bababooey

Sorry I'm getting to this late! The thing to look for when trying to "see" how a tactic functions is what happens during transitions, in particular. That's super important. And obviously, you want to look for things like: who is coming back to help defend? who is making forward runs? who is open for a pass? Etc. But it always comes back to this... how are you trying to play? As for the adjustments I made, I was speaking about my save with Napoli. I used the Perugia example to help illustrate the direction I would go in and how its tied to your team's defensive abilities. So for Perugia, I would not defend in the same way I defend with Napoli. Not even close. Certainly not with Perugia in Serie A. If they were relegated back into serie B then maybe I would consider it, but it's all relative.

It's true that you CAN over-achieve more easily by being aggressive. But that doesn't mean it's the only way. There's a ton of people who don't play the game that way and do just fine. Well Smokedsalmon... let's do the math shall we? 1 center back with 17 heading 3 center backs with 12 heading 17 + 12 + 12 + 12 = 53 53 total attribute points / 4 total players = 13.25 average heading rating. You're telling me honestly, that isn't representative of your squad? As for players with low ratings banging in long shots, it's true that used to be a larger issue. Long shots have been fixed, and I don't see them being hit at any sort of disproportionate rate. Players with low ratings can still get a good result. It's not all or nothing.

The point of the post is quite literally in the title... The match engine isn't perfect, but to say it's "categorically" tailored towards playing aggressively is just wrong. It's misleading. As for the screen showing average ratings, of course it's helpful. It compares your team's average attribute ratings to those of your domestic league opponents. How is that NOT helpful?

The thing about the 4-2-3-1 is that it's so easy to apply an immense amount of pressure. So, that's why you'll see the AI man city (or any other big club) destroying teams if they use this shape and their manager likes to press high. It's really difficult because there's basically 4 dudes closing down ASAP in your own third, and then two more guys behind them that can break up your passing angles. Add in the 2 wide defenders coming towards you, and it's an onslaught. The best thing to do, IMHO, is to make sure your team is not giving away the ball too easily, and find a way to get the ball to someone in space. The 4-2-3-1 wide always leaves tons of space when played aggressively... The key is getting to it.

I mean, if your striker is the top scorer in the league, I'd say you're doing great. You can sure up your defending if you change that AML into support (it will help!). Also you could try a role for the Box To Box which doesn't roam, so maybe the carrilero?

I'm not sure - it really depends on what you're trying to do with your tactic. It APPEARS to me you're trying to play an extremely fast-paced possession style. That's going to be difficult to maintain with Brentford. Are you struggling to keep the ball? Is your only issue the AML not scoring?

What I see right away is that your left flank is quite exposed with two attack duties + the box to box left sided center mid. Is it worth it? Are you getting enough contribution from that side to where it's acceptable? Your team report comparison of average attributes is a comparison against the teams in your domestic league. I don't know a whole bunch about Brentford but from the team report image, I can see that your defense is rated poorly compared to the rest of the Championship. You do however have a very quick defense, which can be a distinct advantage. As for why some of the averages are low... The answer is that although you may have some high(er) attributes for a couple defenders, you probably have lower attributes on other defenders bringing that average down. If I were you, I'd need to look at the whole team to know how to defend, and of course I'd need to know what Brentford's standing in the league is like (media prediction, etc.) I am guessing that Brentford is a decent team, and in that case it sounds like you're doing well regardless.

Quick Intro Something I've learned over the years from playing FM and reading this forum (as well as the guides from some awesome players like Rashidi + cleon + thehandofgod) is that you need to focus on getting your defending right FIRST. I think it's really easy to fall into a trap of creating a system based on how you want to attack, and assuming that you can defend properly sort of on autopilot. What I mean by that is, not paying enough attention to how your defending style impacts your attack. And it's understandable right? Because thinking of how your team is going to defend isn't that sexy. It's way more interesting to think up attacking patterns and dreaming of having guys bagging 30+ goals in a season and 20+ assists. But if you can't defend, the rest is moot. Know Your Team and Know Your Formation (shape) Let's say you're the new manager at Perugia in my current save with Napoli. We're in the year 2020 (second season) and your club was just promoted to Serie A. The absolute first thing you should do BEFORE implementing any tactical plan is to look at your team report, and go to the comparison page. Click on "Defense" and look at the ratings below, which shows your team's average attribute rating across the categories on the bottom. Here is what Perugia looks like: What do you notice? The defenders at Perugia are relatively athletic in terms of jumping and strength, but nothing special. Their positioning is horrible, and their tackling is too. That's not good. This team will get pounded if they're not organized really well by a savvy manager. So how would you set them up? If you answer: "press high and hard!" You're going to get torn apart. If you answer: "Keep a compact shape and try to win headers/defend narrow" you're on the right track.. The point here, obviously, is you have to understand what your team is good at (and not good at) in order to correctly organize your defense. There's no point in trying to press the hell out of your opponent if your team is slow and poor at tackling. Now in terms of formation and shape: you need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your formation. There is no perfect formation. There is no perfect way to cover every blade of grass. It would be ridiculous to try to explain the pros/cons of every possible formation so let's just use one as an example (and I'll pick a popular one). The same concepts apply to any formation. This is your basic 4-3-3. The yellow squares highlight areas where you could be vulnerable, because those areas are where the space is. It's also an indication of areas where you could be easily outnumbered. For example.. the wide defenders are potentially isolated and marked out of the game by an aggressive attacker. I have won a few games against better teams who use this shape, by simply tight-marking and closing down hard on one or both of the team's wide defenders, who are CRITICAL for providing width and passing options. In fact, if you check the passing combinations analysis after a match against a 4-3-3, I'll bet you see a ton of combinations between the wide defenders and the central mids. So, you can see how that could be a strength, but also a weakness! Then there's the space between your front 3 and the midfield 3. This area is super important because it's considered the "golden zone" (more info on that by Rashidi, just google it + bustthenet on Youtube) and it's the zone on the pitch most managers are obsessed with for good reason. You can create havoc by controlling this space. You can also totally thwart a good attack by properly defending this space. The roles and duties you give to your players will determine how the formation looks in various phases of play, so it's not always going to look exactly the same. BUT, you do need to understand how the formation works at its core. In the example above, would you want to try to play a style that could potentially leave your wide defenders isolated? If so, they better be EXCEPTIONALLY good players. Otherwise, they can get easily overloaded. If you drop the 2 wide attackers down to the ML/MR spots, you now have much better coverage for your wide defenders, because you've decreased the natural space left between them. Apply this to ALL formations. Look for spaces, and look for spots where you can be outnumbered and overloaded. Of course the same applies to how you can exploit the other team. Fixing Problems - Start With The Basics! Let's say your team is not performing well, and you're under-achieving. Your not defending terribly, but you're also not attacking well either (or consistently). It would be easy to focus ONLY on the attacking tactics, but have you considered that your defending style is possibly hampering your ability to attack? Let's use an example with my Napoli. We're in first place through 12 matches, but we've had some inconsistent performances, despite getting good results. What I noticed was that our attack seemed to be decently set up, but it just lacked some bite. I tried adjusting a few things in our attacking instructions, but it didn't help. Then, it hit me.. I'm playing a 4-3-1-2 which is a narrow formation with a trident up top. What do you suppose that formation would excel at? If you guessed "pressing the crap out of the other team from the front" You're right! The issue was that I thought we were defending "well" but in reality, we weren't taking advantage of our formation and the benefits it has. We were playing on a positive mentality, with a slightly higher D-Line, and an offside trap. That's it. I used player instructions on the front 3 to close down more. But I didn't have anything else ticked. The idea was to push up a bit and try to win the ball back in the middle of the pitch, but still leave space behind the other team to attack into. But that wasn't wise, because based on our shape, it's not all that effective. The other team can sit deep, and there's simply not enough wide attackers in our formation to stretch them out and get in behind quickly. So what did I do? I didn't make any drastic changes. Same formation, same principles BUT I tweaked our defensive instructions. So now it looks like this: Positive Mentality, 4-3-1-2, higher def line, higher line of engagement, prevent short GK distribution and offside trap. I added two instructions! That's it. And it totally transformed the effectiveness of our pressing, and our defending. Now, we're causing turnovers higher up the pitch, and its generating much more dangerous attacking play for our forwards. It's clear now, we were too passive in our defending prior to these changes. While it did technically "work", it just wasn't as good as it could be. For example, before the changes, we barely scraped a draw at home against Athletic Bilbao in the champions league. After the changes? We went to Bilbao and crapped all over them. Ran them into the ground. Wasn't even close. 2 small-ish tweaks based on keeping things simple and looking at our formation. In Conclusion I hope this helps someone figure things out because I know how frustrating this game can be. Ultimately, I think it comes down to being able to balance your expectations with what is reasonably possible. But, it's also about getting the absolute basics correct first. Fix the defending, and I promise your team will be getting results.

So I'm a bit OCD when it comes to this game, and in life too.. I've read hundreds of articles and threads on FM tactics, (and real life tactics) and watched countless videos. (Much love to Rashidi for his "bustthenet" youtube channel, it's very helpful!) Because of all of that reading and watching, it's easy to develop certain thought patterns, which then are solidified as you play the game. For example, you're starting out with a new save and you're trying to figure out your tactics. You're drawing from past experience, current knowledge, and maybe a bunch of things you've read or heard previously. It's so easy to fall into traps.. The one I've ALWAYS fallen into? Using too many attack duties. To be more specific, following a "rule" of always having 1 attack duty within each band of the team (def, mid, att). And honestly, that's a pretty helpful rule of thumb in general, particularly if you're new to the game or have no clue what to do tactically. But by following that rule of thumb so strictly, I limited myself tactically. And I wasn't getting the absolute best out of my various saves because of that. I have gone through many threads and articles wondering "Why the hell don't my strikers score goals?" Always focused on fitting that rule of thumb into every tactic. Totally silly. Fast forward to my most recent save with my favorite club, Manchester United. In our first season, we did pretty well. We scored and created chances at a decent clip, but I was not satisfied with our tactical approach. I realized that I was falling into the same trap I always fall into. I was too rigid in my ways. I wasn't willing to act on instinct. I was just trying to do everything by the book. First season ends, and I start planning for year two. Get transfer business done super early, and so I have plenty of time to focus on our approach. It was time to do things a bit differently. Key Concept #1 - Focus on developing a style of play One of the ways I find success in FM is to create a plan, or in other words, develop a tactical identity. It may depend heavily on the players you have at your disposal, particularly if you manage in the lower leagues where players are less adept at playing certain styles. For example, I wouldn't tell Stockport to play a possession style of football. Just my opinion though! The way I do this is I first look at my squad and compare it to the league we are playing in. I also consider any cups + continental competitions. Are we a favorite to win the title? Are we going to struggle? Are we a mid-table side? Etc. It's easy to do this and it can save you from making bad decisions on your style of play. After that, it's honestly really simple. You can either adapt to your players, or force them to adapt to you. Or maybe mix a bit of both... Keep in mind, it's much harder to get the players to adapt to you, and you'll probably need to spend a lot of money bringing in players who suit your style of play. It takes time! A good example would be like.. Carlo Ancelotti, who is well known for adapting his tactics to the players he's got. Whereas, Pep Guardiola will mostly stick to his principles and train / buy players to fit. Key Concept #2 - Starting with a solid foundation Let's use my current Manchester United team as an example here.... I want to play a style that is defined like this: positive mentality (taking a bit of risk!), scoring plenty of goals, playing entertaining football, and not pressing too high up so we have some space left to attack into during transitions.. Simple right? So I typically like to start with team instructions and mentality. That sort of sets the stage for the roles and duties. I choose "Positive" as the mentality, because I want to take a bit of risk, and we're a very good team! For team instructions, I am a big believer in keeping it simple. Why? Because the more instructions you add, the harder it is to figure out what's going wrong when things aren't quite clicking. It's like adding too many spices to a dish you're cooking. You can always add more, but it's nearly impossible to take them out. Start with less! I use 6 to 7 team instructions, including one that dictates where the keeper distributes. So it's really like 5 or 6 that are truly important. They help lay the foundation for the style of play.. It's really simple, and based on my experience, I know that the style of play we're looking for is achievable this way. That just comes with time making tactics. Key Concept # 3 - Add the main components and build it up So we've got our style of play determined, our team mentality + instructions set, AND we have done our homework on our squad so we know what we're working with. Great.. The real fun begins now, with roles and duties. I'll post a screen shot below, and walk you through why I made those choices... Defense first... Goalkeeper - Defend This is simple.. De Gea is better as a normal GK than a sweeper, but it's also a better fit for our system because we don't really prioritize playing out of defense, and we don't press extremely high. We also have an incredibly high level of defensive mental attributes so playing an offside trap is very effective. WB (L+R) - Support I debated whether or not to have one flank on support and one on attack. But you know what? Having both on support works great because the players we have are already pretty "attack minded" given their preferred moves and attributes. So, playing them on attack isn't really needed. Plus, our style of play doesn't rely on those guys bombing forward immediately. We do however utilize them heavily once we have transitioned into attack, and are safely probing the final third, looking at overlaps. CD - Defend Again, I do not want my team playing the ball out of defense, so I opt for two central defenders. No need for ball players. Dias and maguire are both very capable of bringing it out, but I hate that. Simple setup. DM - Defend One of my favorite roles in FM is the DM-D. That's because this player (if he has the proper mental attributes) can be so good at breaking up play before it gets dangerous. If he's good on the ball, he can help recycle possession. We're not asking him to be a playmaker like Pirlo, but rather, we want him to protect the back four, and also help us keep the ball when we are safely probing the final third. If we play against a team with 2 strikers, I like to drop that role to "halfback" so we outnumber the opposing strikers 3 v 2. BBM - Support Pogba is good at everything, so you can use him a bunch of different ways.. Personally, I like to get the most out of his athleticism and his brain. So the B2B role is ideal. He's going to roam, he's going to be everywhere. He's the ultimate linking player. AP - Support Bruuuunoooo. Love him. Best signing Man United have made in real life since... Cantona? The reason I chose this role is because I want us to have a player who will be able to unlock defenses with his passing. I need someone who can turn a transition from defense into attack in a flash. The AP-S is great in this system because he's well protected by the B2B and DM-D, but it's also really well positioned to pass to our front 3. He's got plenty of players around him if he is covered tightly, which is another benefit. IF - Attack + AF + IW - Support I've grouped my front three together because the way they interact is absolutely critical to how we play. The idea is really simple.. Remember we want to play entertaining football and we want to take risks. We want to get behind defenses and score goals... Our players up top are insanely fast. That includes our bench/rotation options like Dan James. It would be foolish to play, for example, Martial in a deeper lying role, because you're missing out on what makes him truly great - his pace! The same can be said of Rashford and Sancho. They're not playmakers. They're not target men or classic wingers. They're quick forwards who are lethal cutting inside and scoring goals. So I've got the IF-A and AF as the only two attack duties in the team. The idea here is that I want to always have an outlet for a quick transition. I also want them to be making those runs into space, for players like Bruno and Pogba to pick out passes. Then, on the other side, I've got the IW - support. Why? Because I need to make sure my attack isn't isolated and one dimensional. So having a support player out there helps us transition the ball smoothly, and provides a bit of help to those two attackers. It also creates a dilemma for the defense because they cannot just drop deep, and risk leaving space for the IW to cut inside and create chances. I have set individual player instructions for my 5 furthest forward players. Both CM's + the front 3 are all told to "close down more." What I'm creating is a split-block style of defending where we press from the front, but we do NOT press mindlessly, or too aggressively. Our defensive line is slightly pushed up simply because I want a bit of a compressed defensive shape, and the line of engagement is left at default because I don't want us to start pressing too high, and leaving us with no space to attack into. Wrapping it up Okay so now you can see what I'm trying to accomplish. Did it work? Yes. One of the things I look for is to see if we are creating chances from multiple areas, which should in theory make us truly hard to beat. If you're only getting assists from one location, you're easier to defend against. In the graphic above, you can see we are very effective in all areas of the pitch. That's awesome to see. The league table proves it, too: 41 goals for, only 9 against. I'm thrilled with that. I also look at the "stats" page and go to "team - detailed" to get a deeper look into how we're doing. We are 2nd for chances created, with 53 (Liverpool has 54...) Our average possession is 10th in the league, at 49% We've been excellent at set pieces (thanks to Bruno and Ruben Dias) 7 goals scored from corners is tied for 1st in the league! 89% pass completion, that ranks in the top 5 for the league Conversion rate of 13% is joint-first with West Ham (lol) Dribbles per game, we are at 18 which is in the top 5, so we're definitely running at teams effectively Our attack is lethal. We create a ton of chances, and when we get shots on target, they're likely to go in. We create goals from various places on the pitch, and we are executing our style of play. We are not dwelling on ball, and we're not screwing ourselves by pressing so high that there's no space left to attack. In defense, we've made the fewest fouls in the league. We've also made the third fewest tackles, which tells me we are doing a good job of intercepting passes, and not getting exposed defensively. So hopefully this gives you an idea into how I was able to turn from static thinking to being a bit more dynamic. The results are clear, it works! Cheers.

It's interesting reading through this thread, having first visited the bugs forum and noticing the stickied post addressing the current state of the match engine. People seem to be stuck arguing that either: the match engine is horrible and thus they have to adjust their tactics because of it... OR tactics need to be adjusted according to the opposition, which is a reality that people don't want to accept (seemingly). Yes, over-the-top / defense splitting through balls are a problem for the current match engine. SI has declared they are looking into this. The same applies to 1v1 finishing / CCC conversion and calculation. SI are looking into it. Again, reference the stickied post in the bugs forum. Yes, your tactics might be too aggressive in a particular situation, thus lowering the D-Line / adjusting roles or duties / mentality, etc will be necessary. That is not a sign of a bugged game, that is football. I just played a match as RB Leipzig against Borussia M'Gladbach. First 15 seconds into the match, we score with a beautiful through ball behind the opposition D-Line. What did they do? They dropped deeper after that and we didn't score again until much later in the match when they decided to go all out attacking. That is a sign that things are working well (generally). It's entirely possible for both of these things to be true. The ME needs work on some specific areas causing people frustration. But your tactics are also a huge part of the puzzle. Player selection too! (do you have the right attributes for your defense to play a super high pressing game?)

Hi Kyle, I have opted-in to the public beta. Downloaded the roughly 300 MB update. Loaded up my save (backed it up, too). So far so good! I've tried adding/removing tactics and everything is working properly!

No worries! I'm able to play the game just as well. I've been able to keep two tactics loaded, no issues so far. Just don't want to create a third yet

Hello all, I noticed there was a bug when trying to add a new tactic (2nd or 3rd). Here is the exact steps to replicate: 1. go to tactics screen 2. click "add new tactic" 3. click "create own style" (this seems to be the issue?) 4. select formation, confirm 5. tactic appears for about 1 second and then disappears. However the number designating which tactic it is, still shows. I clicked on that number (in this case, #2) and it disappeared 6. Re-did steps 1-5, then got the crash dump. Thankfully I saved just before this EDIT: Almost forgot! Yes, I am using custom images. Cheers. FM 2020 v20.2.0.1323779 (2019.12.04 16.52.59).dmp

Just came here to say I am insanely excited for the Beta. I've logged the following hours into FM... (according to Steam) FM2012 1442 hours FM2013 1735 hours FM2014 2201 hours FM2015 1987 hours + 401 hours on Beta FM2016 Touch 2518 hours FM2017 Touch 1866 hours FM2018 Touch 996 hours + 440 hours regular game FM2019 2472 hours + 88 hours touch (weird how I went from the full game, to touch, and then back to full in '19) That = 16,146 hours... also known as: 672 and 3/4 days. Or, 1.84 years. No wonder why I'm single!

Here's how I would approach that situation, FWIW 1. Dropping the mentality drops risk. You don't want to take a lot of risk when you're out-matched because you will likely get destroyed. You may get lucky, but why depend on luck? 2. Indeed a lower mentality does = careful passing and retaining the ball being prioritized heavily. Much more so than direct, penetrative play. 3. However, if a team is attack the hell out of you the last thing you want to do IMO is give them an easy way out by just hoofing it long to one of your attackers. That can be easily defended. I can't count how many times I've banged my head against the desk because my central defender freaks out and punts it long to a striker who is marked by an incredibly high defensive line from a better team. Instead, what you wanna do IMO is find a way to give more support to whoever is starting the transition. That way you can keep hold of the damn ball long enough so that you can create an actual chance / exploit space more effectively. There's nothing wrong with playing long balls, or "direct" football, but I think asking the team to try more risky passes (like through balls) while under heavy pressure could be a mistake. UNLESS, unless you are evenly matched with your opponent. Then all bets are off. But if you're the weaker team I think you need to first mitigate risk and find a way to gain some sort of a foothold in the match.