Tactical Theorems and Frameworks '07

[Beevster]

I was just using the home tactic(because i am favourates in every match), really the creative freedom thing is personal choice, who do ya want to do the moves in your team, also yeh i got it the wrong way round for dmc amc cf but if your dmc is a better passer creative player then your amc why not give him the freedom to make the killer balls.

Yeh i adjust the team mentality if i score and lower it if they score, the idea is im finding the team mentality balence for that match if i score then i raise then they score then i lower then if i score i raise and they score so i have to lower again i know that my teams max mentality would be 3 notches higher then the starting mentality. You could find this out in another way if your good enough by watching the match and using your judgement on whos winning the match before they or you even score but thats a lot harder, if you score then your team must be playing well so raise the mentaliy if they lose a goal your not playing as good so lower it untill you get the balence, my idea is why just about get a 1-0 win, when the only thing you need to do is raise the team mentality higher to get more out of your team to get more goals, you will soon find that if you get a goal and raise the mentality more goals will follow players raitings go through the roof moral increases and it becomes easyer, but then you have to have a plan for when they score first thats when it becomes a harder game to play or it is for me, so im switching too the awayatt tactic changing a few things so i can counter attack better with playing a lower mentality they other teams expecting my attacking style.

As for the target man if one has fwd runs rarely and the other has fwd runs mixed who do you think might be higher up the field in more occasions then the other it dosnt mean just because there both on the same player mentality that they are both going to stand in the same line on the pitch, it just means they will attack with the same mentality, giving a dmc an amc split fwd runs works just the same, you can have 2 mcs on the same player mentality but have one go forward and the other holding his position via mirroring the fwd runs.

[Top Tiger]

I am currently in League 2 and am trying to introduce a passing game. I know this may seem failry blinkered in context with FM 07 but I would love to be able to play a passing game all the way up the leagues.

I just wanted you opinions on what I am trying to do (having only read the basics of this thread), and is it impossible to implement?

[Saumyajit]

When you play a 5 by 5 split mentality, should you have closing down mirroring the mentality? And I keep the defensive line midway between the defending and attacking mentality. I am doing ok but not great with this. Please let me know if I need to change something

[crazy gra]

Originally posted by Top Tiger:

I am currently in League 2 and am trying to introduce a passing game. I know this may seem failry blinkered in context with FM 07 but I would love to be able to play a passing game all the way up the leagues.

I just wanted you opinions on what I am trying to do (having only read the basics of this thread), and is it impossible to implement?

the main thing, obviously, is passing. make sure it's around 5 for your midfielders and a bit lower for the strikers. you can give defenders short passing if you really want to be keeping posession, but i have them on direct passing otherwise they're prone to losing the ball to strikers who close down, which often presents a good chance.

tempo is important too, have that at a similar value for what you have for the midfielders. if you increase the tempo, then i always push the passing up to the same value.

a passing, possession game is good for creating good chances as it's more likely to get the ball into better areas from which to have shooting opportunities from. sometimes, though, this may not result in a lot of chances. pushing tempo and passing up will create more chances, but they're likely to be harder to convert. this is one reason why you don't want to make a very slow and short passing game, and the other is that high pressing teams may close you down easily if you're not moving the ball quick enough.

[crazy gra]

Originally posted by Saumyajit:

When you play a 5 by 5 split mentality, should you have closing down mirroring the mentality? And I keep the defensive line midway between the defending and attacking mentality. I am doing ok but not great with this. Please let me know if I need to change something

supersaint's theory of mirroring CD for the defenders with the d-line is serving me very well so far. i always have the d-line at 8 so that you're not inviting the opposition into your own half too much whilst not leaving lots of room between the d-line and the keeper for long balls to be played in to.

[Saumyajit]

quote:

Originally posted by Saumyajit:

When you play a 5 by 5 split mentality, should you have closing down mirroring the mentality? And I keep the defensive line midway between the defending and attacking mentality. I am doing ok but not great with this. Please let me know if I need to change something

supersaint's theory of mirroring CD for the defenders with the d-line is serving me very well so far. i always have the d-line at 8 so that you're not inviting the opposition into your own half too much whilst not leaving lots of room between the d-line and the keeper for long balls to be played in to.

Thanks, will try that one out...also what closing down for the attacking 5 is ideal?

[crazy gra]

i don't use a 5x5 split, and i wouldn't advise it either.

however, CD for the attacking 5 should be at least 10 i reckon as you want them to make an effort to at least shadow the opposition even if they don't get the tackle in. you don't want it too high though, or else the attackers will be out of position for when you want to attack.

also, you may want to deepen the d-line to 6 when the opposition play a direct style and are playing with a quick ST. having it too high leaves space in behind the defence for the quick ST.

i'm having quite poor results against bolton at their place (this is as man utd). they play a quick and direct 4-1-4-1 and the direct ball over the defence feeds anelka well as he's very quick. heinze is one of my DCs and has good pace but vidic isn't lightning.

i've also pinned the poor results down to the fact that man utd are a main rival of bolton's, whereas bolton are only an 'other rival' of man utd's

like i said, d-line of 8 works well, but i think i may lower it for 'hoof' teams with a quick ST.

[Seagulls Forever]

I'd just like to thank wwfan, his tactic has turned my season round. I'd been working on the notion of a DL of around 8, low closing down for my defence and holding up the ball for my wingers, as discussed elsewhere, but with my present (frankly awful) Hereford side (who I'd promoted to league 1) I wasn't getting very far, they were out of their depth really. Finally though the results are turning round. Nice one

Bit of a contrast to the pre-patch tactics that had got me so much success where the key was a defence as outlined above.

[crazy gra]

Some more thoughts on width

whilst experimenting with some different things, i found that having a width of 15 worked well in away games. i made a counter attacking style tactic to play away at west ham with. i'm playing as man utd btw.

i usually find this to be a difficult game, although with this tactic i won 4-0. the same tactic helped me win 3-1 away at wigan and 5-0 away at cska moscow. ok, those teams aren't brilliant, but i dominated in all of them and the width of 15 certainly seemed to help my counter attacking approach.

contrary to my thought's further up this page, i didn't also have my tempo and passing at 15, although i increased them to 9 from my usual setting of 6 to assist the counter attack.

i adopted a counter attacking style because the manager's profiles all had their mentality as adventurous. this gave me the idea to sit back a little more in the west ham game and be happy to let them attack a little as i should be more solid in defence and then to use the counter attack as they'd push forward more than normal.

when i played bolton who, according to allardyce's profile, wouldn't attack me all that much and would sit back a little more because of a very cautious mentality, i changed a few things from how i've been playing with my home tactic but changed width to 15. i've always had problems against bolton, so i tried a system that would hopefully keep the ball a bit more to present me with good opportunities.

first time i used it, i won 3-0. i've hardly ever beaten them in previous games and i'd never kept a clean sheet before that either. used it again to check i didn't get lucky and was 2-0 up at half time but i quit that as they had 2 players sent off just before half time, so the 2nd half wouldn't be fair. 3rd time, i won 2-0 and all 3 games were quite similar. the width probably helped going forward, but the better defensive record came from lowering the d-line to 6 from 8 IMO. changed it to 6 because they often played long balls over the top for anelka to run onto.

another thing that helped me was that i focused passing down the flanks. i've always had it on mixed as i don't want to limit options too much, but they played a 4-1-4-1 so passing down the wings meant my 2 MCs don't get surrounded too much.

hope that helps

question on your tactics, wwfan: did you use the passing-tempo-width theory that i suggested a while ago for your christmas tactics, or was it just by coincidence?

[Beevster]

ahh haa crazy gra, i think your right about setting tempo the same as your midfielders, here was i thinking it was the team mentality changes i was making giving me overall better play, but really it was the fact i raised the tempo by 4 notches, now you have said that tempo should be the same as your midfeilders i went back to check on the tactic, low and behold the passing was mixed and my tempo was normal, which was pritty close, so i tryed just useing same tempo as passing for midfield without team mentality changes, and boom good results with no side effects from going with lower team mentality, crazy gra!

So i having thought about why this is, the only conclusion i can think for this is that midfielders normaly "dictate tempo" hello smell the coffie so it makes sence now to set tempo up with midfielders passing. Also good mids who dictate-tempo are good playmakers hence they should pass at there style so you set up tempo so they are dictating play, man i never would of thought of that alone, but thanks good find!.

[crazy gra]

i think your right about setting tempo the same as your midfielders

my midfielder's what? i assume you mean passing, but you could also mean mentality.

either way, i don't think i actually said one of those things anyway. going by my assumption of what you meant, which is that i have my midfielder's passing the same as the tempo, it will only be a coincidence if they're the same.

for home games, i have team passing and tempo at 6. my MCd has passing of 8 and my MCa has passing of 6.

for most away games, i have team passing and tempo at 9. my MCd has passing of 9 and my MCa has passing of 8.

so sometimes i do have one of my MCs on the same passing level as the tempo, but i've not done that on purpose. the fact that i have team passing and tempo on the same level will mean that the two MCs' passing will be around the same level. however, if i had the tempo and passing very high - about 15 for example - (which i'd only use if i was playing away as a poor team perhaps) then the passing of the MCd would be about 10 or 11 and the MCa would be at about 9 or 10.

[Beevster]

this is wha tyou said.

tempo is important too, have that at a similar value for what you have for the midfielders. if you increase the tempo, then i always push the passing up to the same value.

[crazy gra]

ah, yes i did, but i didn't say it was exactly the same. having tempo at a similar level to midfielder's passing is how i'd go if i was using a slow tempo, but even for a faster tempo i wouldn't have midfielders on direct passing.

[Seagulls Forever]

Think I spoke too soon about wwfan's tactic. It gradually lost effectiveness culminating in relegation, but aside from that I suddenly found my players were getting sent off constantly. 12 sendings off in the league one season and so far in league two quite a few too, in fact I've had 5 in the last 3 games and quite a few penalties against me, so it seems the tactic attracts the wrath of the ref.

[crazy gra]

all i can suggest to help reduce penalties against you is put your players on softer tackling. at the moment i have medium for DCs and hard for the full backs.

there's 2 theories IMO about what the slider indicates:

1. the % chance of success of the tackle. i.e. hard tackling will mean the player will tackle even if there's only about 25% chance of him getting a touch, then the values go up to 50% and 75% for medium and rare tackling respectively.

2. the positioning on the pitch i.e. hard tackling will tackle anywhere, medium tackling will tackle only in the player's own half and rare tackling will only tackle in and around the player's own box.

my assumption is that the first one is what the slider is for, although i think others have stated that they've seen it's no.2 as well.

[Seagulls Forever]

All on medium on the home tactic, and with tactics with all on hard I've had fewer bookings and sendings off. To be honest I've gone back to my own tactic (I don't normally download tactics anyway it's not really me) and I'm seeing a good deal of improvement in the bookings and penalties.

[Seagulls Forever]

Oh and btw the sendings off seem not to be related to high defensive line, it's not last minute lunges to stop a striker, more random acts of violence in the middle of the park when in no real danger. And yes I'm on the latest version of the patch.

[crazy gra]

maybe your players you have are more aggressive and you've taken them out of the team for the moment? although i doubt it's that.

maybe you've disciplined them and they've reacted well, but it's coincided with changing tactics back.

[Seagulls Forever]

1. Same players.

2. I was fining the buggers 2 weeks for each sending off and it was making no difference, that policy has continued all through my game (I'm consistent like that) so I don't think that would be it either.

[wwfan]

Originally posted by Seagulls Forever:

Oh and btw the sendings off seem not to be related to high defensive line, it's not last minute lunges to stop a striker, more random acts of violence in the middle of the park when in no real danger. And yes I'm on the latest version of the patch.

I have been seeing that too in my second full season implementing these tactics. I had my top three keepers out injured and was forced to play a greyed out player for 80 minutes, then a kid in the next match, before drafting in an out of practice veteran for cover. Two of my first three choice strikers were out at the same time so I only had one striker playing who was up to divisional level (I have a very small squad). My team was still performing, but were letting in easily savable shots. My two MCds were sent off for violent conduct in consecutive matches, both receiving three match bans in the process, weakening my team even further. Until the opening match of this sequence I had been conceding 0.7 goals a game, which I was very happy with considering the lack of quality in my defensive line (I have one quality DC, but all my other defenders are only just good enough for L1) and was lying third. I then lost 4-1, 6-3 (the two games with the sending offs) and drew 3-3 twice after leading one 3-0 (two goals in the 90th minute!) and the other 3-1, before my cover keeper got himself into some degree of match sharpness. I dropped to 11th. However, I bought a new FC and went on a five match unbeaten run to get back to 5th (3-2, 2-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-1) with both 1-0 wins coming against top 5 teams. I am predicted to finish 24th so I'm pretty happy.

I regarded the sending offs as frustration (both were off the ball kicks) as a team playing well was being let down by apalling goalkeeping. Both times it was my captain who got sent off and both times in roughly the same minute (70th). However, in my previous season in which I was dominant I only had one sending off all year. I think my tactic set is quite likely to reduce in sendings off due to a variety of players being on hard tackling if your team is struggling due to one or two inept performers. In all the above matches I played well enough to win but conceded way more goals than I or my team was used to. Since kicking back into form I have reverted to a yellow card light situation with the opposition more likely to receive yellow or red cards. It would be interesting to know if stat-wise you look like you should be winning but are being let down by individual errors/performances in the matches in which players are being sent off. If this is the case then it is a player quality issue rather than a tactical glitch. When I was playing well but couldn't stop any shot on target or hit a barn door from open play (all my goals in the 6-3 and 4-1 came from set pieces with my DCs scoring 3 of the 4) I saw a definite decrease in discipline. I'd be interested in hearing your views.

[wwfan]

Originally posted by wwfan:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Seagulls Forever:

Oh and btw the sendings off seem not to be related to high defensive line, it's not last minute lunges to stop a striker, more random acts of violence in the middle of the park when in no real danger. And yes I'm on the latest version of the patch.

I have been seeing that too in my second full season implementing these tactics. I had my top three keepers out injured and was forced to play a greyed out player for 80 minutes, then a kid in the next match, before drafting in an out of practice veteran for cover. Two of my first three choice strikers were out at the same time so I only had one striker playing who was up to divisional level (I have a very small squad). My team was still performing, but were letting in easily savable shots. My two MCds were sent off for violent conduct in consecutive matches, both receiving three match bans in the process, weakening my team even further. Until the opening match of this sequence I had been conceding 0.7 goals a game, which I was very happy with considering the lack of quality in my defensive line (I have one quality DC, but all my other defenders are only just good enough for L1) and was lying third. I then lost 4-1, 6-3 (the two games with the sending offs) and drew 3-3 twice after leading one 3-0 (two goals in the 90th minute!) and the other 3-1, before my cover keeper got himself into some degree of match sharpness. I dropped to 11th. However, I bought a new FC and went on a five match unbeaten run to get back to 5th (3-2, 2-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-1) with both 1-0 wins coming against top 5 teams. I am predicted to finish 24th so I'm pretty happy.

I regarded the sending offs as frustration (both were off the ball kicks) as a team playing well was being let down by apalling goalkeeping. Both times it was my captain who got sent off and both times in roughly the same minute (70th). However, in my previous season in which I was dominant I only had one sending off all year. I think my tactic set is quite likely to result in sendings off due to a variety of players being on hard tackling if your team is struggling due to one or two inept performers. In all the above matches I played well enough to win but conceded way more goals than I or my team was used to. Since kicking back into form I have reverted to a yellow card light situation with the opposition more likely to receive yellow or red cards. It would be interesting to know if stat-wise you look like you should be winning but are being let down by individual errors/performances in the matches in which players are being sent off. If this is the case then it is a player quality issue rather than a tactical glitch. When I was playing well but couldn't stop any shot on target or hit a barn door from open play (all my goals in the 6-3 and 4-1 came from set pieces with my DCs scoring 3 of the 4) I saw a definite decrease in discipline. I'd be interested in hearing your views. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Asmodeus]

My hunch is that the violence only really occurs when morale's low, just to compund poor form.

[crazy gra]

woo, wwfan's back. downloaded your tactics just to have a look at how you've perceived the game and i was really suprised to see how you've done your tactics, mainly the low amounts of mentality and CF in some of your tactics.

i'm not saying they won't work as obviously they have done so for you. my tactics aren't too dissimilar to the ones from FM06 i'd say, so maybe that's why there is quite a contrast between yours and mine meaning that i was suprised when looking at yours.

[garyh66]

After post a few months ago in this thread and picking wwfan brain about closedown im posting a tactic iv had great success with up till season 2013/14 with leeds.

Iv started a new game with atletico with no signing just 1 young lad from 1 on my feeder clubs just to try the tactic out to see how it would go from from a new game.

In my leeds game i had some great players so i think any tactic i tryed maybe would have worked

any way im happy inuf to post the tactic up and say it will work for maybe 70% of peeps

http://www.savefile.com/files/402996

3 tactics in all plus screenshots

I think the full credit for the tactic should go to wwfan & supersaint wwfan for mentalityf 1 spot on m8 if you wonna play an attacking tactic start with keepers ment:11-12 defencive keepers ment:0-1 theres no in beteen in 07 for me well not a tactic that will last anyway and supersaint for mirroring DL with CD spot on again m8.

[Seagulls Forever]

Originally posted by wwfan:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Seagulls Forever:

Oh and btw the sendings off seem not to be related to high defensive line, it's not last minute lunges to stop a striker, more random acts of violence in the middle of the park when in no real danger. And yes I'm on the latest version of the patch.

I have been seeing that too in my second full season implementing these tactics. I had my top three keepers out injured and was forced to play a greyed out player for 80 minutes, then a kid in the next match, before drafting in an out of practice veteran for cover. Two of my first three choice strikers were out at the same time so I only had one striker playing who was up to divisional level (I have a very small squad). My team was still performing, but were letting in easily savable shots. My two MCds were sent off for violent conduct in consecutive matches, both receiving three match bans in the process, weakening my team even further. Until the opening match of this sequence I had been conceding 0.7 goals a game, which I was very happy with considering the lack of quality in my defensive line (I have one quality DC, but all my other defenders are only just good enough for L1) and was lying third. I then lost 4-1, 6-3 (the two games with the sending offs) and drew 3-3 twice after leading one 3-0 (two goals in the 90th minute!) and the other 3-1, before my cover keeper got himself into some degree of match sharpness. I dropped to 11th. However, I bought a new FC and went on a five match unbeaten run to get back to 5th (3-2, 2-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-1) with both 1-0 wins coming against top 5 teams. I am predicted to finish 24th so I'm pretty happy.

I regarded the sending offs as frustration (both were off the ball kicks) as a team playing well was being let down by apalling goalkeeping. Both times it was my captain who got sent off and both times in roughly the same minute (70th). However, in my previous season in which I was dominant I only had one sending off all year. I think my tactic set is quite likely to reduce in sendings off due to a variety of players being on hard tackling if your team is struggling due to one or two inept performers. In all the above matches I played well enough to win but conceded way more goals than I or my team was used to. Since kicking back into form I have reverted to a yellow card light situation with the opposition more likely to receive yellow or red cards. It would be interesting to know if stat-wise you look like you should be winning but are being let down by individual errors/performances in the matches in which players are being sent off. If this is the case then it is a player quality issue rather than a tactical glitch. When I was playing well but couldn't stop any shot on target or hit a barn door from open play (all my goals in the 6-3 and 4-1 came from set pieces with my DCs scoring 3 of the 4) I saw a definite decrease in discipline. I'd be interested in hearing your views. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That tallies fairly well with my experiences in that for a while we were out-performing the other teams and losing due to stupid errors. Too many goals conceded yada yada. However, morale collapsed and in the end we were getting ripped to shreds by all and sundry.

[wwfan]

Originally posted by crazy gra:

woo, wwfan's back. downloaded your tactics just to have a look at how you've perceived the game and i was really suprised to see how you've done your tactics, mainly the low amounts of mentality and CF in some of your tactics.

i'm not saying they won't work as obviously they have done so for you. my tactics aren't too dissimilar to the ones from FM06 i'd say, so maybe that's why there is quite a contrast between yours and mine meaning that i was suprised when looking at yours.

It's definitely a bit of a sea-change. I can get old style tactics working with DMCs but for the life of me can't design a decent 4-4-2 with RoT settings. Creativity may well go up when I play in higher divisions.

[crazy gra]

well i never played with an RoT system in FM06 much. after i started applying it to my games, i ended up with the defendensive 5 more defensive and the attacking 5 a little more attacking.

i've taken that same approach into FM07 and have made some tactics that i'm delighted with. got my version II of my tactics out, which also continues to impress for most other users too. as for CF though, the only players i have it high for are the wingers, the MCa is on about 13 and the STs are on 10/11. i found that reducing CF on the STs helped a lot, especially in one on one situations.

if you could have a quick look at my tactics to see what you think about it, it'd be much appreciated, thanks.

oh, and i've been playing without a target man lately with very good results. i've mostly had the supply as mixed (except when playing as wycombe, when i used to head), but not using a target man at all has been giving me some very encouraging results:

1. team gets better possession as they're not tempted to be playing the long ball up to the TM as much.

2. team plays better football because of trying to pass the ball around more.

3. other players, mainly the quick ST or the wingers, are picked out with balls to run onto more often.

using a target man usually gives lots of flick ons to the quick ST, but playing without a TM means that players can now pick out other options such as balls down the channels instead of hoofing it every time. I'm not sure as of yet if it creates more and/or better chances, but after my first five games using it i've only conceded one goal. My tactics seem to usually give me good defensive solidity, but i think a 1 goal in 5 games record has been helped by not losing possession as much.

[kevtrev]

crazy - a question

why narrow at home and wide away?

[crazy gra]

where did you see me talking about width? whenever i've mentioned it i've usually said why. erm, let me see where i talked about my theory....

these were my inital thoughts:

i also noticed in that post you said that when you play a short passing game, you have a wider width. i thought about this a while a go and thought about giving width a bit of a test.

my prior thinking was that to play a short passing (and hence a slow tempo), you would benefit from a narrower width so that players are closer together for making passes. therefore, the opposite applies when playing a direct (and hence a quick tempo) in that it'd be better to be wider so that players are more spaced out to compliment the direct passing.

i think you had already said somewhere that you noticed that width doesn't affect the width of the defence. i noticed basically the same thing, that width only takes effect when you are in possession.

i tested width in different situations. i played a short passing with a slow tempo in some games and a direct, quick tempo in some other games. during these games, i played one half with a width of 5 and the other half with a width of 15. for either a short + slow or a direct + quick game there wasn't much difference in the number of goals scored or conceded, i noticed quite a contrast in the amount of shots and shots on target.

for short + slow halves, a narrow width produced more shots and SOTs than playing a wide system. in direct + quick halves, a wider system gave me greater shots and SOTs than a narrow width. i don't have any figures to back all this up, but i was just doing some simple observations. of what i can remember, i seemed to only get 3 or 4 shots in some of the halves where i played either a short/slow/wide or a direct/quick/narrow system, whereas when i played a short/slow/narrow or a direct/quick/wide system i sometimes managed about 10 shots in the halves i played with them.

in conclusion, i now play a width which is the same setting as my team passing and tempo, although it may be beneficial to play not so wide with direct team passing and quick tempo as the midfielders and forwards all have individual passing of under 10.

and here is what made me change it for away games:

Some more thoughts on width

whilst experimenting with some different things, i found that having a width of 15 worked well in away games. i made a counter attacking style tactic to play away at west ham with. i'm playing as man utd btw.

i usually find this to be a difficult game, although with this tactic i won 4-0. the same tactic helped me win 3-1 away at wigan and 5-0 away at cska moscow. ok, those teams aren't brilliant, but i dominated in all of them and the width of 15 certainly seemed to help my counter attacking approach.

contrary to my thought's further up this page, i didn't also have my tempo and passing at 15, although i increased them to 9 from my usual setting of 6 to assist the counter attack.

i adopted a counter attacking style because the manager's profiles all had their mentality as adventurous. this gave me the idea to sit back a little more in the west ham game and be happy to let them attack a little as i should be more solid in defence and then to use the counter attack as they'd push forward more than normal.

when i played bolton who, according to allardyce's profile, wouldn't attack me all that much and would sit back a little more because of a very cautious mentality, i changed a few things from how i've been playing with my home tactic but changed width to 15. i've always had problems against bolton, so i tried a system that would hopefully keep the ball a bit more to present me with good opportunities.

first time i used it, i won 3-0. i've hardly ever beaten them in previous games and i'd never kept a clean sheet before that either. used it again to check i didn't get lucky and was 2-0 up at half time but i quit that as they had 2 players sent off just before half time, so the 2nd half wouldn't be fair. 3rd time, i won 2-0 and all 3 games were quite similar. the width probably helped going forward, but the better defensive record came from lowering the d-line to 6 from 8 IMO. changed it to 6 because they often played long balls over the top for anelka to run onto.

another thing that helped me was that i focused passing down the flanks. i've always had it on mixed as i don't want to limit options too much, but they played a 4-1-4-1 so passing down the wings meant my 2 MCs don't get surrounded too much.

so at home i still have width at 6, which is the same as my team passing and tempo, but in away games having it at 15 has worked really well for me.

as for why it works better having it at 15 (i.e. not the same as the team passing and tempo) in away games, i really don't know. maybe wwfan or anyone else can throw some ideas at why this works well?

a couple of reasons could be that it helps the counter attack, because when you're breaking away the counter attack may make you play a little quicker. also playing wide means that it stretches the opposition if they're low on numbers at the back.

[kevtrev]

thanks for digging that out for me. the home setting makes lots of sense to me.

i'm still not sure why and critically when to play wide away. is it only when counter-attacking? or when playing quick and direct? when focusing down the flanks? does it work for the 4222away because the defenders who start quick breaks play direct passes, complementing the wide/quick/direct theory?

too many questions, i know. the problem for me are all the parameters, and trying to judge one against the other. and anyway, what kind of success should one be able to achieve? i know cleon won the epl with su, but is it possible to do it without using a targetman and being ever alert to every tactical tweak and counter-tweak? all i want is for any good team of mine to find success playing decent football. but at the moment...

[Asmodeus]

quote:

i also noticed in that post you said that when you play a short passing game, you have a wider width. i thought about this a while a go and thought about giving width a bit of a test.

my prior thinking was that to play a short passing (and hence a slow tempo), you would benefit from a narrower width so that players are closer together for making passes. therefore, the opposite applies when playing a direct (and hence a quick tempo) in that it'd be better to be wider so that players are more spaced out to compliment the direct passing.

i think you had already said somewhere that you noticed that width doesn't affect the width of the defence. i noticed basically the same thing, that width only takes effect when you are in possession.

i tested width in different situations. i played a short passing with a slow tempo in some games and a direct, quick tempo in some other games. during these games, i played one half with a width of 5 and the other half with a width of 15. for either a short + slow or a direct + quick game there wasn't much difference in the number of goals scored or conceded, i noticed quite a contrast in the amount of shots and shots on target.

for short + slow halves, a narrow width produced more shots and SOTs than playing a wide system. in direct + quick halves, a wider system gave me greater shots and SOTs than a narrow width. i don't have any figures to back all this up, but i was just doing some simple observations. of what i can remember, i seemed to only get 3 or 4 shots in some of the halves where i played either a short/slow/wide or a direct/quick/narrow system, whereas when i played a short/slow/narrow or a direct/quick/wide system i sometimes managed about 10 shots in the halves i played with them.

in conclusion, i now play a width which is the same setting as my team passing and tempo, although it may be beneficial to play not so wide with direct team passing and quick tempo as the midfielders and forwards all have individual passing of under 10.

Exactly how I've been setting up my teams recently- I find it works really well too- particularly direct/quick/wide/down both flanks.

[crazy gra]

well i only focus passing down the flanks if i'm playing against a team who are playing 3 centre midfielders (including AMCs and DMs) because they'll then be able to win the ball off me easier if i didn't change it.

as for whether playing wide only works when playing quick, direct and with a counter attack then that's not true. as i said above, where i talked about the bolton game, i found that playing a more possession style of play i.e. passing and tempo kept at 6 and no counter attack ticked worked really well along with width of 15 as well as passing down the flanks.

[gunnerfan]

Whew! I finally got through all 17 pages. It's taken me several days, since I've been clipping and pasting as I go, putting all of this into a binder, trying to make some organized sense out of it all.

wwfan, Supersaint, Ans Gulrik, panomaniac and all the rest deserve our thanks in fleshing out the tactical realm of FM. One of the things that has always frustrated me in this game has been trying to put what I know from coaching IRL into effect in the game. I think we're getting there.

What still doesn't seem to be getting through, though, is the linkage between the abilities of the players you have (or want to acquire) with the system that you play. It's been mentioned a few times, but I think we need to do so in a much more integrated manner. As a coach, the most important thing I ever did was figure out what each of my players could do, and then put together a system that allowed them to do it.

So, when discussing what tactical successes you've had, it might be helpful to mention the qualities of the players who executed your system.

Thanks again to all who contribute.

[SCH]

Gunnerman, can you put that document online or something? I haven't got the time (and energy) to work me threw all these pages and take all the important things out of it..

Thanks.

[crazy gra]

So, when discussing what tactical successes you've had, it might be helpful to mention the qualities of the players who executed your system.

i find that i create and score more if i've got a big man upfront combined with a quick ST. then having the big man as target man with a mixed supply, he often flicks high balls onto the quick ST for a good chance.

mentioned a few posts ago, i think, that i've been trying to play without a TM, even if i've been playing a big man upfront. it plays better football and keeps more possession but i don't think it's creating and scoring as many.

[Justified]

Originally posted by wwfan:

It's definitely a bit of a sea-change. I can get old style tactics working with DMCs but for the life of me can't design a decent 4-4-2 with RoT settings. Creativity may well go up when I play in higher divisions.

I agree with you mate. When I first got Fm07 I decided to load up my old tactics and tweak. Took about five minutes to get them the way they used to be on FM06. So I decided to see if I could make a flatter version of a 4-4-2 but the closest I came I still had to use diagonal arrows, at least on the (d)MC. Now I'm back to using the 4-4-2 Diamond again as I feel this is still, and always has been through all CM/FM formation's, the best available.

[Guest]

One question, i notice that there is mention of playmakers but within the tactics the box is not ticked for hom matches. Is this on perpose or should the box be ticked? or should you just assign who you want to be play makers via the instructions and who do you assign it to (mca or mcd?

[crazy gra]

interesting point about playmakers. a mate and i were discussing their effectiveness and if it was better to use them home or away. not had a proper look at this yet and i can think of reasons why it may and may not be effective in each situation.

i've never really used one before, so would be useful to know what others thought about this.

[crazy gra]

Originally posted by Justified:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by wwfan:

It's definitely a bit of a sea-change. I can get old style tactics working with DMCs but for the life of me can't design a decent 4-4-2 with RoT settings. Creativity may well go up when I play in higher divisions.

I agree with you mate. When I first got Fm07 I decided to load up my old tactics and tweak. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

same here, wasn't too sure where to start with tactics for 07 so re-working the ones for 06 was a good place as any and i think my current ones are better than my 06 set already.

[Guest]

I notice that using the away tactic it is far too defensive. It encourages team to attack and they generally penetrate. Using the away attack is the better option.

At home i find that the home doesnt work as well as it should be. Ill persist with these tactics but at this stage i am having mixed results.

I am following the guidlines WWfan you posted above.

Could you clarify the playmaker situation as to whether you assign one as ther is mention of one or you keep it unticked?

[garyh66]

Originally posted by crazy gra:

interesting point about playmakers. a mate and i were discussing their effectiveness and if it was better to use them home or away. not had a proper look at this yet and i can think of reasons why it may and may not be effective in each situation.

i've never really used one before, so would be useful to know what others thought about this.

If you just pick a playmaker but don't tick it in team instruction your team will still go to him 70% of the time make him hold up the ball not mcd and you should see him boss games home and away everything he dose should be positive try it and see

[wwfan]

Originally posted by gunnerfan:

Whew! I finally got through all 17 pages. It's taken me several days, since I've been clipping and pasting as I go, putting all of this into a binder, trying to make some organized sense out of it all.

wwfan, Supersaint, Ans Gulrik, panomaniac and all the rest deserve our thanks in fleshing out the tactical realm of FM. One of the things that has always frustrated me in this game has been trying to put what I know from coaching IRL into effect in the game. I think we're getting there.

What still doesn't seem to be getting through, though, is the linkage between the abilities of the players you have (or want to acquire) with the system that you play. It's been mentioned a few times, but I think we need to do so in a much more integrated manner. As a coach, the most important thing I ever did was figure out what each of my players could do, and then put together a system that allowed them to do it.

So, when discussing what tactical successes you've had, it might be helpful to mention the qualities of the players who executed your system.

Thanks again to all who contribute.

My mainaim is to design frameworks that support all players. Once implemented specific tweaks can be made to allow a great dribbler more freedom to run with ball or a creative genius more scope to pick killer passes. The key for me is to design a solid base and then adjust for one or two specific players whose attributes suggest they are able to do something a bit different.

@ Justified: I have pretty much 'cracked' the flat 4-4-2 even if it took me a lot of time to do it. I'll be posting some revised theories supporting it by the beginning of next week.

@ Arsenal71: Same as above. I have 'cracked' when and where to employ each away system so both are truly effective. Supporting theories to come soon.

@ crazy gra: I have also stopped using a target man and reduced my goals against ratio to the bare minimum. I think you make a lot of sense in your analysis on how and why a target man works. My TMs are my third and fourth choice strikers now, but I won't hesitate to use them against poor heading DCs as the advantage they give me is enormous. However, against quality DCs I prefer to start with my smaller, more skillful strikers.

I like and am employing the match tempo, width and passing theory, although I only match it with the passing of my MCs. Again, my reasoning will be explained later.

[gunnerfan]

Originally posted by wwfan:

My main aim is to design frameworks that support all players. Once implemented specific tweaks can be made to allow a great dribbler more freedom to run with ball or a creative genius more scope to pick killer passes. The key for me is to design a solid base and then adjust for one or two specific players whose attributes suggest they are able to do something a bit different.

Maybe I'm thinking too specifically about my experiences with coaching kids, but I always believed that there really isn't a framework that works for all players. A team's shape - whatever it is - simply can't be maintained over the course of an entire match. The things that it has to do to prevent being scored upon tear the shape, and the things it has to do to score do the same. It is when a team is in that state of torn shape that bad things happen.

A team chooses its shape and system of play based on the skills of its players, and their ability to exploit the shape to their advantage. And sometimes, they choose it based on the threats caused by the skills of specific opposing players. Any coach that doesn't do that - and in my early days as a coach, I learned this the hard way - spends a lot of time "sympathizing" with his team.

The challenge of coaching is never how to exploit the talents of the creative genius or the lightning-fast killer striker. It's how to survive when you don't have them.

Write on!

[wwfan]

Originally posted by gunnerfan:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by wwfan:

My main aim is to design frameworks that support all players. Once implemented specific tweaks can be made to allow a great dribbler more freedom to run with ball or a creative genius more scope to pick killer passes. The key for me is to design a solid base and then adjust for one or two specific players whose attributes suggest they are able to do something a bit different.

Maybe I'm thinking too specifically about my experiences with coaching kids, but I always believed that there really isn't a framework that works for all players. A team's shape - whatever it is - simply can't be maintained over the course of an entire match. The things that it has to do to prevent being scored upon tear the shape, and the things it has to do to score do the same. It is when a team is in that state of torn shape that bad things happen.

A team chooses its shape and system of play based on the skills of its players, and their ability to exploit the shape to their advantage. And sometimes, they choose it based on the threats caused by the skills of specific opposing players. Any coach that doesn't do that - and in my early days as a coach, I learned this the hard way - spends a lot of time "sympathizing" with his team.

The challenge of coaching is never how to exploit the talents of the creative genius or the lightning-fast killer striker. It's how to survive when you don't have them.

Write on! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Which is why I always design tactics for LLM teams before moving on to higher level management. If you can get a base framework working with playrs with little or no passing/dribbling/tackling skills it should hold up at higher levels. I realise that it can't hold shape 100% of the time, but the away system is designed with prevention in mind and the home with exploition. You can't prevent individual errors but you can reduce the damage they inflict by ensuring enough players are in the best positions to stop most of them resulting in serious consequences such as sending offs or goals. Likewise, when the AI makes a mistake you should have enough players in advanced positions to give you the best possible chance to score. If you can do that you already have an advantage. Goals scored via quality play in the framework shape are just an added bonus.

[gunnerfan]

True enough.

[crazy gra]

Originally posted by wwfan:

@ crazy gra: I have also stopped using a target man and reduced my goals against ratio to the bare minimum. I think you make a lot of sense in your analysis on how and why a target man works. My TMs are my third and fourth choice strikers now, but I won't hesitate to use them against poor heading DCs as the advantage they give me is enormous. However, against quality DCs I prefer to start with my smaller, more skillful strikers.

I like and am employing the match tempo, width and passing theory, although I only match it with the passing of my MCs. Again, my reasoning will be explained later.

not using a TM does seem to help out more defensively, but it's the less chances and goals scored which puts me off not using one. my tactic already seems to do well defensively anyway, so maybe that's why a TM may be better for my system.

as for when you use a TM, if i was unsure then it would depend on the DCs jumping and strength, as i believe this is more important for aerial challenges than heading.

[Justified]

Originally posted by wwfan:

Which is why I always design tactics for LLM teams before moving on to higher level management.

Amen to that. That's what I always do and with Vauxhall Motors because their team is absolute cack every FM version

[gunnerfan]

Originally posted by crazy gra:

not using a TM does seem to help out more defensively, but it's the less chances and goals scored which puts me off not using one. my tactic already seems to do well defensively anyway, so maybe that's why a TM may be better for my system.

as for when you use a TM, if i was unsure then it would depend on the DCs jumping and strength, as i believe this is more important for aerial challenges than heading.

As I posted elsewhere, I'm coming to the conclusion that using a TM is best done when you have a player who makes an ideal TM but may be somewhat limited otherwise. My example is John Wolyniec of RBNY.

[filipe_fonseca]

I'm back to FM, finally, if anyone remembers me. Anyway, this is an excellent discussion, but I can't keep up with the last developments because wwfan's new set of tactics can't be downloaded right now. Apparently, the site has been "hacked".

So, if any kind soul could upload it somewhere else, I'd certainly appreciate it.

[Greg Beckett]

Mirror/Sliding Pairs

I've looked over your article, fantastic read. Do you think this would work though?

I 'mirror' my team mentality with my individual mentality. So say I'm attacking with a 15-notch mentality. I mirror this with my team instructions and 5x5 staggered, so that the combined total is 150 overall. Divide by the 10 outfield players and this equates to the team mentality if you choose to ignore player instructions. So you have the team playing the style you want, without overidding or conflicting team/player instructions on mentality overall.

This would also explain why extreme's don't work either. If you had your team mirror an 19 notch mentality, they'd sacrifice defence, vice versa for playing ultra defensive.

It basically gives you a sensible range of 5-15 in which to alter your tactics accoringdly. Obviously the nearer to zero the more balanced, but this helps give you a bias towards defending and attacking overall.

The rest of your tactics then also alter to whichever style you play, as usual.

So a 15 mentality would have a defensive line pushing up. The defenders mentalities would be at around 10/11. This may sound mental for a defender, but this is against teams you'd want to break down. If you set barrows it should stop them pushing too far up in the attack. It'll mean theortically that you win the ball high up, allowing you to continue attacks against the team sitting deep. It will allow the opposition chances, but you have to presume they're going to be playing direct and fast, in which case passes will be picked up by the defenders, and with closing down to high for the defenders they'll remember their defensive duties.

ST's would be at around 20/19. As it'd be against a team sitting deep, all they would think about is ways of exploting them. They would be a constant menace to the oppsoition defence, providing that the other individual instructions were set correctly.

Defesnively at 5 overall mentality, your DC's would be 1 or 0 and your ST's around 10 (though you can stretch this a bit more at the expense of the midfield's attacking - so it may leave gaps, but the more defensive the more direct you play - it'd work well with good target men). So you would play defensive style all around, ensuring you don't get caught out.

Overall, this would set a new boundary of 5 and 15 as extremes for overall mentality, assuming that overall mentality is the 'neutral' amongst your players. It benefits in the fact that if you want your team playing attacking or defending, it allows for more of an overall team mentality, rather than the RoT. It makes for a more compact team than the RoT with overall mentalities, yet this is something that, playing against fast strikers like Eto'o, Henry etc, will be exploited if them teams are playing defensive. So it's more of a concept for a mid-table team. It should work against re-ranking - there's no set mentality, you have to adjust it to countern you opponents style. This makes your team less predictable to opponents.

Like I mentioned earlier, it results in this:

4 < Overall Mentality < 16

Anything out of that bounds is not functionable, as the team would be too deep or too high to work effectively. Again like I said earlier, it'd explain why extreme formations can't be used constantly over 90 minutes.

I've used it for a year and a half now in game time - the first year was when I joined a poor Stuttgart team to say the least who were 18th, but achieved wins against Dortmund, Bayern, Bremen, HSV and Schalke and ended in 6th. So far this season I've played 6, scoring 18 and letting in two, but that's including my Euro Vase/EURO Cup results. In the league I've had a 4-0 against Karlshrue, 0-0 v Dortmund away and 2-1 v Bielfield at home. So it's still inconclusive as to whether it works against

re-ranking or not.

However it seems to be logical and I've never had a large defeat using it. It isn't a concrete tactic, and it allows a high amount of tweaking, which is why I use it.