How can I improve? ***Please Help***

[MarkJS1]

Hi,

As Chelsea, my tactic is currently doing me well finishing 2nd each season but what can I change to finish 1st? 

Please can you look through my tactic and let me know what changes you would make and why? Thank you so much!

[Bitner]

I don't like 2 playmakers, 2 wingers on attack, 2 fullbacks on support.

I think this team is too linear, you got no penetration from the midfielders, nor you got a defender getting involved in last third. Sounds like a team who would struggle big time against a park the bus.

Cheers,
Bitner 

[Mr_Demus]

My advice would be to have an ATT/SUP combo on the flanks - eg. FB S and IW A on one side and FB A and IF S on another. Or another combination.

Also, one playmaker should be enough. Perhaps change the AP into BBM or CM A

[frukox]

3 saat önce, MarkJS1 said:

Hi,

As Chelsea, my tactic is currently doing me well finishing 2nd each season but what can I change to finish 1st? 

Please can you look through my tactic and let me know what changes you would make and why? Thank you so much!

Problems I'd try to solve:

-So many TIs(Do you know their effects on the match engine as well as their drawbacks?)

- Very aggressive defending

- No one dropping deep from attacking line(traits not considered here)

- No one getting forward not to isolate the striker and to run from deep to destabilise defences(traits not considered here)

- Fullbacks and midfield players not giving enough support to the front line in different ways, that is they are too static and one-dimensional (traits not considered here)

or you can get by with such a static midfield with being really aggressive on the flanks like Klopp's Liverpool.

Edited December 9, 2022 by frukox

[Finners]

You've got some good advice here already but just to chime in with one obvious observation:

I see a LOT of people with "work ball in to box" ticked who I'm never really sure if they actually appreciate what it does and if they want it. 

Work Ball Into Box is an instruction that essentially tells your players to wait for the right moment to play an optimal pass in to the box and to be patient if necessary. I personally think that a lot of Football Manager players tick it because they expect it to mean "take less long shots and only shoot when you're in the box" but that's not really all it does. It's going to promote the kind of play reminiscent of a classic Guardiola side where your wingers and attacking midfielders are probing around a set defence looking to break it down. 

You have three other team instructions selected which, to my mind, partially or fully contradict WBIB:

1. High Tempo. Generally speaking, High Tempo doesn't just mean your players acting and moving with more energy, it means they'll make faster decisions that typically lead to more direct movement towards goal. 

2. Pass Into Space. Whilst a very popular and often very successful team instruction, it can quite radically change build up play and typically favours counter attacking. It's literally playing longer balls out in front of fast players for them to run on to. Even if you play with "shorter passing" and don't have counter attacking selected, if you have Higher Tempo and Pass In To Space on you'll probably still find your centre mids and centre backs playing long balls in to the channels for your forwards to chase. 

3. Run At Defence. I'd say this one is less directly contradictory to WBIB. Think Riyad Mahrez it Raheem Sterling running at full backs in the box perhaps for Man City. But I'd still say its an instruction that favours quite direct, assertive action as opposed to patience and I'm not sure it marries up well. 

 

All in all, as with a lot of people, it feels like your tactic is mostly about attacking with speed and using fast running and fast dribbling players to give the opposition a nightmare. But then you sort of contradict that with WBIB and having all these playmakers in the middle of the pitch. Try swapping out the playmaker roles for more generic ones, maybe a CMs next to a Mez A instead and taking WBIB off for a while. 

I also think you could probably tone down some of your defensive instructions. I don't think the offside trap or the blocking crossed are that necessary tbh. I'd personally keep it simple, set your line and your pressing intensity and that's about it. 

 

Edit: one final note, there's no shame in finishing second and your tactic alone might not be the issue. Remember there's other facets to the game, squad management, squad building, managing pressure, morale, expectation, etc could all be issues. The Premier League is the toughest league in FM to win this year. Liverpool, Man City and Man Utd will all probably run up massive points totals and not lose many games. So you age going to need to be consistent and your tactic alone won't carry you if you're bad at managing a squad. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Finners

[b2khn]

What I don't get is the automatic duty in the fb. If you want to control the game you surely want to have control about the fb duty.

Do you change your mentality ingame? then you also changing their duty.

But like finners said, it maybe not down to tactics.

Is ManCity first? Then you maybe just having a very good season finishing second

[eXistenZ]

8 hours ago, Finners said:

You've got some good advice here already but just to chime in with one obvious observation:

I see a LOT of people with "work ball in to box" ticked who I'm never really sure if they actually appreciate what it does and if they want it. 

Work Ball Into Box is an instruction that essentially tells your players to wait for the right moment to play an optimal pass in to the box and to be patient if necessary. I personally think that a lot of Football Manager players tick it because they expect it to mean "take less long shots and only shoot when you're in the box" but that's not really all it does. It's going to promote the kind of play reminiscent of a classic Guardiola side where your wingers and attacking midfielders are probing around a set defence looking to break it down.

To be fair, its the first thing the game will tell you to do when you have poor shooting