vrig

Just had a nice little run of 3 matches against tough teams to put my tweaking to the test and I thought I'd share a bit of it here since it seems to fit. I'm playing as Man United and I've used the second summer to build a bit of a toolkit squad, so I have a lot more toys to play with than @Duracellio, but maybe it's still of interest to somebody. We're coming off a good first season where we won the Champions League through a series of comebacks, but were thwarted in the league by City and Liverpool, who were miles out in front. After an opening day visit to Stamford Bridge, we'll have the pleasure of exacting revenge on the latter in the Super Cup, and the former in the league at home. You couldn't ask for better fixtures to start the campaign... right? Apologies for not having the Data Hub report, but I can't for the life of me find it for past matches. They supposedly played a wing play style, but the analysts says that about half the teams in the game. As such, I mostly ignored their style and focused on the roles and players I was up against. Chelsea greet us with a 4231 featuring the game's most overrated player up top - Romelu Lukaku. There's nothing like a striker who's both quick and good in the air to give you a headache, especially when that player also has a tricky number 10 like Nkunku right behind them. Fortunately I've got good aerial defenders, so I can at least somewhat limit his opportunities from balls into the box. The threat of his pace can be limited with a lower defensive line, while I'm going for a good old fashioned man-marking job on Nkunku. The wingers, Sterling and Mudryk, are full of pace, so I opt to never mark them tightly and close them down whenever possible. I would have added hard tackling for them too, but I've just come off a season where we had a load of red cards and I've got a load of players new to the league who could do without that kind of start to life at Old Trafford. The thinking was that we could use the space behind Enzo Fernandez as he pushed forward as a Segundo Volante. I opted for Sancho to achieve this, and to get him into that zone, I've got Shaw pushing up behind him. Mount is picked as a BWM for two reasons: (1) to cover Shaw when he goes forward, and more importantly (2) it isn't a role affected by positional play rotations. Had I picked a mezzala or B2B or something there, Sancho would be forced wider than I would like. Because I'm really serious about him coming infield, I also opt for minimum width. Meanwhile in midfield, Mount is positioned to win the ball off Enzo while Mainoo plays as a Mezzala to try and drag BWM Caicedo out of the middle. Does it work? Defensively, yes. Big scary Lukaku ends the game without a shot, and half the attempts Chelsea end up with fall to their centre backs from corners. It's a deserved clean sheet. Offensively? Absolutely not, and it's a few errors from me that are the reason. Amad is playing as a winger with a wingback getting up the pitch behind him, which is not something I'd ever really do if I had stopped and thought about it for a second. He's also affected by the minimum width setting, so he's getting pitted directly up against Colwill far too often and losing out, since their guy is both stronger and quicker. Meanwhile Sancho is having plenty of touches in good areas but sometimes FM gets it right and a waster plays like a waster, so he's pretty much just rolling it back where it came from and offering none of that creative spark we were hoping for. Hojlund is getting no help from anybody - he has no shots, is getting crowded out in the air, and has touched the ball in just twelve instances, giving it away immediately more than half the time. It takes until the 75th minute before I realise... But this is why football has substitutes - to make careless clowns like me look clever. A plan starts to come together; hapless Hojlund and struggling Sancho are hauled off with 15 minutes to go. Evan Ferguson with his half a silver star comes onto the left flank and bullies a beleaguered Reece James, winning a header against him, playing a one-two around him, and squaring to give Mehdi a goal on his debut. You'll note that we started funneling them wide and inviting crosses too - that was in response to Lukaku coming off for Miss Jackson. The switch up on the right flank gave us more synergy and a bit more hope of controlling the middle with an IWB, as well as a crossing threat with a right-footed winger. Honestly, I probably should have come up with something better on this side, but I spent all my smart points on the Ferguson change. We had some results last season where we eviscerated teams using a tailored system, and while we comfortably won the xG battle here, this wasn't one of those, nor were the two that followed. This was a cagey away match that took an injury time winner to earn a 1-0 win, but it was one of my favourites from a tactical point of view.

I probably won't to be honest, as going through matches, recording clips, and putting together a detailed breakdown is a fair bit more effort than I'm personally willing to put into a post on a forum about a game I sometimes play. Aside from not knowing how to do half of that in the first place, I'm pretty lazy at the best of times! But you could maybe try some of the suggestions in the thread, such as playing about with width, focus, and role settings and hopefully finding your examples firsthand.

Pretty sure the game doesn't actually count what you might call a half-space cross as a cross. If you work a midfielder into some space and they're the type to try a killer balls or long passes, provided you have someone attacking the back post, it'll happen. Doesn't even need to be a mezzala. I get these types of passes from a DM(s) into an IF(a) fairly regularly, particularly when I'm using minimum width and focusing play down the flanks. This encourages the midfielders to go into the halfspaces and also ensures the IF is playing up against their CB as often as possible. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to do it, but that's what's been working for me lately.

I was sure that was an IFB this morning!

Excellent read, thanks for that. So weird that this thread and that other one popped up about a week after I decided to do a 'horses for courses' save. Also that you started with a match against Uni Emery's 424, which has been the bane of my existence in this version of FM

Having a 3421 on hand can be a help. It lets you match a 4222 in midfield while giving you a spare defender to deal with the strike partnership. But if you are intent on keeping closer to your base tactic, I think your rest defence is missing a player. A 4222 naturally has 4 players left high up the pitch. You've got a 3-1 rest defence, so I wouldn't be too surprised if every turnover is leaving you facing a 4v4. As for the attacking side, what @Cloud9 said.

Space mostly. I look at their roles and try to see where space will naturally be available after a turnover. Like if they've got an IWB on one flank, I'll fancy a go at that with a touchline hugging winger, because their guy will have a lot of ground to make up to cover them. Conversely if they've got a wingback who's likely to get up the pitch and leave his CB by his lonesome, I'll want to be attacking that CB directly. Works the other way too, and if they've got a BWM somewhere, I'm keeping my playmakers away from them.

You can find comments from Klopp and Salah at the time where it's stated that his job was to play as close to the opposition CBs as possible. That tells you straight off the bat that playing him as an AF would be a good starting point. If I remember correctly, they also saw their system as more of a 442/4411 than the 433 people commonly put it down as. Personally I always thought it was a diamond, given how deep Firmino played and how narrow the 'wide' forwards always were. The point is that if you can't emulate a winger scoring 44 goals in a season, it might be because they were never really a winger in the first place.

I trust them far more than I should and have to get around to downloading a skin that removes them altogether or something. I know they're meaningless, but all those gold stars make me feel complete.

I thought they were great right at the start and now I avoid them like the plague. It just seems like a way for the game to drag you into the promise feature. I had a load of players miss their targets and then blame me for it at the end, so it just doesn't feel like a worthwhile trade off. I've never seen it have any impact on attributes either but to be honest I wouldn't really expect it to.

The first video isn't an example I see very often, but the second one obviously is. In my experience, the defending team really struggles with the second phase after the initial ball. In theory setting up zonally should somewhat limit this, but it still looks confused to me, and I basically start my commiserations the moment I see an unmarked opponent on the edge of the box for a corner. It's actually quite difficult to stick it in the top bins through a crowd of 20 players, but FM footballers are just built different I suppose. Fortunately I support Manchester United, so I'm quite used to being despondent every time the other team gets a corner. At least we can give as good as we get in FM. As to your closing question, don't give up too many set pieces. One of the numerous reasons a high press is easier to be successful with in the game is that your fouls and blocks are happening further from your goal. But more than that is just keeping the ball so that your team is the one getting fouled and blocked. Your "score more" strategy is also pretty sound.

A lot of teams have used it in the odd scenario. Funnily enough it can be a bit of a counter to possession heavy 433s that like to build through the middle. Ajax under Ten Hag used it a fair bit in the CL and I think pretty much everyone in the PL used it against Brighton after their strong start to this season. They've won something like 5 in 22 since. More teams doing positional play type things makes it a bit less appealing as a plan A though. I would say that, to my eye, Liverpool with the Salah/Mane/Firmino 3 were basically playing a diamond all the time, although I've yet to meet anyone who really agrees with me on that one!

Just keep the ball. Your old fuddy duddies ought to have the mentals to manage that if you set up narrow (so they have less running to do), passing short, and at a lower tempo. Experience often comes to the fore in wars of attrition, and if you set them up so that they're always close together, you might find you can still get away with counter pressing situationally. Have 4 or probably 5 players sitting back so that you aren't in immediate danger every time you lose the ball, but Plan A should just be not losing it. In terms of specific roles, I'd avoid too many that have roaming hard coded or that encourage positional rotations, especially deep. The RPM would be an absolute no-no as they partake in 3 tiers, and I'd avoid the IWB role like the plague if the player has poor acceleration, as every quick winger they face will have the freedom of the flank on the counter while your guy is still dawdling about in midfield. Some nice roles for older players could include the poacher, the shadow striker, or the ramdeuter, since they're all big on clever movement. Hell, bang em all around a DLF and you might have some fun. In midfield, the DLP has "old man role" written all over it - you just wanna be careful of teams siccing a ball winner or a player with high aggression and acceleration near them.

I think Pat Rice was his assistant for something like 15 years. Steve Bould followed him and that was about it. Less of a series of yes men and more of a failure to introduce any new ideas in any form.

This is a cool idea and immediately reminded me of another exchange SAF had at United. When Carlos Queiroz turned up at Carrington, he went to see what the gaffer wanted doing for training. Fergie responded "If you don't know that, then why the hell did I hire you?" Queiroz was from the same tactical school as Jose Mourinho, who had taken England by storm over the preceding couple of years, and Ferguson later said that he was as close as you could get to being the Man United manager without actually having the title. The point of this little interlude is that what you could do is take a look at some of the in-game attributes of a coach whose approach you appreciate and then filter staff with similar strengths and tactical styles. The best and worst they'll do should be around the same as the AI.