FM13 4-3-3 Rocket Man (Classic)

[BiggusD]

V2 now out. Read post #10.

V3 now out. Read post #13. (November 11)

This is the first functional tactic I have made in FM13. It is a very attacking tactic, where only three players remain in the back when pushing forward. Yet, defense is solid. I have only used this tactic with two lower-league teams in England. Oxford (Demo) and now Salisbury. Both top of the league and with Salisbury I am still participating in all the cups by the end of November.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I initially tried the stock 433 formation with ST LC, C and RC but I didn't find this striker setup working very well. Seemed to be too easy to defend against. Once I moved the wide strikers to F R/L positions, there was much more good movement up front. The midfield trio was first tested with the central player going forward to function as an attacking midfielder, while the two others were defensive, but there weren't much forward momentum with this setup. I swapped that around and found that the wide midfielders now moved in between the wide and central strikers on longer attacks, providing additional attacking options. The central midfielder was thought to be a ball-winning anchor at first, but I soon found out that he function more like a deep-lying playmaker. As the wide strikers are set to cut inside, there is much space for the attacking full-backs to exploit. The central striker is set to run forward rarely not primarily to link the midfield and attack, but to create space for the wide strikers to cut inside... so it is they who score the most goals.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

As you can see it is more "solid" than wildly adventurous.

So what type of players do you need?

* Physical central defenders (good in the air but not too slow)

* Wing-backs (good crossing and dribbling in addition to the skills a full-back usually has)

* Deep-lying playmakers (preferably not too weak defensively)

* Box-to-box midfielders (should be quick and hard-working)

* Wingers who are also strikers (AMRL + SC. They are the primary weapons and must be good finishers)

* Strong strikers (strong, good in the air but also creative and with good technique so that they link well)

I have strengthened Salisbury a lot so that the team is now strong in this league. William Coulibaly is way too good for the BSS, for instance. Salisbury was tipped in 9th place and they demanded to be a top-half team. The tactic is very attacking so I doubt it is suitable for weak teams, but the biggest victiories I have had so far are against teams daring to attack. It is much worse playing against 4-1-4-1 teams trying their best to stop me!

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[kongkenny]

cant seem to find any links to the tactic

[BiggusD]

DOWNLOADS

Rocket Man V1.0

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hgix45

************************************

Rocket Man V2.0

http://www.sendspace.com/file/xedgm6

************************************

Rocket Man V3.0

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8crtnm

************************************

************************************

4-1-4-1 DefCon v1.0 (ultradefensive tactic)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/0rd50l

[marky-mark]

Link not working

[robin1337]

The file you are looking for seems to be unavailable at the moment. Please come back later.

ya

[cragswfc]

put to sendspace

[BiggusD]

New link at Sendspace is now available in #3.

[Wijnand fens]

Is this only for the CLASSIC mode?

if not:

What about, OI and MP?

[BiggusD]

I don't use OI and let the assistant take care of Match Preparation.

Only Classic yes. However, none of the player and team instructions are so extreme that it isn't possible to recreate this tactic pretty closely using the TC.

[BiggusD]

I have now updated the tactic. It has changed quite radically from the original, which was good but didn't actually play the way I wanted it to. Now the player behaviour is much more aggressive and decisive, mostly because I have maxed out Defensive Line. I have also moved the deep-lying playmaker to DMC position and done some other minor tweaks.

The testing was done with Real Madrid, which I took control of in January in a spin-off save from Salisbury. It was terrible to watch them play worse than Salisbury! It was then that I in a case of frustration maxed out Defensive Line and watched RM transform to something resembling their real-life self, but there was still no form of team play. I decided that the most likely cause of this was lack of tactical familiarity, so I started a new save where I holidayed until mid-november. When I returned from holiday tactical familiarity was 100% and I was winning matches convincingly, very different from the previous attempt. After some tweaking and experimenting I am now happy with the result - RM is now playing much like they ought to.

There is of course a great danger of counter-attacks, but I haven't conceded many of them compared to the amount I score.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The badly drawn red line was where I returned from holiday. The two badly drawn X's were two matches where I experimented with the striker's mentality, but abandoned that attempt going into the next match.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

http://www.sendspace.com/file/dvitgh

Here's the PKM of the next match after the fixtures screenshot. I guess it would have been better if I took control of the team talks. They became incredibly complacent...

The Rocket Man v2 file can be found in post #3.

[shirajzl]

Have about player mentalities? Have you sticked to the usual setup of one notch of attacking for most, if not all the players?

[BiggusD]

Have about player mentalities? Have you sticked to the usual setup of one notch of attacking for most, if not all the players?

No, the DC's have minimum mentality (1 of 20), the DMC is at like 4 or 5 (defensive). The wing backs + the striker and wingers are at 15/16 respectively (attacking). The MC's are at 14 (normal). Since the tactic is quite extreme now, it was necessary for the three most defensive guys to react early to loss of possession to minimize the risk of the counter-attacks to come in the prime space for goal-scoring - namely right behind either of the central defenders. When at minimum mentality and quite low closing down, the DC's are primarily occupied with denying the opposition space to run in and that is quite necessary when they are the only ones holding back.

[BiggusD]

V3 NOW OUT

I have now made further changes to this tactic, namely moving the FRL's to AMRL positions and reducing Defensive Line to click 14 (Last of Normal). Strangely, there was no need to push that high up once I moved the wingers one step back, indicating that the three midfielders dropped unnaturally low because there were no-one to either side of them. Weird!

I must also say that since I have changed the whole squad in three transfer windows, many of the problems I faced and made changes to deal with may have been caused by an extreme lack of team cohesion, especially since most of my players are from South America and don't speak English. This may have made the two first iterations (or at least V2) nonsensical to some downloaders. If so, I would like to hear what happened when you tried it because it may mean that the way I and many other people played the game up this version (getting rid of the trash and getting good players in asap) is no longer viable - increased player quality won't make up for the loss of team cohesion.

In any case, my Salisbury team is playing excellent football now (January 2014). The ball is rolling quickly and with precision, the runs and the passes coincide and fast players are fast. Those are all good signs. The tactic is also efficient and defends relatively well, when defending-ME faults are taken into account. Most of my players have scored or created a goal, but the main goalscorers are still the wingers. Bear in mind my team is probably already of decent L2 quality in the BSP.

Anyways, here's the tactic:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The first badly drawn red line was where I moved the FRL's to AMRL positions. The second badly drawn red line was where I set the Defensive Line to Normal.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The last match I played this evening, before uploading this new version.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The squad's performances. As you can see, McCrae has performed really well as only a "decent player" / "good player for most BSP clubs", with 9 in most attributes. The other players are often much better both skill and attributes, but he came last year and thus was "gelled", so he performed well (the same could be said about Coulibaly). I expect the form I am in now to continue the rest of the season because the 20 new players all begin to know each other.

I will try this tactic in my Real Madrid save tomorrow, to see if it works there too. I expect it will.

The download can be found in post #3.

[BiggusD]

O.k I lied! THIS was the last match I played tonight

[dheathcote]

I like this tactic, using V3 but have pulled the wingers into striker positions and its getting me good results with all the strikers looking deadly

[BiggusD]

I like this tactic, using V3 but have pulled the wingers into striker positions and its getting me good results with all the strikers looking deadly

Hmm I haven't tried that with V3. Might give it a go! Thanks

Edit: to be sure, you mean FRC and LC yes?

[Rebs]

Hi Biggus - I think one or two people are confused as to whether this is a classic tactic or a tactic for the classic mode of the game. I presume it's a classic tactic created with the sliders and all and it is for the full version of the game.

[dheathcote]

Hmm I haven't tried that with V3. Might give it a go! Thanks

Edit: to be sure, you mean FRC and LC yes?

Yes indeed so you have a narrow front 3, you do tend to concede every couple of games but these are mostly down to the match engine flaws. Expect poor ratings from not scoring strikers

[BiggusD]

Hi Biggus - I think one or two people are confused as to whether this is a classic tactic or a tactic for the classic mode of the game. I presume it's a classic tactic created with the sliders and all and it is for the full version of the game.

Uh yes, it is a classic tactic for the full version of the game, not a tactic for classic mode. Not that I know anything about how tactics work in classic mode, but the point is that you can't use shouts with this tactic.

[Phenomenon]

I'm in my second season with Swansea and struggling to pick up results, so thought I'd give this a go. So far, beat west brom 1-0 away and just gave Arsenal a hiding 4-1 at home. So far, so good.

[Jimmyrh94]

This looks pretty good, think I'll give it a try with my arsenal, any suggestions as to which will work the best with them v2 or v3?

I assume that v3 is the best as its the latest.

Can I also ask what you do by way of match prep, team talks, OI, Pitch Size, and starting rep for savegame?

[BiggusD]

I chose Automatic when I started in BSS with Salisbury, and International Footballer when I started with Real Madrid. In both cases it took time before the players responded well to team talks. I let the assistant take care of match preparation and use no OIs. Pitch size is Standard.

When it comes to Team Talks it of course depends on a lot of things. I follow one basic principle, though:

Nervousness**************Focus***************Complacency

****|--------------------------|---------------------------|

I consider Morale to be sort of a "mana pool", which you use to do team talks. Aggressive, Assertive and Passionate tones use more "mana" than Calm, Cautious and Reluctant (in that order), and have bigger effects on the Pressure Meter above. Wins re-fills the "mana pool". So there is seldom any point to using the three former tones when morale is low; an aggressive "disappointed" half-time team talk may give you 11 green "motivated" responses in the body language column, but after 10 minutes of the second half their morale may drop even lower if they haven't scored yet - a team of Abysmal's is pointless if you can avoid it. A manager's job is NOT to tell his players the truth; if you tell them that they were good when they were good and awful when they were awful, you aren't making the slightest difference and would probably be nicknamed Captain Obvious by your squad in real life. A general tip is to lie your ass off! Be Sir Alex Ferguson. Of course, a Superb morale team playing awfully in the first half may -really- need to be threatened to have unspeakable things done to them and their families at half-time, just don't do it with a team having Ok or worse morale.

Reputation, form, certain hidden attributes and the media events leading up to a match puts each player somewhere on the Pressure Meter. Then, your words in the changing room either adds or lowers pressure. "Expect a win" and "For the fans" moves the player leftwards on the Pressure Meter, while "You have faith" and "no pressure" moves him to the right.

The goal is to keep them in the middle -, so if you suspect that the team is going to be complacent in the match, you add pressure. If you suspect they will be nervous in the match, you reduce pressure. You need to know your team and pay attention to their reactions to team talks over time to be able to do this correctly. While the pre-match odds is a good indicator, it is not to be trusted. Having "nervous" or "anxious" players may indeed be a sign of too little pressure (i.e the manager is unsure of their ability), rather than too much, for instance. Don't be afraid to warn against complacency when you are in good form (seing a few Angered players is just excellent... as long as you win and can praise them afterwards; let them be angry, I say).

Since the last team-talk of one match is the first team-talk of the next match, I am usually cautious or calm when praising wins, to avoid placing the players too much to the right on the Pressure Meter.

[dking]

Was going to have a mess around with this but none of the links are working for me.

[cragswfc]

Was going to have a mess around with this but none of the links are working for me.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/8crtnm

[dking]

Nothing happens when I click the links.

Edit - Very strange. I click the link here and nothing happens, but if I right click the link and open in a new tab it works. Any ideas why?

Anyway, I'll give this a try next season and let you know how it goes.

[BiggusD]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Just wanted to share

[yunga-swfc]

I like the look of this tactic, it's simple & has been used with a lower league team... I've started one with Halifax & used this tactic especially.

First game was fantastic won 4-1 away at Bishop, but then I didn't win in my next 3 games, the two home games I had I had 14 shots to their 6 and lost 1-0... the next game I was comfortably winning 1-0 until my DM got sent off, I then drew 2-2... I then played Bradford PA away and lost 4-2. They had 18 shots to my 4... all though I had 57% possession.

do you think my players need time to gel with this tactic? I thought you would appreciate the feedback.

[BiggusD]

I like the look of this tactic, it's simple & has been used with a lower league team... I've started one with Halifax & used this tactic especially.

First game was fantastic won 4-1 away at Bishop, but then I didn't win in my next 3 games, the two home games I had I had 14 shots to their 6 and lost 1-0... the next game I was comfortably winning 1-0 until my DM got sent off, I then drew 2-2... I then played Bradford PA away and lost 4-2. They had 18 shots to my 4... all though I had 57% possession.

do you think my players need time to gel with this tactic? I thought you would appreciate the feedback.

It is possible that it needs time to gel yes, but there can be many other factors contributing to those losses. Especially that Bradford game. I struggled vs Bradford too, btw. Could be morale, team gelling in general (not the tactic) and stuff like that, but in my game Bradford was like 23rd and really struggling and in this ME it is actually not a good idea to go out in an attacking shape against that kind of opponent. I have a defensive 451 tactic as backup and use it with success when I face the bottom teams. I have experienced a few results like that too and all of them came against teams I should beat easily (except in the cup).

[yunga-swfc]

It is possible that it needs time to gel yes, but there can be many other factors contributing to those losses. Especially that Bradford game. I struggled vs Bradford too, btw. Could be morale, team gelling in general (not the tactic) and stuff like that, but in my game Bradford was like 23rd and really struggling and in this ME it is actually not a good idea to go out in an attacking shape against that kind of opponent. I have a defensive 451 tactic as backup and use it with success when I face the bottom teams. I have experienced a few results like that too and all of them came against teams I should beat easily (except in the cup).

thanks for the reply mate.

do you have a link to download your defensive tactic? that would be much appreciated.

[BiggusD]

I have now updated #3 with a link to my ultradefensive 4-1-4-1 tactic DefCon. I cannot say I have tuned it that much, but it works. I am for instance unsure about the quick tempo.