Flat 4-3-3: player responsibilities, no sarrows & player position issues

I haven't played 4-3-3 very much in the past on FM, being a firm fan of 4-4-2 and 4-4-1-1, but I have recently decided to give it a try because it is how my team St. Albans City are playing in real life this season.

At first, I attempted to use the 4-3-3 default (i.e. 4-1-2-3 also known as the 'Mourinho-style' 4-5-1/4-3-3). This formation appears to be recognised in the game as 4-1-4-1.

Obviously, in the 4-3-3, the midfield is often staggered for different effects and the wide players can either be wingers or sort of wide-forwards. Watching a few St. Albans City games this season, I have carefully watched to see how the system works in the midfield and up front.

First of all, I spent a long time carefully watching the middle three and their movement. Obviously, a midfield thrives on having different qualities of player with different quantities of attack and defend. I had presumed that the midfield would be layered and that one midfield player would have a clear defensive duty, while the other two played a little wider, moved into space and made forward runs. In reality, although the midfield was slightly staggered, the St. Albans City team had three central midfield players with one of the players generally dropping deep into a DM position as circumstances dictated. The midfield trio were very fluid, much more than I expected, and they often exchanged responsibilities while keeping their assigned positions in the midfield.

I come straight to my first tactical issue here. How could this fluid exchange of responsibilities be reflected in FM? I can use 'swap position' settings but that will literally make the player switch position to take on his partner's settings. This isn't what I was seeing in real life. In real life, the midfield trio were staying to their assigned area of the pitch, in the most part, but exchanging responsibilities in a fluid way, so that if one player had made a forward run, another would cover him, or if the central player was pushed up, the MCR player would drop deep into the DM role. What seems to be needed here is a 'swap responsibilities' instruction so that the player takes the instructions of his partner, as appropriate given the circumstances, and his partner takes his.

My second tactical issue is with one of the central midfield players dropping deep to DMC when the opposition are in possession. Due to the demise of the arrows, this is no longer possible in FM and it must instead be achieved by means of mentality. Yet my view of the midfield trio at Saints was of one player occupying a central midfield role and withdrawing into a DM position when the opposition took up possession. Otherwise, the midfield trio were a tight unit, moving laterally across the pitch as circumstances dictated. So, here is an argument for the inclusion of the short (b)arrow.

Continuing in my attempt to try to replicate the Saints 4-3-3, I now move to the forward positions. The Saints were not playing with wingers as in the 4-1-4-1 style formation. They were in fact operating with three forwards who were moving into the channels to create width. I'm sure you all see where I am going with this. It is impossible to get the same effect in the new tactics system without sarrows. The Saints forwards are two 'wing forwards' along with a central forward. Essentially, the two outside forwards play in the channels.

On FM08, I can perfectly achieve the effect that I want using a mixture of the sarrows and mentality. Pushing the two wingers from the 4-1-4-1 to the striker positions, in order to create a flat three up front, and using sarrows to get them to come wide results in the 4-3-3 I have been watching so far this season. It looks much more like it to me than the default Mourinho-style formation. However, it cannot be achieved without the sarrows.

I know there will be two potential arguments against this, one involving continuing with wingers and one involving 'free roles'. I pretty much have the same argument for both. The first answer is that the players in question are not wingers but forwards. They have no aptitude as wingers and they aren't operating as wingers in the tactic. They are essentially inside forwards who are moving into the channels more often in order to create width. In terms of using free roles, first of all this dictates that the player will roam into space and does not necessarily achieve the effect I desire. Furthermore, the players I am using do not have good free role ratings and do not roam into space in a free role at all.

This last point actually provides me with a few issues as the St. Albans City researcher. If I set their preferred formation to the default 'Mourinho' 4-3-3 (4-1-4-1), it means that I'll have to give some of the strikers secondary positions in order that they will be able to play, which isn't right. I could select the flat 4-3-3 but that doesn't actually seem to be anything like the real life 4-3-3 that the Saints are using this year. I am still not sure what to do regarding this (hopefully my head researcher will know). Any ideas here would be appreciated.

On FM08, I can at least achieve most of this replication of a real life tactic using one short barrow and two short side arrows. What is represented in the match engine looks to me how the 4-3-3 that St. Albans City are using looks in real life.

Essentially, to sum up the argument, I would like to see more functionality in the tactics interface. I realise we have the new tactics wizard to look forward to (or not, for some of us who prefer to tweak ourselves ) but the same issues are still present.

I would like to see the reintroduction of, at the very least, side arrows or some instruction which asks that a player drifts into wide positions.

Ideally, I would like to see the complete reintroduction of arrows, perhaps just short arrows to stop the engine being exploited by the long arrows. I personally think it is realistic that a player might be asked to have an 'on the ball' or an 'off the ball' secondary position.

Finally, I would like to see the ability to ask two or more players to swap responsibilities in a way which would allow them to complement each other in FM. This would introduce a much needed fluidity into the match engine and result in the kind of real life swapping of responsibilities we see, for instance, between a midfield partnership where one player will advance while the other covers, and vice-versa.

I recently did a similar analysis of a St. Albans City 4-4-2 system from last season and I found the tactics interface similarly lacking when I tried to achieve a real life effect. The thread can be found here - http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=127426 - if any of you are interested in reading it.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this and please feel free to add from your own experiences.

Regards,

C.

Once again, you make a very compelling case not only for the re-introduction of arrows, but for more complete player intelligence. If for whatever reason your MCd/DM ends up taking on several players, an MCa or AMC, if you have one, should be less inclined to venture forwards. I think this will be easier to achieve (i.e. be programmed) in the new tactics wizard.

Brendan Rodgers is a 4-3-3 man, in fact he learnt most of his approach to tactics off Jose Mourinho (he also worked under Burns, Pardrew, Coppell, Grant and Scolari so he's not a carbon copy of Jose). We've tended to play Hal Robson-Kanu, who is a left winger, on the right, with Jimmy Kebe on the left despite him being a right winger. They're both instructed to come inside.

I can recreate this easily with the help of arrows. If I give both wingers an arrow to the respective inside forward position, then if the ball comes down the other wing, they come inside. If the ball comes down their wing, they actually see the ball coming and stay wide. When they recieve the ball, they try and beat the man on the inside, or if they do go around the outside, they cut inside before crossing. If however, I follow the advice of one user on here, to "play narrow and give them free roles", then the narrowness stops the full backs getting forward and the striker moving into channels, and giving them free roles quite frankly makes them behave very strangely, dropping into genuine MC territory and holding up the ball.

You'll hopefully be familiar with the midfield under Mourinho. One is defensive (Makelele), one is attacking (Gudjohnsen) and one plays box to box (Lampard). Later Essien took Lampard's spot and he moved up. Reading play a similar system, but like you say C, there's a lot of covering play. Let's call the DM a, the MC b and the AMC c, even though it's really more a case of two MCs under Mourinho and something else under Rodgers. "a" will mostly be the one taking the ball from the defence. Let's say he gets called across to deal with a tricky winger. The full back give the ball to a centre back, who needs options. There, b drops deep to get the ball. Likewise, if c chases an opponent back and then a counter attack is on, b will take c's role briefly. If b can't for whatever reason, a will.

Arrows within the midfield... if I want the MCd to come deep enough, I have to put him on a mentality on par with the DCs. That's just not right, it severely hampers his effectiveness as an attacking threat and basically leaves me playing with three centre backs. If I use my "use the full slider, why do you think we have 20 clicks?" system, then the DM is distinct from the centre backs. With the help of a forward arrow into midfield (in the most precise way, he goes from DMc to MCr), his attacking threat is realistically replicated. He becomes a viable passing option and will gets shots away. His forward runs are actually dangerous, rather than just "advancing from his position".

The MCl (Lampard) is done pretty well with simple forwards runs. However, the gut-busting runs of the MCr aren't properly replicated. If however I give him a farrow (to AMCc) as well as forward runs often, then we have a proper auxillary forward. He arrives late, gets away shots, feeds the wingers or striker, runs with the ball, gets out wide... think of Gerrard.

Personally, the arrows took away a great deal of user freedom, which hasn't been replaced.

Thanks for your reply SCIAG and I agree with your conclusion.

I did wonder if this thread would have been better in general discussion. It doesn't seem to have received much interest here.

I can say, after watching St. Albans City play their 4-3-3 again today, that my instincts about their system are right. I also got a second opinion from my brother-in-law.

They play with three flat forwards who are all strikers by trade and who do not track back or have any defensive responsibility. The do not play between the lines and they are usually a flat three, with the two 'wing forwards' often level with the fullbacks. One will often play narrower and the other wider. Occasionally, the outside 'wing forwards' will drop a little deeper than the leading striker, but they are definitely not wingers in the sense of the 'Mourinho 4-3-3'.

The only time that the forwards did come back to assist the midfield was to protect the lead with 10 minutes to go. In this instance, the formation essentially went to 4-1-4-1.

The system, in my view, could only really be achieved with the use of sarrows.

I'd still be interested to hear other people's opinions, both on the system and on how to get it working in the game.

Regards,

C.

If however, I follow the advice of one user on here, to "play narrow and give them free roles", then the narrowness stops the full backs getting forward and the striker moving into channels, and giving them free roles quite frankly makes them behave very strangely, dropping into genuine MC territory and holding up the ball.

That's my favourite part of your post!

I've been told several times to play narrow to get my wingers cut in. But yeah, really, Barcelona and Manchester United do play narrow IRL, right? Such a lame advice, one that makes me go wild really.

IMO, free role is the key to wide players cutting inside. It is a very tricky, yet powerful little tickbox in the tactics system. And it is very dependent on the players' abilities, such as Off The Ball, Creativity, Decision Making, Flair, etc. I am in the process of starting a new game to revamp Man United back into the superpower they used to be, and I will try to use a 4-3-3 system. The last time i tried it, it was extremely picky with players and it just wasn't a system that I could rely on all the time. I could control possession very well, but could not create many chances as there wasn't enough men committing forward.

I am in the process of starting a new game to revamp Man United back into the superpower they used to be, and I will try to use a 4-3-3 system.

Superpower they used to be? :confused:

Anyway, it appears that Spain played a similar 4-3-3 system to the one I described above in the World Cup in 2006.

This shows their 4-3-3: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/57/Spain-Ukraine_line-up.svg/434px-Spain-Ukraine_line-up.svg.png

Rather than a 4-3-3 with wingers, they played with three strikers by trade who would interchange positions and run the channels like a regular striker would.

Has anyone attempted to get such a system to work in FM?

Regards,

C.

I hope Mr C. doesn't object to me postingthis quote here (although it is something I said rather than him). Fo the rest of you reading this the quote is taken directly from a private conversation he and I were having.

I think it sums up and fits nicely with what has been said.

One area I had and issue with was with the winger instructions. Mostly the issue was I'm not using wingers and I feared I might lose attacking presence without them.

To try and counter this I have modified one of my MC instructoins so that he gets forward in support and it seems to work well. I actually wanted to take my cues from the late great Jock Stein and have the team set so that both MC's would go forwad but only one at a time. (IIRC it was the Fullbacks that stein gave licence to get forward as long as they only went one at a time - if they had stuck rigidly to that in 1967 we would never have won the European Cup.)

I felt this set up would provide a little extra up top without compromising my shape, unfortunately such an instruction doesn't appear to exist in FM so I had to bodge it a little and set one MC to go forward and have both him and the other MC swapping places. It's not ideal as I wanted to have the players pushing forward from both sides at different times in the hope of stretching the opposition. However it works reasonably well as an attacking force.

I would love to make my MC's take each other responsibilities without them taking one another's positions. I believe it would make my midfield (Stuttgart) a huge amount more effective as it would give a lot of teams problems trying to cope with forward runs when they don't know which of the players will be commiting to the move on my side.

Sarrows dont bother me too much as I have my fullbacks set to provide width were it is needed, with the added bonus that in the 6 or 7 games we've played so far they play like attacking fullbacks should. The games sees them as fullbacks, not wing players and consequently I haven't once seen them cut in along the goal line and shoot from 2 yards out, which happened 50% of the time with wingers even if you set them to cross the ball.

IMHO its fine that SI have recognised that a tactical overhaul was required for FM10, however I home that they haven't just swapped out the sliders for the wizard. Let's join our hands and pray they have taken the time to consider what options we might want to use in the tactics.

I think the sarrows would actually be very useful for you with your diamond formation.

Think of Chelsea's diamond midfield yesterday or Mourinho's diamond midfield at Inter. The players in the middle of the park are not just MCs but hybrid MC and wide players. They play wider than MCs and narrower than MR/Ls.

Of course, one of the diamond system's main weaknesses is its lack of width (and as you point out, the requirement is that the fullbacks should provide width with forward runs). However, without the sarrows, the players in the middle of the park are playing as MCs. In older FMs with arrows, you could use wide players in those positions and use sarrows to make them play wider, a kind of hybrid between an MC and a MR/L.

The problem can equally be applied to my 4-3-3 discussion. In FM08, you could play with AMR/AML farrowed to the FR/FL positions. You could therefore play a striker in the winger role and he would still play well due to moving into a secondary position as a striker. In FM09 (and, we presume, FM10) this is not possible.

The 4-3-3 is not realistic because you cannot make the 'wingers' play like makeshift strikers. You cannot get them to take on a hybrid position,

which would be more accurate of real life.

There are other systems to which this can be applied, such as the 4-2-3-1 and some other narrow formations where certain players need to play between two positions.

My view is that it really needs looking at.

I give a few examples below where the positional attribute falls down as well.

- A wide midfielder being played as a side midfielder in a formation with a narrow three in midfield. He isn't a central midfield by trade but he needs to be given that position rating to perform there.

- As above, a forward in a 4-3-3 has to have either AMR/AML positional rating. Whereas many attacking 4-3-3s would appear to play with three forwards, many of whom do not have the AMR/AML positional attribute.

If I give the example of Paul Hakim at St. Albans City. I've seen him play in the 4-3-3 and interchange with the other forwards, sometimes playing in the middle or on either flank. In order for this to be reflected in FM09, Hakim needs AMR/AML, as he is clearly competent playing on either side and as central striker. However, on previous FMs, Paul Hakim could be played in those positions with a farrow to his preferred position of FR or FL etc.

Personally, I see it as a big weakness and I think either the position attributes need to be worked on or short arrows brought back into the game.

Regards,

C.

Personally I think the positional sense and movement of players with the right attributes is very fluid, balanced and effective within the confines of movement instructions available. As you point out there is no individual width control for individual positions per se and I think it was Zebedee77 that pointed out that you cannot compress space effectively in defence without messing around with Closing Down and complicated Marking Systems.

The same is probably true in offence, with the example you make of two Wingers having different Widths from the main striker and touchline without compromising their actual roles or defensive duties or any of the other consequences of playing a player in an illogical position to achieve a reasonable effect. The game is perhaps simplistic in that respect and I don't think anyone would agree that it offers anything like the true extent of tactical options available and displayed in real life, but there are options available none the less to produce variations in behaviour and positional sense even if they are not ideal.

I cannot speak about the impact of instructions on players behaviour and positioning within a 4-3-3 formation but Width, Free Roles, Forward Runs, Mentality, Footedness, PPM's and Position Retraining all have their impact on the 4-4-2 I use regularly. I understand that you have stated that you consider these options to be inferior or illogical and where you are attempting to reproduce a particular tactical subtlety from real life I cannot disagree with you, but at the end of the day it is your choice to play the game or not and if you choose to do so then I can offer my experience of Winger behaviour in relation to instructions.

One of the major features of FM09 in my mind in difference (better or worse is up for debate) to FM08 is the function of Free Roles and the adaption of players positioning to the movements of their teammates. There is far less control of specific details of movement, infact you might argue none in comparison to FM08, but this is probably a necessary consequence of improving the fluidity of movement of players as they react to others movement. No doubt the "Holy Grail" is both fluidity of reaction and detailed control of positional details but it looks like the SI team may have balked at that challenge, atleast in terms of releasing an engine that works properly with all these features in the near future. Anyway I am getting side-tracked a bit here.

What we have is an engine with less control over motion and increased player reactivity to movement and instructions of other players. You can no longer design with the same ease the attacking shape of your team if it differs radically from your defensive or normal shape, but the attacking shape of your side automatically adapts to achieve balance and coherence between the new positions and the movement of others. Within this new system of adaption and lack of direct positional control you have multiple instructions that control behaviour and multiple traits that you do not control directly but hugely influence behaviour. I am not going to say that the new system of influencing behaviour can produce the same tactical scenarios as the previous system of influencing positioning, but you can achieve many similar results in certain cases and you can definately achieve "newer" things of a different type that were not possible before.

In FM08 Free Roles failed. They were entireally useless and produced stupid behaviour. In FM09 Free Roles work in a certain context and they work brilliantly within that context. In FM09 the Free Role determines whether your players moves into space near his position or attempts to hold his position. If you are playing with two Strikers and you give one no Free Role and a high Mentality then he holds a high Striker position on the shoulder of the Centreback. You give your other Striker a lower mentality and a Free Role so he takes up a deeper position and looks to move into space. The other Centreback comes out to mark him and boom you have a great opportunity for the throughball. One striker is high and on the shoulder of the centreback, the other guy is deep and moving into space, get the marking wrong and the creative forward has played in the fast striker.

The point of the Free Role is whether a player moves into space or stays where he is. With Wingers the Free Role really has a tendency to drop them deep or move them wide away from the fullback. Now with wingers you have other critical features of behaviour and possibly the most singularly important feature of a winger is his favoured foot. As a Winger is naturally playing near the touchline, or at the very least with the majority of the pitch to one side, then his preference of movement direction is essential. Left Footed players like to keep the ball on the Left Foot and will prefer to go down the Left Side of a defender. If he is on the Left Flank this means he skins a defender down the outside and takes the ball outwide and down the left flank. If this guy is on the right flank then he keeps the ball on his left, skins the defender on the inside and move infield.

Width is hugely important here as Width determines where the wingers starting position is or "ideal position/position of reference" is. Playing with maximum width and your Winger will obviously be far out wide and play narrow and he will be deep infield. The key here is the natural width of the opponents Fullbacks and the composition of his midfield. A Winger playing wider than the fullbacks will have a tendency to play as a natural winger, and a winger playing narrower than the fullbacks will tend to play as an AMC or Striker.

At the end of the day you cannot define precision positions for all players, but you can control behaviour. If you want a Winger/Striker like Ronaldo then you need to play him with no Free Role, Narrow width, FWR Often and on the opposite flank to his strongest foot. If you want a Winger/Playmaker you need to play Narrow-Medium with your winger on a Free Role and FWR Mixed or Rare depending on mentality, on the opposite side to his strongest foot. If you want the traditional Winger then play Wide, no Free Role, FWR Often or Mixed depending on mentality and on the same flank as favoured foot.

One of the major dissapointments of the current system is you cannot play C.Ronaldo on the right flank and have him behave like he does for United, or as Crouchaldinho says you cannot produce assymetric Winger distances from the main Striker and huge variations in roles without disturbing other critical components of your tactics. I understand and empathise with these points and I am simply attempting to assist with the understanding of what can be done.

You cannot define explicit width of individual wingers but you can exploit Free Roles to force one winger wide while keeping the other narrow. You cannot control the preferred direction of play for an individual player but you can exploit favoured foot and place a particular winger on the wing where he will cut inside. You cannot dictate where a player will run to specifically but you can be sure that the team will adapt to maintain balance and you can watch the match and adjust your settings untill you find the right behaviour that corresponds to a certain extent with your tactical wishes.

Free Roles are not a solution to the lack of individual width control in offence, they are a behaviour modifying tactical instruction that can sometimes be used to achieve a similar effect. Likewise FWR Often does not control where your player runs to or what other positions other players take up, but using Free Roles can control where the space exists and how far players move, producing the obvious gap your midfielder must run into.

I have to agree with a lot of what's been said here about not having the option of arrows to control player positioning.

I mentioned this some time back that I could understand the removal of exploitive and unrealistic arrows but why remove the ones that were completely reasonable and realistic? This is one reason why I'm still playing FM08.

In FM08 Free Roles failed. They were entireally useless and produced stupid behaviour. In FM09 Free Roles work in a certain context and they work brilliantly within that context. In FM09 the Free Role determines whether your players moves into space near his position or attempts to hold his position.

If this is true, and I'm not suggesting it isnt, then would it explain why my right ST keeps drifting into the right channel, but my left ST doesn't? (Obviously my right ST has a free role and the left ST doesnt) It's infuriating as I never intended for the striker to drift, I want him in the centre. On that basis I should remove his free role, yes?

Sorry for the thread hijack.

I definately agree that some lateral control on an individual level is needed. Whether in the form of sarrows, or a slider (probably a 3 notch one (like, say, FWR), with "narrow", "normal" and "wide"). To me, it's the biggest gap in the tools available for setting up tactics.

Regarding the player swapping, yeah, some extra controls there would be good too. Maybe something like having three settings:

1) Swap position only:

For example, two wingers who can both play either side, but have very different instructions - one as a classic "get to the byline" player, the other a more Beckham like player who'll pass/cross from deep. You want them swapping sides to mix things up, but they need their instructions individually tailored to play well.

2) Swap instructions only

For example, two "box-to-box" midfielders, you want them to keep to their side of the formation, but alternate which goes forward

3) Swap position and instructions

I.E. as it is now

Thanks for the comments guys.

I'm with you footynut. That's another reason why I prefer FM08 too.

PhroX - I like your suggestions!

Perhaps I should have started this thread on the GD section of the forum. Perhaps there would be more interest there.

I think it is an important issue for future games.

Regards,

C.

I think the sarrows would actually be very useful for you with your diamond formation.

Think of Chelsea's diamond midfield yesterday or Mourinho's diamond midfield at Inter. The players in the middle of the park are not just MCs but hybrid MC and wide players. They play wider than MCs and narrower than MR/Ls.

Of course, one of the diamond system's main weaknesses is its lack of width (and as you point out, the requirement is that the fullbacks should provide width with forward runs). However, without the sarrows, the players in the middle of the park are playing as MCs. In older FMs with arrows, you could use wide players in those positions and use sarrows to make them play wider, a kind of hybrid between an MC and a MR/L.

The problem can equally be applied to my 4-3-3 discussion. In FM08, you could play with AMR/AML farrowed to the FR/FL positions. You could therefore play a striker in the winger role and he would still play well due to moving into a secondary position as a striker. In FM09 (and, we presume, FM10) this is not possible.

The 4-3-3 is not realistic because you cannot make the 'wingers' play like makeshift strikers. You cannot get them to take on a hybrid position,

which would be more accurate of real life.

There are other systems to which this can be applied, such as the 4-2-3-1 and some other narrow formations where certain players need to play between two positions.

My view is that it really needs looking at.

I give a few examples below where the positional attribute falls down as well.

- A wide midfielder being played as a side midfielder in a formation with a narrow three in midfield. He isn't a central midfield by trade but he needs to be given that position rating to perform there.

- As above, a forward in a 4-3-3 has to have either AMR/AML positional rating. Whereas many attacking 4-3-3s would appear to play with three forwards, many of whom do not have the AMR/AML positional attribute.

If I give the example of Paul Hakim at St. Albans City. I've seen him play in the 4-3-3 and interchange with the other forwards, sometimes playing in the middle or on either flank. In order for this to be reflected in FM09, Hakim needs AMR/AML, as he is clearly competent playing on either side and as central striker. However, on previous FMs, Paul Hakim could be played in those positions with a farrow to his preferred position of FR or FL etc.

Personally, I see it as a big weakness and I think either the position attributes need to be worked on or short arrows brought back into the game.

Regards,

C.

I found myself making some tactical experiment with a 4-4-3, being a bit bored of my 4-4-2 and it seems, but need more testing, that playing your 2 side strikers wide in the left/right corner (no forward runs), let them play quite close to the central forward, often they cut inside the box looking for a shot, so they don't tend to stay too wide.

My aim was to build the first tactical shape that Marcello Lippi gave to Juventus, playing with Ravanelli-Vialli-Del Piero upfront (from right to left).

What I need to tweak for sure is the midfield shape, cause as you said, playing narrow would be advisable playing with a flat 3 midfield (due the the lack of sarrows) and not with 2 mc and a dmc, despite the last shape seems to be more effective to retain possession.

I'm going to continue my experiments and if you like I could keep you updated here.

higgins - would definitely like to hear how you get on. Please keep me updated.

Regards,

C.

in my current save i'm managing st albans (grew up there and used to watch them regularly) and i'm playing a 4-3-3. i've been trying to develop the tactic so the two wingers cut inside, creating space for overlapping full-backs.

i've found that assigning free-roles to the wingers, setting through-balls to often and crossing to mixed or rarely works quite well - and the tactic has improved as i've tweaked over the years and recruited better players.

whilst this is different to the tactic that you are aiming for, i think it is possible to mimic most formations, it's a question of:

buying/developing the right players - for example my tactic works well with left-footed wingers who play on the right and vice-versa. the best player i've had in the right wing role is an amc who i have retrained to play on the right wing. he often cuts inside and plays off the centre-forward. int the formation you're aiming for.

he 'move into channels' preferred move would be good for your wide centre-forwards, and retraining a couple of wingers or attacking midfielders as forwards might help.

constantly tweaking tactics - i had to play around with mentality, closing down etc for each of the players till i got the blend right. each player is different and needs different settings to get the same result.

in my current save i'm managing st albans (grew up there and used to watch them regularly) and i'm playing a 4-3-3. i've been trying to develop the tactic so the two wingers cut inside, creating space for overlapping full-backs.

i've found that assigning free-roles to the wingers, setting through-balls to often and crossing to mixed or rarely works quite well - and the tactic has improved as i've tweaked over the years and recruited better players.

whilst this is different to the tactic that you are aiming for, i think it is possible to mimic most formations, it's a question of:

buying/developing the right players - for example my tactic works well with left-footed wingers who play on the right and vice-versa. the best player i've had in the right wing role is an amc who i have retrained to play on the right wing. he often cuts inside and plays off the centre-forward. int the formation you're aiming for.

he 'move into channels' preferred move would be good for your wide centre-forwards, and retraining a couple of wingers or attacking midfielders as forwards might help.

constantly tweaking tactics - i had to play around with mentality, closing down etc for each of the players till i got the blend right. each player is different and needs different settings to get the same result.

I understand, but a flat 4-3-3 means 3 real strikers, not 1 aml 1amr and a central striker.

Your shape is more like a 4-5-1.

in my current save i'm managing st albans (grew up there and used to watch them regularly) and i'm playing a 4-3-3. i've been trying to develop the tactic so the two wingers cut inside, creating space for overlapping full-backs.

i've found that assigning free-roles to the wingers, setting through-balls to often and crossing to mixed or rarely works quite well - and the tactic has improved as i've tweaked over the years and recruited better players.

whilst this is different to the tactic that you are aiming for, i think it is possible to mimic most formations, it's a question of:

buying/developing the right players - for example my tactic works well with left-footed wingers who play on the right and vice-versa. the best player i've had in the right wing role is an amc who i have retrained to play on the right wing. he often cuts inside and plays off the centre-forward. int the formation you're aiming for.

he 'move into channels' preferred move would be good for your wide centre-forwards, and retraining a couple of wingers or attacking midfielders as forwards might help.

constantly tweaking tactics - i had to play around with mentality, closing down etc for each of the players till i got the blend right. each player is different and needs different settings to get the same result.

It looks like a Tactical Tips thread, it smells like a Tactical Tips thread, the OP has received multiple Tactical Tips in this thread, but it is actually a rant thread.

I totally agree and understand and have advised many times before with everything you say, but getting answers wasn't the point of this thread.

If any mods are reading then this thread belongs in General Discussion, and the spam is getting tedious in both.

It looks like a Tactical Tips thread, it smells like a Tactical Tips thread, the OP has received multiple Tactical Tips in this thread, but it is actually a rant thread.

I totally agree and understand and have advised many times before with everything you say, but getting answers wasn't the point of this thread.

If any mods are reading then this thread belongs in General Discussion, and the spam is getting tedious in both.

Care to point out the 'rant'? You can't because the OP was well contructed and thought out to enable a discussion on 433 and other such narrow formations and how they work without sarrows. Which, correct me if I wrong, is what we have been doing.

No one is making you read this thread or indeed anything else you consider spam. My advice to you is that if you dont want to read it or take part in it without whinging then dont. To put it another way 'We would really like to help you out, which way did you come in'.

Please do be quiet SFraser. The only thing that is getting tedious in this thread is you.

This is the tactical forum and... shock... horror... I have created a thread discussing in-depth real life tactics and the tactical options in FM!

Just because I have concluded that the tactical options are limited does not mean that this should be consigned to the 'rant' pile.

I'm getting quite fed up of reading your posts, which essentially amount to hero worship of SI and FM09 in general. You spout some of the most incredible rubbish on these forums about the 'complexity' of this game, often patronising anyone who disagrees with you. I must confess that I have given up reading the vast majority of your posts for this reason.

This is a discussion regarding the progression of the tactical options in the game. It may, or may not, interest you to know that SI are monitoring the tactical discussion across the forum and are interested in adding new options or systems to give the player a greater chance of more accurately representing real life tactics. Furthermore, 75% of GD users who have voted on a recent poll, suggest that they would like some kind of ability to give specific direction to players to move into adjacent positions, or to 'play wide' and perhaps 'advance' or 'withdraw'.

Nothing was wrong with this thread until you came blundering in. It was polite, constructive and hopefully interesting. It never masqueraded as a tactical tips thread, so you clearly missed the point. A few people have agreed with me, while others have disagreed. Some people have made suggestions, all of which have been noted. That's a discussion for you. So for you to start getting on your high horse and advising mods to close my 'tedious' 'rant' is pathetic. Most importantly, however, when I have moved a simplified tactical thread over to GD in the form of a poll, someone from SI has responded and taken on board the comments from myself and others, while many other users have had interesting ideas to add to the discussion.

Quite frankly, your condescending attitude and your awful writing style have driven me to add you to my ignore list SFraser. I cannot stand to hurt my eyes with another one of your posts. I know I will not be the first person to do this. At first, I sympathised with you, believing you to be an intelligent poster who was having a hard time fitting into the forums. But I have since found that the contingency of finding an interesting or intelligent post by you is a remote one and, instead, I just find you rude and ignorant. I do not have time for this nonsense.

I'd be ever so grateful if you could stick to your own threads. If you don't like any posts that I make, then I suggest you ignore them or perhaps add me to your ignore list as I am doing with you. Finally, please do not continue to make the mistake that you are so high and mighty that you can dictate to the moderators of this forum. Perhaps you could try to contribute some new ideas yourself rather than sneering at other people in that contemptuous manner which defines too many of your posts on this forum.

Regards,

C.

Excellent post crouchaldinho!

And while I haven't actively participated in the thread, I can confirm it's been a great read.

Personally I think the positional sense and movement of players with the right attributes is very fluid, balanced and effective within the confines of movement instructions available. As you point out there is no individual width control for individual positions per se and I think it was Zebedee77 that pointed out that you cannot compress space effectively in defence without messing around with Closing Down and complicated Marking Systems.

The same is probably true in offence, with the example you make of two Wingers having different Widths from the main striker and touchline without compromising their actual roles or defensive duties or any of the other consequences of playing a player in an illogical position to achieve a reasonable effect. The game is perhaps simplistic in that respect and I don't think anyone would agree that it offers anything like the true extent of tactical options available and displayed in real life, but there are options available none the less to produce variations in behaviour and positional sense even if they are not ideal.

I cannot speak about the impact of instructions on players behaviour and positioning within a 4-3-3 formation but Width, Free Roles, Forward Runs, Mentality, Footedness, PPM's and Position Retraining all have their impact on the 4-4-2 I use regularly. I understand that you have stated that you consider these options to be inferior or illogical and where you are attempting to reproduce a particular tactical subtlety from real life I cannot disagree with you, but at the end of the day it is your choice to play the game or not and if you choose to do so then I can offer my experience of Winger behaviour in relation to instructions.

One of the major features of FM09 in my mind in difference (better or worse is up for debate) to FM08 is the function of Free Roles and the adaption of players positioning to the movements of their teammates. There is far less control of specific details of movement, infact you might argue none in comparison to FM08, but this is probably a necessary consequence of improving the fluidity of movement of players as they react to others movement. No doubt the "Holy Grail" is both fluidity of reaction and detailed control of positional details but it looks like the SI team may have balked at that challenge, atleast in terms of releasing an engine that works properly with all these features in the near future. Anyway I am getting side-tracked a bit here. Reverse the polarity!

What we have is an engine with less control over motion and increased player reactivity to movement and instructions of other players. You can no longer design with the same ease the attacking shape of your team if it differs radically from your defensive or normal shape, but the attacking shape of your side automatically adapts to achieve balance and coherence between the new positions and the movement of others. Within this new system of adaption and lack of direct positional control you have multiple instructions that control behaviour and multiple traits that you do not control directly but hugely influence behaviour. I am not going to say that the new system of influencing behaviour can produce the same tactical scenarios as the previous system of influencing positioning, but you can achieve many similar results in certain cases and you can definately achieve "newer" things of a different type that were not possible before.

In FM08 Free Roles failed. They were entireally useless and produced stupid behaviour. In FM09 Free Roles work in a certain context and they work brilliantly within that context. In FM09 the Free Role determines whether your players moves into space near his position or attempts to hold his position. If you are playing with two Strikers and you give one no Free Role and a high Mentality then he holds a high Striker position on the shoulder of the Centreback. You give your other Striker a lower mentality and a Free Role so he takes up a deeper position and looks to move into space. The other Centreback comes out to mark him and boom you have a great opportunity for the throughball. One striker is high and on the shoulder of the centreback, the other guy is deep and moving into space, get the marking wrong and the creative forward has played in the fast striker.

The point of the Free Role is whether a player moves into space or stays where he is. With Wingers the Free Role really has a tendency to drop them deep or move them wide away from the fullback. Now with wingers you have other critical features of behaviour and possibly the most singularly important feature of a winger is his favoured foot. As a Winger is naturally playing near the touchline, or at the very least with the majority of the pitch to one side, then his preference of movement direction is essential. Left Footed players like to keep the ball on the Left Foot and will prefer to go down the Left Side of a defender. If he is on the Left Flank this means he skins a defender down the outside and takes the ball outwide and down the left flank. If this guy is on the right flank then he keeps the ball on his left, skins the defender on the inside and move infield.

Width is hugely important here as Width determines where the wingers starting position is or "ideal position/position of reference" is. Playing with maximum width and your Winger will obviously be far out wide and play narrow and he will be deep infield. The key here is the natural width of the opponents Fullbacks and the composition of his midfield. A Winger playing wider than the fullbacks will have a tendency to play as a natural winger, and a winger playing narrower than the fullbacks will tend to play as an AMC or Striker.

At the end of the day you cannot define precision positions for all players, but you can control behaviour. If you want a Winger/Striker like Ronaldo then you need to play him with no Free Role, Narrow width, FWR Often and on the opposite flank to his strongest foot. If you want a Winger/Playmaker you need to play Narrow-Medium with your winger on a Free Role and FWR Mixed or Rare depending on mentality, on the opposite side to his strongest foot. If you want the traditional Winger then play Wide, no Free Role, FWR Often or Mixed depending on mentality and on the same flank as favoured foot.

One of the major dissapointments of the current system is you cannot play C.Ronaldo on the right flank and have him behave like he does for United, or as Crouchaldinho says you cannot produce assymetric Winger distances from the main Striker and huge variations in roles without disturbing other critical components of your tactics. I understand and empathise with these points and I am simply attempting to assist with the understanding of what can be done.

You cannot define explicit width of individual wingers but you can exploit Free Roles to force one winger wide while keeping the other narrow. You cannot control the preferred direction of play for an individual player but you can exploit favoured foot and place a particular winger on the wing where he will cut inside. You cannot dictate where a player will run to specifically but you can be sure that the team will adapt to maintain balance and you can watch the match and adjust your settings untill you find the right behaviour that corresponds to a certain extent with your tactical wishes.

Free Roles are not a solution to the lack of individual width control in offence, they are a behaviour modifying tactical instruction that can sometimes be used to achieve a similar effect. Likewise FWR Often does not control where your player runs to or what other positions other players take up, but using Free Roles can control where the space exists and how far players move, producing the obvious gap your midfielder must run into.

Hmm, I see where you're coming from, but it only serves to emphasise the point. There are certain, some very common, real life instructions that can't be used without the old arrows. The increase in the uses of the free role is a half measure, in fact, everything you list is a half measure. Don't get me wrong, they may be effective, but they don't reflect real life.

This is not a rant at all. In fact, to be honest, the only post in this thread that is a rant is your's, saying that it is. It's quite ironic really.

It looks like a Tactical Tips thread, it smells like a Tactical Tips thread, the OP has received multiple Tactical Tips in this thread, but it is actually a rant thread.

I totally agree and understand and have advised many times before with everything you say, but getting answers wasn't the point of this thread.

If any mods are reading then this thread belongs in General Discussion, and the spam is getting tedious in both.

At what point did you make yourself moderator of this forum you condescending idiot. Every post I see from you is more and more arrogant. As someone who used to spend a fair bit of time in this particular forum I can say quite confidently that it has gone very much downhill since you have been posting in it. If the mods want to do anything to improve the quality of discussions in this forum then banning you would be a great start.

If you're not blindling sucking up to wwfan and SI then you're spouting complete waffle and talking down to people, as for some reason you think your long but empty posts make you intelligent. They don't.

Do us all a favour and remove yourself from an otherwise excellent forum.

Ov has mentioned a few times that they'll be introducing player instructions to 'cut inside' or 'hug touchline' etc, for wide players come FM10, and a 'move in to channels' option for central players. So while you might not have a width slider per se, there will be an added element of control over a player's lateral movement.

In reply to somebody posting something similar about players' positioning and forward runs, he did also that he "very much like(s) the idea of players reacting directly to each others' instructions by the way - you go forward, I'll stay back etc", so that may be something they work on in the future.

At what point did you make yourself moderator of this forum you condescending idiot. Every post I see from you is more and more arrogant. As someone who used to spend a fair bit of time in this particular forum I can say quite confidently that it has gone very much downhill since you have been posting in it. If the mods want to do anything to improve the quality of discussions in this forum then banning you would be a great start.

If you're not blindling sucking up to wwfan and SI then you're spouting complete waffle and talking down to people, as for some reason you think your long but empty posts make you intelligent. They don't.

Do us all a favour and remove yourself from an otherwise excellent forum.

Alternatively, he could be a very intelligent troll, who instead of being overly negative is overly positive. I came to that conclusion before adding him to my ignore list- I suggest you do the same

Ov has mentioned a few times that they'll be introducing player instructions to 'cut inside' or 'hug touchline' etc, for wide players come FM10, and a 'move in to channels' option for central players. So while you might not have a width slider per se, there will be an added element of control over a player's lateral movement.

In reply to somebody posting something similar about players' positioning and forward runs, he did also that he "very much like(s) the idea of players reacting directly to each others' instructions by the way - you go forward, I'll stay back etc", so that may be something they work on in the future.

As I said in another thread, that's quite brilliant.

Ov has mentioned a few times that they'll be introducing player instructions to 'cut inside' or 'hug touchline' etc, for wide players come FM10, and a 'move in to channels' option for central players. So while you might not have a width slider per se, there will be an added element of control over a player's lateral movement.

In reply to somebody posting something similar about players' positioning and forward runs, he did also that he "very much like(s) the idea of players reacting directly to each others' instructions by the way - you go forward, I'll stay back etc", so that may be something they work on in the future.

I really hope this goes into the game at some point. I suspect more likely FM11 than 10 by the sounds of it, but it'd really help me get my team doing exactly what I wanted them to do.

I've made a post on the GD part of the forum which is also extremely relevant to this thread, so I hope nobody will mind if I reproduce it here as well.

I'll repeat myself and say that I don't feel that it is at all unrealistic to ask a player to move to an adjacent position on the pitch.

That would mean either:

1) 'Withdrawing' from his natural position when off the ball into an adjacent position (e.g. MC dropping to DM).

2) 'Advancing' from his natural position when on the ball into an adjacent position (e.g. MC moving to AMC or AMR to FR).

3) 'Playing wide' or 'coming inside' from his natural position, (e.g. the middle ground between MC and MR or the middle ground between FR and FC).

These would all seem totally realistic ideas to me and something that a manager wouldn't necessarily tie in with mentality or forward runs.

Anyway, due to my overactive football nerd gene, I actually took some notes on the Saints tactics on Saturday.

First of all, I studied how the midfield trio were playing and how they were staggered for different effects.

Secondly, I watched how the front three interacted and how they behaved in terms of off the ball movement and on the ball tendencies.

I'll start off in the Homeric order.

The City front three were basically playing in a 'chain' of: wing --- forward --- wing, with the central forward often slightly ahead of the wide forwards. The two wide forwards were actually playing level with the opposition fullbacks off the ball. They didn't move back into an AMR/AML position but occasionally they would track back when called for down their particular flank.

The three forwards were extremely interesting to watch. Sometimes they naturally moved inside, other times they played with their 'feet on the line' very wide. Laterally, they took up a position anywhere between the edge of the centre-circle to playing, as I said above, with their 'feet on the line' as circumstances dictated. The front three were a little narrower than I had remembered previously when play was in the middle.

What was interesting about the front three was that they interchanged positions really regularly during the match so that each forward had played in all three positions at some point. They started out with a right-footer on the right and a left-footer on the left. The right-footer switched with the central player quite often. Then the right-footer and left footer switched so that they were on opposite flanks. Every combination, basically.

It did strike me that the three forwards were naturally inclined to stagger themselves slightly too. It seemed to me that the left forward would play a little deeper, while the right forward naturally moved inside more and played more centrally. The left forward was more likely to run at his fullback and cross but would often come inside too. The right forward was far more likely to come inside. When the fullbacks made a forward run, the forward on his side would drop inside to make space. Sometimes he would move out wide to offer an option. Most of the crosses came from deep positions or from the fullbacks though.

Now on to the midfield and I noticed that the midfield trio were quite different to how they have setup thus far this season. One regular was missing and so I think the midfield was layered slightly differently. Essentially, two MCs played a little deeper off the ball, both staggered, one slightly higher and moving forward occasionally, the other very much a defensive-minded midfielder. The third midfielder regularly moved into the final third, in the space between midfield and attack, when the team was in possession. Several times, he made runs from this position into the box to make a front four, similar to in a 4-4-2 with the wide players pushed up on the wings. Although, the job of this player was really to position himself in the space in an 'AM' type position. He would take up a more 'natural' position as MC when not in possession.

So actually, I interpreted the formation shape as being more like 4-2-1-3, with two holders and an advanced midfielder. The three in midfield was almost one DM, one 'box-to-box' and one AM in terms of its staggered effect, although they played out like a flat three MCs in FM terms.

Now, if you've got this far, congratulations.

What I want to say is that I have been fiddling on FM08 this evening to try and get St. Albans City's 4-3-3 working as I see it. I'm now going to post up some screenshots to illustrate the kind of player directions that I would like to use in FM10.

Few screenshots below for anyone who is interested.

This 4-2-1-3 is what I am trying to achieve in my game.

I tried the FCs with the outward sarrows first but the forwards were not playing wide enough generally.

So then I tried the wide forwards with no sarrows but I felt the forwards were always too wide.

So, finally, I tried the wide forwards with sarrows and it is pretty much what I am seeing in real life in my opinion. Looking good huh?

The point is that I had three potential options to make these wing forwards play wider or narrower as I required. This kind of lateral direction in terms of player movement is much needed in FM10 and I'm glad to hear that it sounds as though it has been addressed through the 'tactics creator' feature.

You'll no doubt notice that I also used a farrow to encourage the middle MC to come forward rather than using an AMC. That gives me the advantage of having three players in central midfield off the ball. This is how I interpreted the St. Albans City 4-2-1-3. The central MC would advance into the AMC role when the side were in possession and then sometimes make forward runs from that position. Using this forward arrow, I am able to instruct him to take up an adjacent position and make further forward runs from there, which is something I regrettably cannot do in the current incarnation of the game. You would face a similar problem in the 4-3-3 with two wingers on the flanks, who often play as wing-forwards, moving into an FR/FL position on the ball.

There are various formations that are not well reflected in the game at the moment due to this lack of farrow, barrow and sarrow type instruction. It's essential to making certain systems work in my mind. As far as I am concerned, there are some systems which just will not work with the current tactical options available.

Regards,

C.

Great read.

The ability to make tactics is definitly missing something in FM09. I miss the old arrows on AMl/R to bring them up to make a front 3. A 4-3-3 just doesn't seem to operate right without them.

Furthermore, 75% of GD users who have voted on a recent poll, suggest that they would like some kind of ability to give specific direction to players to move into adjacent positions, or to 'play wide' and perhaps 'advance' or 'withdraw'.

I am well aware of who is responsible for the creation of the FM10 "Tactics Creator" rather than significant improvement in the Tactical Options and Match Engine. You think you are improving the game but you are only holding it back.

It is unfortunate that SI do not ignore you.

I am well aware of who is responsible for the creation of the FM10 "Tactics Creator" rather than significant improvement in the Tactical Options and Match Engine. You think you are improving the game but you are only holding it back.

It is unfortunate that SI do not ignore you.

Boring, really boring.

I am well aware of who is responsible for the creation of the FM10 "Tactics Creator" rather than significant improvement in the Tactical Options and Match Engine. You think you are improving the game but you are only holding it back.

It is unfortunate that SI do not ignore you.

It's unfortunate that everyone doesn't ignore you. At what point are you going to realise that you are in the minority and that the game should not just be tailored to suit you, you arrogant idiot.

It's also unfortunate that far too many users on here respond to your threads with 'great post', 'good idea' etc simply because they look long and well written. If they actually read them they'd realise that most don't actually contain anything useful, and any that do are soon ruined by blind defending of obvious flaws in the game. It's you that will hold the game back from improving, and it's a relief that SI would rather listen to the community than one person.

It's getting really pathetic now. No one in this great thread is interested in your arrogance. So why don't you just leave?

While the side arrows may have ended up putting your forwards where you'd like them to be, laterally, their effect (ie, move robotically this way or that way) is still not realistic, for me. Much better for them to have individual width settings, or be able to play around with individual instructions like 'drift inside', 'move in to flanks', which gives them a starting position and then biases their decision making while still making sure it interacts with what they see around them and their own attributes.

Similarly, I still disagree strongly with the need for forward or backward arrows, again because of the robotic movement. An MC with low closing down will naturally drop off his position, for instance, and forward runs still seem to cover the advancing to an adjacent position option.

An MC with low closing down will naturally drop off his position, for instance, and forward runs still seem to cover the advancing to an adjacent position option.

How does closing down effect the players position?

With regard to positioning when the other team has the ball, it certainly will.

All things being equal (and marking will definitely change things), a player with high closing down will move towards the player on the ball, whereas a player with low closing down will back off until the player on the ball gets nearer to goal.

Set up a flat three midfield, put the outside two players on high closing down and the middle one to the lowest setting and observe what happens when the opposition advance with the ball.

With regard to positioning when the other team has the ball, it certainly will.

All things being equal (and marking will definitely change things), a player with high closing down will move towards the player on the ball, whereas a player with low closing down will back off until the player on the ball gets nearer to goal.

Set up a flat three midfield, put the outside two players on high closing down and the middle one to the lowest setting and observe what happens when the opposition advance with the ball.

Yeah, I can understand that but I'm not sure that is the positional control the OP is after.

SFraser, do you mind me asking how you find the time to go into such depth with your posts and maintain the old racism. I only ask because i'm useless at multi-tasking, but you have it down to a fine art, tactics thread one minute, racist slur the next How do you do it?

Having trouble figuring stuff out?

This is an excellent thread with some interesting discussion and is very useful in terms of theorising directions for the new tactical system. However, I will hand out infractions to anybody who aims personal insults after Neil's post.

wwfan, I am really sorry to go off topic, but I'd like to quote SFraser:

"it is actually a rant thread."

"getting answers wasn't the point of this thread."

"If any mods are reading then this thread belongs in General Discussion, and the spam is getting tedious in both. "

"You think you are improving the game but you are only holding it back."

"It is unfortunate that SI do not ignore you."

Nomis07 may well have deserved his infraction for his personal attack and for bad language.

But SFraser is not even receiving at least a 'verbal warning' from you?

I mean, he comes in, tells everyone how clever and great he is, actually acts like a moderator when he is not, tries to ruin a great thread (You yourself said it's excellent) and is just getting away with it?

While he may not have used offending language, he still managed to be extremely arrogant once again.

It really shouldn't be a surprise that people are getting fed up with him, his arrogance in general will provoke responses like the one we just saw.

I'm no one to say what you or other moderators should do (like SFraser), but he's about to cross a line.

I understand that You and some other posters value his posts, contributions to these forums and there is no problem with that.

But he can't just go on a rampage telling people how dumb they are, and how unfortunate that is that they are not ignored by SI. It's like he thinks his opinion is worth more than others.

This behaviour needs to stop.

Once again, sorry for going completely off topic, I hope the great tactical discussion will continue in here.

But SFraser is not even receiving at least a 'verbal warning' from you?

Quite Difficult through a computer

This is an excellent thread with some interesting discussion and is very useful in terms of theorising directions for the new tactical system. However, I will hand out infractions to anybody who aims personal insults after Neil's post.

The guy has made racist posts in the past (I'm not sure if he received his infraction for that or for calling somebody a rude name for a disabled person), so for clarity, if the former is true and he's been infracted for racial slurs, what's wrong with Nomis calling him up on it? It isn't a insult per say, is it? Otherwise those calling the BNP racist have crossed a line.

(I'm just checking)

In responce to googoo (I would multi-quote but I forgot to :doh: ): I think Neil's post serves that purpose to be honest, as a general warning to all involved to keep it civil, without the need to hand out infractions. To be honest, it's a great form of moderating.

Crouch, we had a bit of this conversation on your GD post, but I thought I'd add a few more thoughts here.

If you sort through the first post by SFraser (minus his personal style), there's a lot of truth to it. You can approximate what you're looking for tactically but there's still limitations. It sounds based on the "play wide", "cut inside", and "find channels" instructions, that FM10 puts us on the road to shoring up those holes.

Tactically, if you're looking for suggestions I can probably help you along the way, although I'm no expert. Some of it takes re-interpreting what sliders control and a little bit of trial-and-error convergence. But if you're looking for more than that on FM09, I'd remember (to paraphrase one of my favorite Voltaire quotes) not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Crouch, we had a bit of this conversation on your GD post, but I thought I'd add a few more thoughts here.

If you sort through the first post by SFraser (minus his personal style), there's a lot of truth to it. You can approximate what you're looking for tactically but there's still limitations. It sounds based on the "play wide", "cut inside", and "find channels" instructions, that FM10 puts us on the road to shoring up those holes.

Thanks for the reply Ceching You Out.

I did read the first post by SFraser and, of course, the tactical suggestions are good. It is therefore disappointing to see that he can be so rude after making such a constructive post.

Indeed, in SFraser's first post, he actually agreed with me regarding the limited nature of the options, so it is somewhat of a mystery to me why he decided to get so personal with his comments thereafter. :confused:

And yes, I hope that some of the instructions mentioned so far in terms of the tactics creator will be just the beginning really, scratching the surface of the kind of footballing instructions we will be able to give to our virtual players in the future.

Tactically, if you're looking for suggestions I can probably help you along the way, although I'm no expert. Some of it takes re-interpreting what sliders control and a little bit of trial-and-error convergence. But if you're looking for more than that on FM09, I'd remember (to paraphrase one of my favorite Voltaire quotes) not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It's a good quotation. I don't believe that it is entirely relevant here though because I'm not looking for perfection. I'm just voicing an opinion and coming up with some ideas regarding the options we could have in a future FM.

Thanks for your offer of help but I have read the ideas on this tactics forum generally, as well as this thread of course, and I have also experimented a great deal. I still find that achieving some of my aims is not as easy as it should be. Some of the proposed 'solutions' are vague, some unrealistic, some half-measures and some do not actually achieve what I want at all.

I saw recently that Millie actually made a very good post about having a 'lack of flexibility in the position "pigeon holes" in FM' and how difficult it can be to get a real life system working in with the current tactical options as a result of this. What I am saying in this thread is that I would really like to see some added flexibility. I'm quite keen on being able to instruct players to play the middle-ground between two adjacent positions, which might be especially important for DM, MC, AM or MCR, MR / MCL, ML or even FR, FCR / FL, FCL, for example. Some of this would seem to be possible in the new tactics creator (play wide, for instance), although I haven't seen any option to ask a player to 'play narrow' in order to encourage him to position himself accordingly.

I still maintain that I would like the following positional flexibility in terms of player instructions/direction, so that I could ask a player to:

1) 'Withdraw' from his natural position when off the ball into an adjacent position (e.g. MC dropping to DM).

2) 'Advance' from his natural position when on the ball into an adjacent position (e.g. MC moving to AMC or AMR to FR).

3) 'Play wide' or 'play narrow' from his natural position, (e.g. the middle ground between MC and MR or the middle ground between FR and FC).

I'm not looking for perfection but rather for the user to have some flexibility in terms of positioning in order to encourage his players to play the middle ground between two adjacent positions, or perhaps to advance or drop into adjacent positions on and off the ball.

Regards,

C.

I know you're not looking for perfection so to speak, but neatly translating a "real" formation into FM requires a few shortcuts and probably always will. Although SI's pursuit of that degree of complexity keeps us with a new version to dissect each year!

Anyhow, back to the crux:

I still maintain that I would like the following positional flexibility in terms of player instructions/direction, so that I could ask a player to:

1) 'Withdraw' from his natural position when off the ball into an adjacent position (e.g. MC dropping to DM).

2) 'Advance' from his natural position when on the ball into an adjacent position (e.g. MC moving to AMC or AMR to FR).

3) 'Play wide' or 'play narrow' from his natural position, (e.g. the middle ground between MC and MR or the middle ground between FR and FC).

I'm not looking for perfection but rather for the user to have some flexibility in terms of positioning in order to encourage his players to play the middle ground between two adjacent positions, or perhaps to advance or drop into adjacent positions on and off the ball.

(1) and (2) I'm not sure I entirely agree are needed as new options other than for the sake of efficiency (like the new "touchline shouts"). IMO you can implement these two "instructions" very solidly with a combination of a player's individual mentality and forward runs settings, depending on his defensive role (zonal/man, closing down setting)against the specific opposition you face. Maybe if there was a specific scenario you had in mind I might better understand the strategy you're unable to implement without them?

(3) is much harder to dictate without skewing other team settings. Life would be much simpler if there were more "positions" within a position to shift a player a fraction towards the next.

There are other tasks which are nearly impossible to achieve on a single player basis without dedicating your entire tactic to it, for example a midfielder who drops deep to get the ball only when in possession (essentially a BRR/BRS/BRO option) or a winger who looks to cut-inside from a wide position once you gain possession to name a few.

For specific scenarios check the opening post, the post on GD regarding the arrows and also the post I've attached to both threads regarding a real life 4-4-2.

I've pretty much answered most of your points in this thread and in the others too.

Regards,

C.

For specific scenarios check the opening post, the post on GD regarding the arrows and also the post I've attached to both threads regarding a real life 4-4-2.

I've pretty much answered most of your points in this thread and in the others too.

Regards,

C.

Of your examples given in the original post here, the first is a completely different animal than you describe in (1), (2), or (3). Could be an interesting addition to the tactical options, although I think I could get a rough approximation of it under the current system. I think it would be somewhat difficult to code but I'm not positive.

The second is (1), and I would just repeat what I mentioned in my previous post about both (1) and (2). Unless there's something specific to mention here, I suppose we just fundamentally disagree on whether the situation you're describing is achievable under the current system. In my experience, I've been able to get (2) out of a CM moving forward when in possession, and (1) would simply be the reverse.

The third is (3) and I think we more or less agree that the only way to push your RF/LF wider would be to widen your entire formation, which introduces a number of knock-on effects. Definitely would like to see the ability to push individual players wider/narrower in FM10.

Hmm, I see where you're coming from, but it only serves to emphasise the point. There are certain, some very common, real life instructions that can't be used without the old arrows. The increase in the uses of the free role is a half measure, in fact, everything you list is a half measure. Don't get me wrong, they may be effective, but they don't reflect real life.

No indeed they do not reflect real life, but by losing the completely unrealistic arrow function of FM08 and replacing it with vastly superior player movement and formation adaption according to match conditions of FM09 you end up with a far more realistic representation of football, atleast in my opinion.

This now serves as the basis for the redesigning of the entire tactical system that is apparently happening. It gives the game a basis of logical and realistic player behaviour upon which to build far more realistic tactical instructions.

While you had more control over movement and tactics in FM08 the actual football was light years behind FM09. In FM09 you get less tactical control and can do less radical things, or indeed construct far fewer specific formations but the entire flow of the game, movement of players and adaption of starting formations to match events is light years ahead of anything else.

To me it looks like a case of producing a solid and functional tactical system for FM08 and then realising that the actual behaviour of the footballers was nothing like football. Then SI significantly improve the ME at the cost of some of the tactical options and produce a representation of football that has less tactical options but significantly superior player behaviour.

As I said before the next challenge is to redesign tactical options that provide realistic tactical control over much superior team and individual player behaviour. If you reach a level of gameplay where Player Behaviour is stale and unrealistic then no matter what tactical options you add you can never progress the game. If you then vastly improve player behaviour and the fluidity and realism of the football being played you reach a plateau that is a beginning and not an end.

While the UI and many basic mechanics of FM09 hardly changed from FM08, the changes in the ME in FM09 was the dawn of an completely new era for Football Manager. If you combine the ME behaviour changes I gush about in FM09 to the new Tactics Creator in FM10 then it is quite obvious we are at a place of evolution of this game comparable to the introduction of 2-D match replay and all those other factors of difference between the old CM we played as kids and the new FM we argue over constantly about its complexity and all other issues.

I do infact agree with this topic, there needs to be some form of tactical control over tactical attacking and defensive width, compression of space etc. What I don't agree with under any circumstances is the re-introduction of the old slider system. It is archaic, it would require the destruction of the current fluidity and logic of individual position and movement and formation adaption, and it would take us right back to FM08 which was the end limit of how far that particular ME could go.

User controlled tactical movement has been sacrificed to enable AI player behaviour fluidity and adaption. We move on from here, we do not go back. There is too much beautiful football to be lost if we do.