one touch football Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I've been playing fm for a few years now but on my tactics, I've never done them 'properly', instead I seem to set the standard tactic at the start of the season and play like that for most matches. When I'm loosing I stick more people upfront and when im protecting a lead, I put more in defence. However I'm trying to improve my tactical awareness in fm, ive read http://www.guidetofootballmanager.com/ and i've found out that you have to adapt your play depending on your opponent, the weather and the size of the pitch. However when I do this and change players around to account for the opposition (eg move CM to DM to mark opponents' AMC) the new 'familiarity' goes down. Which results in a worse performance by the team. I've been playing a 442 with Charlton and I've just lost to the team bottom of the league at home, while they were all at 70% fitness. I should have easily won the game, but due to me changing my tactics to account for the opponent, I lost. What I dont understand is how can players gain familiarity to tactics when you have to change them for each opponent? I'd like to play a short passing and possession style of football but according to 'guide to football manager.com' I should play more direct against teams I should win against. My preferred tactics are: Short passing Run with ball rarely for all, so they just knock it around and tire the opposition and play possession. Rare long shots* Short Corners* slow tempo high tackling *both of these as I feel that they just blase the ball over the bar or give it straight to the keeper from the corner However why i like to play like this, the assistant keeps saying, lets play longer or we arent shooting enough, which means I have to play more direct and have long shots which means I waste possession as the caliber of Charlton's players cant do this effectively. Overall I want to be playing with better tactical awareness but I want to maintain my own style of play. Is there a balance to do this or am I meant to always listen to the assistant? I've now changed it enough so that my players are now on very poor morale and its bloody frustrating, the game seems to contradict itself. What advice would you give me to play my own game but also be able to do the stuff talked about here http://www.guidetofootballmanager.com/match-day/preparing-for-the-match/opposition-scout-report Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefanius Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 The way I do it is that I set up my tactic, which is set up the way I like my team to play, but then tweeked to suit my team better. Always be aware of not loosing the balance in the team. After I have gotten this tactic to play as I like, I set up a backup tactic which is fundamentaly different altough keeping my style of play. The reason I do this is that I have found that every tactic has a weakness and if it seems that the opposition is completely canceling out my tactic and/or exploiting my tatics weakness, then I change to my backup. That means that both tactics are familiar to the team, as you can train up to 3 tactics in the match prep. I always start out the same in every game, no matter the oppistion or weather, unless I know the opposition is using a tactic that cancels out mine. I start out with a balanced strategy, not too attacking, not too defending. Then I make changes, if neccisery, according too how the match is playing out, try to get better movement up front or try to be more solid at the back, making the team calmer on the ball and take their time, blast the ball upfield in a hurry to get a goal while the opposition is in an all out attack, try to exploit empty spaces in the oppositions defence line and so forth and so forth. I rearly do anything drastic though as I have found that then your team is not familiar with the type of style you are telling them to play, which can do just as much harm as good. Note that I am playing a big team and that is the main reason for me to be able to start every match the same, as I expext a win, or at least get a draw, in every single match. If I were a smaller team I would set up a third tactic which would be designed to park the bus and keep a clean sheet, and use that against the big teams. If your Ass Man is constantly telling you that the team is not getting enough shots on target then you are having a hard time getting through the oppostions defence and need to sacrifice a little possession to make for a little more attacking play. Possession style football is mainly defencive. If you always have the ball the opposition isn't attacking, but basicly neather are you. If you are more focused on keeping the ball then anything else you are not taking any changes upfront and therefor will not create many chances. There is only one team in the world that can play this kind of possession football and still create chances upfront. Barcelona. And that is mostly do to insane amount of vision and passing skill in both the front line and the midfield. I think it is safe to say that no other team in the world will ever be able to replicate what they are doing now. I like to play a short passing possession football as well, but I would rether have about 50-60% possession and 5-10 decent chances infront of the goal then 70-80% possesion and 1 or 2 decent chances. That is why I set my team up to play mixed passing game, as I have found that they usually just play short passes but are not forbidden to take riskier passes if the opportunity arises, as they would be with a short passing setting. If you are still set on the short passing game then you need to create alot of movement upfront. Players moving out of positions and pulling defenders with them, while others run into that created space to resive the ball and so on. This can lead to beautiful and very succesful football but is in my opinion the hardest kind of football to create. Just my two cents. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marsupian Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I've been playing a 442 with Charlton and I've just lost to the team bottom of the league at home, while they were all at 70% fitness. I should have easily won the game, but due to me changing my tactics to account for the opponent, I lost. You assume you lost because your players weren't familiar with the changes you made. I find it hard to believe this would be the only reason for the loss. I have played with an unfamiliar tactic quite often and it doesn't impact performance that much. If it is an easy win just being unfamiliar with the tactic won't make you lose. However why i like to play like this, the assistant keeps saying, lets play longer or we arent shooting enough, which means I have to play more direct and have long shots which means I waste possession as the caliber of Charlton's players cant do this effectively. The only thing the ASS MAN does is comment on the tactic you use and the statistics from the game. You don't have to do anything with it and I hardly ever take a look at at (I know my tactic and why I use it and I can see the statistics myself). You don't ever have to listen to the assistant but it's good to take a look at it from time to time as he gives a different view on the performance and tactic of the team. Different viewpoints are always good and the more different views you consider the better and more nuanced your tactical knowledge becomes. What advice would you give me to play my own game but also be able to do the stuff talked about here http://www.guidetofootballmanager.co...n-scout-report The first advice I would give is to don't change your formation as much. The change of putting a CM to DM is about the same as changing a MC on support duty to an MC on defend duty. Alternatively you can just change your strategy or use a shout to become more defensive which is a lot easier in my opinion and works quite well. I personally use one formation at the moment with my FC Utrecht side (a 4-5-1 aka 4-1-2-2-1) and have two tactics saved, one is a counter attacking tactic and the other is the same tactic but with a control strategy. My team practices both tactics and is familiar with both allowing me to quickly change from control to counter and back again. The third tactic could be the same tactic with maybe an attacking strategy or longer passing or a totally different strategy which you can use for backup or if you want to be really aggressive or defensive (I have a 4-2-4 as backup allowing me to take a DM or MC off and putting an extra striker on). Secondly I would advice you to start using shouts to change the way you play. Want to defend more aggressively? Try the "push higher up" and "hassle opponents" shouts and you are instantly playing with a high line and a lot of pressing. Want to defend deep do the opposite and voila! Also change the strategy to easily change your approach to the game. The aforementioned changes could also be made in a more subtle way by changing the strategy to control or counter which also changes other areas of play to go well with it. btw. Some of the things said in the guide really made me cringe a little. Especially the part about pitch size and how you should respond to it. Playing narrow because the pitch is wide is just plain dumb if you are Man U playing against Norwich at home. Saying something so arbitrary and useless about how to respond to pitch size without taking anything else into consideration is just not a good way to play this game in my opinion and I got the feeling most of the info in that guide is straight up copied from these forums so the guide really holds no more credibility than this forum (maybe less as there are quite a lot of critical minds on this forum to provide a different point of view which is always a good thing). I don't doubt there is a lot of good info collected in that guide but always be critical of what you read as there is almost never only one good answer or point of view. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
one touch football Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 You assume you lost because your players weren't familiar with the changes you made. I find it hard to believe this would be the only reason for the loss. I have played with an unfamiliar tactic quite often and it doesn't impact performance that much. If it is an easy win just being unfamiliar with the tactic won't make you lose. Thanks for the responses so far guys. To pick up on this point though, yes you're right but I have no idea knowing why my team lost so I have to assume its because of this. How can I find out why my team lost and what should I be looking for to prevent it happening again? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
axehan1 Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 the analysis tab is good for this,it shows everything.how wide/narrow you are in-game,passes from each player(which is a great guide for who is /isnt finding his team mates)headers won/lost,interceptions etc. you also use it to look at your opponents,who is hitting every pass,the heat map is a great guide for opposition strong/weak points and in the analysis tab if you click on any of the dots it is basically a highlights package,imho a very underrated tactical tool. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
one touch football Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 so how can I use this information to my advantage? If they're passing down the middle then should I play down the flanks? As I have no 'big man up front' I dont see the point in getting crosses in only for the defence to clear away so I look to play through the defence by passing through the middle. Would this then leave me at a disadvantage if I try and play in the same place as them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
axehan1 Posted January 2, 2012 Share Posted January 2, 2012 who says your winger has to bomb down the touchline?how about cuts inside?why do you have to just play a winger out wide?i play aml/r but the roles are hardly ever wingers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
one touch football Posted January 2, 2012 Author Share Posted January 2, 2012 ok so overall am I looking to play in the areas where the opposition aren't? If so dosen't this go back to my original problem of changing the tactic to counter for the opposition? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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