Some questions from a returning FM player

[Absen]

Hi all,

Like many people COVID has brought me back to the FM fold for the first time in ages (last version I played at length was probably FM13, with a brief dabble in FM17). I'm currently playing FM20, managing Rushall Olympic in the Vanarama National. 

I'm really enjoying the updates to the game in the years I’ve missed but I think I'm making a few obvious mistakes, some new and some are traps I think I've always fallen into – ones I thought you guys might be able to help me out with! (As I said, I've been away for a while, so if this isn't the best forum for this just push me in the right direction). 

After some trial and much error I've settled on a tactic that works well 80% of the time, with a few outstanding imperfections. I alternate this with a counter attacking tactic for tough away games, but this is my bedrock:

It's served me well enough to escape the Vanarama North and become reasonably established in the Conference. When it works well, it’s great – the AF gets lots of goals, the right winger acts almost like a second striker, the overlapping left back puts in some good crosses, and the playmaker is great. 

However, I suspect there's a couple of things holding me back from my full potential in the game that I can't quite suss out. 

The questions I have are as follows:

1. My IW on the left always seems to be a weak link in the team, regardless of who the player is, which makes me think it's the system letting him down. I seem to remember varied attacking movement being the way forward in FM, so the idea is he comes inside with a full back overlapping while the other winger is a more classic touchline-hugger. On the in-game highlights it seems like in cutting on to his strong foot he loses the ball more often than not and rarely gets a cross in. Any thoughts?
2. How do I make the best use of team training? At the moment all I really do is defending set pieces if we look vulnerable, or attacking set pieces if I feel we're not scoring enough from them. 
3. What's the best way to use Pace in an attacking formation? It's always been a lower league cheat code in FM and that still seems to be the case. But I find it hard to make it work outside of a counter attacking context.
4. More of a random one, but can a Poacher work as a lone striker at all? If so, how? I have this idea that you can have a Vardy type always lurking on the last shoulder for a long through ball but it could also be one of those things that just doesn't work in FM.
5. Depending on the opposition, I adjust the mentality between Cautious and Attacking. If I do that, should I adjust the player instructions/mentalities too? If so, which ones?
6. What are the most important attributes for lower league full backs? I really struggle with recruiting these, as I tend to alternate between flaky wing back types that can't defend and no nonsense bullies that can't pass. 
7. What's the best policy for chasing a goal at the end of a game? Is it sliding to ultra attacking and leaving it at that? Should you change formation? Change player instructions? Ditto for protecting a lead...
8. The last question is a big one and I know it's very much an FM staple. But 50-65% of the way through a season I will get the dreaded slowdown where clear cut chances dry up, you lose more games to sloppy goals on the counter, and your form goes to pot. Getting those horrible games where you’re at home to relegation fodder, you don’t get a single chance in the first half, and you know any attempt to go more attacking leaves you open to the sucker punch. I've read around this quite a bit, but I've never been able to make the most common solutions work. I suspect that as a lower league team it's more down to lack of rotation and jadedness/complacency, as I don't have many reserves good enough to step up. But I also wanted to outline some issues I have with more common proposals:

• Use a more direct tactic - the issue here is I don't have any target men, and I've never come across a tactic suited for direct football/ poor pitches that didn't rely on a big ugly guy up top. It just seems like an invitation to lose the ball. Not to mention I've rarely been able to get direct football to work in this game, for example when starting out with a new team - it seems to prefer possession styles most of the time.
• Drop deeper, invite teams to attack you - I'll admit I've been reluctant to test this too much in the past. But what I've tended to find is instead of inviting defensive teams on to you, it creates stalemate as neither side wants to risk anything. What would it look like in practice anyway? Keep the same tactic but bump back to Cautious? Drop the line of engagement/defensive line?
• Change tactic - kind of linked to the above, I wouldn't know where to begin here. It took me ages to find one tactic that worked, I'm not sure lightning would strike twice! If you change tactic to a different formation with the same philosophy are you really changing tactic at all?
• Be more probing, try to open up more defense minded teams - the issue here is my tactic already tries to do this, so I'm not sure how to turn the dial on it. Would raising the tempo do anything?

FWIW I'm really enjoying the game and I don't think the above is getting in the way of that. But the tactical side of things has always been one of my only gripes with the series. If you think about recruitment, that scales with your progress through the game really well – the more success you have, the more players you see, the fewer hidden attributes, the better reports you get. 

But I’ve always found the tactical side of things to be maddeningly opaque, and I’ve always had to rely on third-party resources like posts on these forums. Even at a top level your staff are useless with diagnosing issues. The new (to me at least) analysis function on the tactic screen at least prevents me making any obvious mistakes, but it’s still hard to find out exactly what’s going wrong. 

Cheers!
 

[frukox]

1 hour ago, Absen said:

Hi all,

Like many people COVID has brought me back to the FM fold for the first time in ages (last version I played at length was probably FM13, with a brief dabble in FM17). I'm currently playing FM20, managing Rushall Olympic in the Vanarama National. 

I'm really enjoying the updates to the game in the years I’ve missed but I think I'm making a few obvious mistakes, some new and some are traps I think I've always fallen into – ones I thought you guys might be able to help me out with! (As I said, I've been away for a while, so if this isn't the best forum for this just push me in the right direction). 

After some trial and much error I've settled on a tactic that works well 80% of the time, with a few outstanding imperfections. I alternate this with a counter attacking tactic for tough away games, but this is my bedrock:

It's served me well enough to escape the Vanarama North and become reasonably established in the Conference. When it works well, it’s great – the AF gets lots of goals, the right winger acts almost like a second striker, the overlapping left back puts in some good crosses, and the playmaker is great. 

However, I suspect there's a couple of things holding me back from my full potential in the game that I can't quite suss out. 

The questions I have are as follows:

1. My IW on the left always seems to be a weak link in the team, regardless of who the player is, which makes me think it's the system letting him down. I seem to remember varied attacking movement being the way forward in FM, so the idea is he comes inside with a full back overlapping while the other winger is a more classic touchline-hugger. On the in-game highlights it seems like in cutting on to his strong foot he loses the ball more often than not and rarely gets a cross in. Any thoughts?
2. How do I make the best use of team training? At the moment all I really do is defending set pieces if we look vulnerable, or attacking set pieces if I feel we're not scoring enough from them. 
3. What's the best way to use Pace in an attacking formation? It's always been a lower league cheat code in FM and that still seems to be the case. But I find it hard to make it work outside of a counter attacking context.
4. More of a random one, but can a Poacher work as a lone striker at all? If so, how? I have this idea that you can have a Vardy type always lurking on the last shoulder for a long through ball but it could also be one of those things that just doesn't work in FM.
5. Depending on the opposition, I adjust the mentality between Cautious and Attacking. If I do that, should I adjust the player instructions/mentalities too? If so, which ones?
6. What are the most important attributes for lower league full backs? I really struggle with recruiting these, as I tend to alternate between flaky wing back types that can't defend and no nonsense bullies that can't pass. 
7. What's the best policy for chasing a goal at the end of a game? Is it sliding to ultra attacking and leaving it at that? Should you change formation? Change player instructions? Ditto for protecting a lead...
8. The last question is a big one and I know it's very much an FM staple. But 50-65% of the way through a season I will get the dreaded slowdown where clear cut chances dry up, you lose more games to sloppy goals on the counter, and your form goes to pot. Getting those horrible games where you’re at home to relegation fodder, you don’t get a single chance in the first half, and you know any attempt to go more attacking leaves you open to the sucker punch. I've read around this quite a bit, but I've never been able to make the most common solutions work. I suspect that as a lower league team it's more down to lack of rotation and jadedness/complacency, as I don't have many reserves good enough to step up. But I also wanted to outline some issues I have with more common proposals:

• Use a more direct tactic - the issue here is I don't have any target men, and I've never come across a tactic suited for direct football/ poor pitches that didn't rely on a big ugly guy up top. It just seems like an invitation to lose the ball. Not to mention I've rarely been able to get direct football to work in this game, for example when starting out with a new team - it seems to prefer possession styles most of the time.
• Drop deeper, invite teams to attack you - I'll admit I've been reluctant to test this too much in the past. But what I've tended to find is instead of inviting defensive teams on to you, it creates stalemate as neither side wants to risk anything. What would it look like in practice anyway? Keep the same tactic but bump back to Cautious? Drop the line of engagement/defensive line?
• Change tactic - kind of linked to the above, I wouldn't know where to begin here. It took me ages to find one tactic that worked, I'm not sure lightning would strike twice! If you change tactic to a different formation with the same philosophy are you really changing tactic at all?
• Be more probing, try to open up more defense minded teams - the issue here is my tactic already tries to do this, so I'm not sure how to turn the dial on it. Would raising the tempo do anything?

FWIW I'm really enjoying the game and I don't think the above is getting in the way of that. But the tactical side of things has always been one of my only gripes with the series. If you think about recruitment, that scales with your progress through the game really well – the more success you have, the more players you see, the fewer hidden attributes, the better reports you get. 

But I’ve always found the tactical side of things to be maddeningly opaque, and I’ve always had to rely on third-party resources like posts on these forums. Even at a top level your staff are useless with diagnosing issues. The new (to me at least) analysis function on the tactic screen at least prevents me making any obvious mistakes, but it’s still hard to find out exactly what’s going wrong. 

Cheers!
 

You want to keep possession with short passes but you haven't got enough support with these roles especially in the middle of the park and on your right flank.

You also lower tempo to reduce space for your attackers.

You also want to play wider but you want to play with short passes. You just reduce available passing options for your passing game thus possibly losing tbe ball in transition. 

You also want to regroup and counter but you want to play a patient, possession style. How do you plan to counter with short passes? How are you going to reach your WA and AFA quickly with this style?

You want to mark their backline but you don't have a high block there to justify this instruction. There comes another question. Are you going to regroup into your third and hit your opponent on the counter or apply a high press aiming to force them to make mistakes on and off the ball and win the ball back quickly? If so, how are you planning to create space for your WA and AFA?

These all would be my concerns if I were you.

1) I indirectly explained this above.

2) Choose a tactical style you'd like to play most of the time. If you know how attributes work, choose the most vital ten of them. Then, read all tooltips in training programmes and put them in your weekly schedule but don't forget to add some training for your next match and Recovery+ some rest after matches.

3)Formations show your defensive shape so they are neutral. If my strength would be physical attributes, then I would play fast, direct style with a low to mid block. Therefore, I wouldn't use an attacking formation. My options would be 4-4-2 DM, 4-1-2-3, 4-2-1-3, 3-5-2, 5-2-3 WB, 3-4-1-2 or so on. You got it. I'd make sure I have some players ahead for direct plays.

4) Poacher can be a great role if everyone around him creates the space he needs as it's a static role. He doesn't want to play with the ball, doesn't want to create anything, only wants to get behind the defensive line to score a goal. That's all.

5) Start with balanced mentality. If you mostly see you gift opposition ball, go up to Positive but if you have any attacking role on fbs, I'd be wary of it and be aware of what mentality affects and tweak them as needed.

6) Prioritise physical attributes then one or two crucial mental attributes.

7) If the opposition sits deep and narrow and try to hold onto a lead:

Switching to an attacking formation.

Give FBs a more attacking role. 

Play with a high block.

Increase attacking width, extend my passing range and lower tempo.

Crossing early to try to catch opposition defence off guard.

Giving licence to long shot specialists, thus encouraging cutbacks with mixed or low crossing.

Adding one more runner into the box.

8) Press interviews are boring yes but they are great for increasing pressure on your opposition,decreasing complacency and lifting pressure off your players. Just choose the most sensible one for your cause according to the situation you are in. There are some tricky questions, rivals or player performance expectations for both sides. Just leave it blank and don't forget to watch your players body language before the match. 

Fill all tactic slots.

- Your first tactic could be the one you use for home games where you are favorites. Look at your players and decide on your attacking and defending style.

- Your second tactic may be for your tough away games where you take less risks than the first tactic.

- Your third tactic might be against a very defensive oppositions with three CDs and/or two DMs where you should take more risks than the first tactic.

All in all, as an avid FM player I strongly advise you read all of the content created by Rashidi, Cleon, Ozil and Rashidi' Bustthenet Youtube channel to get better understanding of the tactical side of this game;) Good luck!

[Experienced Defender]

My first impression regarding the setup of roles and duties is - an overly shaky midfield trio. That's the area I would look to solidify first. Which can be easily done by changing the APsu into DLPsu and BWMsu into standard DM on defend or anchor.

Another issue is both the mezzala and winger on the same side being played on the same duty (attack). There are two options to solve this:

1. either change the winger's duty into support

2. or change the mezzala's role into standard CM