Nad's 4-2-2-2 - Success At Last

Hi,

I've been reading these forums for a long time now and have picked up many tips on designing a successful tactic from some of the quality posters around here. After much effort and tweaking I have finally managed to design a tactic that is based on solid football principles, gets my team playing the way I want them to play, and which has consequently brought me great success. I would like to repay some of the debt I owe to the other people on these forums by sharing this tactic; hopefully some other people will try it out and post their feedback. May it bring you similar success!

Introduction

First of all, I have only tested this with Liverpool over 2 seasons, so I don't know exactly how successful it will be with other clubs or lower league. It should work because, apart from creative freedom, there are no "extreme" settings that require top quality players only. Try it and post back your experiences. Besides, if I can make Kuyt and Ngog into goal machines, I'm sure this should be transferable.

The formation is a variant of 4-4-2, except with the wingers in the AM position.

The team and individual settings are heavily tweaked. I use an excel file to keep track of what I'm doing. These are the settings (the numbers are slider notches).

Strategy

My aim is to play beautiful football, with a totally solid defence, creativity in midfield, and lots of goals. The defence and central midfield generally stay behind the ball - they keep the opposition out, control territory and recycle possession. These 6 players control play until I am in the opposition's third of the field. At that point the front 4 take over to cause havoc. These settings bring lots of movement off the ball, intricate interplay, and goal threats from the wings and through the centre.

In terms of players, this is what I suggest you look for:

Goalkeeper: standard, the best you can find. Aerial ability and reflexes are particularly helpful (the width setting means that the opposition tend to get quite a few crosses in).

Full backs: the fullbacks are primarily defensive, you don't need attacking full backs (Glen Johnson is wasted slightly for me). It helps if they're comfortable on the ball though.

Centre backs: standard, big/strong defenders preferred, they'll be doing lots of heading and intercepting. You don't really need pace or technical ability.

Central midfielders: good passers / tacklers. They need to be comfortable on the ball as they'll be seeing plenty of it, and it helps if they're good defensively. These guys are not expected to contribute goals or assists, so you don't want any AMs playing here.

Wingers: key players, this is where most of the creativity comes from. Pace, dribbling, passing and crossing are desired.

Strikers: these guys will get lots of chances but it helps if they can create their own as well, so pace, dribbling, composure and finishing are desired.

Tweaks

I don't use any opposition instructions - I suggest you avoid them, because they will not complement what the tactic is trying to achieve. For example, the closing down has been tweaked continuously to get the balance of pressing / holding position that I want. The last thing you want is a full back leaving a huge hole down the side of your defence because he's been asked to close down the opposition winger "always".

The only tweaks I make pre-match and during the game are to the 4 team settings: defensive line, width, tempo and time wasting. Nothing else needs tweaking. These 4 are adjusted according to opposition / weather / current score:

Defensive Line: lower by a 1 or 2 notches if playing against a particularly fast attack, very short pitch or other situation that makes you think you're playing too high. Increase by 1-3 notches if you need to squeeze the space, play higher up or on a very long pitch.

Width: I seldom tweak this. Lower by 1 if you're getting through balls between your centre back and full back, or on a very narrow pitch. Increase by 1 if you need to stretch the play, or on a very wide pitch.

Tempo: start high and lower throughout the game. Sometimes start 1 or 2 notches lower if playing away or in very bad weather conditions. I usually lower this once I've secured a game or late on when players are tired. My matches start with tempo 16 and usually end with tempo 12. I never increase tempo above 16.

Time Wasting: increase late on if trying to hold onto a lead and under pressure. Reduce if behind and chasing. This is the most flexible slider, I've used everything from time wasting 1 to time wasting 20 depending on the situation.

Results

First season with Liverpool - won the Premier League and FA Cup.

(continued below due to number of images)

This success was despite Gerrard missing the vast majority of the season, Torres having lots of niggles and injuries, and without buying anyone. My main goal getters were amazingly Kuyt and Ngog. Check out Kuyt's stats:

These are sample match stats:

Second season, I bought Dzeko only. Torres and Gerrard have been fit for most of the season. Currently in March, Premier League is just about wrapped up, I'm in the quarters of the Champions League, got knocked out of the FA Cup.

Torres is a machine:

This is the link to the tactic:

http://www.filefront.com/15387173/4-0-2-2-2-Nad-Liverpool-Dec-2010.tac

And my Excel 07 file, if you want to use it to track the settings:

http://www.filefront.com/15387179/FM2010.xlsx

Thanks for reading, look forward to your comments.

Nad

I will give this a go mate and let you know how i do with my new west ham game.

A nice well thoughtout post

I like the main post here, alot.. Well done..

It made me test your tactic..

Ive started a new game with Chelsea, but havent bought anyone. Still a strong team though, and won every friendly with +5 goals.

Will test it more once im home from work.

Ive started a new game with Chelsea, but havent bought anyone. Still a strong team though, and won every friendly with +5 goals.

Will test it more once im home from work.

I'm looking forward to the results. Chelsea should be an interesting test, because I wouldn't have thought their squad was particularly suited to this. Essien and Mikel would probably be your first choice CMs, so there's no ideal role for Lampard or Ballack - not sure how effective they would be on the wings and playing them in CM might waste their skillset. Also, you only really have 2 quality strikers if you don't buy anyone.

Having said that, Liverpool don't really have a particularly good squad for this either, but it's worked out really well.

I would have thought that teams like Man Utd, Tottenham, Man City etc would be really suited to it - teams with solid CMs (Carrick, Fletcher, Palacios, Barry, De Jong etc), lots of wide players and lots of skillful strikers.

In FM09 I tweaked a 4-0-2-2-2 all the time until I had an oiled machine. This tactic actually differs quite a bit from it, especially the full backs, who contributed to offence as well, and the 2nd central midfielder had more freedom. I'm certainly going to try this and compare, I'm sure this one will be more solid in defence than my FM09 version (which had the philosophy : attack is the best defence), but that one really needed a lot of time and good players to be consistent in scoring.

I'll try this with Juve and keep you posted I guess I have to retrain Diego to play on one the winger positions. Maybe Del Piero is becoming too old for the left wing pos, but have Giovinco and bought Naingggolan as backup (AMRLC) who will grow in Juve squad. Cameronesi is perfect on the right wing, central mids are plenty in the squad, Tiago, Sissoko (3 months injured though), Marchisio, Melo and Poulsen, enough backup there

Strikers will be Amauri/Iaquinta and probably Del Piero for now. I always loved Trezeguet so I'll give him chances. Only problem in Juve squad is the crappy full backs, I actually like none of them.

True that Nad.

I made some tweaks though which i thought would help out abit. Both CM's in your tactic is on defend - i change one of them to slightly more attacking mentality - and using Lampard there.. He performed really well in the friendlies.

Im using Zhirkov and Cole on the wings, both playing really well, Cole has scored some goals, and Zhirkov done most of the assists. Theres ALOT of crosses into the box, so i really could use a powerhouse Targetman.

Ive also changed the FB's mentality slightly more offensive, so they can contribute to the midfield, now that Lampard is running more forward. Else id assume Essien would be too lonely in the defensive midfield area.

Im still at work, im gonna start the seaon as soon as i get home.

Until now, cya

True that Nad.

I made some tweaks though which i thought would help out abit. Both CM's in your tactic is on defend - i change one of them to slightly more attacking mentality - and using Lampard there.. He performed really well in the friendlies.

Im using Zhirkov and Cole on the wings, both playing really well, Cole has scored some goals, and Zhirkov done most of the assists. Theres ALOT of crosses into the box, so i really could use a powerhouse Targetman.

Ive also changed the FB's mentality slightly more offensive, so they can contribute to the midfield, now that Lampard is running more forward. Else id assume Essien would be too lonely in the defensive midfield area.

Im still at work, im gonna start the seaon as soon as i get home.

Until now, cya

Those tweaks will make it even better for comparison to my results.

I like to keep both CMs with the same settings - they stay behind the ball, which virtually eliminates being hit on the counter. It also gives them a really easy sideways passing option if they're under pressure, and it allows the fullbacks to receive the ball from the CMs in plenty of space. I also don't want to crowd the penalty area - Torres especially scores lots of goals by receiving the ball on the edge or in a channel, and turning or beating a man to get a clear shot at goal. So it'll be interesting to see how this compares to having one CM join the attacking phase.

With regards to the fullbacks, be careful with the mentality...I had them on 12-13 mentality for a while but it didn't work out...they got too high up the pitch and it meant they were always under pressure when they received the ball. Their main function is to play a good pass to the winger, so that the winger can get 1:1 with the opposition fullback. Similarly, if they get too high up the pitch, it can cause a problem when opposition strikers drift into the channels when you lose the ball and your CBs are drawn out of position.

Still, your experiment will be really useful because I'm sure this tactic could still be improved.

A quick update from my game..

Played 5 games, and not the easiest season schedule. Heres the results

Chelsea - West Ham 3-0

Man Utd - Chelsea 0-3

Chelsea - Liverpool 1-0

Birmingham - Chelsea 0-3

Chelsea - Arsenal 3-0

A good start, but im sure it can get much better.

A few stuff i want to improve - attack seems abit stressfull, cant seem to find "holes" to play the ball in. I dont know if it will help putting Lampard to a more defensive mentality (then id have to use Essien + Mikel instead) - and Lampard is the top goal scorer so far.. 5 goals in 6 matches.

My FB's are back to your mentality, they went too far ahead and left gaps in the defence.

A quick update from my game..

Played 5 games, and not the easiest season schedule. Heres the results

Chelsea - West Ham 3-0

Man Utd - Chelsea 0-3

Chelsea - Liverpool 1-0

Birmingham - Chelsea 0-3

Chelsea - Arsenal 3-0

A good start, but im sure it can get much better.

A few stuff i want to improve - attack seems abit stressfull, cant seem to find "holes" to play the ball in. I dont know if it will help putting Lampard to a more defensive mentality (then id have to use Essien + Mikel instead) - and Lampard is the top goal scorer so far.. 5 goals in 6 matches.

My FB's are back to your mentality, they went too far ahead and left gaps in the defence.

So are you saying you've won 5 out of 5, including Man U (away), Liverpool and Arsenal, scored 13, conceded 0? That's a good start if I'm reading it right!

It'll take your players a while to get used to the formation so don't worry too much at this stage if the attack is not totally fluent. Also the attacking strategy is based on crosses and beating players in and around the area. Scoring goals via through balls is a bonus but it's not the main emphasis. In my save, the ball is often passed sideways without always creating a chance, but as long as you're getting good and regular possession in the opponent's half, you should still create enough chances to win games.

Nono, the last Arsenal match at home went 3-2 instead of 3-0.. But other than that, you're right..

Porto - Chelsea 1-4

Wigan - Chelsea 0-2

Still going strong. Will be looking forward to some more action in the attack.

Testing this tactic with Juve for a 8 official matches now, I'm still not impressed. Strangely enough my defence is underachieving, the buildup to works very good though, considering the defensive setup of this tactic. Lost 3-2 to Chievo (they had 0 points after 5 matches), I was 3-0 behind in the 70th minute, used my attacking variant of it, managed to pull 2 back. Some away games against smaller teams I'm not too happy with the chances the opposition gets. Amauri is playing extremely well in this system.

EDIT :

Getting a lot of goals in my net by simple passes through the middle, not sure if it's the tactic, but my whole defence is playing very bad (even Chiellini, who is almost the best defender in the game).

Sounds strange..

With my chelsea defense, its rock solid.. Ive played 20 matches now, won 18 and drawn 2. Only 3 goals scored against me.

Testing this tactic with Juve for a 8 official matches now, I'm still not impressed. Strangely enough my defence is underachieving, the buildup to works very good though, considering the defensive setup of this tactic. Lost 3-2 to Chievo (they had 0 points after 5 matches), I was 3-0 behind in the 70th minute, used my attacking variant of it, managed to pull 2 back. Some away games against smaller teams I'm not too happy with the chances the opposition gets. Amauri is playing extremely well in this system.

EDIT :

Getting a lot of goals in my net by simple passes through the middle, not sure if it's the tactic, but my whole defence is playing very bad (even Chiellini, who is almost the best defender in the game).

Leto, have you tweaked the tactic at all or is it the version I uploaded?

If you're getting balls played through the middle of your defence, that sounds to me like a CM issue rather than a defence issue, ie your CMs aren't preventing the opposition midfield playing through balls or not closing down quickly enough. Have you changed the CM settings at all?

If this issue continues you might want to reduce width by a couple of notches and increase defensive line by a couple of notches (ie play a bit higher and narrower to put more pressure on the opposition midfield.

Sounds strange..

With my chelsea defense, its rock solid.. Ive played 20 matches now, won 18 and drawn 2. Only 3 goals scored against me.

Is that untweaked or is that with one CM attacking a bit more? If the latter I might have to replicate your changes cos that's awesome!

Leto, have you tweaked the tactic at all or is it the version I uploaded?

If you're getting balls played through the middle of your defence, that sounds to me like a CM issue rather than a defence issue, ie your CMs aren't preventing the opposition midfield playing through balls or not closing down quickly enough. Have you changed the CM settings at all?

If this issue continues you might want to reduce width by a couple of notches and increase defensive line by a couple of notches (ie play a bit higher and narrower to put more pressure on the opposition midfield.

Nope I haven't changed them, but they are not playing particulary well either, their morale isn't going up despite a lot of wins. I need to give the team more time I think. I'll increase the defensive line a bit. Just got owned by Sevilla 3-1. I'm also going to increase the closing down of the full backs, I find them too passive, waiting for stuff to go wrong.

Im playing with Lampard as a Attacking Midfield, and still is the topscorer on my team.. He is very crazy atm

Then im playing Essien as a Ball Winning Midfielder, also playing quite decent with a average rating on 7.26.

Finally, ive changed the Defensive line a few notches in Push up. Im dominating every game, also versus Man Utd and the like. About to finish the first season when i get home from work. Currently ive played 22 matches.

Guess it's my players then ... again bad result vs Fiorentina home 1-1 (they were 18th). This tactic works better than the one I had in FM09 (remade it to see the difference). This one has a lot of ball possession. Mostly it goes wrong when I'm 1 ahead in the second half, maybe because I never give shouts or anything?

And again, was playing pretty well 1-0 ahead half time, ended 1-1 with TONS of chances against me, I'm seeing a line in this and not liking it. Got a lot of injuries though. Think I'm just going to stick with the tactic for teh whole season and see how it goes, I'm 3rd now which is not too bad, but 6 teams are within 3 points behind me.

Guess it's my players then ... again bad result vs Fiorentina home 1-1 (they were 18th). This tactic works better than the one I had in FM09 (remade it to see the difference). This one has a lot of ball possession. Mostly it goes wrong when I'm 1 ahead in the second half, maybe because I never give shouts or anything?

Shouts don't work, the settings are "ticked" ie it's basically a classic tactic.

The things to look at then might be your half time teamtalk (if ahead, use the avoid complacency type teamtalks unless 3 up, in which case use a mixture of pleased and have faith, if drawing or losing, use a mixture of disappointed and have faith) and some of the team setting tweaks I mentioned, ie, if ahead in the 2nd half, lower width 1 notch, lower tempo a couple of notches and increase timewasting. Maybe bring some fresh legs on around 60-70 minutes? And avoid opposition instructions at all costs!

I watch my games in full so I can tell when these tweaks are needed, I appreciate if you're watching highlights it's a lot harder

Hope it gets better for you. How are you actually doing anyway? How many games have you won/drawn/lost?

Shouts don't work, the settings are "ticked" ie it's basically a classic tactic.

The things to look at then might be your half time teamtalk (if ahead, use the avoid complacency type teamtalks unless 3 up, in which case use a mixture of pleased and have faith, if drawing or losing, use a mixture of disappointed and have faith) and some of the team setting tweaks I mentioned, ie, if ahead in the 2nd half, lower width 1 notch, lower tempo a couple of notches and increase timewasting. Maybe bring some fresh legs on around 60-70 minutes? And avoid opposition instructions at all costs!

I watch my games in full so I can tell when these tweaks are needed, I appreciate if you're watching highlights it's a lot harder

Hope it gets better for you. How are you actually doing anyway? How many games have you won/drawn/lost?

Thanks for the reply, I won't be using the "warn against" anymore, I guess that caused 1 match end up completely ruined

Yes, i'm not watching them full, i probably miss some things but I like faster games. I mostly bring some fresh legs around 60-70 yeah,

But the mids still worry me, 6.9 is about the average they get. Using Filipe Melo and Marchisio for now (Sissoko is now recovering from his 3rd injury already this season).

I'm now 2nd, 12 games played, 8 won, 2 draws and 2 losses. But I only had AC Milan as 'big team' so far. In the Champion's league I'm at 7 points out of 4 games, and I've had the 2 biggest away games already so that should be a qualification hopefully.

Found out that we have a hard time against normal 4-4-2 formations. Drew 1-1 against Roma but we had 5 chances (and a disallowed goal), they had 21 ... Can't really find a reason, I'm not doing anything different.

Leto, since you're playing Juve, I thought I'd post these. Just played Juve in the champions league quarter finals. Two thrillers...

Not a good result at home...bad start, 25 yard screamer from Lucas to equalize, Kuyt nicked a goal on the stroke of half time. We played badly in the 2nd half, I think it was my teamtalk (encourage), and Del Piero scored from a free kick.

Then this:

Torres picked up a knock early on but still played a blinder. We started well, were the better team, but Chiellini scored a bullet header attacking the ball from deep on a corner. We carried on attacking, Poulsen fouled Torres for a pen, and then Torres put us ahead with a finish from a through ball.

Kuyt scored from a counter in the 2nd half and Juve went to overload, shot after shot. I had 2 or 3 great counters, should have finished the game off, but Dzeko in particular was poor in both legs (he seems to play nervously a lot, whatever team talks I use; I still need to figure his personality out, it says reserved but he doesn't respond to encouragement much either. Might just be first season syndrome). Amauri scored late on but by then I was in control and Juve still needed to score 2 more to win. Great game.

8 blocked shots, looks like you had a bit of luck there

I just won 1-0 against Inter who didn't lose for 11 games, so pretty happy Also got my revenge on Sevilla, after 1-3 loss there at the start I won 3-0, and was already certain of qualification for the quarter finals then, won the group with Bordeaux second, Sevilla 3rd and Rubin Kazan 4th. 13 points out of 18. Athletico Madrid is waiting in the next round, could have been worse !

But it's strange, against regular 4-4-2 my team is struggling, still have most possession but seems it's harder to reach attacking players, I think I need more attacking mentality on one of the central mids there. But I must say it' sprobably Diego who is a slow learner, he started as unconvincing on the right wing, I gave up on the left wing, he had to start from 0 there (but has a good left foot though). he needs more playing time there, he will get it as Camoranesi isn't performing as expected. Giovinco is doing great on the left wing !

Just wrapped up 2nd PL title by beating Fulham:

Looks like Mr Ngog likes winning games single handedly at Craven Cottage. This was the equivalent last season:

Now I have to decide whther to try and win the remaining games and beat the 100 point mark in the PL, or rest the main players and concentrate on the Champions League. These are my remaining fixtures:

What do you all think? 2 relatively tough home games, the 2 away games are very winnable. I almost certainly want to rest players for the Everton match since it sandwiches the Fiorentina matches. The other CL semi final is Sporting vs Real, so will probably face Real in the final if I get past Fiorentina. Real were in my group, lost 1-0 to them away, drew 1-1 at home, their attacking quartet gave me real problems and getting through Alonso, Diarra, a decent back 4 and Cassillas is not easy!

I did get my revenge on Lyon at least for knocking me out of last seasons Champions League (with the help of a very dodgy ref in my home leg, but I won't go into that).

What should I do gang?

This is my current squad:

As you can see, not much depth and Riera's got a broken leg, so he's out for a long time. Lots of youngsters but they've been performing manfully.

This is Ngog:

And Bruna:

Ayala is now being described as a wonderkid. This is a recent development, he wasn't described as a wonderkid until the last month or so.

And the wonderkid likes Derby because he spent most of last season on loan there. Takes all sorts.

The slight problem with my results (coming up soon) is that I'm Rangers and I am expected to win. However I've limited myself to Scottish players and have had little success in the CL. I did this merely to challenge myself as playing with Rangers is easy.

Anyway I've started with your tactic at the beginning of the 2014/15 season. So far my record is P11 W11 F37 A7. This includes a 4-1 win at Celtic Park. I have noticed that my shots on target ratio has increased which converts to more goals.

In the league cup I've won both so far (4-0 and 2-0).

The arena that it is best to judge me, other than Old Firm games, is the Champions League. So far so good. I've played 4 and won 4 scoring 14 goals and conceding just 2. This includes an 8-0 win in Romania against Timisoara.

Overall P17 W17 F57 A9.

I chose your tactic because of the formation. I have mostly played (my own) narrow formations simply because that's what brought me success in the league each year. However I prefer wide formations with wingers and it looks like I've finally found one. I will let you know how I get on (particularly in the CL).

My first season with Chelsea is coming to an end, i won the league and theres still 8 matches left. Drawn 2 and lost 1 throughout the whole season so far.

1 problem im having, and its really annoying me.

One of my strikers is usually NOT performing as he should. Ive tried Suarez the first half of a season, and he played very crappy. Didnt get any goals in, and ratings were awful.

Then i tried Guiseppe Rossi, played abit better but still not good enough. Drogba is banging the goals in "okay". Im playing Drogba as a target man.

Lampard and Drogba are the main goal scorers.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get my second striker to do better? Right now im considering putting that striker to CM(A) position, just like Lampard.

Grrrr

My first season with Chelsea is coming to an end, i won the league and theres still 8 matches left. Drawn 2 and lost 1 throughout the whole season so far.

1 problem im having, and its really annoying me.

One of my strikers is usually NOT performing as he should. Ive tried Suarez the first half of a season, and he played very crappy. Didnt get any goals in, and ratings were awful.

Then i tried Guiseppe Rossi, played abit better but still not good enough. Drogba is banging the goals in "okay". Im playing Drogba as a target man.

Lampard and Drogba are the main goal scorers.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get my second striker to do better? Right now im considering putting that striker to CM(A) position, just like Lampard.

Grrrr

Well the original tactic of this thread uses both strikers equally, and uses central mids also the same (defensive). If I play like that both my strikers do ok. But I remember your problem from FM09 where one of MC's played a 'Lampard' in your tactic and one of the strikes mostly underachieved. So it probably depends on the 'Lampard', which is very offensive minded as he scores a lot. That's my theory I like this tactic because it distributes balls over the field equally, but I also feel the need of some changes on the midfield as I'm failing against normal 4-4-2 who are less good than me, if they are equal (like AS Roma, I can get butchered).

The arena that it is best to judge me, other than Old Firm games, is the Champions League. So far so good. I've played 4 and won 4 scoring 14 goals and conceding just 2. This includes an 8-0 win in Romania against Timisoara.

Overall P17 W17 F57 A9.

I chose your tactic because of the formation. I have mostly played (my own) narrow formations simply because that's what brought me success in the league each year. However I prefer wide formations with wingers and it looks like I've finally found one. I will let you know how I get on (particularly in the CL).

Glad it's going well for you Coop.

That's a lot of goals you're scoring. The one thing I think could be improved in this tactic is the margin of victory. You can see from the fixtures and results I've posted that I tend to win most games by 1-2 goals. Now that's partly because I often switch down tempo and increase timewasting once I'm comfortable in the 2nd half to preserve my players, because the depth of my squad isn't great. With more quality players I could continue to be more attacking and not worry about wearing out players.

But I would be interested in suggestions to improve the margins of victory, and it looks like you're doing well at it. Do you have any thoughts on this? Are you doing something that I'm not to keep cranking the goals? The biggest victory I've had is a 7-0 against Hull in the first season; I've had 2 6-0s as well. But I'd like to win more games 3-0 or 4-0 rather than 2-0 or 2-1.

My first season with Chelsea is coming to an end, i won the league and theres still 8 matches left. Drawn 2 and lost 1 throughout the whole season so far.

1 problem im having, and its really annoying me.

One of my strikers is usually NOT performing as he should. Ive tried Suarez the first half of a season, and he played very crappy. Didnt get any goals in, and ratings were awful.

Then i tried Guiseppe Rossi, played abit better but still not good enough. Drogba is banging the goals in "okay". Im playing Drogba as a target man.

Lampard and Drogba are the main goal scorers.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get my second striker to do better? Right now im considering putting that striker to CM(A) position, just like Lampard.

Grrrr

Mate, can you upload what settings you've got Lampard on? I think I'd like to see how much more you're getting out of having one CM as an attacking player.

With regard to having one striker not performing, having Drogba as a target man could be part of the problem. If you set a player as target man, your other players will look to pass a greater percentage of the time to that player, it will be their automatic "outball" if you like. This means your other striker won't get as much of the ball. Part of what I've tried to achieve, my having mixed passing, no playmaker or target man, and all 4 attacking players on "roam from position", is to vary the attacking play, so that the players try to pass to the person in the best position rather than try to "force" a certain pattern of play. This also means the opposition can't predict what you will do so much.

I'd suggest you take Drogba off target man. By all means adjust his settings manually if you want him to do certain things, but by avoiding the "target man" label, you won't get the skewed passing that's affecting your other striker.

Also, as Leto says, it could be that Lampard is taking up some of the space the second striker wants to operate in.

Great results though! Wrapping up the PL after 30 games is very impressive!

I like this tactic because it distributes balls over the field equally, but I also feel the need of some changes on the midfield as I'm failing against normal 4-4-2 who are less good than me, if they are equal (like AS Roma, I can get butchered).

You know that's really odd, because in my save, I'm destroying all the 4-4-2s and my assistant reckons I struggle against 4-5-1 (I don't struggle that much but I think I know what he means). Maybe it's to do with players? I play Mascherano and Lucas there most of the time, with my standard "defensive" setting on both of them. They're very good at breaking up play and because they're both strong defensive players with reasonable distribution, I don't get dominated even against technically superior midfield players. Aquilani on the other hand tends to struggle a bit more when he plays (so much so that his value has plummeted from £17.5m at the start of the game to £7m now. He's also injured most of the time :/). So maybe it is to do with the qualities of the CM players, and you need to adjust your CM settings to take into account the skillset of your players? What do you think?

How do you tell what number a slider's position relates to eg. how can I tell whether a defensive line slider is set at 12 or 16?

How do you tell what number a slider's position relates to eg. how can I tell whether a defensive line slider is set at 12 or 16?

By counting?!

Seriously, the left-most position on the tactics creator is 1 and the rightmost is 20. The middle notch is 10. So when I have my defensive line at 12, for example, you set it to the middle and then click it right twice. With my centre backs closing down at 4, you set it to the leftmost position and then click it to the right 3 times.

There's also a skin available which shows the slider "number" I think. Check out the tactics bible for the link: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=136632

Glad it's going well for you Coop.

That's a lot of goals you're scoring. The one thing I think could be improved in this tactic is the margin of victory. You can see from the fixtures and results I've posted that I tend to win most games by 1-2 goals. Now that's partly because I often switch down tempo and increase timewasting once I'm comfortable in the 2nd half to preserve my players, because the depth of my squad isn't great. With more quality players I could continue to be more attacking and not worry about wearing out players.

But I would be interested in suggestions to improve the margins of victory, and it looks like you're doing well at it. Do you have any thoughts on this? Are you doing something that I'm not to keep cranking the goals? The biggest victory I've had is a 7-0 against Hull in the first season; I've had 2 6-0s as well. But I'd like to win more games 3-0 or 4-0 rather than 2-0 or 2-1.

Other than minor tweaks such as showing a one footed striker on to his weaker foot I have not changed your tactic at all at the beginning of games. Even during games the tactic has worked so well that changes have been infrequent.

Now I know it's only the SPL I'm in but I've won all 16 games so far including 4-1 and 4-2 victories over Celtic. Amazingly I still have a 100% record (in all competitions) at the end of the CL group stage.

The CL campaign has been pretty fantastic. I may not have been playing any of the 'big boys' of Europe but to take 18 points when you only have Scots in the team, no world class players, and basically only one really good player, is sensational. I have scored 18 and conceded just 3 (a long range drive, a corner, and an injury time consolation goal after I'd went down to ten men through having no subs left). The teams I've beaten home and away are Bordeaux, Pana, and Timisoara.

It will be interesting to see how I get on against the elite teams in the knockout rounds.

I'll report back at the end of the season.

Allright my season is finish - finally

I won the double, but got beaten by Barcelona in the semifinal in the Champions League. They also won the final

Tweaked it abit as you adviced and removed the targetman option. Putted the wingers and 2 strikers on roaming, and strikers both got Advanced forwards. This is how it pretty much ended :

100 points in the league :

Here is the requested Lampard screenshot (Advanced playmaker setting) :

General player stats and goals :

Season 2 incoming !!

what settings for lampard

ive put advanced pm attack

is this right?

I used him as Central Midfield (support) and Advanced PM (support)

simsejensen: did you finally get your 2nd striker performing then? I see that Anelka was your top scorer in the end, and both he and Drogba got over 30 goals each.

Lampard's stats are very interesting, 31 goals but only 10 assists, looks like Frank has been shooting on sight again!

So let me get this straight: the tweak you've made to Lampard is to play his as advanced playmaker, support? So that means you've just "unticked" the boxes so he plays as a default advanced playmaker (s) in the CM position?

I used him both as central midfield (support) and advanced pm (support).

He's 32 years old now, time for Gourcuff to step up in this season, allthough he doesnt have the pref moves like lampard has - gonna be interesting.

Ok cup match, Home vs Napoli (who is 17th in league), I make 1-0 after 2 mins, it's 1-4 (!!!) after 17 minutes. I can't understand you guys barely get chances against, I'm gettign slaughtered by **** teams. Chielline is unhappy because I refused an offer from Real Madrid, now he has a 3.8 at half time, if he is so easy to **** off I actually should sell him no?

Guess how they play, yes simple 4-4-2. I'm starting to wonder if I'm really stupid because I can only see my defenders getting passed so easily by passes through the centre.

I mean it's not like Sissoko, Marchisio and Filipe Melo are crap players, looks like this only works with overkill teams like Chelsea or something?

Ok cup match, Home vs Napoli (who is 17th in league), I make 1-0 after 2 mins, it's 1-4 (!!!) after 17 minutes. I can't understand you guys barely get chances against, I'm gettign slaughtered by **** teams. Chielline is unhappy because I refused an offer from Real Madrid, now he has a 3.8 at half time, if he is so easy to **** off I actually should sell him no?

Guess how they play, yes simple 4-4-2. I'm starting to wonder if I'm really stupid because I can only see my defenders getting passed so easily by passes through the centre.

I mean it's not like Sissoko, Marchisio and Filipe Melo are crap players, looks like this only works with overkill teams like Chelsea or something?

This game is more than plug and play tactic.

Ingame shouts, morale, form, odds etc

This game is more than plug and play tactic.

Ingame shouts, morale, form, odds etc

The Napoli game was just an extremely bad day of my defenders, 4 games after I all won with scoring at least 3 goals, winning by at least 2. So keeping at the tac for now Leading Serie A by 4 points ahead of Milan atm.

I have just started using this Tactic in spain with Sevilla. Thank god for it because i've been struggling in this game since it came out. And this is the first time a tactic from someone else has worked.

In spain i am usually up against teams playing 4231 with the wingers out wide. Away from home this tactic is good, pull the defence back a couple of notches and hit them on the counter.

My main issue is at home against these teams, the main difference i think is my pitch is on the short side 100m, where as most teams have pitches at 105m-ish. I am winning ok, 2-1 1-0 type games, but i do feel susceptible to draws because i am not killing games off. Could it be worth changing the passing options on players to global and change it to short in the team instructions? or change one of the midfielders roles?

Anyway great tactic, i feel guilty for using someone elses but its saved me from throwing my laptop through the window. Currently top of the league played 8, drawn 1 lost 0. And even more satisfying above my mates super barca team.

My main issue is at home against these teams, the main difference i think is my pitch is on the short side 100m, where as most teams have pitches at 105m-ish. I am winning ok, 2-1 1-0 type games, but i do feel susceptible to draws because i am not killing games off. Could it be worth changing the passing options on players to global and change it to short in the team instructions? or change one of the midfielders roles?

Glad it's working for you.

Next season it's probably worth increasing your pitch size to the maximum available. Since you're going to be favourite in most games at home you want as much space as possible to stretch teams.

For passing options, I suggest keeping your front 4 on passing "3" - combined with high creative freedom and quick tempo, this basically stimulates fast one-touch passing which leads to chances. You can switch the FB and CM passing to short if you want (the CBs are already on short, GK doesn't matter too much) - what this will mean though is that the ball spends a lot more time in midfield, as your FBs and CMs will pass a lot more to each other - this can be good for keeping possession and drawing teams out, the downside is that the ball spends less time with your wingers and strikers.

simsejensen (above) has had a lot of success in changing one of the CMs to an attacking player, so this could work and give you more cutting edge at home.

Experiment with the changes and let us know how it goes - I'm looking to improve this tactic to be even more solid in defence and to win by greater margins, so the more feedback the better.

I'll more than likely have a go with the attacking CM first. You have both midfielders on Long Shots - Rarely. In the game I am seeing situations where they are outside the box and have a clear-ish site on goal, so i think i might tweek that up. Especially when i have Van Der Vaart, Veloso on the pitch at times.

I'll more than likely have a go with the attacking CM first. You have both midfielders on Long Shots - Rarely. In the game I am seeing situations where they are outside the box and have a clear-ish site on goal, so i think i might tweek that up. Especially when i have Van Der Vaart, Veloso on the pitch at times.

Yeah, well I have...erm...Lucas and Mascherano :o. Aquilani (when he plays) has the ppm anyway. That's why I've got them on rarely.

great opening post mi old. loved reading it it's well put together.

Just to update how the tactic is going for me.

At Sevilla it is working well, joint top having lost 3 drawn 1, about 12 games left in the season. I have improved the home form, i have to pull the Dline back because in spain the opposition seem to be quite offensive with 4231 with wide wingers. Sometimes I'll also either man mark the wingers, or pull a cm back in front of the two midfielders.

I've also got a save with Fulham, more of a mixed bag of results, but it think thats more down to the players.