Tactical Theorems and Frameworks '07

[mr.rooney]

I've read some things on FM Britain about 4 different tactics, so I'm going to try them and then post the results. Hopefully they will be better than the ones that I have had recently.

[paz]

Wondering if anyone has made any thoughts on countering the 442 with short farrows, continually giving me troubles that one.

[mousey]

What about the width of play? Im abit baffled on that one. Im playing a 4-2-3-1 formation and Ive got players who have got got technical abilities and passing abilities. I play a short passing game. Because of this Ive assumed that if the players are playing more narrower the possession will be kept better. I dislike getting crosses into the box cause my striker doesn't possess good heading abilities and also crossing abilities from my wingers lack. But somehow when playing narrow everything seems to fail. When I play my team on full width they seem to do better. Ive always played FM2005 and 2006 on full width.

[Alan Watts]

What does overall mentality: 112 mean?

[crazy gra]

the sum of the mentality of all 11 players.

[jornada]

Just popping in to give an update - i'm using the 5x5 theory, and whilst it's not a complete disaster, i'd encourage others to think about it before going ahead.

My fulham side started off with 2 great wins, then drew 8 straight games at 0-0 each, lost 1-0 to spurs, beat Villa 1-0 then lost 2-0 to Man City in the Cup.

Tested with Arsenal as well, they're a blank average Premiership side now with no hope of challenging for the title after 24 games

[hyrule_king]

Really good thread, have taken the advice on first page and implemented to my 442 and it is working wonders.

[balloch_guy]

Have been using these frameworks for over a week now adjusting as i go along.I now have a solid away tactic not lost away in 10 games includes beating sporting lisbon 3-0 (im celtic incase your wondering).Over last 10 aways i have score over 30 goals conceding less than 10.Was going to post both tactics here but as its not my thread i wont bother.I use the 112 mentality along with other frameworks.I now have a solid team and so far the AI is strugling to counter it.If anyone is trying this out dont expect success straight away you need to tinker about untill you start getting 54-58% possesion in most games.Once you get that you are on the right track.If wwfan gives me permission i will post the home and away tactic here after all it is there thread.

[mr.rooney]

I wouldn't give up on your old slider apathy ideas just yet asmo. I was getting really bored at not beating teams I should so I resorted back to the old quick and simple ideas. Results: I'm enjoying the game for the first time in ages, with my team playing simply fantasic football. With Man Utd, in 3 premiership games, I've scored 8 and conceded 1, and with England, I beat Andorra 15-0! Might not sound like much, but it's certainly better than the results I've had for a while.

I'll do some more testing and report back with the results Asmo, but it looks very promising indeed.

[nic9394]

using standard RoT (away tactics) with narrow, down the flank quick tempo, pushing up. having AMC on CD 20 (easy tackle) and DMC CD 12. Giving both FB and ML MR short farrows and crossing down the byline seem to do ok against a 442 with short farrows.

[adonis]

hi, thanks to this thread i am starting to enjoy football manager again. I must point out that my mentality as a manager is very italian like, luv the tactical side of it. So I have implemented this in my barcelona game using the rule of two and the defence shut out tips also given by wwfan. Its a 4-4-1-1 formation both home and away but with different settings, if i could win all the games i play in a season 1-0 i would be extremely happy!!

So while playing both home and away I tend to score first majority of the time and as soon as I do I shut up shop, I actually enjoy my team positioning 2 banks of 4 and the A1 actually having a hard time trying to get through, after a few wasted attempts they tend to pass the ball back to their goalkeeper 60 yards away meaning they have to start all over again. So far in 21 league games I haven't conceded a goal and to be honest haven't looked like doing so, I understand they have good players but I still think you need to play them in the right way to get the results you want.

At home I use high closing down, width and slow tempo. Also having one CD on high closing down and the other on rarely works very nice, with the latter covering the other CD's back.

Away from home I use rarely forward runs on the back four and the 2 central midfielders, play on the counter attack down both flanks, narrow with high time wasting and fast tempo and have the whole team on rarely closing down.

But even then I make alot of tweaks in game,eg, width settings,forward runs depending on the situations.

www.ImageShack.us" /></a>]League Table[/url]

Thanks to wwfan and others who have posted in this thread, and KUTGW!!!

[adonis]

]League table[/url]

Hope it works.

[adonis]

[http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/7784/cleansheetsus0.jpg [/url]]table[/url]

[shoome]

Can someone sort that huge image above out so that we don't have to continuously scroll across the page just to read it? Thanks.

[mr.rooney]

Here it is:

League Table

Hope that helps.

[adonis]

i'm sorry about the image size forgot to click thumbnail option when i uploaded it.

[wwfan]

Originally posted by Pete S

This is the best fan post I have seen in any of the forums over the 10 years I have been playing CM/FM. It is particularly well researched and clearly written - thank you and well done!

I was already employing some of these ideas in a more limited way in FM06 but have now started to use your rule of 2 in FM07.

I have found the tactic to be highly effective but there are a few changes in FM07 (down to slider sensitivity I believe)that need to be considered. These are:

1. You need to amend the defensive line for each game based on the pace and attacking line of the opposition. This becomes particularly apparent after any 're-ranking' of your team's abilitytherwise you may find the opposition constantly beating your defence and getting into frequent one-on-one situations with your GK.

Therefore, it is important to listen to scout reports on the next opposition (in FM07 they provide advice on defending deep or using fast defenders) and use your eyes during the game, to determine how effective your defensive line is (just like in real football) and amend it accordingly. I found that amending my defensive line up or down the pitch when the opposition were controling the game and creating chances, allowed my team to get a foothold back in the game.

2. Timewasting. I have not had too much trouble sticking to the away tactic of 5/15 on the sliders for width/timewasting but you need to be careful not to employ these too early.Starting with a 10/10 slider approach may work better for some (not properly tested in my game yet).

3. Your approach to playing ultra-defensive systems still works well but again, you need to adjust the defensive sliders to counter the opposition's pace and line, as these vary from team to team. Sticking strictly to the ROT formula does not necessarily work for me otherwise.

Anyone else got any results on testing ROT in FM07 yet?

Thanks for the d-line observations. It seems to be quite a contentious issue in '07. The mentality/d-line match doesn't seem to be holding water the same way as '06. I would like to put the following thought out for comments/testing:

Defensive Line in '07

In '06, I used Asmo's d-line/mentality matching concept to build a solid defence. The premise was that the d-line should be set to the same mentality as your most attacking midfielder. That way the formation remained compact and there weren't too many gaps between defence and midfield. This theory needed a few revisions in '06.

Revision One: DMC

I found that if you used a DMC then a high defensive line became a liability. The DMC got dragged into the back four and allowed the opposing midfielders too much time and space to thread balls into the penalty area. Reducing the defensive line by two notches seemed to correct this problem.

Revision Two: Breaking Down the 3-3-2-1-1

I found that a high d-line became problematic when playing teams who sat back. The problem was that the defenders were put under pressure too quickly when picking up clearances from the AI, which meant they couldn't recycle possession. Dropping it by another 4 notches led to the DCs being in lots of space when picking up loose balls and allowed them to hold possession until the attack reorganised.

Revision Three: FM07

D-line seems to have been remodelled allowing for defensive solidity when deep or high. Pete S suggest modulating the d-line in game. That should work very well, but it would be nice to have a system that is stable from kick off. I suggest the following tests:

1) Slow Defenders Test: If you have slow defenders does it mean the d-line has to be deep? If so, what happens to the space between the midfield and the defence? Does the AI exploit it a la FM06, or, has the engine been rewritten so that gap is no longer there? If this is the case, then d-line relates entirely to defensive speed and should be set accordingly. If it isn't the case, and there is a big gap, then other adjustments need to be made. The best way to test this is to play one high d-line and one low d-line game against at decent side and make a qualitative judgement as to the amount of space there is between your defence and attack. You must play your four slowest defenders. Please post the results, as this could be very important!!

2) Tight v Loose: In '06, becuase of the RoT structure, a compact system relied on a high d-line. Once your side gained a reputation for dominance then the d-line had to be reduced to create more space for attacking moves. Is this still the case in '07? The best way to test this is to play two games against a poor side that iikely to sit back and defend. Play one with a high d-lina and one with a low d-line and see which game produces the most chances. Please post results.

Possible Results

1) D-line relates entirely to pace of defence. It then becomes easy to judge an effective setting.

2) D-line relates to attacking and defensive options. Again, it becomes easy to build two systems.

3) D-line has been reworked to reflect defensive pace BUT still needs to be linked with midfield mentality. If this is the case, then the whole RoT system needs to be revised, as a low d-line cannot work with a high mentality midfield, as there will be too much space between defence and attack.

[Brellier]

Like Mr Rooney, i was getting pretty fed up of playing the game and not winning anything. i was playing as liverpool, and because i support them it was all the more frustrating with things not working.

I decided to start a new game with Arsenal and create a formation with a new theory.

I took the theory behind RoT, that each player should have a close player who has a similar mentality, and decided to take it a bit futher. I also wanted to combine it with my theory that a team could function as basically 2 seperate units of 5 (back 4 + DM and front 2 plus 3 AM). Not that they are isolated from each other, but simply that one can trust the other to do its job and therefor free's them up to concentrate on their part.

The shape i chose is 4132 with a DM and 3 MC's, the outermost MC's with DFARROWS.

When creating my back 5 ( i view Gilberto purely as a defensive player), i decided to take RoT a step further and set them all with the same mentality ( i chose 5). I also set all their creative freedom and passing to the same level. I then took it the whole hog and made them all have the same closing down.

At this point i them moved on to set up the two outer MC's and the 2 strikers. I set them all with the same mentality,passing,closing down and creative freedom as well (unit 2 if you will). I decided to make the centre MC the "link" if you will. I set his instructions as half way between those i chose for the 2 units.

So far so good, pre-season yeilded 31 goals for, and zero against in 5 matches, just played first CL qualy game which was comfortable 2 v 0

I realise im arsenal, its only a few games and in theory a monkey should be able to achieve these results. But given that so far i have struggled to beat dukla pumpherston when playing as the FM equivalent of the harlem globetrotters, its progress.

Going to test the tactic some more and may put it up in a thread for others to have a look.

[wwfan]

Offside Trap

Originally posted by IV:

One Team Instruction you don't mention anywhere is Offside Traps, wwfan. What's the Frameworks take on Offside Traps?

I'd guess that if the option is at all used, it's for tactics that play with low closing down but with a pushed up defensive line? The thinking here is that the lower closing down allows the back five to keep formation and therefore be less likely to break the trap, and the further up the pitch, the more time they have to catch up?

Oh, and definitely seconding Pete S's take on defensive line, although I've had some trouble with getting tight marking defenders to actually play deep (however, that might be because of mentalities, I didn't really test this as the defense was solid enough anyway).

I've never employed the offside trap (since '05 anyway) but assume it would work with a high d-line, loose marking and a quick defence. In previosu versions I found it to be great for high level sides but horrible for poorer teams. If you have any success experimenting with it, please post your results in this thread. Thanks.

Re-Ranking

Originally posted by nic9349:

reranking means allot, im almost in my third season and there's more and more matches that use or end up being the dreaded, flat 442, 33211 4141 or 4411. I've devised a tactic for these thanks to what wwfan mentioned in the initial post. and it does work. U cant "win" every match if u dont change the way u play. This is achieved by;

U-attack Long arrows ML/MR, Shrt arrows FBs

Attack: Long Arrows ML, MR

Possesssion: Short arrow ML/MR, Short barrow AMC

Defend: Sarrow FCs

Applying that helps allot depending on how much action the opposition is throwing at u down the flanks.

Thanks for experimenting and offering proof that this still works in '07. It's great to see that the four-way tactic stuff is still working.

Possession

Holding possession may need breaking down some of the theories a little, but in general:

1) Slow the tempo down. A slower tempo equals better quality passing. In '06, i used to use a tempo of 5 and would regularly see possession of >55%.

2) Experiment with passing i.e. breaking the passing/mentality link. Giving the DCs shorter passing should help in possession.

3) Higher time wasting generally means more possession, so be wary of the fact that possessiob stats reflect this. Your possession may all be quality, whereas theirs may be deep and defensive.

4) Closing Down. Follow Rashidi's ideas on closing down with the front men (page 3) and you should force the Ai into hurrying passes.

Width

Simply, wide is for more aggressive systems, narrow for more defensive. Decide which type of system you wish to play and alter width accordingly.

Posting Tactics

I have no objection to anyone posting tactics, although I would prefer for them to open a specific thread a la El Padre. That way this thread remains open for theoretical discussion but links to some specific tactics threads that offer a different service for a different type of player. Please link between the threads though, and I will always be available to comment in the specific tactic thread it asked.

Image Size

@ adonis: It's a shame about the size and I hope Cleon can fix it if he visits. However, that is an incredible achievement and your defensive setup revisits Sir Bobby's classic split defence. It would be great if you could write up in detail about the settings, as any improvement in defence will make a lot of people very happy.

[Cleon]

fixed

[adonis]

thanks for your good words wwfan, I achieved something similar in fm06 working closely with synax and creating a shut out tactic once I would go 1-0 up. It was only when I read your other thread about defending that I decided to lower closing down to rarely which makes them hold their positions and only commit to the tackle if they need to and at the right time (obviously it helps having players with high stats).

I will try and do a write up about my defensive settings once i get some free time.

Also both home and away I have my d-line set as 14 and my players aren't getting caught with the space behind, despite having marquez and edmilson who have a pace stat of 10-12, I think a high d-line works well with low closing down (players aren't attracted to the ball too much).

[adonis]

cheers cleon, I'l remember not to do it again.

[wwfan]

Originally posted by adonis:

thanks for your good words wwfan, I achieved something similar in fm06 working closely with synax and creating a shut out tactic once I would go 1-0 up. It was only when I read your other thread about defending that I decided to lower closing down to rarely which makes them hold their positions and only commit to the tackle if they need to and at the right time (obviously it helps having players with high stats).

I will try and do a write up about my defensive settings once i get some free time.

Also both home and away I have my d-line set as 14 and my players aren't getting caught with the space behind, despite having marquez and edmilson who have a pace stat of 10-12, I think a high d-line works well with low closing down (players aren't attracted to the ball too much).

That's interesting and may require some testing. My d-line splits were:

1) Low d-line and high closing down against poor teams

2) High d-line and low closing down against quality teams

How do you see that working in '07?

[balloch_guy]

Tried your away theory wwfan and added a few tweaks along the way.put passing to mixed and and width mixed.Brought defensive line down by 2 and closing down is set at 8.Everything else is the same for mentality 112 and have been unbeaten away.

[joshantmann]

Well i read the start of this thread earlier today, and decided to put your advice into action.Im Spurs in 2009, and still have some of the initial squad, but have bought in a lot of good younger players.I am using the rule of two rules at home and away.But just tweaking some attributes such as width and defensive line.And it is working amazingly!The only game i lost was at Arsenal, but i was 1-0 up, and they scored 2 lucky late goals.Away from home i seem to break up attacks very easily and create loads of chances.So im hoping this continues.My recent results are at the link below.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m247/josha007/fixtures2.jpg

[adonis]

Originally posted by wwfan:

That's interesting and may require some testing. My d-line splits were:

1) Low d-line and high closing down against poor teams

2) High d-line and low closing down against quality teams

How do you see that working in '07?

At the moment i'm using option 2 against both good and poor teams, but I will try and use option 1 in on of my games as it seems to make sense, kind of draw them closer to your goal , win the ball back and exploit the space behind their backline.

At the moment I have 4 away games in a row but will report back when i play FC Kobenhavn at home in CCL 2nd round.

[alantas]

greaaatt post wwfan! thanks!

just in the midst of making my own tactic based around man utd... on a 442 diamond, for its my fav. tactic as well... rather than the 4231 alternate

just giving final tweaks before presenting it out here for testing; having a little confusion about the Tempo and the Creative Freedom of the front 3, as well as the Team closing down and Team defensive line instruction...

[wwfan]

Originally posted by alantas:

greaaatt post wwfan! thanks!

just in the midst of making my own tactic based around man utd... on a 442 diamond, for its my fav. tactic as well... rather than the 4231 alternate

just giving final tweaks before presenting it out here for testing; having a little confusion about the Tempo and the Creative Freedom of the front 3, as well as the Team closing down and Team defensive line instruction...

Keep the CF at 15 for front 3. As for Tempo, Closing Down & Defensive Line, this seems to be where most of the ambiguity and tweaking is situated.

Quick Guide:

Tempo: Fast is good for direct, counter-attacking football. Slow is good for controlled possession

Closing Down: See Rashidid's post on page 3 about upping CD for the front 3. It seems to be working. CD for the defence has two options (see the posts above).

D-Line: Originally, high for compact formations and low for loose, attacking formations. However, this needs confirmation for '07.

You are going to have to play around with these settings. Good luck, and please post any findings.

[Siren]

I just finished a very successful second season with Roma using RoT with a few tweaks of my own. When playing away from home i only change my closing down to low against sides like Inter, i normally win. Against weaker sides i use the same closing down settings as at home. I followed Rashidi's ideas on closing down for the strikers and AMC and it seems to be woring quite well. Everything else is as per RoT including the defensive line, although i do find that playing deep vs defensive sides helps.

A few observations i have made during my two seasons:

1) Very few teams start with the 3-3-2-1-1, they change to that after they score or i dominate the first 20 minutes. Most teams start with a defensive 4-4-2 or 4-5-1.

2) Around 80% of chances created against me come from free-kicks or throw-ins. The ball is played short to an unmarked player (full back normally) who then crosses into the box and my defenders fail to win the header. My defenders are quality and my set play settings seem fine, plus changing them does not work anyway. Help on this issue would be much appreciated.

3) In most games, even against much weaker sides, i have a <50% possession stat.

4) Totti is a hero

[Brellier]

Originally posted by Siren:

A few observations i have made during my two seasons:

1) Very few teams start with the 3-3-2-1-1, they change to that after they score or i dominate the first 20 minutes. Most teams start with a defensive 4-4-2 or 4-5-1.

2) Around 80% of chances created against me come from free-kicks or throw-ins. The ball is played short to an unmarked player (full back normally) who then crosses into the box and my defenders fail to win the header. My defenders are quality and my set play settings seem fine, plus changing them does not work anyway. Help on this issue would be much appreciated.

3) In most games, even against much weaker sides, i have a <50% possession stat.

4) Totti is a hero

2) i have the exact same problem and i think its making my tactic look bad, i think this applys to a lot of people. Its frustrating because i cannot see how to fix it. Double frustrating as i do not see the fruits of it at the other end, i score very few from this type of set up.

:-/

[joshantmann]

Yes Siren, ive noticed that my posession is usually lower than the opposition, even if im winning a game 3-0 or 4-0.Cant work out why thats happening.Any ideas anyone?

[Brellier]

Originally posted by joshantmann:

Yes Siren, ive noticed that my posession is usually lower than the opposition, even if im winning a game 3-0 or 4-0.Cant work out why thats happening.Any ideas anyone?

i cant verify this as i dont have time to watch whole matches at the moment, but when 06 came out originally (before any patches) i noticed i was winning easily, getting 5 times as many shots as the opposition, but still less possession. So i watched a few matches in full and im all but certain that the way in which the possession stat was calculated was incorrect. I watched every minute of a few games where i seemed to have the ball 60% of the time, but the stats would show 48%ish.

Could it be the same again? could the coding for how this is calculated be incorrect?

[wwfan]

Possession is calculated by taking into consideration the percentage of time each team has the ball, even when the ball is out of play. Therefore, every time you miss the goal and the opposition takes a goal kick, the time it takes for that kick to be taken is calculated into opposition possession. If you are creating a lot of chances and they have high time wasting then possession stats look askew. If possession is close to 50-50 and you look to be dominating, you are, but their time wasting alters that perception. If you are getting >55% you are steam-rollering them.

It would be better to have a ball-in-play stat to see exactly how possession works.

As for the throw-in thing, I can't help. I imagine it has something to do with the 'known-bug' of defending set-pieces and will be fixed in the patch.

[Brellier]

Originally posted by wwfan:

Possession is calculated by taking into consideration the percentage of time each team has the ball, even when the ball is out of play. Therefore, every time you miss the goal and the opposition takes a goal kick, the time it takes for that kick to be taken is calculated into opposition possession. If you are creating a lot of chances and they have high time wasting then possession stats look askew. If possession is close to 50-50 and you look to be dominating, you are, but their time wasting alters that perception. If you are getting >55% you are steam-rollering them.

It would be better to have a ball-in-play stat to see exactly how possession works.

As for the throw-in thing, I can't help. I imagine it has something to do with the 'known-bug' of defending set-pieces and will be fixed in the patch.

Thanks for the clarification wwfan, thats what it is.

That pretty much renders the stat useless to be honest, not the indicator i would want to use when making any changes.

Known bugs, not the time or the place for me to let off steam about organisations selling products with known definincies and the moral/legal argument against such practice....

[paz]

My CBS are Dawson (pace 13) and Ben Haim (pace 11) and they seem to be coping on the whole ok with pacy strikers since i adopted wwfans suggestion of dropping the dline 2 notches to prevent the dmc colliding, this has resulted in improved ratings for the dmc (zokora) and dawson in the last match getting a 10. this is still with a reasonably high defensive line however to keep the system compact (in true rot style).

My problems seemed to arise at home where I often struggle to create chances from my possession, dropping the dline seems 3 notches seems to provided more space and time to make the killer ball and added to that made my defence slightly less susceptiable to break aways by pacy attackers (which was happening a lot of with dawson/ben haim)

Some aspects of ROT still don't sit right with me, i can rarely dominate a game from start to finish and often i will destroy a team in the first 30 minutes, fail to score and then experience a back lash and find myself 2-0 down at HT. On various occasions as well I've been 1-0/2-0 up, seen the opposition go to long farrows on their wingers and countered it by going to a narrow counter attacking setup and end up losing/drawing. This could be down to my ineptness however.

[alantas]

alrights! i tried my very very best to accomodate and build my home and away tactic based around this theorem from my understanding, and have just tested out my home and away tactic;

here's the list of the games as Man Utd;

1. win 4-0 vs blackburn @home

2. win 1-0 vs Aston Villa @home

3. win 3-0 vs Fulham @away

4.win 3-2 vs Watford @away

5.win 8-0 Hartlepool @home

6.win 3-0 vs Manchester City @away

7.win 1-0 vs Liverpool @home

8.drew 1-1 vs 10men Wigan @away

9.4-1 win vs Southampton 10.drew 1-1 vs Tottenham @home

10games, 8wins, 2draws, 29goals scored, 5goals conceded.

=======================================

The Tactic Shape (for both) - Note; i know that my first team choice might be awkward, but it's due to injuries (i put some in reserves till match fit (there's an option to do that) )

Team HOME Instructions

DRL HOME Instructions

DC HOME Instructions

DMC HOME Instructions

AMC HOME Instructions

FCa HOME Instructions

FCa HOME Instructions

===================================

TEAM Instructions AWAY

DRL AWAY

DC AWAY

DMC AWAY

AMC

MRL AWAY

FCd AWAY

FCa

phew!

i know that man utd isn't the hardest team to manage, but i sincerely hope that you guys could land me a helping hand! =) thanks!

what do you guys think? care to try it?

(PS. where do i upload my tactics to?)

[RMXtreme]

Any file hosting site would do, but most people seem to use http://www.fmdownloads.net/.

[wwfan]

Originally posted by paz:

My CBS are Dawson (pace 13) and Ben Haim (pace 11) and they seem to be coping on the whole ok with pacy strikers since i adopted wwfans suggestion of dropping the dline 2 notches to prevent the dmc colliding, this has resulted in improved ratings for the dmc (zokora) and dawson in the last match getting a 10. this is still with a reasonably high defensive line however to keep the system compact (in true rot style).

My problems seemed to arise at home where I often struggle to create chances from my possession, dropping the dline seems 3 notches seems to provided more space and time to make the killer ball and added to that made my defence slightly less susceptiable to break aways by pacy attackers (which was happening a lot of with dawson/ben haim)

Some aspects of ROT still don't sit right with me, i can rarely dominate a game from start to finish and often i will destroy a team in the first 30 minutes, fail to score and then experience a back lash and find myself 2-0 down at HT. On various occasions as well I've been 1-0/2-0 up, seen the opposition go to long farrows on their wingers and countered it by going to a narrow counter attacking setup and end up losing/drawing. This could be down to my ineptness however.

I'd need more info to suggest exact changes, but, off the top of my head.

1: D-line. If you are dominating but not scoring in those first 30 minutes, try deepening it. It will help you recycle the ball more quickly and should give players more space. if they haven't scored after a period of dominance, I believe(from conversations with PaulC on '06) that frustration and panic is coded in and players can begin to play badly.

2: Have you reduced FWRs on your FBs for the counter system. Not doing that is suicidal.

@ alantas: You seem to be doing magnificently well, so why the plea for help? With that level of performance you will be winning everything in no time flat.

[alantas]

Originally posted by wwfan:

@ alantas: You seem to be doing magnificently well, so why the plea for help? With that level of performance you will be winning everything in no time flat.

well.. cuz' my away tactic doesn't seem to be good; the games are always very even and undecided regardless of the opposition; (i haven't got the chance to play a high quality team yet!) so, yeap. that's my reason haha

but really though, thanks alot for your theories that allowed me to set up a tactic of my own (and hopefully not fail miserably)

[paz]

Right, that makes sense.

Here is a strange one, which I've been studying and can't work out what caused such a poor performance - it's in the league cup final against championship side wigan. They set up with a fairly bog standard 4-4-2 short farrows on wingers so i went with a normal home system, tried to play a slow tempo and let the class tell...as you will see though it didn't.

http://www.diabli.com/Tottenham v Wigan.pkm

[wwfan]

Unfortunately, I can't access it. I wish I could, but......

The 4-4-2 short-farrows is the most dificult system to pick. Sometimes it is aggressive, sometimes defensive and counter-attacking. My take on a one-off match is that your team performed badly first-half and Wigan performed above expectations. This can often happen in a cup final. Via the stats and highlights screen you should have been able to see you were playing badly from the outset (10 minutes is usually enough). Switch to the defensive system to minimise the bad performance and b*ll*ck your team at half-time. Then switch back to the attacking system and watch your side take them apart. It pretty much always works, although nothing is guaranteed.

[Rashidi]

When you get your game, one thing you'll notice, no matter how attacking a formation you line up, your shot counts are always not as high as you expect.

This happens even when you reduce the D-line to encourage a team to come up and attack. I've used 343s, 4132s, some hybrids, but I always return to a diamond for consistency.

There was a match where my shot count was 5 and we scored 3 goals. Yeah there is a lot of movement in the diamond, but I would have thought that you'd get more shot counts.

Like I predicted when I played the Demo, this may not turn out to be a game for the casual gamer, and I expect SI for biz reasons to make it easier to get the shots off in the patch

[nic9394]

i agree, when ur team isnt doing "right" jus switch to a diamond.

As to 442 with short arrows, i seem to do ok against them now. But it is by no means a pretty match. usually end up both sides losing the ball allot and with a passing % of 60-65 for both teams and lots of yellow cards (if i want to win )

[mikiz]

wwfan, just some questions

if you have been winning the league 2 years in a row, what would you suggest to do with the tactic in the third year? would the other team be parking a bus in front of goal everytime they play me?

should i opt to more attacking or defending mentality, is what i'm trying to say actually

thanks.

[Cleon]

Originally posted by mikiz:

wwfan, just some questions

if you have been winning the league 2 years in a row, what would you suggest to do with the tactic in the third year? would the other team be parking a bus in front of goal everytime they play me?

should i opt to more attacking or defending mentality, is what i'm trying to say actually

thanks.

If you have won it 2 years in a row, then I wouldn't change much in all honesty. If its not broke why fix it.

[Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover]

There is definitely something to be said for having and target man and seriously working on how to get the best out of him. Performances for me have greatly improved since I got hold of John Carew.

He is set up as target man. Every set piece he is on the near post. Crosses come in from everywhere including the fullbacks who cross from deep.

Backup target man is James Beattie.

Also having tall, strong defenders who are good in the air helps defence out.

Well you wouldn't want them to be able to do the same to you would you?

[Cleon]

Originally posted by Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover:

There is definitely something to be said for having and target man and seriously working on how to get the best out of him. Performances for me have greatly improved since I got hold of John Carew.

He is set up as target man. Every set piece he is on the near post. Crosses come in from everywhere including the fullbacks who cross from deep.

Backup target man is James Beattie.

Also having tall, strong defenders who are good in the air helps defence out.

Well you wouldn't want them to be able to do the same to you would you?

Is the target man in a front 2? or lone striker?

[Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover]

Originally posted by Cleon:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover:

There is definitely something to be said for having and target man and seriously working on how to get the best out of him. Performances for me have greatly improved since I got hold of John Carew.

He is set up as target man. Every set piece he is on the near post. Crosses come in from everywhere including the fullbacks who cross from deep.

Backup target man is James Beattie.

Also having tall, strong defenders who are good in the air helps defence out.

Well you wouldn't want them to be able to do the same to you would you?

Is the target man in a front 2? or lone striker? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

A front 2. I changed them around though. I check out the opposition centre backs. If one is weaker in the air I will put my target man on him. If however both centre backs are equally good (ie City, Boro) I will check out the aerial ability of the full backs and then put him on that side of the front two.

Its not perfect but it is much better and clearly works.

I have been wondering about playing just one up front as English teams all seen to play with 4 at the back. (Thereby splitting the 2 centre backs)

[Cleon]

Originally posted by Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover:

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

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover:

There is definitely something to be said for having and target man and seriously working on how to get the best out of him. Performances for me have greatly improved since I got hold of John Carew.

He is set up as target man. Every set piece he is on the near post. Crosses come in from everywhere including the fullbacks who cross from deep.

Backup target man is James Beattie.

Also having tall, strong defenders who are good in the air helps defence out.

Well you wouldn't want them to be able to do the same to you would you?

Is the target man in a front 2? or lone striker? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

A front 2. I changed them around though. I check out the opposition centre backs. If one is weaker in the air I will put my target man on him. If however both centre backs are equally good (ie City, Boro) I will check out the aerial ability of the full backs and then put him on that side of the front two.

Its not perfect but it is much better and clearly works.

I have been wondering about playing just one up front as English teams all seen to play with 4 at the back. (Thereby splitting the 2 centre backs) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thats why I asked

On FM07, a lone striker works excellently. In fact id go as far as saying its the best method of attack I have used so far, especially if you got good pacy AMC's who can play off him. The lone striker creates a helluva lot of space at times.

[Stephanie McMahon's Secret Lover]

I have noticed that we are forcing the opposion to concede a few own goals.

Boro's Huth just put the ball in his own net in our 2-1 win.

Liverpool away next but my Bolton side drew 2-2 away to Arsenal so what do we have to fear?