DaveX - Realistic & Stable 4231 plug&play (FM21.4 | ME 21.7.0)

[DavyDepuydt1]

My aim was to build a plug&play tactic that would work well with any team, but still had a lot of realism in it
In short, I wanted to find the perfect mix of "plug&play + realism":

• Normal popular 4231 formation
• Normal use of roles (no exotic 2 mezzala setup fe, or formation full of attacking minded roles)
• No hard tackling/get stuck in  (to avoid the storm of yellow cards a lot of plug&play tactics have)
• Very solid defense, lots of clean sheets
• No strange long throw goals exploit
• Almost no player instructions are used (so the players play as the role is intended and you can just train them in the role they are playing)
• Positive mentality (I feel much more happy with this than attacking mentality for a tactic used in every game like a lot of other plug&play tactics)
• Although it's high intensity, you see the red intensity bar is far from full, which allows most teams to play this tactic the entire season without getting weaker to the end
• No exploit corner routine

*****

This won't be the top tactic in terms of total goals, you will still have some draws and loses or get knocked out of a cup.
BUT, it will help you get and beat your predicted finish easiliy

for me personally it doesn't make me feel like i'm using a download exploit tactic, 
it makes me feel like I'm using a realistic tactic, gives me a lot of satisfaction and still lets me overachieve with any team

*****

See tactic and result below, all on the latest FM21.4 / ME 21.7.0 (released 16th of march)

• All testing was done in normal holiday mode on Full Fat FM and no tools were used to freeze attributes or morale or fitness, so nothing is different from when you are actually playing
• Test results are from my first try, I don't holiday over & over to show you the best result of a set of tests
• No opposition instructions used

The tactic

 

 

Liverpool result
101 points scored, ONLY 12 GOALS AGAINST

Club Brugge result:

Best defence, best offence, easy title

West Brom Test
Finished 10th with team predicted dead last, way clear of trouble

See the difference between the liverpool test, how the AI did with west brom, and how my tactic did:
10 more victories, 33 more points, 32 more goals scored, 18 less goals conceded

 

Remarkable

The clean sheet records with Liverpool & Brugge were amazing:

DaveX Normal.fmf

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

Another test, same rules (no freezing, no multiple tests to get best result, normal holiday in full fat)

Champions with Tottenham (see my previous 2 tests where AI only managed 13th & 16th with Tottenham)

Most goals scored, second best in goals against (just one goal difference)

Edited March 16, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[Johnny Ace]

Looks awesome @DavyDepuydt1, I'll give it a run out later on

It looks very similar to the 4-2-3-1's I use so I must've been on to something 

[Amazingortega]

Love it working well with my arsenal team 

[DavyDepuydt1]

11 hours ago, Amazingortega said:

Love it working well with my arsenal team 

Great to hear you are enjoying it mate!

[DavyDepuydt1]

Olympic Lyon, predicted 4th:

Finished second, a fair bit of the PSG pace, with a bit to many draw (but only 3 defeats, which is very good), but we have a nice advantage on all the teams behind us as well.
We do good in the stats as well (goals, average rating, ..)

As said, it's no wonder tactic that makes you champions 100% sure, but again, we perform above what is expected and you don't need to worry much, nice realistic formation, nice results and perform above expected

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

Test with AEK (normal holiday, no freeze of attributes or morale or fitness, one single test)

Predicted: 3th

Finished: 1st, and won the cup, 17 goals against, 68 for, 19 clean sheets

[DavyDepuydt1]

Test RB Leipzig (same rules as always, no freezing, just one test, normal holiday in full fat, no opp instructions)

Predicted 4th

result: 1st, most clean clean sheets, second in goals for (76), best in goals against (19)

[DavyDepuydt1]

As you can see, in all tests so far easy above predicted expectations, without any effort from my side, just holiday without opp instructions.
In some cases even some unexpected title wins (tottenham, Leipzig)

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[dunk105]

Looks brilliant- tend to avoid downloading as most have get stuck in so very happy to try one that doesnt use that!

[DavyDepuydt1]

1 hour ago, dunk105 said:

Looks brilliant- tend to avoid downloading as most have get stuck in so very happy to try one that doesnt use that!

Yes, I wanted to create something (for myself) that is really plug&play but doesn't have those annoying "side effects" that most download tactics have:

• Get stuck in / tackle harder, causes so many yellow cards
• Strange / unrealistic formations
• Strange / unrealistic combinations of roles
• Intensity bar fully filled, so by the end of the season the team doesn't perform anymore with the tactic because everyone is exhausted
• Most download tactics aim at getting a huge amount of goals, but for me the goals against and clean sheets are important as well
• A lot of goals that come from goals of a custom corner routine/exploit

So I'm quite happy with the result I have, because I bypass all those things that I find annoying, but still have a very decent plug&play tactic

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[dunk105]

36 minutes ago, DavyDepuydt1 said:

Yes, I wanted to create something (for myself) that is really plug&play but doesn't have those annoying "side effects" that most download tactics have:

• Get stuck in / tackle harder, causes so many yellow cards
• Strange / unrealistic formations
• Strange / unrealistic combinations of roles
• Intensity pressury bar fully filled, so by the end of the season the team doesn't perform anymore with the tactic because everyone is exhausted
• Most download tactics aim at getting a huge amount of goals, but for me the goals against and clean sheets are important as well
• A lot of goals that come from goals of a custom corner routine/exploit

So I'm quite happy with the result I have, because I bypass all those things that I find annoying, but still have a very decent plug&play tactic

Agree with all that- I look at some and it just seems every option is selected and every slider to the max!

Ive found it frustrating with my own tactics once I get successful and hit the park the bus barrier, and never found a decent mix of attacking threat and not leaving myself open to the AIs laser like counters, or secure and blunt in attack.

Tried it in season 1 as Spurs and first game was City away where I normally get trounced until I can get some better defenders in- anyway won 1-0, and it was so comfortable, dont think Ive ever played City away and seen so little threat from them! It was without Kane (starting) and Ndombele, and also forced to play a raw Tanganga rather than an injured Alderweireld. First time ive felt secure also with 2 support midfielders rather than one support and one defend. 

[Smiza]

Can you test with FC Köln in Bundesliga?

[DavyDepuydt1]

2 minutes ago, Smiza said:

Can you test with FC Köln in Bundesliga?

Will do, another test is running now and when it's done I'll start an FC Köln one

[DavyDepuydt1]

Udinese test

Predicted: 15th

Result: 8th, quite good as there are so many "top teams" in Italy. Except from Sassuolo we were "best of the rest" and even beat Roma.
Both goals scored and goals against very decent for a team predicted bottom end of the table

again, with no effort, beaten the team prediction by 7 positions.
You should normally battle against relegation with this team and now they were pushing for european football

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

1 hour ago, Smiza said:

Can you test with FC Köln in Bundesliga?

Had a very strange bundesliga season, with Bayern & Dortmund letting down.

FC Köln test

Predicted: 12th

Finished: 4th, qualifying for Champions league. was 1st a long part of the season, but a bad month in april saw the team fall down to 4th, in the end you see top 6 is close to eachother.

Strong performance for a team like FC. Köln, but all in all, a weird bundesliga result for first season
4th in goals for, 5th in goals against, not bad again for team predicted 12th, and finished 8 position above what is expected

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[pinball_88]

What does "ME 21.7.0" mean? The game version is the 21.4

Edited March 17, 2021 by pinball_88

[DavyDepuydt1]

@pinball_88

Some people prefer to see the "Match Engine version", ME 21.7.0 is the version of the match engine that came with game version 21.4

[DavyDepuydt1]

FC Barcelona test (same rules as always, no attribute,morale or fitness freezing, normal holidaying, one attempt, no opposition instructions)

Predicted: 2nd

Result: 1st, most goals scored, fewest goals conceded, 2nd in clean sheets (19, vs 20 for real madrid)

100 points, exceeding expectations once again here

[DavyDepuydt1]

So far all tests show:

• Exceeding of expectations by a large margin
• Still realistic results, underdog teams not winning the league, which still rewards you for improving your team year over year and see you do better & better (but you have the fun of not worrying to meet your expectations as you will easily achieve them)
• Good (but not stupidly high) goals scored
• Good/Realistic goals against
• Good clean sheet records (relative to team & expectations)
• If you have a good striker in a top/subtop team, he will always compete to be the competition's top scorer

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[Black Africa]

17 minutes ago, DavyDepuydt1 said:

So far all tests show:

• Exceeding of expectations by a large margin
• Still realistic results, underdog teams not winning the league, which still rewards you for improving your team year over year and see you do better & better (but you have the fun of not worrying to meet your expectations as you will easily achieve them)
• Good (but not stupidly high) goals scored
• Good/Realistic goals against
• Good clean sheet records (relative to team & expectations)
• If you have a good striker in a top/subtop team, he will always compete to be the competition's top scorer

I do agree with You, did You ever test it for more than one season? 

[DavyDepuydt1]

@Black Africa i Will do a testrun this evening or tomorrow, holiday for multiple seasons with DoF in charge of all transfers and contracts

[gooders11]

Looks impressive. How are the player ratings generally? One thing that really annoys me with this years game is the rubbish ratings for midfielders.

[DavyDepuydt1]

1 hour ago, gooders11 said:

Looks impressive. How are the player ratings generally? One thing that really annoys me with this years game is the rubbish ratings for midfielders.

If you're a top team you'll have multiple players in the top 20 of the average ranking list.
If you're an underdog you'll have a lot less players in the average top 20 list, maybe just one or noone (which is realistic and won't f*** up awards - going to obscure players  )

I have the feeling that the best players really do get the best ratings in this tactic, with Anderlecht it was my IW in AML, with Barca it was Messi, with Brugge it was Vormer (who was playing as DLP / CM), With Liverpool it was Salah but also Trend Alexander,...

But if I do have to generalize it, the CM(s) position is less likely to get higher ratings than for example the winger... but like said above, if one fits the role very well and is the or one of the top players, he can get high ratings and be the highest rated player.

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

@Black Africa Here are the first 3,5 seasons I've simulated with Hull City. same rules apply as all other tests, and I've put the DoF in charge of all transfers & contracts so I don't run out of players in the long run.

• Got promoted from league one in  first season, while we were predicted 8th.
• second season finished 8th in championship,
• 3rd season we finished 13th, but the DoF let a lot of players go at the end of season 2, BUT we did play the FA cup final in season 3.
• We are over halfway season 4 and we are leading the sky bet championship, with a very good goals for / goals against ratio

so again, with no effort from my side, the tactic is overachieving year after year. (that's it for today, I might give the save a few more seasons tomorrow, but I think the point is proven that it still works in multiple seasons as well)

 

here are the stats from halfway season 4:

Keep in mind that this is all with the DoF in charge of transfers, the average player would do better transfers and even better lineup choices, so you would have even more succes in 4 seasons than I already have in this holiday save.

Check the good stats in chances created, goals against, possession, ..

Edited March 17, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[maggie7980]

Do you use any player instructions? I play on the Xbox series x,do have to copy everything over to use tactics. This tactic looks very stable like I need.

[MrGizMo]

Going to try it out with Lyon  

[Hezhoo]

Seems cool, will test with Benfica and will posto results

[DavyDepuydt1]

8 hours ago, maggie7980 said:

Do you use any player instructions? I play on the Xbox series x,do have to copy everything over to use tactics. This tactic looks very stable like I need.

IW, AM, W, en Wing Backs have "shoot less often"

CM (s) has "hold position"

and SK has "take fewer risks"

and that's it... the tactic would even work almost as good without the PI's anyway

[DavyDepuydt1]

8 hours ago, MrGizMo said:

Going to try it out with Lyon  

Good luck, let's see if you get a bit closer to PSG than my holiday test  (or even beat them  )

[MrGizMo]

24 minutes ago, DavyDepuydt1 said:

Good luck, let's see if you get a bit closer to PSG than my holiday test  (or even beat them  )

Haha beat them the first time :P 

I start using your tactic from the Bordeaux game  

 

[maggie7980]

1 hour ago, DavyDepuydt1 said:

IW, AM, W, en Wing Backs have "shoot less often"

CM (s) has "hold position"

and SK has "take fewer risks"

and that's it... the tactic would even work almost as good without the PI's anyway

Cheers,I will try this with my yeovil town team.

[DavyDepuydt1]

AZ test

Predicted: 4th

Result: 3th, just missing out on second place by one point.
Defence was very good, as you can see also very good clean sheet record (we were also second best in goals against), we were just missing some efficiency up top.

if this is the "bad roll of the dice", than it's still satisfying, predicted 4th, but challenged for 2nd place all year long, maybe nothing spectacular this time, but we easily did better than the predicted finish (which is not that easy when predicted finish is 4th, that means you are not the top dog in the league, but you will need to do better than some other very good teams, which we succeeded in here)

you can also see the large gap with number 4

Edited March 18, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[CJ_Randell]

This is really intriguing. I've been searching for a normal tactic this year that's universal. 

Not every club has players capable of playing Mezalla, Inverted Wing Backs, Complete Forward etc. 

Will try this tonight and feed back the results. 

[DavyDepuydt1]

Test AS Roma (Same rules as always, NO freezing of attributes/morale/fitness, no opp instructions, one single try in normal holiday mode on full fat)

Predicted: 6th

Result: 3th in the difficult serie A with a lot of top teams, 3 places above expected (which is nice when you are already expected near top end)

We won the europa league as well. got to the semi final in italian cup.

Most clear cut chances created, we had 17 clean sheets, wich is 4th best in the league

So again, without any effor from my side, beaten the predicted finish easily

Edited March 18, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

9 minutes ago, CJ_Randell said:

This is really intriguing. I've been searching for a normal tactic this year that's universal. 

Not every club has players capable of playing Mezalla, Inverted Wing Backs, Complete Forward etc. 

Will try this tonight and feed back the results. 

Yeah, that's what I've been after for quite some while, and couldn't find it, so I started trying to create one myself.

Good luck to you! offcourse expect that you will still have some losses or draws or get knocked out of a cup... it's not the uber tactic that will crush all records with a mediocre team.

But as all tests have shown so far, it will help you not to worry about meeting your predicted finish, because all my tests easily beat that without any extra effort... and all of that with a "normal tactic".

And these tests have been reprensatitive for you playing the game yourself, because it doesn't use freezing of fitness, attributes & morale... those tests that freeze fitness let a high intensity tactic for example perform very good all season long, while in reality for the player, you will struggle when you have a lot of matches in short time or at the end of the season, because all players are tired.... I rather have my test results representative for normal play

Edited March 18, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

Everton test (same rules as always)

Predicted: 9th

Result: Finished 5th, again we manage to easily beat our predicted finish, this time by 4 positions in the difficult top half of the premier league.
We also played semi final in FA cup (where we got knocked out by Man Utd). The defence was a bit of the pain in the Everton squad.

[gooders11]

This tactic is great. I started yet another West Ham save and I'm finally getting decent ratings from Declan Rice. I love how it plays in tough away games and not getting endless yellow and red cards is also a bonus. Great work. Could you do a test with West Ham if you get a chance?

[jjacopo]

Going to test this in my actual save, no holiday but will actually play the game, let's see because the results of the tests are ok but not excellent 

[DavyDepuydt1]

9 minutes ago, jjacopo said:

Going to test this in my actual save, no holiday but will actually play the game, let's see because the results of the tests are ok but not excellent 

Yes, that's what I have been mentioning... it's a tactic that excludes a lot of the annoying things other download tactics have, but offcourse it comes at a cost... it won't be the number one greatest tactic, but it should be great for people who want a realistic tactic and easily beat their team predicted finish.

[DavyDepuydt1]

11 minutes ago, gooders11 said:

This tactic is great. I started yet another West Ham save and I'm finally getting decent ratings from Declan Rice. I love how it plays in tough away games and not getting endless yellow and red cards is also a bonus. Great work. Could you do a test with West Ham if you get a chance?

Will do so sir.

[DavyDepuydt1]

Dortmund test

Predicted finish: 2nd

Result: 1st... you can't do much better in beating your predicted finish if it's 2nd and you win
We also won the German Cup & managed to get to the Champions league semi final.

it was close with Bayern, but if you see, 4 draw, 3 lost, very good results for a "normal tactic".

Haaland is a beast, 49 goals. We are 3rd best in goals against, it matches what my assistant says in the team report, the defense is the weak point of this squad.

As in all tests so far: beaten expected result, good goals for, good goals against

Edited March 18, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

1 hour ago, gooders11 said:

This tactic is great. I started yet another West Ham save and I'm finally getting decent ratings from Declan Rice. I love how it plays in tough away games and not getting endless yellow and red cards is also a bonus. Great work. Could you do a test with West Ham if you get a chance?

Here you go

West Ham test

Predicted: 12th

result: 5th, with antonio joint top goal scorer, 1 point of 4th place arsenal and Champions league qualification

 

As you can see, once again easily beaten the predicted finish.

But something else to take away from this, it's not only how good your team is,

• but also how good your team fits the tactics (and most will fit them good because they are normal positions and roles) that will decide how much you will overachieve.
• And also how big the reputation of your club is. The most difficult situation is that when your reputation is better than your team actually is, in these cases the tactic will only beat the predicted finish by a few positions, but keep hanging on and improve your team and you'll get there eventually
  • Look at the hull test, my team did only slightly get better in season 3 but my reputation was a lot higher suddenly.... so I ended worse than the season before, but still offcourse, higher than what was expected,
  • but in season 4, when my team was really strengthen, I was up there in first place

Edited March 18, 2021 by DavyDepuydt1

[DavyDepuydt1]

Lazio Test

Predicted: 5th

Finished: 4th, we were up there with the big 3 of Italy the entire season, but were not strong enough to perform any better. Large margin with place 5. (we were 3rd in Clean sheets)
Nothing special here, but again, even with no effort of me (no lineup chosen, no in game tactic changes, no management whatsoever) we are still doing better than predicted finish, just like in all other tests

[MrGizMo]

1 hour ago, jjacopo said:

Going to test this in my actual save, no holiday but will actually play the game, let's see because the results of the tests are ok but not excellent 

So far all his test runs are great!

 

undeniable

[mjcr3529]

2 minutes ago, MrGizMo said:

So far all his test runs are great!

 

undeniable

I was thinking the exact same thing when I was reading it???

[DavyDepuydt1]

Well he's got a point that it's not so overachieving like some other download tactics, but that's something I'm honest about in my very first post as well  and that's not the purpose of the tactic.

The purpose is a normal feeling tactic, normal roles, popular formation that let's you beat your predicted finish so you don't have to worry to much.... a fun plug&play that doesn't have the annoying things most download tactics do have.
With this tactic  you can also still improve your team year over year and see your results get better. (If you have a real wondertactic improving your team has not much use, it just improves the number of goals etc, but you'll have won evertything with a worse team already...)

[DavyDepuydt1]

PSG Test

Predicted: 1st

Result: 1st! I know this is PSG and offcourse, many tactics would win it, but it's still important to see how it holds up in these big top teams (I want it to work well in the total range of teams, from worst to best).

Amazing clean sheet record as well, 100 points, no losses, I'm happy with a result like that:

[gooders11]

Thanks for the West Ham test, Antonio is superb for the first season. I agree with your comments about the realism. I've won the league in the first season a couple of times using mario edm 442 and bham tactics and it felt hollow. As you say this gives you a chance to build a title winning team.

[Johnny Ace]

You've done here what I did with FM20. By accident I created a 4-2-3-1 overachieving P&P tactic & it led to probably my favorite FM save in 15 years. It wasn't a super tactic, it wasn't meant to be, it was realistic & simple that could gain extra league positions based on the media prediction each season, sometimes as many as 15 places

I've tried it this year & created solid tactics without the over achieving bit    I love FM but really don't have the time anymore for a 20 season save, tinkering tactics every game & playing out every single match (I would 50/50 between playing & Instant Result) so having something like this is a God send to some people who aren't keen on using the crazy P&P setups.   

I tried this tactic for 10 years in FM Touch, ass man doing everything  at Man U. It ran very well, 5 league titles, a bunch of Caraboa's, couple of FA Cups & a Champs League title. Sort of had to end it there as I realised none of the youth candidates were being given contracts & the squad was very thin in most areas (cheers Mr Phelan!). So if you ran it properly & maintained the squad yourself you could have a lengthy career with it & enjoy yourself

Good one @DavyDepuydt1!