DeathJester

Can anybody advise on how to replicate his tactic in FM18?

Thanks for the advice. I read the article above and have implemented it in my new demo game. I opted for a 4231 and a 433 system. With a standard structured setup and very few team instructions. The idea being I can make tactical amendments based on what I see during the game. I am seeing an.improvement. I overhauled the squad by selling Taylor, wood, Murphy, Dallas, silvestri, and cancelled the loan for Grimes. Doukara is also for sale. Wood you may think is controversial but I hate playing with a target man so he didn't fit into my plans. Players brought in were : Diego Poyet, Joe Walsh (cb), Bradley dack, Marcus maddison, Conor Washington, Fred Onyedinma, Haidara (loan). Really hard to get decent players in on the demo. Gutted I missed out on Kazenga LuaLua. Still think something's up with the demo though. Cannot win consistantly and I've mastered every FM before now.

Is this year's FM really tough or something? Getting very frustrated here with the Leeds save. Each year I play the demo, get an idea or plan of what I want to do in the main game, then tackle the challenge of the main game then. But this year's demo, my god. No matter what I do I can't seem to get a consistent run of good results? Is the Leeds game in the full version really tough? I know with the demo I'm really limited as to who I can buy etc which doesn't help. I mean there doesn't appear to be any decent strikers available to buy. I don't like playing with A target man (that's all Wood can do) as it leads to too much lost possession. I don't like playing with a line advanced forward (Antonnsons best position) leaving only Doukara and Roofs who aren't great. Who would you set up the team to replicate the way Monk has them playing. I'm having no success at all. Have you had any success with any tactic? I seem to suffer from lack of goals even when playing a control strategy. I look through the side and wonder who's going to score enough. I brought in Bradley Dack, Marcus Maddison. Even Nicky Ajose looked appealing to me compared to what we have. Any advice guys to get me ripping it up in the demo so I can take that into the full game?

Here's what I was trying to achieve with my tactic. It was to be inspired by the likes of bielsa and sampaoli in that I wanted to restict the play and my team into a 25 metre area on the pitch. Heavy pressing / closing down with the aim of winning the ball as high up the pitch as possible. In the transition I wanted plenty of runners getting forward enabling me to play quick, short passes to get forward and only playing the long ball (sometimes vertical) to send my forwards or runners through on goal or heavily in space but also to keep the ball when that option is not available. I want to create width higher up the pitch creating two v ones down the flanks (Bielsa uses inverted wingback at times to "underlap" the wingers to get into the box) I have also been trying to use the Bielsa 3313 formation against two opposition strikers and this seems to work quite well. I also have been tweaking and trying a sampaoli 3412 formation. What I was finding was that my winger or wingback would get into space out wide to stick in a cross but would delay as there wasn't enough of my players in the box to receive the cross. This meant more often than not my cross was blocked, ending up in a corner or losing posession. With the sampaoli formation with two up front this seemed to remedy that somewhat.

The problem seems to be being hit on the counter. The team will have one or two chances scoring at least once, whereas I will have twenty shots and struggle to score once. The goals against me seem to come via a through ball through the middle mostly. Couple other things I've noticed. I have my gk on roll the ball out yet still continues to hoof the ball upfield. Too often my team will attempt an ambitious high ball out to the flank only to be cut off. My striker keeps being caught offside. I have made a few changes to my tactic since I posted. I now use the following: control, very fluid, higher tempo, balanced width, slightly higher defensive line, closing down as much as I can set it, prevent gk short distribution, tighter marking, get stuck in, play out of defence, exploit the flanks, mixed passing, whipped crosses I changed my striker to deep lying forward on support, my attcking wingback to complete wingback support, my winger on support and inside forward attack I added get further forward to the inverted wingback also.

Would playing at a higher tempo Lead to my players rushing their scoring chances. I wanted to play a higher tempo game, already am using the control mentality, which would already increase tempo a bit if I'm not mistaken. Along with that I play a normal tempo.

I always use a control mentality, team instructions in addition to what I 've used above I wouldnt change a lot, maybe go defensive if trying to hold on to a lead, or attacking if needd to grab a goal late on, show player on weaker foot, go in hard etc. I start every game as above irrespective of opposition I have a good grasp of teamtalks, almost always sufficientl;y motivate the players before a game.

Fistly i am in the English premiership, and the media predict that i should be in the top 7, uefa cup qualification spots. I am cureently siting in 12th position and we are just after Xmas and I'm tearing my hair out at the inconsistancy of my team. I had thought that I was happy with my tactic (I will show below), and in fact i dominate most games. Having the better of posession and chances. I will beat the league leaders one week, and then struggle against bottom of the league the next. Seem to be better away from home and then struggle at home (but generally always dominating the game, not scoring with our chances and conceding when the opposition have little in the way of goalscoring chances. Admittedly I do have a young team - but the players I have are of good quality. Why is this happening? I play a very fluid, control, normal tempo, high closing down with a normal defensive line. Play out from defence, normal passing. Mark Tighter, get Stuck in and whipped crosses. I use a 4231 formation. Here is how I line up: Goalkeeper Left Inverted Wingback - Support Centre back Defend Centre Back Defend Right WingBack - Attack Left Centre Mid - Deep Lying Playmaker defend Right Centre Mid - Box to Box Mid - support Left Attacking Midfielder - Winger - Attack Right Attacking Midfielder - Inside Forward - Support Centre Attacking Midfielder - Enganche Striker - Complete Forward - Support The idea behind my setup was partly inspired by Bielsa but in ways slightly toned down (ala Sampaoli). I wanted a engance behind a forward three, the winger stretching the opposition defence, the inside forward running between the full back and centre back, the enganche supplying the balls to them as well as being a goalscoring threat himself. The attacking right wingback also stretching the opposition from deeper, whilst you have the box to box midfieldefr making late runs and the inverted wingback making late angled runs towards the opposition penalty area. The idea was to have as many variations of runners supporting the attack as possible. To summarise my problems seem to be : Not dominating enough at home weaker opposition give me more problems than they should Not taking the many chances that come my way Conceding goals from only one or two oppsition chances Any advice, tips or insight that you guys can offer me? Many Thanks in advance

Note that sometimes, as sampaoli and Bielsa do, agaist two out and out strikers I drop the half back into the middle centre defender slot making a back three putting him on cover duty. The idea that the other two centre defenders can mark the two strikers, giving me the spare man at the back.

I've gone with the Sampaoli approach. I think the Bielsa system with inverted wingback would be harder to implement in FM. Team instructions: attacking, very fluid, higher tempo, wide, slightly higher defensive line, use offside trap, prevent short gk distribution, use tighter marking, play out of defence, exploit the flanks, look for overlap, retain posession, run at defence Lineup as follows: Sweeper keeper Left complete wingback attack Ball playing defender defend Ball playing defender defend Right complete wingback attack Half back Left cm deep lying playmaker support Right cm centre mid attack Aml inside forward support Amr inside forward attack Striker false nine support

I'm a newly promoted side to the English premiership currently at xmas sitting in 8th place in the table.

I had a fair amount of success in Fm15 replicating both Bielsa and Sampaoli variants of a high tempo, high pressing game. I then created my own tactic which was a hybrid of the two which was very successful too. But...... I try to achieve the same thing on Fm16 and I'm having mixed results. One game I will win comfortable 5-0 and the next I'm beaten comfortably. What has changed that could affect this in the tactics and match engine this year? Has anybody successfully replicated a Bielsa / Sampaoli tactic in FM16?

The idea behind the wide playmaker is that the wingback would overlap them as they cut inside. I've found bentancur and zivkovic doing very well for me in these positions in the premiership with a newly promoted Leeds side.

I've found myself using the above formation and realised it's not something I've seen people use on here and I've never seen the CPU AI use it either. Any reason for this? Has anybody used it themselves to any success or was it a disaster? What team and player settings did you use? Currently I setup as follows: Mentality standard, fluid, normal tempo, short passing, balnced defensive line, play out of defence, look for overlap. Gk Lb: wingback attack Rb: wingback attack Cb: centre def defend Cb: centre def defend Dm: deep lying playmaker support Dm: defensive midfielder defend Lm: wide playmaker attack Rm: wide playmaker attack Cm: centre mid attack St: deep lying forward support So any thoughts and suggestions on the above. Any ideas to improve?

I want to start a Leeds save where i concentrate on bringing through our current crop of youngsters, the likes of charlie taylor, kalvin phillips, chris dawson, lewis coyle, lewis walters, lewis cook, alex mowatt etc. The team will be built around these players. With the way the game works , most of these players will be on random CA's and PA's tgus not reflecting their real life potential. Is their a download which updates these players to their real life potential available? If not, i can change them manually, so question is, what CA's and PA's would be realistic of the above players, should i change any of their stats, ppm's etc to reflect real life? Your help would be greatly appreciated