[Knap - FM24 and FM23 FM22_FM 21 - FM 20 -FM 19 Tactic List]

12 minutes ago, knap said:

@DudeRat

Sort the Chelsea test on test tab and there is a link back tho Chelsea tactics

Thanks @knap .  Couldn't find the Echoes, but the Fire and Water appears to have the same roles and TI so i'll give it a whirl!

[Knap - FM24 and FM23 FM22_FM 21 - FM 20 -FM 19 Tactic List]

On 24/01/2022 at 00:06, knap said:

@Lewis Stewart

The Chelsea test 451 P110 has WBs

Sorry @knap I can't find the above tactic, as the Echoes in the list seems to have just 'High Tempo'.  Please can you give me the link for this one as really like the extremely high tempo!

[[FM21] - Possession-based 4-3-3DM with a Regista]

13 hours ago, Murcon17 said:

As I've changed quite a bit on my current tactic and to give an update of sorts. A lot of what you guys suspected and I also was wary of, happened quite quickly with the Advanced Forward. When there wasn't the space or opportunity to play him in with long balls over the top or through balls, there was a complete inability of the team to even attempt to build-up play through the middle of the park. And especially against stronger opposition sides what usually happened was the ball going out wide to the wingers, who then attempted suicidal dribbles across the whole pitch with varying success rates, but it looked and also played atrocious. And for some reason the defensive workrate also completely went nowhere, it honestly felt like the players just didn't want to do anything that could be considered having to work, they were mostly just escorting the opponent all the way into our penalty area without pressuring them. Results wise it was still kinda fine, with still some wins, but those didn't feel earned and they weren't. I think most games the team had 5-6 shots and an xG of 0.2-0.3. While trying to fixing the tactic, I also got pretty fed up with the Hertha players and decided to try again with a different club (I really wonder how many real life managers wish they could do that sometimes, just reload and take a different team) and as I also read something about the Bundesliga having ridicilously high pass completion rates, which I also saw in my own save, no club was below 85%. I swapped over to Nantes and rebuild the tactic.

This is the current look of the tactic, where I tried to adress most problems and concerns I found. Both the IF(S) and the IW(A) I felt were way too dribble heavy, always preferring to try to dribble across the whole field and shooting instead of being more involved in trying to build up an attack, which is why I've now gone with an IW(S) and a W(S) on the opposite side, to have some stretch a bit wider on one side as being too narrow on both flanks also felt like an issue. I still do use an opposite footed player on the right side at times, as that can create a sort of wider IW that doesn't only cut inside, and was also what I used before the IW was implemented, as I never really liked the one-track goal scoring focus of the IF.

To furthermore rein in the aggressive cutting and dribbling inside of the IW, I've gone with an underlap on the left side to lower both his mentality and then raise the corresponding mentality of the now WB(S) so that he still attacks down the left on the regular, but without the dribble more of WB(A) (The dribbling was really driving me mad and I'm not sure if it's just a tactic issue, but also too eager dribbling through the ME, but anyhow tactically I can at least attempt to tone it down). The reason I went for underlap instead of overlap is, that as far as I understand the underlap instruction from guides by @Rashidi and others is that underlapping leads to the players looking for and playing predominantly low passes inside the box, without completely taking away the outside pass, which is exactly what I want as I don't want to rely predominantly on crosses. As on the right side the winger will now be providing the width, I've gone with a simple FB(S), so that he still goes forward at times, but mainly stays deeper to provide some defensive cover behind the winger. I'd also really like to go with the same underlap instruction here, to achieve similar passing behaviour than on the left flank, but it would bump the FB mentality also to attacking and then he becomes too much of an aggressive overlapper, rather than this more supportive function on positive. The reason for both CBs now being CDs is that Nantes doesn't really have a CB that I trust to fulfil the role of a BPD otherwise I'd be using one BPD+CD.

To try and improve the build-up play through the middle, I've opted to go with a CM(A), as on the old midfield none of the three players got up the pitch fast enough or seemed to want to, which only increased the amount of dribbling from the wingers (I have nightmares from those dribbles now). The CM(A) now nicely gets early and fast up the pitch providing an advanced sort of passing option and pivot, similiarly to how having an AM would work, just starting from deeper. And as I was also lacking forward pushes from the central midfield up the pitch, the CM(A) has been instructed to dribble more, I'll be going through all the PIs later. The Regista and CM(D) stayed the same as their partnership works as expected. And to round off the lack of buildup through the middle I now went to a CF(S), so that the striker especially early in the build-up drops into the AM strata and is available for passes and moves defenders around.

 

Team instruction wise I've added the aforementioned Underlap left as well as a slower tempo, to try and increase the patience of the forwards coupled with them now being all on support duties, to easier facilitate the fullbacks and midfielders getting up the pitch, before the forwards decide again that dribbling will save them.

In transition I added slowing the pace down to also help with building properly and controlled from the back, to achieve the playstyle I want; if I could get them to play like Spain did against Germany yesterday, I'd be ecstatic, because Spain's build-up from the back was beautiful. And while I'm generally a fan of letting the keeper decide where to distribute the ball, he was hoofing it up field to often for my liking, hence the instruction to distribute it to the backline.

And defensively is still the same with the higher line to congest the space and move the whole formation closer together and with the offside trap to help the defenders in maintaining the high line.

PI wise the front three are still instructed to close down more, but to help with that press when the opponent moves forward into our half the two CMs are also now instructed to close down more, which seemed to really help the lack of pressure on the ball in our own half. The CM(A) also has the aforementioned dribble more and the CM(D) has been instructed to also stay wider in possession, which both opens up the space centrally when the Regista pushes level and beyond him and also covers the vacated space on the left flank left by the LB a bit better. And due to the LB providing the width and the CM(D) staying behind to fill the gap in the left AM strata, the IW(S) has also been told to sit narrower when in possession to be available as an option.

 

Still early days with this current iteration, but it's looking more promising so far. Been generally in the lead in terms of possession as well as completed passes and while in some games the tactic struggles to create a lot of shots, it's mostly been hovering around 7-8 shots per game, most of those have been high quality with an xG/shot ratio of 0.15-0.2. And in a more game sense I've also been wondering where exactly the Regista ends and the DLP starts, as while the distinction in the game is pretty clear cut, it obviously isn't with how players like Pirlo or more recent Jorginho under Sarri played. I certainly will experiment at least with trying the DLP against bigger sides as the Regista due to his aggressiveness, will always leave the formation more vulnerable to the counter than a DLP would, but it would feel kind of wrong to not use the Regista role, when it is in the game.

Improvement wise I'd defintely like to see more passes attempted into the box from wider areas as well as centrally, which could be achieved with work ball into the box or maybe focus play through the middle, but I'm kinda wary of either, as I feel like direction play to the middle could make it too narrow again, and working the ball into the box in conjunction with short passing and lower tempo may end up being overkill. Do any of you have experience or attempted something in that direction?

I've always had a bit of a hatred for inside forwards too, always seemed a bit overpowered to me! Had a quick play with your tactic @Murcon17and found that using advanced playmakers on the flanks seemed to really work in stopping the wide men dribbling and created some really nice passing moves, defensively they seemed a bit hit and miss but didn't play too much with the team or player instructions so may be able to make this more consistent.  Trequartistas seem to work really well too, although they have times when they decide to ignore all instructions and try to take on the whole team!  Funnily enough, despite their description, they seemed to press more than the AP or IF's so not sure what happened there... I also had a quick shot at moving the AML and AMR into STCL and STCR, this created lots more chances and I think with time would mean a considerable increase in goals. I rotated between DLP's and F9's, but looking through some other tactics, think PF's could do a good job here too. Against teams playing wide I ask the wide strikers to stay wider and if the opposing fullbacks were causing problems, asked the wide strikers to man mark them. Sorry I couldn't spend a bit more time narrowing down team and player instructions, but it showed me that there is definitely room to work with the Regista and compliment the style of football you want to play. Might do one myself now!

[[FM21] - Possession-based 4-3-3DM with a Regista]

19 minutes ago, ryandormer said:

I had the same hesitation--I always wanted to use 'very fluid' in FM20, but it only ever worked when my team was already head and shoulders above every other team, so it didn't really feel like an achievement! I think the engine in FM21 makes 'very fluid' quite viable again. Some of the movement that is possible in the final third on this engine is superb, I really enjoy this game. Credit to for being able to get it out.

Essentially, I took the 'tiki taka' pre-set, and removed any instructions that I thought were unnecessary/unhelpful. The instructions I normally add during game, if required, are 'overlap right' and 'focus play down the right.' Sometimes I increase the width if I struggle to break teams down. I haven't felt the need to use 'be more expressive' yet. I packed the team with support duties, only using one attack duty in midfield to bridge the gap between CM and CF. So the tactic looks like this:

Sometimes I change the CF(s) to F9.

Table currently looks like this:

These were the stats for my home win against Barcelona:

To relate it back to @Murcon17's original post, I wouldn't use a regista in my system because I want both central midfielders in front of the DM to get forward (albeit to different extents). If I did use a regista, as @Murcon17 wants to, I would probably amend the roles to:

In FM20, it was really difficult to get the front three to offer enough penetration if they were all on support (unless you did something like @Rashidi did with liquid), but I've not had that problem so far with the FM21 engine.

Thanks @ryandormer much appreciated. Like I said, not much time on FM21 yet so looking forward to the possibility of some attacking possession football!!

Regarding the Regista, I've always been a fan and have used them successfully in the past, but has always required very intelligent players in front of him, deciding when to stick and when to twist, but also the ability to anticipate situations. This meant it limited the ability to use it in lesser teams.  A DLP with the right instructions can be just as effective with progressive football and killer passes while remaining better positioned for counter attacks.  I've also found that this often means he gets more of the ball, as he is usually less advanced and the ball over the top, if not picked up by him, is often passed straight back to him by defenders.  Hes definitely not as spectacular as the Regista but I think Pirlo (certainly in the latter years) played more like a DLP, possibly even a DLP(d)! While he was without doubt the craetive force, he never strayed far from the defensive midfield strata and also remained central as much as possible. This allowed him the passing options but also meany he didn't get boxed in as easily. He was always on hand to collect the ball from the defence.

 

@Murcon17 I will definitely been keen to see if you get the Regista working effectively, good luck!

[[FM21] - Possession-based 4-3-3DM with a Regista]

1 hour ago, ryandormer said:

Agree with this advice.

I'm playing with Arsenal at the moment, and after a very lucky second place finish in season one, I have switched to a very fluid possession tactic for season two, and it has been unbelievable. Smashed Barcelona in the Champions League 3-0 at home, 4-1 away, as well as beating Man Utd and Man City away.

The critical thing for my tactic has been filling the gap left between striker and central midfield, and I do that with either a F9 or CF(s) and a CM(a). Opposing defenders get dragged all over the place. As @sporadicsmiles said, defenders then have difficult choices to make. Do they follow the striker who has dropped deep, or hold the line? Do they push up to close down the CM(a) who is making a forward run into the box? Etc.

With your set up, you'll probably find that one of the opposing centre backs is always able to mark Piatek fairly comfortably.

Also, you have a positive mentality, and so even with 'shorter passing,' the tempo is likely to be slightly higher, and so the team will probably try more forward passes than sideways or backwards. This will probably give your full backs less time to get forward and overlap. As such, opposing full backs can probably mark your wide players fairly comfortably.

Given that both central midfielders have fairly conservative roles, the regista probably has very few passing options available. The full backs won't have had time to get forward, the central midfielders have no intention of moving forward, and all three attackers are marked out of the game.

Since the regista is an aggressive playmaking role, with roaming by default, you'll probably want one of the central midfielders to be quite conservative, but the other should get forward and support the attack. I think something like this:

CM(d)          CM(a)

Reg(s)

This way, you can still have an aggressive left-sided full back, with a slightly less aggressive right-sided full back to account for the CM(a) on that side. The CM(a) should get forward to support the attack, leaving space for the regista to roam into. If you use a supporting striker, the regista should have tons of options to pass to.

You should see 'overlaps' everywhere, which should help with possession football:

Left WB(a) overlaps CM(d);

Left WB(a) also overlaps left IW(s);

Reg(s) 'overlaps' CM(d); and

CM(a) 'overlaps' the supporting striker.

The right WB(s), if you stick with that role, will also overlap sometimes, but not as often as the left one.

Possibly consider dropping the tempo slightly, too, to give the full backs time to get forward.

I wasn't expecting this to be such a long post, but I hope it helps!

Great advice @ryandormer, i've also had (some) success using similar roles and movement is key. Not had a great deal of time on FM21 yet but I suspect it is similar to FM20 in that the ME really penalises possession based tactics. It's common to see 60% + possession, 30 shots to you 2 against and draw 1-1... or lose!

I tend to use an IF one side and Winger the other. Behind the winger I tend to use an IWB and on that side I play the more attacking central midfielder, the IWB then covers some of his marauding play. The one question I would like to ask you @ryandormer is how have you managed to create a very fluid system with your roles as the majority of them need to be support?  It might be 7 or 8 in a balanced mentality.

I've always looked to play a very fluid system, but you are somewhat shoehorned into choosing certain duties to keep the fluidity. I often use 'Be more Expressive' as I just believe creative players should be given license to use flair to add an extra dimension to the movement and passing. However, in FM20 thid did not always translate into much during matches, except players deciding not to defend as well!!