A Pulis for 2016. Leeds Longball

So having just purchased 2016, my first action is to start the game as I always play it, and try to turn Leeds United into a force again, through sheer hard work, physicality, dirty, negative football.. in the vein of my hero.. Tony Pulis.

There was some previous discussion on it here in my old thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/423671-Tony-Pulis-and-his-Stoke-Long-Ball-Anti-Footballers

But honestly I never made it particularly successful. This year will be different I feel.

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My team and tactics will be based around these core principals:

- A team made of of dedicated athletes, strong, TALL, fast, aggressive players, who are brave in the tackle, work for the team. I won't tolerate fancy dans, players who speak out of line or answer back to me.

- My tactics will be attempting to take advantage of my superior height and strength, and making up for the limitations of my squad. Playing a brand of football that is often derided, it will be old school british in many ways, with a touch of modernity. It will be tough tackling, disciplined, unambitious and ugly to watch, but it will attempt to be successful in its pragmatism.

- Recruiting mainly from lower league British teams, players who understand what its like to fight for the badge. Trawling for players unwanted from big teams, players from smaller teams who can step up. There will be no super stars, all players must put in a shift.

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My first job is to set up my tactics for my team and then examine my squad to see how they are going to fit into my new regime.

Its basically an old fashioned 442, one tall target man, a more mobile striker beside him (second striker, which could play as AF, can't decide yet), a tricky winger on the right, more conservative wide mid on the left, who is overlapped by a more attack minded fullback. A box 2 box player and a central mid on defence should keep the centre tight whilst occasionally offering forward opportunities. These might change depending on opposition. Wingers might go to support.. my fullback might get pushed back to defend etc.

Its pretty basic.

My TIs include:

Counter mentality - This is basically my default stance, giving me a deeper line and a longer passing from my defence, which is what I want.

Structured mentality - This gives my players less creative freedom, I don't want them mucking about. I would prefer my strikers to chip in with the defensive work and think Structured might not be best for that, but no way am I going fluid.

Go Route 1 - Obviously.

More disciplined - Keep my players doing what I want

Narrow - This is an interesting one as it might conflict with my wing play, but I basically want my team to crowd out the centre a lot and force opposition play down the wing, where crosses are their main outlet, which I hopefully should win

I will also be targeting weak opposition players with hard tackling, rather than set it for my whole team, and occasionally putting a more aggressive player to mark the opposition star winger if I feel he has low bravery and it will put him off his stride.

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Of course set pieces are going to be a major part of my play, although I often feel they don't work quite how I would like them. FM16 has set up a lot more options for set pieces and I haven't quite got my head around it.

Corners

Basically putting my target man onto attacking the near post and getting my bigger players up there. Will see how that works for now.

Throw ins

Delap style long throws (not sure I have the players to pull this off, but its the ambition) Target man on the post.. might need some thought.

Ok so thats my first post on my tactics. Gonna post some more on the team and results later. Just wanna play the game for now.

Ok the first step is to take a look at Leeds as a club, her staff and her players.

Club

The first thing I know is that Leeds are now owned by an Italian Madman, Massimo Cellino. This doesn't bode well for me and if I last till Xmas I should be lucky. My plan is to do well enough that I can get far enough that the club gets taken over by someone a bit more reasonable.

The club has a full set of coaches and no room to add any more. Most of them are reasonably decent and to save time I stick with most of them for now.

My assistant manager however is below standard, and so I fire him and get Alan Kernahan, who is a devotee of defensive longball football, so we get on well. His choice of formation doesn't sit too well with me but its a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Players

Our squad has changed a bit since I used to play it on fm14, we've lost a number of my favourite players, Ross Mcormack and Matt Smith have both joined fulham, but there are many of the young players still left. Leeds do seem to have a good production line of youth which I will aim to take advantage of given the chance.

Key standouts include:

Stuart Dallas: Skillful scottish winger, never good enough for the prem but will do a good job in the championship.

Sol Bamba: A bit of a hulking beast in defence. 6"4 and jumping reach of 16, my sort of player (has a PPM of play out of trouble tho, not happy about that.)

Chris Wood: My main target man. Good strength and jumping reach, not excellent but good enough. Would prefer more work rate but oh well

My biggest dilemma is that some of the best players in the squad are in fact a number of italian imports Don Cellino has brought over. Bellusci being my best defender and Marco Silvestri being better than ex-barnsely goalie Ross Turnbull. This is irritating for me as it doesn't fit with my philosophy of british born players. So I'm going to try and ship these guys out and find some reasonable british replacements, or stick to homegrown youth to fill the gaps.

In terms of other players to get rid of, mostly I'm quite happy with my squad, although the compare option shows us to be mainly crap against other teams in the league. I'm going to be ruthless however and dump any defenders and central midfielders who don't have basic skills in strength, jumping, work rate, and bravery. That means Lewis Cook, possibly my best central mid.. might have to leave.

Ok so after a few friendlies to get myself going and bring fitness up my first challenging match is up against Burnley in Michael Duffs testimonial.

Burnley aren't the most sophisticated side either, in fact they play a style I can only hope to replicate, and they have the players to do it too.

They play a flat 442, with winger on either side pumping crossing into powerful strikers. On this occasion I realise that playing narrowly and letting those crosses happen will probably not work out over 90mins. So decide to

Push higher up

Press much more

Go wider

Plus I identify their wingers, show them onto their inside foot to discourage crosses. I go in hard on Mike Kightly as he doesn't like it up him.

Game ends 2-0, with Burnley having most of the play and the shots, but never really threatening me. Kightly completed 7 of his 17 passes which was pleasing.

Both my goals came from long balls down the park, involved my target man and were basically high tempo counter attacks. Exactly what I wanted.

the first goal went like this:

My central def Cooper nicks the ball of the opposition winger in our half (maybe slightly worrying his is there in the first place but its probably due to high closing down). His first thought is to knock it long to out Target man, Woods, whos dropped deep to find space.

Woods knocks the ball down, sees our pacey striker making his move and passes it direct for him behind the opposition defence, who have spread out and come forward looking for Woods.

Erwin our striker, runs at the goalie, but is slowed down by the central defenders who rush back, but he is joined by Dallas who attacks the far post, Erwin passes it to Dallas, Dallas runs wide, crosses it back across the goal for Erwin to smash it into the net. Exactly the sort of goal I wanted to see.

So just a friendly, but good signs. I wasn't threatened by Burnley, but in competitive football things might be a bit different.

Looking forward to this.

I want (at some stage when I improve) to replicate the Revie & Wilkinson teams. I'm pretty sure I have the roles, just need to pull it together and actually get results...

Yeah getting the results with this type of football has always been a challenge. Clearly most successful teams use high pressing, passing styles because their better players thrive on it. But there have been managers to get good results playing this way and I kind of want to take it to its extreme.

It'll be interesting to see how Lewis Cook and Mowatt fit into your team, two players who're creative ballplayers rather than ballwinners.

It'll be interesting to see how Lewis Cook and Mowatt fit into your team, two players who're creative ballplayers rather than ballwinners.

I like both of them, Mowatt especially has always done a good job for me in previous versions. However I have to be true to myself and say both are probably too small and weak to be in my side. Mowatt I could possibly use as a narrow left midfielder, as hes quite an all rounder.

I like both of them, Mowatt especially has always done a good job for me in previous versions. However I have to be true to myself and say both are probably too small and weak to be in my side. Mowatt I could possibly use as a narrow left midfielder, as hes quite an all rounder.

It's a shame this is the case, but understandable.

The size of the central midfield pairing isn't all that important, they need to be players who can hold their position and break up opponents attacking play well. In an ideal world, better passes who can do this are the Tony Pulis dream midfielder. All they need to do is break down the attack and the first thought to be how to put the team on the counter, no mazey runs, no clever recycling of possession unless there's no immediate forward option just cut out the ball and get it forward.

You could quite easily develop them into those kinds of players, you just need to remove options or any PPM's that cause them to wander or run off or with the ball.

As a Stoke season ticket holder I have observed a lot of the Pulis tactics over the years!

On your setup above a couple of changes to make to replicate it!

The two CM need to be DM as he deploys a cage where he doesn't want them getting forward at all!

The full backs either need to be on defend mode or have one on support mode as they also don't get forward!

The defensive line is deep!

The strikers need to be either a Target man Support and an advanced forward I.e. sidibe flicking ball on to Fuller or a Target man attack and a defensive forward (jones as the main striker with Walters supporting from defensive forward but marking oppositions deepest centre midfielder!

As a Stoke season ticket holder I have observed a lot of the Pulis tactics over the years!

On your setup above a couple of changes to make to replicate it!

The two CM need to be DM as he deploys a cage where he doesn't want them getting forward at all!

The full backs either need to be on defend mode or have one on support mode as they also don't get forward!

The defensive line is deep!

The strikers need to be either a Target man Support and an advanced forward I.e. sidibe flicking ball on to Fuller or a Target man attack and a defensive forward (jones as the main striker with Walters supporting from defensive forward but marking oppositions deepest centre midfielder!

Thanks, thats some good info. I have since make a few settings changes. My two midfielders are now a CM-D and a CM-S. However with the FM16 interface improvements I can now get a better idea of what each role is doing. So I've added 'Tackle Harder' to both and 'Hold position to the CM-S. That should replicate a more solid centre. I might consider moving them back to DM if I see lots of space popping up in front of the defence.

I do have a question though, would Pulis play like that against every team? Surely he would need to be more aggressive against some and more like that against bigger teams. Would he ever play a high line and press?

Thanks, thats some good info. I have since make a few settings changes. My two midfielders are now a CM-D and a CM-S. However with the FM16 interface improvements I can now get a better idea of what each role is doing. So I've added 'Tackle Harder' to both and 'Hold position to the CM-S. That should replicate a more solid centre. I might consider moving them back to DM if I see lots of space popping up in front of the defence.

I do have a question though, would Pulis play like that against every team? Surely he would need to be more aggressive against some and more like that against bigger teams. Would he ever play a high line and press?

fellow Stoke fan here, I'd suggest that Fuller was more of a CF-A myself, but anyways Pulis would indeed set up deep most games and our back four was always extremely narrow (sit narrower for fb's perhaps) we did like to press the opposition as they came into our half, however it was always very disciplined you'd rarely see a player make a silly lunge to win the ball

fellow Stoke fan here, I'd suggest that Fuller was more of a CF-A myself, but anyways Pulis would indeed set up deep most games and our back four was always extremely narrow (sit narrower for fb's perhaps) we did like to press the opposition as they came into our half, however it was always very disciplined you'd rarely see a player make a silly lunge to win the ball

I would also add that we never had a high line!

Against better teams a winger maybe swapped for a wide midfielder or a defensive winger!

Against poorer teams the two wide players would be wingers but the back 4 and 2 centre midfielders were always deep!

The full backs would also be 6ft + where possible!

I would also add that we never had a high line!

Against better teams a winger maybe swapped for a wide midfielder or a defensive winger!

Against poorer teams the two wide players would be wingers but the back 4 and 2 centre midfielders were always deep!

The full backs would also be 6ft + where possible!

Thanks, that is definitely my eventual aim, I hope to start season 2 with a back four consisting of basically huge centre backs. I have already started using Scott Wooton on the RB slot, hes useless attacking wise but has jumping of 16.

It will mean selling on Charlie Taylor or converting him to a winger.

I would also add that we never had a high line!

Against better teams a winger maybe swapped for a wide midfielder or a defensive winger!

Against poorer teams the two wide players would be wingers but the back 4 and 2 centre midfielders were always deep!

The full backs would also be 6ft + where possible!

yeah for FM i would work towards using two out and out wingers cause thats when we played our best football under Pulis

So after a bit of playing I have settled on my most Pulis style tactic that doesn't really compromise on what I wanted it to do. And it seems to work pretty well, as long as I have the correct players to fit into it. A narrow 442, Pulis style 'Cage' central midfield, a strong targetman, 2 hard working wingers, and a striker to put the ball away

TIs:

Defensive mentality - Has the right mentality structure for me, long passing at the back ,shorter at the front, deep and narrow shape, risk averse. Perfect Pulis.

Highly structured - Need team to stick to their roles and not do their own thing.

Fairly Narrow - Narrow depending on circumstance

Direct - Route one depending on circumstance, usually end of games to clear it.

Stay on Feet - dont want any rash challenges around my penalty area and need team to keep shape, although sometimes individuals are targeted to get some rough treatment

More disciplied - Need everyone to do what I say

Have kept my right back as a LFB, and put Scott Wootton in there, hes rubbish going forward, but a big brute who sits narrow and almost creates a back 3

My left winger is a WM but has Run Wide, Cross from Byline to give him more of a winger feel.

Target man has Close down a lot more. This was because he was often sitting too high and not getting involved, need him to work harder defensively because my Poacher is not required to come back.

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Transfers:

Have managed to sell off most of my italian players. Sad to see them leave but they weren't part of the culture we are creating. Instead I have brought in a bunch of journeymen cloggers who will do a job for me:

Richard Dunne - That fat irish lump with no pace will fit right in. Has good mental skills but is really slow. Not an issue with our deep line but will help me keep shape.

Jermaine Pennant - Not as fast as he used to be, but has good corner taking skills and a lot of trickery to cause havok on the break

Matty Taylor - £250K from Burnley, good at crossing, works hard and has good set piece skills, something I want to rely on.

Bernard Traore - On loan from Chelsea. Excellent pace and play him as a striker to latch onto long balls over the top. Already scored a hatful for.

Overall very impressed with how its going, obviously the main problem is breaking teams down who don't come at me, but am experimenting with 2 attack wingers in those circumstances.

Great work, looking forward to seeing results / how this pans out.

Great work, looking forward to seeing results / how this pans out.

Thanks. Well its early days yet but the signs so far are good. I'm unbeaten after the first 7 games of the season, have knocked Everton out of the Capital Cup. Have only conceded 4 goals in that time too. 3 of those goals I'd class as hopeful long balls at my goal from well outside the penalty area too so I'm more than happy with how that is all going.

so far the only occasion where I've had to move out of Defensive mentality was against Derby, they hit me with 2 fluky goal and after 60 mins I hit it to standard, and higher tempo, that seemed to do just enough for me to grab a draw.

*in case of confusion, this is now my second start as Leeds on FM16.. I restarted after discovering I'd hit Attribute Masking on.. which is something I've always hated.. no matter how realistic it was. Plus I'd made a couple of very stupid transfers in my previous save just for a laugh.

Looks great. Can you please upload this? I am looking for a tactic like yours myself as I admire Tony Pulis and his commitment to this style of football. It's a welcome change with all this tici taca BS out there. I want a squad of 11 ogres on the pitch that gonna outrun, outwork and outmuscle the opposition.

I've written down all the instructions right there.. plus I think you really need the right players to make it work effectively.

Ok, I'll try to copy this? How has the attacking left winger been working for you? Do you have any good set piece routines that have been effective to go hand in hand with this?

Well the one thing that I will say about this tactic is its a defense first way of doing things. It doesn't create very much. I'm just about managing to score a goal a game.

My left winger spends quite a bit of time coming infield and setting up my left back for a cross actually. Not quite what I wanted, but mostly his job is only to run down the wing if there is a really good opportunity to do so.

As for set pieces, I've basically copied some of the corners from here:

http://strikerless.com/2015/11/15/set-pieces-various-routines-and-their-merits/

Nothing mindblowing, might spend some time trying to work out how to do better from them in the future.

Thought I'd write a little update as I'm really enjoying how I've managed to get the team playing so far. Heading into December we're 9th in the table, which isn't mind blowing, but we are incredibly tight defensively, the football is often backs to the wall, but never panicked.

A quick look at our results shows what I mean:

Basically every game is a 1-0 or a 1-1, almost never are we scoring or conceding more than one goal, which is pretty nerve wracking at times, but absolutely what I wanted to create. I want to build a team from the back, a team which looks to stop conceding first and maybe nick one if theres an opportunity. So far its working, as you can see:

We have the most clean sheets in the league (11), and the least goals conceded (8), after 18 matches, I think thats far better than I've achieved before.

We have had to occasionally adjust the formation at times, moving to a 4-1-4-1, which at first was enforced by too many injuries to strikers ( I'd not noticed I had don't rest before games on, which wasn't helping), but actually its been a great way to close games out. Recently used it against Hull, who play a 352, and playing 2 upfront against them would play into their hands, this instead frustrated the hell out of them and I was 1 minute away from getting a vital 1-0 win when they got a flukey equaliser.

I guess, you are also trying to emulate Pulis' West Brom tactic as well. 4-1-4-1??

I guess, you are also trying to emulate Pulis' West Brom tactic as well. 4-1-4-1??

Sort of, I know Pulis does go 4-1-4-1 occasionally, really its more of a slightly deeper entepretation of his 4-4-1-1, with the amc dropped back a bit and made to defend more. To be honest I don't think his West Brom side is all that successful, really he's gone full Pulis with it though, and taken any flair or skill out of the side completely, relying almost entirely on Berahino to score goals.

Sort of, I know Pulis does go 4-1-4-1 occasionally, really its more of a slightly deeper entepretation of his 4-4-1-1, with the amc dropped back a bit and made to defend more. To be honest I don't think his West Brom side is all that successful, really he's gone full Pulis with it though, and taken any flair or skill out of the side completely, relying almost entirely on Berahino to score goals.

Berahino is his Fuller or Sidibe. I think now that Rondo is his Sidibe

So after discussions in Cleon's thread I've wondered if I should make some changes to this tactic to make it a bit more effective, especially going forward.

I wondered what peoples opinions were of moving the wider players up to the AML/R positions, does this make sense with a more direct form of football. The thinking being that the target man is going to be dropping back, and those players need to be nearby to pick up knockdowns. So far the AF/SS does well at occasionally getting to these balls, but there is the obvious isolation of the tactic.

Just to be clear, I'm very happy with the defensive side of the tactic. But going forward it is, unsurprisingly, not that amazing. Possibly with better set pieces I'd be able to rely on those for my goals, but at the moment I've not managed to have much success with those.

I'm thinking something along the lines of:

Left FB - Support

CD- Defend

CD- Defend

Right FB - Defend / Limited Fullback

CM - Defend

CM - Defend (More risky passes)

Winger - Support / Attack (from the MR position)

AML - Inside forward support

AMC - Shadow striker

SC - Target man.

I have noticed in the past that the AI plays its direct tactics with players higher up the pitch on the tactics board. Pulis last year was set as 4231 Deep. Maybe I should be going for something like that instead?

I think the 4231 deep with either the AMC in the MC position, or the AMR/L in the MR/L positions is a great shape.

I think the 4231 deep with either the AMC in the MC position, or the AMR/L in the MR/L positions is a great shape.

I have to agree with this. In FM terms that's how I'd go about recreating a real life 4231. I'd have 4 defenders, 2 DMC, 1 MC, ML/MR and a striker.

I have to agree with this. In FM terms that's how I'd go about recreating a real life 4231. I'd have 4 defenders, 2 DMC, 1 MC, ML/MR and a striker.

Cleon (apologies JY for hijacking), what's a good CM / ST combo?

I used this to good effect for a season, but really struggle to score at times, I don't think I ever cracked this combo.

Cleon (apologies JY for hijacking), what's a good CM / ST combo?

I used this to good effect for a season, but really struggle to score at times, I don't think I ever cracked this combo.

It depends. The key is the supply to those players more so than their actual roles. The key lies with the wide players.

Glad you're having another crack at this. Another thing i'd add is Pulis is very fond of 'double banking' out wide, as he used to call it. Basically, tucking the two full backs (sorry, converted wide centre halves) right tight and narrow and almost turning the 'wingers' into wing backs.

Basically, 4 centre halves and two wing backs as a back 6.

It depends. The key is the supply to those players more so than their actual roles. The key lies with the wide players.

I suspected that.

My initial stab was very symmetrical (in terms of roles), probably far too much.

I'm going to try add some more variety, probably with something like a WP(S) tucking in for a more aggressive full back and a player on the other side who stays a bit wider, but is more aggressive in his forward intent, maybe a W(S).

I think the 4231 deep with either the AMC in the MC position, or the AMR/L in the MR/L positions is a great shape.

How would it work with a direct style however? Doesn't move the striker even further away from any support?

Glad you're having another crack at this. Another thing i'd add is Pulis is very fond of 'double banking' out wide, as he used to call it. Basically, tucking the two full backs (sorry, converted wide centre halves) right tight and narrow and almost turning the 'wingers' into wing backs.

Basically, 4 centre halves and two wing backs as a back 6.

Well in some ways my tactics make a point in that direction. I've tried having my fullbacks on defend and keeping them narrower, but I think it puts so much pressure on the wide mids to do basically a wingback job.

How would it work with a direct style however? Doesn't move the striker even further away from any support?

He's not really any further away than in a 442, however obviously there's only one of him I've not got to grips with it properly yet, I'm hoping Cleon continues to offer advice.

My guess in a direct style is how quick you can get the MC / MR / ML to be in his vicinity. He would also probably have to be a Support duty.

I think this shape has the potential to be superb both in attack and defence.

He's not really any further away than in a 442, however obviously there's only one of him I've not got to grips with it properly yet, I'm hoping Cleon continues to offer advice.

My guess in a direct style is how quick you can get the MC / MR / ML to be in his vicinity. He would also probably have to be a Support duty.

I think this shape has the potential to be superb both in attack and defence.

I think with enough pace its maybe possible to get those players closer, but thats why I'm asking if having those players in the AM slots wouldn't make more sense.

An end of season update I think, as I've managed to have time to actually finish a season for once.

Overall I think I did better than expected, although I messed around with tactics a bit during the season when things didn't go so well, but after xmas managed to settle on a system that seemed to work well and was very much an emulation of Pulis, as well as taking on board some of Cleons advice (although its still probably not going to be an amazing counter tactic due to its direct nature)

Final results, I managed to get to the playoff final, getting beaten 1-0 by a good Burnley side who got a little lucky but with whom I found to be a decent opponent and found their wing play quite hard to deal with.

Final Table

My tactic towards the end looked like this:

Tactic

TI's

- Defensive Mentality, I went with Flexible after a while, as I want my forwards defending more and def mids attacking a touch more too

There are now a number of personal instructions to get them to play the way I want. My thinking is this:

Right fullback: Limited Fullback, Sit Narrower. Needs to push narrower to create that compact wall in the defence

Centreback:

Centreback:

Fullback: Fullback Support, cross more. I tinkered with both fullbacks on defend but the overlaps he gives past the mid in front of him are useful

DMC-D: Both Mids in the DMC position to really sit back and create a central cage.

DMC-S: More Risky Passes. Wanted this guy to act as a playmaker, but without the focus of passing going to him

Right WM: Run Wide, Cross more, Dribble more. Set up to act like a winger, but more defensive minded.

Left WM: Cut inside, Sit Narrow, Get forward, Dribble more, cross less. This is my Jon Walters role, cuts inside, gets to the penalty area, but still defends a lot.

Shadow Striker: Alternates between shadow striker and DLF, mainly because I don't always like the way he ends up sitting in front of the opposition midfield.

Target man: Close down more. Need him to work harder otherwise we give away too much space and time.

It does look incredibly defensive and ineffective, and to be honest.. it kind of is. BUT with good players it can produce good results. This goal from the Playoff semi shows that they do come forward if needed.

Long ball up to Jerome the shadow striker,midfield is sitting quite far back but there are two players near to him and dallas the left mid is making a move

Wood the target man collects the ball from Murphy, you can see Jerome and Dallas both starting to push on ahead of him and murphy is waiting outside too.

Wood threads a through ball for Jerome, Dallas is also waiting for rebound but Jerome bundles it in.

Thats mostly the sort of goal I saw quite often. However against a lot of sides I saw a lot of this, Shadow Striker collects the ball in midfield, maybe from longball or knockdown.. both wide mids are too far away, target man totally isolated.. ball usually lost. Hard to know how to combat this without pushing up a lot more.

Its amazing how little interest something like this generates!

I think it's really interesting. I Always want to try something like this, but I can't seem to get it to work. Great to see it work for you. I'll give it another try myself, this motivates!

Thanks. Glad to hear its motivating for you. I find that a lot of people seem to be more interested in recreating the great sides, Barca or Dortmund, using more proactive attacking tactics, which I kind of think worked well with the ME in previous versions. I'm still not convinced counter attacking defensive tactics were that viable before, FM16 seems to have helped.

Hopefully there will be a bit more discussion here, this is the second thread I've done on this sort of thing and it really struggles for comment. Understandable I guess.

I'm totally not a fan of the plays of Barca and Bayern. I like 'manly' football more, power, strenght and work rate.

I'll try to make a tactic myself this weekend and will discuss it here if you like.

I'm not English so I didn't see a lot of games of Stoke under Pulis, although I've been to Stoke vs Arsenal in 2012 which was a great experience.

But I don't know the tactic in details.

Question about your tactic. Why do you use stay on feet? I thought Stoke played quite fierce and hard, want to recover the ball no matter what. Isn't get stuck in more suitable for this?

haha.. I'm sure that was a great experience, but maybe for the wrong reasons.

Good question, I agree Stoke do often play quite aggressive football, and I did occasionally use Get Stuck In, but I found that because I was sitting in such a low block, and had such aggressive players, that I was giving away a whole bunch of penalties too often.

Instead I keep it to Stay on Feet, so that my team hold their shape a lot better, I don't want players sliding along the ground, leaving gaps behind them. The concept of the strategy is to keep a tight compact shape at all times to prevent passes being played through them.

What I do however is target any weak opposition players with low bravery for hard tackling, especially if they are a real threat. I find that to be a lot more effective tool for scaring players.

I think I will experiment next season with using the media more to rile up the opposition, its something I've not bothered with before, but potentially it should be possible to goad other managers to attacking you more and creating space behind them.

I follow this as well.

People don't always post, even though they are interested. I realized that with my Darmstadt team thread as well. Lots of hits, but much less comments. I guess sometimes users feel shy to chip in, because they think they have nothing to say.

In fact, I was struggling to set up a Long-Ball-and-solid-defense-tactic with Darmstadt as well, as all other options did not seem viable (the team is simply no good in passing). But I must admit I found it quite hard. That could be due to the fact that the team is simply punching way above its weight, though. Funnily enough, I play Leeds on a parallel save with FM15, so I know the team (and I think it's, all in all, an excellent team with lots of bright prospect; tried to sign Charlie Taylor for Darmstadt, but Leeds did not want to let him go...).

Yeah I know what you mean, not sure there is a lot of advice I could give out to people so not much reason to comment I think. It s a shame people are so shy, some of the best threads on here by Rashidi and Cleon barely got replies.

I've been trying to do this tactic for YEARS, mainly in FM14. Think I loaded up a Leeds save and tried again maybe 10 times, after having a revelation. This year its a bit different however I think. Now the ME seems to do defensive tactics a little better (although I've already let in a silly amount of long range 'over the keeper' crosses), plus Cleons threads have made me understand the relationship between roles and mentality a little better.

I'll also say that FM16's visibility of what roles actually do is a huge improvement, I used to get hung up on names, without really understanding how roles worked, so would select roles based on what I thought the real life versions would be classed as, rather than what they actually did in the game. Seeing what a deep lying playmaker actually does as opposed to what I assumed he did made a huge difference for instance.

I follow this and enjoy it.

I'm not a huge Pulis advocate, but a big Leeds fan so am always interested.

I'm looking forward to see what players you target to improve and how it evolves.

I'll also say that FM16's visibility of what roles actually do is a huge improvement,

Yes, I totally second that.

Well, you could always find out what roles were doing (at least in the last versions), but you had to dig deep into the personal instructions and compare greyed out or locked instructions, and so on. Now you have it all ready to read on one click in the tactic screen, and comparison is much easier.

The improvement is so obvious that you start to wonder why they could not implement this earlier.

I follow this and enjoy it.

I'm not a huge Pulis advocate, but a big Leeds fan so am always interested.

I'm looking forward to see what players you target to improve and how it evolves.

Thanks, I've actually already started season 2 actually, a couple of games in.

My overall aims this season are:

1) Reach the playoffs again

2) Score more goals from set pieces

3) Find better ways to close games out

4) Sign a mix of experienced players with good personalities to tutor youngsters

5) Add a bit of unpredictablity to my shadow striker and deep inside forward roles to create more goals.

6) Develop training for my players to improve their defensive stats so they hold shape better.

Training

My first step was to improve my staffing setup up, I asked the board for more coaches places, they relunctantly gave me one extra place after I harassed them. Luckily another member of staff retired so that left me with 2 spaces for coaches. I focussed on coaches with good defensive and tactical stats and once they were in put them to work on mainly training those stats so I could get 4 stars for defensive workload.

I also realised I did have a good amount on young central midfielders, such as Lewis Cook and Mowatt. Unfortunately they weren't quite defensive minded enough for me, their marking and positioning weren't any more than average. I'm hoping that by putting individual focus on those attributes and changing their focus to Anchor man I can force them to change their game a bit whilst not losing what makes them so good.

Recruitment

My basic player search starts with the fundamental attributes all players should have in my side:

Workrate

Determination

Aggression

Bravery

Thats just a baseline, I usually start around 11-12 for those attributes, I'll accept 3 out of 4 of those at a minimum.

Then I have the following criteria for players:

Defenders - Marking, positioning, tackling, concentration, strength and heading

Central mids - marking positioning, tackling, passing, concentration

Right winger - acceleration, pace, crossing, stamina

Left mid - dribbling, acceleration, pace, longshots, workrate even higher.

Shadow striker - off the ball, stamina, dribbling, pace, finishing.

Target man - Strength, heading, finishing, bravery, balance.

With that in mind I have bought the following players:

Jon Walters - great older player, journeyman, can play across the midfield and behind striker, got him mainly so he can rub off on the kids! (lol)

Libor Kozak - Huge target man, signed perm from villa. Was a bit crap for me last year but mainly cos he wasn't getting consistent starts I'm hoping. Didnt cost much so no worry.

Patrick Bamford - good prospect, on loan from Chelsea, should work as second striker or inside forward.

Plus a few more backup players to fill out the squad, but all along the same lines, British (one swedish kid), hard working, good physical stats.