team that I want to play very creative attacking football most of the time does not mean I will ignore defending. This shape when my instructions are tweaked to play more defensively will drop deep into a "triangular midfield" sitting ahead of the back four, forcing opponents wide and defending the centre with numbers and with a good shape.

FM10 does not handle changes of shape very well so a more attacking shape would not be able to defend so well so easilly and would require a lot of tinkering and tweaking on a regular basis. This shape in attack is very sound, and especially so when my Fullbacks get forward. With my ability to pass the ball, having players that sit inbetween the lines without heaps and heaps of support is not a problem. Rooney is not isolated, Berbatov will not be marked out of the game, my Wingers will not find it difficult to spot a pass and my CM's will not have trouble moving the ball forward.

Control of Player Instructions:

This is a screenshot of how I control the Tactical Instructions for players. The reason I do it this way is so that through using the Shouts and Role Change shortcuts I can quickly and easilly define a huge amount of changes to each players playstyle or the teams playstyle without affecting any of the specific behaviours I want them to carry out.

I don't want my CM to stop playing throughballs and start hitting longshots purely because I want him to drop a bit deeper on his own. The Shouts and Roles are for my purposes purely a way to change the players positioning, tendency to play Short or more Direct football, to press more or back off more or tackle more/less aggressively. It's about controlling how aggressively I want him to play his particular game.

So for me the TC in all it's forms is purely about controlling those details of general shape, general aggression of attacking/defending. I use it to alter these details on-the-fly. And because I set up the "Action Instructions" in detail, I think about all the Roles and Shouts in the game in terms of Mentality, Pressing, Creative Freedom. In terms of positioning and shape and attack/defence aggression.

So in this screenshot you can see my tweaked version of Central Midfielder Attack. My version of Central Midfielder Attack is an advanced midfield position that looks to keep the ball moving around attacking areas, probing for Throughballs and with high Creative Freedom to express his abilities, that does not move from the Central Midfield area and is tasked with holding an advanced position and using his intelligence and creativity to pick out any kind of attacking pass if possible, but not so high a demand for attacking passes that I encourage him to give the ball away.

So while it looks like a very aggressive attacking role, it is a very advanced position for a very defensively strong midfielder with bags of passing ability. My CM is supposed to sit high up the pitch, staying in position, winning the ball and pinging it around looking for openings. If you watch the PKM you will see that my CM's hold a very high position but sit there and dictate the match.

Control of Team Instructions

This is arguably the most important screen for me, because it is the screen that shows shape, positioning and aggression of position, and it shows style and philosophy and strategy for the match.

You may have noticed that Balanced Philosophy + Control Strategy + My Player Roles have produced a Mentality arrangements that is almost identical to a Very Fluid Philosophy. However crucially unlike a Very Fluid Philosophy my Centrebacks are not going to push forward and my Striker is going to play slightly deeper. Here I can see precisely whose Role needs to be tweaked to produce a slightly different overall shape to my team, for example I could choose Roles with reduced Mentality for my Fullbacks to produce a deep back four when attacking instead of more of a back two, or do the same for my CM's to produce a shape that has Dual Holding Midfielders. Indeed this is where I spend a lot of time before each match, flicking between Philosophies and Strategies to study different shapes to my team within it's formation, then going back to the player screen and adjusting Roles and Duties.

As I said before, the TC for me is all about shape and strategy and aggression of attack and defence. I don't pay any less attention to Mentality frameworks because the TC exists, I just use it speed up the process of defining shape and strategy.

My "Balanced" "Control" framework is infact highly Fluid and positionally aggressive. Which is precisely what I want to pin teams in their own half and look for openings. However I have a strong back two sitting deep behind all this ready to mop up any passes into the lone striker or to hold their shape and wait for "reinforcements" should the opponent manage to break through my defensively strong, positionally aggressive Central Midfielders and my very advanced Fullbacks.

Playing Style will likewise be chosen on a game by game basis. The Playing Style shown here does not completely fit the Shape of the team and I went for Aggressive Closing Down and Hard Tackling to fit the shape of the team for the Fulham match. You will notice the Tempo, Width and Time Wasting sliders. This is what Control Strategy gives me. I might be playing a Positionally Aggressive game but I am in no hurry to make anything happen. I am going to camp inside the Fulham half and play some controlled football.

Zonal Marking is pretty much a no brainer for this kind of style and shape. It's areas of the pitch I want to defend and dominate and I intend to use my defensively strong CM's and my defensively strong Fullbacks to control the width of the pitch, getting Berbatov to drop into position ahead of the CM's incase Fulham try to play their way to a draw against a two man midfield. Not that Berbatov is going to bother doing much but he is quite good at nicking passes off players and winning headers and atleast if he is standing there then I have a man in the hole Fulham would like to exploit to keep the ball off me.

And there is a screenshot of my distribution and level of Closing Down, at the levels I used against Fulham. And a look at the instructions for my AMC.

I would never get away with that level of Closing Down across my team if I played a two man midfield or a three man midfield that had high differences in Mentality creating lots of gaps and distance between players. The only way you can get away with such high levels of Closing Down is if you have a strong shape and your players are working together as a unit. And so long as I keep the ball for long periods of time I shouldn't wear my players out getting them to work this hard defensively all match.

Berbatovs Instructions here show a player that is set up float around between an MC/AMC position just ahead of my CM's as well as move into lethal attacking areas in support of Rooney. You will see a goal against Fulham where Rooney recieves the ball in a central position and Berbatov makes a Channel attacking run. That is one of the basic points to this system I play, a good Central Striker that is lethal off the ball and makes attacking runs from a slightly deeper position, with a pretty dangerous AMC that attacks the Channels and is free to Roam around as he pleases.

You will notice that while I play a positionally aggressive game with high Mentalities and bags of Creative Freedom, I don't force players to do anything much. My CM's yes are asked to try raking throughballs regularly but there is no Direct Passing, no over usage of RWB/TTB/RFD in my advanced four players. My game isn't about forcing my players to attack along certain lines, it is about setting them up to be Attack-Minded but ultimately free to do whatever they see fit. Barring longshots and crosses from players that can't do these things.

That is all the important stuff described I think. It's a system more about supporting the "style" or "philosophy" of Creative and Flamboyant football than an actual in-depth plan to cut open the opponent in detail, because that's the way I want to play.

Hat's off to you Mr. SFraser, your philosophy in terms of attacking football is really impressive, exactly the way i see it, i always try to get the players with most creativity, flair and passing, not only in attack or midfield, but across the whole team.

Really encouraging to know there are people who still believe in this form of attacking football on these forums.

There's a reason why you are my favorite poster SFraser, and that's your passion for the game and also your passion to get your team to play creative attacking football.

Well thanks for that. Download the PKM and see what you think. It might be a bit rubbish and I might be exposing all my tactical weaknesses to the wider public, but I enjoyed alot of the football in that match.

There are obviously a few "holes" in the team but it is a fairly new setup to be honest, and that was the first match of the season. I will take a look at shoring up some of the holes. And you have to give credit to Fulham for making a fist of the match despite being completely outclassed.

Something worth pointing out, have a look at where Gourcuff tries to put his headers. That's Creativity and Flair in action, with headers.

Thank you for posting the match, that was very entertaining.

Your explanation of your tactics development is basically what I am striving for in the game; I don't like that the shouts are useless when you use individual instructions and would love to be able to leave everyone's instructions unticked and then use them. However, playing with a lower-level club where I can't get the players I need or even if I could afford them, they won't come, I find that I can't get my tactics to work this way.

What would you do if you had say, 3 players who didn't really fit what you wanted to do and couldn't replace them? Would you give them specific instructions for passing or creative freedom, or mentality or closing down, if they weren't creative/flamboyant or defensive enough? Or would you continue to tinker with the roles to just minimize their negative impact on your tactic?

Great read SFraser! Bit of an off-topic question, can I take a look at Jonny Evans' attributes and usual instructions please? Normally, I go down the route of him becoming my centre-back replacement along with Rodwell but you've moulded him into an attacking fullback I presume! Thanks.

I'm interested SFraser if the way you set up berbatov is the way a False-10 would be set-up (I saw your thread over on FM-britain)

Would be interesting to know if that's what you intended.

Just finished watching the PKM, and I have to say that I am really impressed, also considering the fact you were playing away from home.

The players that stood out most for me wer Ozil, gourcuff, rooney, and berbatov.

Jaume should have put that chance away though

I beleive your wingers were set up as advanced play makers with attack duty, and with cut-inside wide play and mixed RFD ?

Really good match SFraser.

I am a bit confused SFraser, in your screenshot of the MC instructions, he has closing down of own half.

But in one of the screenshots below, seems like most of your players have high closing down.

Also the mentalities I got by doing exactly what you said are different than the ones in your screenshot, am I missing anything here ?

I beleive your wingers were set up as advanced play makers with attack duty, and with cut-inside wide play and mixed RFD ?

You got the mixed RFD bit right.

My wingers were setup as Winger Attack with RFD Mixed, RWB Often, Longshots Rare, TTB Mixed, Crossing Mixed. They had Wideplay None to let them decide where to run, and Roaming ticked.

I chose RWB Often because Ozil has the PPM RWB Rare. PPM's influence behaviour and are akin to personal tactical instructions and I don't want Ozil to ignore the opportunity to skin a defender with his great dribbling stats.

Jaume should have put that chance away though

He should have and it is unfortunate he didn't because it affects his ratings missing shots like that and he played very well considering he is 17. He is a great little player already.

Just finished watching the PKM, and I have to say that I am really impressed, also considering the fact you were playing away from home.

Fulham did really well to make the game difficult and had a few CCC's that you could argue might have levelled the match, but in all honesty they were not on the same planet as me. Adler did a great Schmeichal impression that game.

If you think that match was good, have a look at this one. Home game to Newcastle and both sides come flying out of the blocks. Both sides really give this match a good go. Even Berbatov gets stuck in and I might even have seen a sliding tackle from him, but that's probably my imagination.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3bp6p78a6he28qw

I'm interested SFraser if the way you set up berbatov is the way a False-10 would be set-up (I saw your thread over on FM-britain)

You could make that arguement. A highly creative player making attacking runs from a defensively key midfield position is very much the attributes of the "False 10" role as I understand it, but I would consider my team and especially Berbatovs starting positions to be too far advanced and already very close to the striker to be a genuine "False 10".

The "False 10" in my opinion is better understood as a "False 8" in the sense that he holds a critical midfield position in defence but is the main creative outlet in attack and regularly gets close to or ahead of the striker. The traditional number 8 is more of a box-to-box player whereas the "False 10" combines the defensive duties of the number 8 with the key creative and attacking duties of the number 10.

Berbatov sort of fits that bill in my formation, but my team is far too aggressive and dominant for the important defensive duties of the "false 10", or "false 8" whatever you want to call it, to show up. If I played this same lineup against Barcelona and went for a more conservative positional approach, then Berbatov would be the "false 10" as I understand it.

That's just my opinion on it. "False 10" is a new idea floating around and I might have completely the wrong end of the stick. Sneijder for Inter and Ozil for Germany though would be what I consider the epitome of the "false 10/8" role.

Hope you get a chance to look at that Newcastle match btw, the team is atleast one gear above the Fulham match.

Great read SFraser! Bit of an off-topic question, can I take a look at Jonny Evans' attributes and usual instructions please? Normally, I go down the route of him becoming my centre-back replacement along with Rodwell but you've moulded him into an attacking fullback I presume! Thanks.

I'm planning to mould Sandro into my replacement Centreback, for Ferdinand. That would give me a team that is getting very close to being silly when it comes to creating things on the pitch. Barring 1 point Jumping, 1 point Acceleration, 1 point Positioning he is already equal or better than Ferdinand in all other key defensive areas, and is creative and accurate with delivery to rival Carrick. With an immense playmaker in the Centre of Defence I would expect to see some outrageous football, and I'm looking forward to it. I think FM11 will be out though by the time I get far enough where Ferdinand retires.

He can't cross and he isn't Creative but he is a defensive rock and he can pass, and he has immense reading of the game for both attack and defence. It's important to have solid defenders in your rediculously attacking sides lest you become an Arsenal. This lad would walk into plenty of top sides at Centreback and he doesn't buckle under pressure, make poor decisions, fail to keep up with events and he can get a simple pass on target. And he can control the ball which is important.

These instructions might not be what you would expect for this player, but he is not Flamboyant in the slightest and he makes good decisions, that means he will run with ball where there is obvious space, play throughballs when there is an obvious pass on, but otherwise will play a simply game very well.

I could ask him to cross when there is an obvious cross, but the problem with crossing is his delivery. He can dribble into space because there is no one to tackle him, but he can't cross into space. The ball will just go out of play or straight to a defender. He can however deliver a decent pass.

Maximum Creative Freedom is just a quirk of the role and my Team Tactical Instructions, but with a Flair of 3! I don't really need to worry about Evans trying something audacious he can't pull off. That's kind of the point of this thread, low Flair for Carrick is a massive hindrence for his abilities, low Flair for Evans is just perfect.

That sure does look like a very attacking formation! I think you might just have motivated me to try something similar with Arsenal. I think they'd have a great set up to build on. In your opinion SFraser, do you think that Fabregas would have enough defensive nous to play the Carrick role?

Anyone with high levels of Anticipation is going to be really good at most stuff in the game. Fabregas will be able to nip in and steal the ball, will be to the ball first, will see what is happening next earliest, and these are all huge aspects of attacking and defensive play.

Where Fabregas is weak is in the Positions he takes up, the actual defensive positions he holds. He might know what is unfolding next, but he wont be as good as Carrick at knowing where the ideal place to be to deal with it is. So despite his immense Anticipation, Fabregas will be caught out of position more times than Carrick.

And crucially for a Premier League midfielder he is weak in the air. Aerial ability in midfield is vital because "head tennis" happens regularly, especially if you push forward your D-Line to reduce space for the opponent. If you can "cover" Fabregas with an Aerially dominant Centreback behind him, an Aerially dominant CM next to him, and ideally an Aerially dominant forward ahead of him that is fine. But be aware that if you position Fabregas somewhere in your team that lacks Aerial ability, then you will concede possession and suffer because of it. Indeed if you play an aggressive D-Line and regularly lose "head tennis battles" in one area of the pitch, the opposition is very likely to open you up with a quick pass.

Fabregas is an exceptionally strong midfielder, but I don't know how much of a weakness his reduced Positioning would be. 90% of matches I would imagine it would hardly show up, but there is that 10% of matches where even with the Harlem globe-trotters you find out it does count.

What I would suggest is making sure your team is balanced. If Fabregas is playing in CM then put him near strong defenders. His playmaking and offensive ability with a slight defensive weakness will balance their strong defensive ability and their very likely reduced offensive capability. So long as you can construct a balanced side in terms of attacking and defending then you don't need to get excessively concerned over any individual player, because either your team as a whole is strong or your team as a whole is weak.

As Arsenal though I would imagine that Fabregas is better defensively than a lot of your defenders.

Here is the Newcastle PKM again incase any of you missed it It might not be a patch on what some of you could create given the same club and resources, but if you are following this thread and find it interesting then I would imagine you would be interested in seeing some of the football. And even if you don't find it particularly interesting or informative you could always give me some ideas as to where I could improve or might be going wrong in this quest to build "ultimate, unstoppable attacking football".

http://www.mediafire.com/?3bp6p78a6he28qw

I am a bit confused SFraser, in your screenshot of the MC instructions, he has closing down of own half.

But in one of the screenshots below, seems like most of your players have high closing down.

Also the mentalities I got by doing exactly what you said are different than the ones in your screenshot, am I missing anything here ?

For the Mentalities, I am not sure why that is.

For Closing Down some screenshots show my standard, basic template and others show the precise Closing Down settings I used against Fulham. I will try and keep things consistent in the future.

What did you do to get the Mentalities for your players? I would imagine that you chose the same Philosophy and Strategy but probably not the same Role and Duties?

No it was my mistake, they are exactly the same, and here is how i tweaked them

I made my wingers have RFD mixed and RWB mixed.

I am wondering if your striker has mixed RFD or rarely ?

Finally, the wideplay for your wingers is cuts inside right ?

Ok, another flair/creativity question brought up by your discussion of Evans.

I have this feeling like creativity/decisions/flair works kind of in this order;

1) creativity - allows the player to see more options for what to do with the ball.

2) decisions - a sort of modifier on how good of a decision the player will make based on what options his creativity gave him

3) flair - what type of move the player will use to pull off the decision that has already been made (and maybe influenced by the decision attribute as well).

Here is how I believe the creative freedom slider SHOULD affect this decision-making process (absolutely no game-testing to back this up, just a hunch from everything I've read)

1) Creativity - not directly affected by the creative freedom slider

2) Decisions - heavily, heavily, heavily affected by the creative freedom slider; the lower the creative freedom slider the more 'creative' moves you are blocking from the player's possible decisions

3) Flair - sort-of affected by the creative freedom slider, as how 'flamboyant' of a move is used should be tied to the decisions attribute. I also wouldn't be surprised however if creative freedom didn't modify this at all, and flamboyant players just do their flair thing regardless of how you try to coach them out of it.

I guess this isn't really a question, more of an observation. Anyone care to comment on it's validity? What do you guys think?

Ok, another flair/creativity question brought up by your discussion of Evans.

I have this feeling like creativity/decisions/flair works kind of in this order;

1) creativity - allows the player to see more options for what to do with the ball.

2) decisions - a sort of modifier on how good of a decision the player will make based on what options his creativity gave him

3) flair - what type of move the player will use to pull off the decision that has already been made (and maybe influenced by the decision attribute as well).

I totally see what you are getting at but I wouldn't go along with that analysis.

I would order the attributes as follows:

1) Creativity - What options the player can see.

2) Flair - How much a player leans towards the flamboyant option.

3) Decisions - How much a player leans towards the GOOD option.

Flair isn't quite like Anticipation or Decisions or Positioning or Off The Ball or even Creativity. Flair isn't an attribute that defines an ability, Flair defines a style or a personality. That means that Flair can be a positive or a negative attribute, it can work with or against other attributes.

Depending on the options, depending on the moves available, depending on the specific situation of the match, Flair and Decisions can reinforce each other or work against each other. If there are a lot of flamboyant options around then the player with high Flair and good Decisions will pick one of the better flamboyant options, but if the BEST option is not flamboyant and there is a GOOD flamboyant option, he will probably go for the flamboyant option because that is his nature.

Imagine it this way, a winger with high Creativity and Flair and Decisions is faced with three options:

1: A 40 yard crossfield throughball with the outside of his boot to a striker making a run.

2: A simple short pass to the fullback in acres of space.

3: A backheel to a CM in a couple of yards of space.

He is probably going to choose number three, because it is a better option than number one, an option equal or slightly less good compared to number two but is far more flamboyant.

So you see Flair as a modifier to creativity and decisions, basically defining how frequently the player chooses a flamboyant option.

That makes alot of sense. However I am still thinking now that the most important attribute for giving a player creative freedom (to get the best out of him) is decisions, IF the creative freedom instruction doesn't bias the player towards choosing creative options.

Let me explain what I mean.

In most discussions of the creativity attribute, people seem to believe that it makes more options available to the player. Seeing as how it is a game, I would imagine each option is given a probability of being chosen based on a number of attributes. It seems there is a possibility that there is no hard cutoff programmed in by SI where the probability for that option (and progressively more creative ones) is set to exactly zero. Is it possible that the creative freedom slider increases the probability that the player chooses a 'more creative' option, but the initial probabilities were defined by his creativity attribute?

In other words, Flair is kind of a modifier for decisions (tending to make the player decide on a more or less flamboyant option), is it possible that the creative freedom instruction is a modifier on creativity tending to make the player choose the more or less creative option?

So you see Flair as a modifier to creativity and decisions, basically defining how frequently the player chooses a flamboyant option.

That makes alot of sense. However I am still thinking now that the most important attribute for giving a player creative freedom (to get the best out of him) is decisions, IF the creative freedom instruction doesn't bias the player towards choosing creative options.

Let me explain what I mean.

In most discussions of the creativity attribute, people seem to believe that it makes more options available to the player. Seeing as how it is a game, I would imagine each option is given a probability of being chosen based on a number of attributes. It seems there is a possibility that there is no hard cutoff programmed in by SI where the probability for that option (and progressively more creative ones) is set to exactly zero. Is it possible that the creative freedom slider increases the probability that the player chooses a 'more creative' option, but the initial probabilities were defined by his creativity attribute?

In other words, Flair is kind of a modifier for decisions (tending to make the player decide on a more or less flamboyant option), is it possible that the creative freedom instruction is a modifier on creativity tending to make the player choose the more or less creative option?

Creative Freedom is a modifier of Flair, and a modifier of his Natural Flair. You can't turn a Flair 7 player into a Flair 20 player. You can give him Direct Passing, Maximum Mentality and he will always look for the least Flamboyant Direct Attacking Pass.

If there is a great option that requires a Flamboyant outside of the boot option, and a poor option that requires a simple pass, the player with low Flair is going to tend to pick the poor option because it is the simple option regardless of how good it is. If his Decisions attribute is supreme and the flamboyant pass is the best option around, if the flamboyant option is the only attacking option and you have given the player Direct Passing and a high Mentality, he might just opt for it.

Flair is the "keep it simple" attribute. Indeed the best way to describe Flair is that it is Flair.

To get the best out of a player with high Creative Freedom requires more than Decisions because Decisions is just how well a player judges options, and options are not choices. If there is 10 options then there are ten options. Decisions isn't the only attribute involved in making a choice. It does however play a huge role in how players weigh those choices, but so does Flair.

Put it another way, two identical players but one has 5 Flair and the other has 15 Flair. The first players goes "what's the best simple choice?" and the second player goes "what's the best Flamboyant choice?"

That is just about as well as I can explain it. Flair isn't an ability, it's a style, a personality trait. It cannot be improved through training for this very reason, it's not something you can teach. It's something you are born with. That's why Carrick looks nearly as good as Xavi but isn't even remotely close to him in the ME. Carrick keeps it simple, Xavi takes risks.

The difference between Xavi and Carrick is that you can instruct Xavi down to Carricks level of "risk taking" but you can't instruct Carrick up to Xavi's level. When both are given no freedom at all they both do precisely what you tell them. When both are given all the freedom in the World then Xavi is a completely different player to Carrick and there is nothing you can do to Carrick to turn him into anything close to Xavi.

If you want to play Flamboyant, risky, aggressive, skillfull football you need players with high Flair. You can tone down a player with a high Flair but you can't tone up a player with low Flair. You can control Flair, but either players have it or they don't and if they don't have it you can't exploit it.

The Ozil pass against Fulham screenshot in this thread would not happen if he had low Flair. All the simple passes in all the matches ever played can be instructed into players, but that pass can only come from someone with high Flair.

I suppose I kind of refuse to believe that the creative freedom slider doesn't modify the game's internal calculations that are based on each player's creativity attribute. If it were a modifier of only flair why not call it 'flamboyancy'?

I went to the manual and it has this to say about each:

Team Instructions:

Creative Freedom

Creative Freedom affects the tendency of your players to attempt the more difficult and ambitious. The slider ranges from Little to Much, and in short, the more creative freedom you allow your team, the more unpredictable they may be. A higher setting may see your players occasionally ignore your tactical instructions and attempt to do their own thing, but the degree of success depends on the technical prowess of your players. Given they’ll be attempting the more difficult stuff; they need to be of a sufficient caliber to make it count. Therefore, it may be advisable to limit this on a team basis and allow it for the more talented player(s) in your team.

Player Instructions:

Creative Freedom

When set for a player, it applies in the same manner as it does for the team as detailed in section 8.1.2.The player will act on his own authority at times and attempt to play with flair and trickery.

Creativity:

This refers to a player’s vision and ability to see a potential opening, not necessarily exploit it. A player might be able to see something to take advantage of but also requires the technical proficiency to pull it off.

Flair:

A natural talent for the creative and occasional unpredictability. A player with a lot of flair will be one of the key attacking components in any team but at the same time may need tactical restraint to get the best out of him. Flair and Creativity work well together.

Reading that seems to say to me:

a) You are right, the creative freedom slider probably works much more as a modifier of flair than creativity.

b) the flair attribute MUST contain information about the player's ability to play flamboyantly, and not just their tendency to do so.

c) a high creativity player with low flair will be hampered by his inability to pull of the moves he would like to due to his low flair. Likewise a high flair player with low creativity will be hampered by not being able to see the great creative move that his flair will allow him to execute.

This is a very helpful discussion for me, I hope someone else gains something from it all as well.

a) You are right, the creative freedom slider probably works much more as a modifier of flair than creativity.

The guy that invented the ME said that.

b) the flair attribute MUST contain information about the player's ability to play flamboyantly, and not just their tendency to do so.

c) a high creativity player with low flair will be hampered by his inability to pull of the moves he would like to due to his low flair. Likewise a high flair player with low creativity will be hampered by not being able to see the great creative move that his flair will allow him to execute.

No.

Flair is not an ability. How well a player can execute a flamboyant option, how well he can "pull off a move" is completely irrelevant. Flair is entireally about a players NATURAL DESIRE to attempt ambitious moves.

Flair is a tendency, not an ability. It's like "Longshots" or "Run With Ball" or "Shoots With Power" but instead of affecting a certain move, it influences the actual choice made in every move. Or atleast those with the ball.

This kind of issue pops up alot. There are plenty of attributes that people think "must contain information" about something else. It's not true. None of the Technical attribute "contain" information on timing, vision, flamboyancy, decision, team effort. None of the Mental attributes "contain" information on shot accuracy, pass accuracy, ability to execute a move. Composure contains no information on Technique.

The ability to spot an opening and the natural tendency to try certain moves has absolutely nothing to do with a players ability to pull them off. Positioning does not "contain information" about Anticipation.

I have seen plenty of examples of "good Decisions" that are badly executed, plenty of good passing options where the pass is under-hit or poorly timed. If you watch the PKM's I uploaded in detail, particularly the behaviour of Anderson against Newcastle, you will see these things in action. His "good decisions" doesn't take into account his slightly above average passing, doesn't account for his average Anticipation, so even a "good decision" to pass infield to my other CM in acres of space can be poorly struck, badly timed, or even go straight to an opponent player.

There are plenty of examples of a "good decision" being chosen over a "poor decision" yet the outcome of the good decision is worse than if the player had taken the "bad decision". Decisions is simply decisions. It has nothing to do with the players ability to pull off a decision.

With these 6 up formations you seem to be sacrificing aerial ability for other talents on virtually all your players so I'd imagine you'd need 4 guys that are good aerially at the back just to handle opposing set pieces. It's fairly easy to concede the majority of opposing goals to corners with decent tactics (this has happened for me several years in a row).

I typically play a 5 up formation with 3 Strikers, 2 MC's and get 8 up in an attack that lingers on as the DMC, DL and DR can all push somewhat forwards.

Regarding Flair being a tendency rather than an ability I'm 99% that's the case.

If Flair were an ability it would cost CA, and from having done all sorts of editing I know that changing a player from 1 flair to 20 flair doesn't change their CA or affect their other attributes (even if you have a 200 CA player who's maxed out and if you change any other attribute up lots of attributes go down).

My understanding is that creativity is the offensive version of decisions and that flair is a tendency to take risks, while anticipation affects both offense and defense.

The guy that invented the ME said that.

I apologize, I've only been playing for a few months. I haven't seen this before now.

No.

Flair is not an ability. How well a player can execute a flamboyant option' date=' how well he can "pull off a move" is completely irrelevant. Flair is entireally about a players NATURAL DESIRE to attempt ambitious moves.

Flair is a tendency, not an ability. It's like "Longshots" or "Run With Ball" or "Shoots With Power" but instead of affecting a certain move, it influences the actual choice made in every move. Or atleast those with the ball.

This kind of issue pops up alot. There are plenty of attributes that people think "must contain information" about something else. It's not true. None of the Technical attribute "contain" information on timing, vision, flamboyancy, decision, team effort. None of the Mental attributes "contain" information on shot accuracy, pass accuracy, ability to execute a move. Composure contains no information on Technique.

[/quote']

I never said it contained information about something other than flamboyancy. I said I thought it had to modify how well a flamboyant move was executed; I never implied that this means it cannot still be a 'tendency' attribute. The reason I came to that conclusion was this statement from the manual about creative freedom:

The player will act on his own authority at times and attempt to play with flair and trickery.

Now, I will say maybe the manual is misleading me here. When I read that, I see it as the player will actively TRY to use flair, not just that you're removing your RESTRICTIONS on flamboyant decisions.

So let me ask another question: Let's say you have two players, both with a flair of 5. One player has their creative freedom set to 'much', and the other set to 'little'. Would there be adverse effects on the player with 'much' creative freedom? Or is creative freedom just a modifier on 'how much' of their 'total' flair they are allowed to use? If the creative freedom slider can only restrict the player (and at it's maximum NOT restrict them), what are the negative effects of giving poor creative/flair players lots of creative freedom? Shouldn't there be negative effects? I think that's where all of this is really coming from.

If Flair were an ability it would cost CA, and from having done all sorts of editing I know that changing a player from 1 flair to 20 flair doesn't change their CA or affect their other attributes (even if you have a 200 CA player who's maxed out and if you change any other attribute up lots of attributes go down).

That's an undeniable conversation-ender there; if it doesn't affect CA, I'm positive it has no effect at all on ability.

Still, my question has changed to 'If flair is only a tendency and creative freedom only restricts flair, what are the negative effects of giving a low-flair player full creative freedom?'

If there aren't any negative effects, it seems like a flaw to me. It feels like this solution is over-simplified and that it has to be more complicated under the hood.

My best guess would be that it is two fold:

1) First off most low flair players don't have the other abilities to pull off flair moves so if you try and force things you'll get adverse consequences.

2) Secondly, It doesn't get you ahead compared to giving a high flair player a high creative freedom (which would let you use even more flair).

My best guess would be that it is two fold:

1) First off most low flair players don't have the other abilities to pull off flair moves so if you try and force things you'll get adverse consequences.

2) Secondly, It doesn't get you ahead compared to giving a high flair player a high creative freedom (which would let you use even more flair).

yeah, but:

1) There are a number of high-quality low-flair players (even a couple discussed in this thread) so while I understand this is generally true, it's not necessarily a negative for giving high creative freedom.

2) Again, not a negative so much as a not-positive.

It seems to me there should be a penalty for giving high creative freedom to a player with low flair. Almost like you're trying to tell him to 'use flair' he 'doesn't have'.

I'm thinking of a player with 20 in every attribute except for flair, which is 1. There is absolutely no difference at all in the way this player plays if he has 'little' or 'much' creative freedom? If the more knowledgeable people around here believe there is no penalty, I will take their word for it.

Ultimately we are all just guessing as no one here knows what the code really looks like. However, I trust the opinions of SFraser and the experienced people around here. I just like to think everything through. I have a degree in physics afterall, it's in my nature to hunt down every possible solution and test it's worth. I apologize if I'm annoying you SFraser.

SFraser I apologize as I did not see your first reply and that your wingers wideplay was normal.

I am still wondering if you have tried tinkering with a false 10, because I seriously beleive I have a player who can do the job in that role.

I'm planning to mould Sandro into my replacement Centreback, for Ferdinand. That would give me a team that is getting very close to being silly when it comes to creating things on the pitch. Barring 1 point Jumping, 1 point Acceleration, 1 point Positioning he is already equal or better than Ferdinand in all other key defensive areas, and is creative and accurate with delivery to rival Carrick. With an immense playmaker in the Centre of Defence I would expect to see some outrageous football, and I'm looking forward to it. I think FM11 will be out though by the time I get far enough where Ferdinand retires.

http://i35.tinypic.com/wmmnav.jpg

He can't cross and he isn't Creative but he is a defensive rock and he can pass, and he has immense reading of the game for both attack and defence. It's important to have solid defenders in your rediculously attacking sides lest you become an Arsenal. This lad would walk into plenty of top sides at Centreback and he doesn't buckle under pressure, make poor decisions, fail to keep up with events and he can get a simple pass on target. And he can control the ball which is important.

http://i35.tinypic.com/2cdiumc.jpg

These instructions might not be what you would expect for this player, but he is not Flamboyant in the slightest and he makes good decisions, that means he will run with ball where there is obvious space, play throughballs when there is an obvious pass on, but otherwise will play a simply game very well.

I could ask him to cross when there is an obvious cross, but the problem with crossing is his delivery. He can dribble into space because there is no one to tackle him, but he can't cross into space. The ball will just go out of play or straight to a defender. He can however deliver a decent pass.

Maximum Creative Freedom is just a quirk of the role and my Team Tactical Instructions, but with a Flair of 3! I don't really need to worry about Evans trying something audacious he can't pull off. That's kind of the point of this thread, low Flair for Carrick is a massive hindrence for his abilities, low Flair for Evans is just perfect.

Thanks for answering SFraser Please keep us updated and provide PKM's as much as possible When I get my laptop back I can't wait to watch them. Sandro as a centre-back would be very effective I presume and will provide creative football all over the park.

Evans kind of plays like an advanced defensive player then? He wins the ball and lays it off with his good decisions he can choose the best player to pass to, and he advances up the pitch moving into the right spaces and making the right choices.

Carrick's flair is disappointing and when I first got the game I played as United due to me supporting them and Carrick was my deep-lying playmaker for most games, I wanted him to sit deep and make varied passes and spread the play and watching him very closely is (unfortunately) the best way to find out what flair does. If anyone wants to see what flair does in action, I'd reccommend going into the editor and putting Xavi into United/Carrick at Barca and play Xavi one game then Carrick the next and you'll see exactly what I mean. In Xavi you'll see the Hollywood passes and one-touch over-the-top through balls, in Carrick you'll see patient passes going sideways and simple balls to the fullback(s).

You will notice that while I play a positionally aggressive game with high Mentalities and bags of Creative Freedom, I don't force players to do anything much. My CM's yes are asked to try raking throughballs regularly but there is no Direct Passing, no over usage of RWB/TTB/RFD in my advanced four players. My game isn't about forcing my players to attack along certain lines, it is about setting them up to be Attack-Minded but ultimately free to do whatever they see fit. Barring longshots and crosses from players that can't do these things.

I don't want to derail this fantastic thread into a tangential discussion about player instructions, but I thought this was a very interesting point and could be part of a misconception that I have about how the ME and how player instructions work.

When I initially saw this screenshot, I thought it was odd that Berbatov had TTB and RWB both set to mixed rather than often - this seems to be at odds with the tactics creator player instructions that have lots of "often" settings for specifying what you want players to attempt. For example, my current tactic is a 4-2-2-2 with two "Advanced Playmakers" with "Attacking" mentality - the TC has these players with TTB, RWB, and CB all set to "often" while long shots is set to "mixed".

But is the idea here that setting these instructions to "mixed" rather than "often" allows them to make their own decisions with the ball (similar to "mixed" passing rather than "short" or "direct") while "often" forces a player to attempt something more than he would otherwise do it if left to his own devices? Is it your contention then that the "often" setting for player instructions is in fact a limiter on a player's decisions rather than a way of simply specifying the precedence with which he should make his decisions about what to do with the ball?

When I initially saw this screenshot, I thought it was odd that Berbatov had TTB and RWB both set to mixed rather than often - this seems to be at odds with the tactics creator player instructions that have lots of "often" settings for specifying what you want players to attempt. For example, my current tactic is a 4-2-2-2 with two "Advanced Playmakers" with "Attacking" mentality - the TC has these players with TTB, RWB, and CB all set to "often" while long shots is set to "mixed".

But is the idea here that setting these instructions to "mixed" rather than "often" allows them to make their own decisions with the ball (similar to "mixed" passing rather than "short" or "direct") while "often" forces a player to attempt something more than he would otherwise do it if left to his own devices? Is it your contention then that the "often" setting for player instructions is in fact a limiter on a player's decisions rather than a way of simply specifying the precedence with which he should make his decisions about what to do with the ball?

A great point.

The Tactical Instructions do simply specify a precedence or preferrence for what he should do, but you will notice that there is a no slider for "Easy Pass Mixed/Often". Therefore "Often" for both RWB and TTB would not be limiting factors on each other, but would be limiting factors on an intelligent passing game.

You can control his Passing Style with the Tactical Instructions, but controlling the balance between an "Action Move" and a Passing Game means you have to look at the instructions while you imagine that there is always a "Passing Game Mixed" instruction you cannot tweak. Atleast that is what I do. I always take into account how much an "Often" instruction is going to mean the player deviates from a sound and solid and relatively simple passing game.

And though it seems simple and obvious, it is particularly important to pay attention to PPM's. You are instructing players how you want them to try and play, you are not defining an architectural plan that 90 different building companies should construct in precisely the same way.

Let me pop up some screenshots:

Berbatov Passing: Try Throughballs Mixed

Ozil Passing: Try Throughballs Mixed

Anderson Passing: Try Throughballs Often

Both Ozil and Berbatov go for a few Flair based flamboyant options. Ozil has greater Flair and the PPM "Tries Killer Balls Often". Most of Ozils passes are an attempt to slice open the defence with a trully outlandish pass. Berbatov keeps his game a lot simpler.

Anderson on the other hand has lower flair, but solid decisions. He doesn't try so many flamboyant passes, but he does try the Throughball regularly. His passing game is solid and steady looking for a very "on" throughball. Ozil will try and whip out a throughball whenever there is a glimmer of a chance.

There is a huge amount going on even with the relatively simple instruction "Try Throughballs". Attributes, PPMs, Positioning of players and of the defenders, runs from teammates are all having a huge influence on what "TTB Mixed" actually means for two different players, and what it means in contrast to "TTB Often" for another player.

The player with the lowest Creativity, lowest Passing attribute and highest TTB Instruction has over a 90% pass completion rate, completely dominanting the other two players both for passing quantity and success rates. However his passes are nowhere near as dangerous individually.

Look at Ozil, he tries a 60 yard pass from inside his own half (the big long raking red pass from the left) right into the path of Rooney making a run through the middle. Rooney doesn't quite time his run properly and the defender just manages to a get a toe on the ball right on the edge of the box before Rooney buries it. Anderson is not capable of that kind of "turn every touch into a defence splitting throughball" so cranking his instructions way past Ozil still produces a much more conservative, possession based player.

Nice write up SFraser, I was surprised to see how much of your tactical settings are set to team and TC settings without the need to make elaborate tweaks. The proof was in the pudding though having watched the PKM, I loved all the small flick passes happening, it was quite entertaining to watch ManU play.

SFraser how you set striker and central defenders?

Hi SFraser. I've tried giving my players high creative freedom, but all I really end up with is basically just an incredible amount of long shots. Even though I've told them not to shoot. None of them has the PPM shoot from distance either. And it's getting pretty frustrating. Is it how I set up my team? That they don't find anyone to pass to? I play a pretty basic 4-3-3 with a deep lying playmaker in the center, and three strikers up front. In my Southampton team they are Amr Zaki, Fabio Borini and Kanu. I've tried setting it up with Borini as a poacher type, while Kanu drifts a little bit around, and Zaki kind of like Kanu, just a little higher in the pitch. It's going okay, but I really feel I'm not getting the best out of the team because of all the wasted shots. For example in games where I have about 20 shots, probably 10-12 are from long shots. I understand my team isn't in the same class as United, but they are by far the best one in League One.

This is how my team looks most of the time:

Zaki - Borini - Kanu

Schneiderlin - Matic (playmaker) - Sibaya (ball winner)

Ball - Silvestre - Booth - Clyne (wing back)

Smithies

Most of the shots are from the midfield, but also Zaki and even Kanu (look for pass rather than shoot ppm) just tend to shoot without even looking for someone else. I play most of my games with the control strategy.

Any tips for me to make this a little better? How would you set up the midfield and the strikers? Thanks.

Do you have anybody with the "Hold Up Ball" instruction ticked in your tactics SFraser? I would guess that this would slow down the silky play you're looking for in the attacking third but I wasn't sure if any of the defenders had it.

IRL it seems like centerbacks or sidebacks frequently put their foot on the ball and slow up play to look for a pass (at least in MLS and the Premier League where there are more direct balls) but I am loath to try it in FML, partially because it doesn't suit my tactics and partially because my central back pairing are quite poor technically.

It seems like a setting that could possibly work well for Evans on your team though...?

Hi SFraser thanks for this article it actually gave me the last push into the right direction of the concept I try to implement when I play with the club of my liking even though I tend to rely as much as possible on youth players.

I don't know where I read that but it was an article about the Ajax Amsterdam scouting system and what attributes they look in young players they want to offer a place at their academy.

In short they look for the attributes Technique Intelligence Personality and Speed which they call TIPS.

I developed a scouting mask to find the best players for my needs that fit as best as possible into that criteria and develop them into real super star players.

Your thread now helped me to let my youngsters play the beautiful football I always wanted them to play since my tactics worked before but the football never looked to good.

Actually I can't believe that I didn't notice myself that creative freedom was the key to letting them play this football and not pressing them too much into a tactical concept but I guess some times you just can't see the obvious.

So thanks again for this very insightful thread.

SFraser, would you play this way against a Chelsea 4-1-2-1-2?

I guess not and therefore my question is how would you set up this philosophy using a 4-5-1 (4-1-2-2W-1) formation? Would you simply invert your midfield three, giving the DMC a Defend mentality and give mixed FWR to the MC's?

Sadly I do not get time to play FM much anymore, due to many other 'things', however I do pop in here occassionaly to see who is around............ and it's always nice to come back to threads started by people that I admire in the forum....... and this is another shining example........

It's friday today, that means it's Saturday tomorrow, that means I actualy 'might' get a little time to sneak a few matches in.......

Outstanding work BUddy...... as usual!

Regards

LAM

SFraser, would you play this way against a Chelsea 4-1-2-1-2?

I guess not and therefore my question is how would you set up this philosophy using a 4-5-1 (4-1-2-2W-1) formation? Would you simply invert your midfield three, giving the DMC a Defend mentality and give mixed FWR to the MC's?

To be honest I probably would. That's more a statement about the quality of my team though than the quality of my tactics.

I would check out their teamsheet/condition/weather etc. before playing them to see how strong they are actually likely to be against me, but I would go out with the intention of winning the ball and dominating them. It would be a very aggressive match from me, high D-Line + high Pressing + Hard Tackling.

Tactically I wouldn't make huge changes but I would make significant changes if you get my meaning. I would consider dropping the CM's Mentality and possibly the Winger Mentality to bring those players closer to my back four, but I would then change my Strategy to Attacking to push the whole lot even further forward with a higher Tempo and more Direct Passing. The gap between defence and midfield would be reduced while the gap between midfield and striker is increased, but then my team as a whole would play more aggressive in terms of position, tempo, passing urgency.

The whole point is that Chelsea are far less likely to come out and defend against me, so in reply I would play a more attacking game with even less space at the back. Instead of 8 players in advanced positions looking to probe and pass with two defenders deep covering, I would play 8 players in a solid block on the halfway line looking to attack Chelsea directly, with two players moving around and trying to find space ahead.

It's not actually about radically changing shape, it's about changing/exploiting the patterns of space in your favour. I have to admit that I have not actually tried this with this team against Chelsea, but it is what I would do against them. I have a match against them in 2 games time, so I will try this out and see how it goes. I'm guessing I will be proven to hugely over-estimate my own team and end up badly wrong. We will see though.

I don't know where I read that but it was an article about the Ajax Amsterdam scouting system and what attributes they look in young players they want to offer a place at their academy.

In short they look for the attributes Technique Intelligence Personality and Speed which they call TIPS.

That's brilliant.

I am no Ajax Amsterdam scout but in FM those are the very things I consider vital in my team, though I would tend to consider speed to be less important when you have Intelligence and look for "Teamwork/Workrate" as a priority. If you can't have speed, look for strength instead.

But Technique, Intelligence and Personality are the absolute essence of my own save. I guess that is why I am one of the few that would happilly continue to use Ryan Giggs long after his strength, acceleration and pace has dropped into single figures.

"TIPS" is just about the best tip I have read in a long time. Thanks for that.

Nice write up SFraser, I was surprised to see how much of your tactical settings are set to team and TC settings without the need to make elaborate tweaks. The proof was in the pudding though having watched the PKM, I loved all the small flick passes happening, it was quite entertaining to watch ManU play.

You don't have to make things complicated to make them good. As I said in my first post, it is my "philosophy" that the best attacking football comes from genius players given the freedom to play football. It's building the team that is both functional and free that is the question.

It is possible to make very specific things happen in FM tactically, and that is very often necessary in order to get the best out of a flawed bunch. Nothing wrong with that at all. But when it comes to "squeezing the last drop of juice" out of the ME in terms of silky football you need to let the intelligence and abilities of players take over but in a controlled and organised way.

I'm not claiming my tactics are any good in this thread, they could be rubbish. What I am doing is looking at tactics to get freedom and intelligence onto the pitch from high quality players. It's about finding ways of getting the players to do the work for me.

Hi SFraser. I've tried giving my players high creative freedom, but all I really end up with is basically just an incredible amount of long shots. Even though I've told them not to shoot. None of them has the PPM shoot from distance either. And it's getting pretty frustrating. Is it how I set up my team? That they don't find anyone to pass to?

That's where Intelligence, Technique, Creativity + Flair, and Movement matters. That's where your team creating passing options and your team having the ability to see the options and execute the passes matters.

I have players in my team that hit longshots all the time, because they are not smart enough to see what options are available. There isn't a lot you can do to make a player see more options, all you can do is try and use them better within your team.

Get some really intelligent players in your team, even if they have single figure physical stats. These players can see things, and when you have intelligent players on the pitch the whole game changes. And it looks better, in my opinion.

Do you have anybody with the "Hold Up Ball" instruction ticked in your tactics SFraser? I would guess that this would slow down the silky play you're looking for in the attacking third but I wasn't sure if any of the defenders had it.

IRL it seems like centerbacks or sidebacks frequently put their foot on the ball and slow up play to look for a pass (at least in MLS and the Premier League where there are more direct balls) but I am loath to try it in FML, partially because it doesn't suit my tactics and partially because my central back pairing are quite poor technically.

I don't use that instruction in my team, no. But I do have my players regularly "putting their foot on the ball" especially my defenders. Again it is all about intelligence, but in this specific instance it is also about Tempo. Making sure you don't force players to rush, and you let them make good decisions including waiting for an option.

I will put up some PKM's where you can see my players doing this, but they don't have HUB at all. They are just smart players.

Here are a couple of PKMs of the matches I played before the Chelsea game.

I decided that there wasn't enough movement in my team, and that some of the movement was undesirable. So I tweaked my system to have Roaming for both CM's and all four attacking players, while I removed "Moves Into Channels" from Berbatov. I want Berbatov moving around, but into actually existing space and not artificially forced towards the flanks.

Having done that I played against two clubs that had recently been promoted to the Premier League. I scored 15 goals in those two matches but it is not the scoreline that matters. There were plenty of other things far more impressive than the scoreline, including the football being played but especially how the players rose from their slumbers to meet the challenges I set.

In the match against West Brom I was 4-0 up at half-time, but the performance was less than vintage. So I had a few words with the team, afterall a rating of 6.9 at home to West Brom when you are 4-0 up means someone else is doing all the work for you. Not good enough for me. And I don't want anyone thinking the match is already over, because it's only half way through.

The result was no more 6.9's from my starting 11 that's for sure. A few "complacent" performances from my subs but they will get kicked into gear soon enough.

Although I only scored 3 more goals, the play was vastly superior.

PKM for anyone that wants it: http://www.mediafire.com/?456wxassffru2fv

In the following match against Cardiff City, the rather predictable "Pick up where you left off!" tematalk was in abundance. A five goal first half followed.

Again though there were too many passengers, so I had a word at half-time.

Apparently the slightly more positive approach did not work quite so well, and even upset someone. Well I wont forget that in a hurry.

But the performances were highly impressive. If not so much the tackling and "sportsmanship" from the soundly thrashed opposition.

Another 3 goal second half ensued, with again a marked improvement in performance if not goal tally.

PKM for anyone that wants it: http://www.mediafire.com/?3wd37t19xim8zwh

Admittedly these are not the mightiest teams on the face of the Earth, but thrashing ultra-defensive Premier League clubs at your home ground is still something of a challenge, if not the greatest in FM. Doing it with style and panache and a squad that is not so greatly different from the starting Manchester United squad is something I take a lot of pleasure in. So long as you are happy to read about it, then I am happy to post about it.

Chelsea are up next. I really hope to have something impressive to show after that match, but I think I will leave that for some point in the next few days.

There are though more than a few gorgeous goals in those PKM's. There is more than a few examples of gorgeous simple play, of gorgeous decision making, of gorgeous movement, of gorgeous headers under pressure in midfield, but not everyone gets so excited about those things.