Save my season!

Hi TTD,

Southampton, Beginning of second season. After a solid 8th place in first season of Prem, playing a solid 4411 I spent a bit of money and could see the glory, and decided to create a more expansive formation to build on my success and progression of my squad. It seems the glory blinded me as it has not worked, my team is an open raggedy mess with no cohesion, it must be the tactic I have applied or at least the teams comfort with the tactic because when I have reverted back to the original solid tactic, the team performs as expected and continues to be its dependable, if not boring team that it once was.

I feel I am expecting abit much of my team and maybe my expectations on what they can do are exceeding realism. I am hoping you lovely boffins can help me because since the patch, I am loving the game but grrr it can be frustrating, at least for me sometimes.

So, first season tactic and typical lineup :

GK - Boruc

WB(s) Fox

DC(d) Lucio/Okore/Doria

BDP(d) Fonte

WB(s) Clyne

LW(a) Lallana / Tello

RW(a) Davis / Tello / Dokdal

BWM(d) Schinderlin / Chaplow / A Svensson

DLP(s) Cork/Davis/Shiendellin

AM(a) Ramirez / W Niem

DLF(a) W Niem / Lambert / Rodriguez

My team instructions were standard mentality, with balanced shape. I manually changed the formation to counter attack and attack down the flanks, as the plan was to be solid and break on teams with the quicker flair players I had, but also being able to retain possession when getting the ball.

This worked very well first season, the solidarity was very clear to see and although I wasn't scoring masses of goals, it was solid defensively and I was consistently picking up points so was happy with the outcome. What I did notice throughout the season is when I had the ball, I didn't seem to get in behind or create many chances for the striker, and I was constantly seeing my assistant mention that my forward was being outnumbered by AI's defence.

I decided, once the season was over, to try and create a formation that was solid but offered the forward more support and hopefully scoring more goals, I don't tend to like 2 striker formations purely on the fact of leaving the midfield exposed, so I decided on 4-5-1/4-3-3. Also based on the players I had managed to sign, I felt that scoring goals was not going to be as difficult. The players I managed to sign were :

Stefan All Shaarway

J Altidore (was pants at hull but looks quite promising in this game)

J Vossen

J Mutch

Didac (Looks like a solid young spanish LB)

Nueton (DLC Udinese)

F Forster

W Hughes

I got rid of :

Lambert

Rodriguez

J Puncheon

Hooveld

Moshida

Lucio (gutted but refused to sign contract, was great tutor for Doria too)

so the formation I decided on is :

GK - Boruc

WB(s) Fox/Didac

WB(s) Clyne

DC(d) Nueton / Doria

BPD(d) Fonte

DMC(d) Mutch / Cork

DLP(s) Schinderlin / Cork

CM (a) Davis / Svensson / W Hughes

LW(s) Ramirez / Lalanna

RW (s) Al Shaarway / Niem

DLF (a) Vossen / Altidore / Niem

Team instructions went to balanced / control in order to try and impose myself on the other team, also direct in order to get the ball forward quickly, and then hopefully opening up some space for the CM(a) to break into. In pre season this worked really well, the DLF was holding the ball up well and bringing both W and the CM(a) into play quite often, and CM(a) chipped in with a few goals in the penatly area, so i felt quitely confident. I cant remember all pre season games, but some are below :

Bayern M (h) 2v2

Derby (a) 0v3

Rangers (h) 3v1

AC Milan (a) 2v0

So a respectable draw against bayern, decent wins over derby and rangers but beaten by AC. Not too shabby, defo not Barcelona but good results and progression in my opinion.

So, pre season training complete, Team Coheason and Tactics/Teamwork mix of training, on high intensity with rest days before and after. All bars progressing well and nearly full in tactic.

So, season started and I had a fixture list of Hull, Norwich, Swansea, West Ham, Tottenham and Chelsea. I was hoping to get some good results in definitely winnable games in the first four, which would allow freedom in the harder fixtures against Tottenham (league champions) and Chelsea.

So, I play my matches and Hull (playing 442) beat me 3v1, They were by far the better team, I got no foothold in the match, and struggled for any type of possesion, the same happened against Norwich and Swansea. Norwich again played 442 and Holt/Morrison seem to be on steriods as they absoloutely bullied my team, repeatedly just running through the defense, winning headers etc. I began to notice that the AI was pushing FB and Wingers on as they were very high up the pitch and seem to be expoiting the space due to my AML/AMR wingers

I then played swansea who matched up with the same shape as me, and this was a much more even game, more than likely due to the cancelling out. 1v1 fair result. Gave me hope that the team were gelling.

So I played West Ham who played a 4231. I have found in my experience of this formation is that if you can control the 2 CM then you can domintate, as this stops the ball reaching the AML/AMC/AMR. So I told my players to close down both CM's and got a comfortable 2v0 result, allbeit a close game.

So, I played Chelsea and what do you know, 4231 again so I applied the same CM closing down to Mikel and Ramires, and it worked well, with another 2v0 victory with quite a comfortable performance.

So, Tottenham, spanked 3v0. Dominated. Tottenham play the same 4231 that chelsea and WHam played, I applied the same closing down instructions but clearly didnt work in this game. But since this result, my team has fell to pieces. I ended up getting knocked out by QPR in the league cup 3v1 at home (another 442) when QPR had actually rested players. Beaten 4v1 by Liverpool playing a 451/433.

Since then, my team just seems on a steady decline and by end of November I was 18th with around 10 points I believe, just getting royally spanked and run ragged. I then decided to reload the game just to test the other formation (4411) from the point of the Chelsea game, and stuck with it. By the end of November I was in 8th with I think around 22 points.

So, if you have managed to read this far thank you for sticking with it. What I seem to have found out is my team prefer playing more solid and conservatively, yet with the players I have I feel I can and should be playing more of an attacking style of football. In your expert opinions, how would you setup? What would you advise? I am at work at the moment but happy to post screenies if you wish when home tonight.

I have reloaded the game a number of times back to near the beggining of the season so im pretty sure my game will be sitting at the early point of the season. Please please please, help me with my attacking dreams!!

And on a side note, is it me or does 442 seem to dominate in the Prem? Bar the big teams, I always struggle against any standard of team that plays 442. Maybe 442 is the way forward?

Thanks guys, hopefully I haven't rambled too much!

Anyone have any suggestions? I see the thread has had a number of views but no feedback, not even to say im rubbish?

Hello fellow struggler,

I've not tried setting up a 451/433 for a while but my first assessment would be having a look at the match statistics; things like where goals are coming from. From this you can make adjustments to player roles to try and bolster your tactic. An example, You notice most of the goals are coming from crosses then possibly switch your wing backs to FB(s).

A few questions...

Are your possession stats okay?

Are you getting enough chances on goal?

What's the average rating for FC/wingers?

How's your team's morale?

Anyone have any suggestions? I see the thread has had a number of views but no feedback, not even to say im rubbish?

You are rubbish

Have you watched a match where you were outplayed and identified any specific tactical problems ? Maybe the 'control' approach was not a good choice ,your team reputation must have not risen that much that it would force the opposition to stand off and defend against your pressure . Oftentimes the 'control' mentality does not produce the attacking options you expect from it . I don't think your new tactical shape is to blame ; your poor form probably has more to do with your new mentality approach combined with low player morale .

Why not stick with the balanced / counter mentality and see how it fares ? And maybe higher creative freedom for an additional attacking threat ? You can still create excellent chances with average mentality ,even more so when your season prediction is mid-table finish

You are rubbish

Have you watched a match where you were outplayed and identified any specific tactical problems ? Maybe the 'control' approach was not a good choice ,your team reputation must have not risen that much that it would force the opposition to stand off and defend against your pressure . Oftentimes the 'control' mentality does not produce the attacking options you expect from it . I don't think your new tactical shape is to blame ; your poor form probably has more to do with your new mentality approach combined with low player morale .

Why not stick with the balanced / counter mentality and see how it fares ? And maybe higher creative freedom for an additional attacking threat ? You can still create excellent chances with average mentality ,even more so when your season prediction is mid-table finish

I think thats it, as much as I want to play more expansively I just dont think overall, I have the team especially on the defensive side. I dont tend to have much possession from what I can remember 40-50% in most games. It seemed to either work quite well, or quite bad, no real inbetween.

After reading a number of threads on here I think I will have to stick to my more pragmatic template and then try and expand from there. But yeah, rubbish!