Aandy

Brilliant season there! Incredible work. Looking forward to hearing about how you get on going forwards

Just entering October in the 2025-26 season and so far am happy with progress. Success of the first season (FA and League Cups) hasn't been replicated, but we're an established top-4 team now playing our third consecutive season in the Champions League. Made it to the KOs last season after topping the league but lost to Real Madrid, this season's league run in a bit more tough facing the likes of Inter, Barcelona and Real Madrid (for the third time in 3 seasons). So far drew 1-1 to Inter at San Siro and beat Fenerbache 3-1 at home. League going well so far, top of the table unbeaten after 7 games with away victories against Arsenal and Chelsea under our belt. The Arsenal win was a real backs to the wall job, after going 2-0 ahead early on we spent the rest of the game repelling wave after wave of Arsenal attacks (Arsenal are to horrible to play against in these last couple of editions), eventually winning 2-1 after locking it down despite several late chances from the eternally busy Gabriel Jesus. My squad is largely based on a ragtag combination of rejects and cheap players. My record transfer is Eberechi Eze for £36m after he got relegated with Palace. Other notable transfers being Alexis Mac Allister for £21m (after Brighton got relegated), Conor Gallagher for £20m (Chelsea reject), Rodrygo for £33m (Real Madrid didn't want him), and Dominic Calvert-Lewin for £18m (Man City bought him, hated him, sold him). I've also bought in Endrick because that's the thing to do in FM23. He's currently out on loan. Other big name is probably Joao Pedro from Watford, who I got for £26m in the first window. I did get an unhappy Eduardo Camavinga on loan for the second half of last season. He couldn't displace Kamara at the base of my midfield and wasn't worth the £64m Real wanted to make the deal permanent. Players remaining from the starting squad are: Emi Martinez, Boubacar Kamara, Lucas Digne, Matty Cash, Douglas Luiz, Leon Bailey, and Ollie Watkins. Ben Chrisene getting some opportunities as deep LB cover, and is developing nicely, but will never be more than backup. I feel the squad has all but reached it's limit now, if I want to progress further it's time to really open up the chequebook and bring in some real, expensive talent to propel us to that next level. The biggest concern I have is that of consistency. When everybody plays well we can beat anyone, but far too often I'm dragging my attacking players off with 30 minutes to go with <6.5 ratings and massively underperforming xG.

Good luck!

Oh it can definitely be done! There is no right way of playing this game and with the right players and instructions, any tactic can work! If you want to emulate Ranieri's Leicester you probably want to think about being quite cautious in your approach. They had extremely deep lines with two hulking no-nonsense centrebacks in Huth and Morgan. They had Kante sweeping up everything in front of the defence. Drinkwater was the progressive passer so there's your DLP. Okazaki was the defensive legs (pressing forward?) with deep and early direct balls for Vardy to run on to. Albrighton on the wing played as a very conventional winger but without the pace to take anyone on, so perhaps a winger on support? His crossing and long passing were both superb so that allowed him to side wide and fairly deep to rake those long passes in behind for Vardy. Mahrez was the wild card wasn't he on the left, cutting inside. Definitely inverted winger, maybe even starting a little pushed up in an AML position, with Fuchs behind him. It's notable that Leicester scored 67 league goals that season and 41 of those came from Vardy and Mahrez. In terms of basic positions I'd have: GK(D) RB - FB(S) DB - NCB(D) LB - WB(S) RM - W(S) CM(R) - DLP(S), or maybe a RPM DM(L) - BBM(D) LM - IW(A), or maybe pushed up to AML as I mentioned ST(R) - AF(A) ST(L) - PF(S) Instructions I'd probably consider: Cautious More direct passing Wide Pass into space Early crosses Low crosses Regroup Counter Low defensive line Mid-block

Have you looked at note the positions of players in the box who you would expect to receive these cut backs? Could be that your striker is marked meaning the pass isn't on, so the ball goes back to a player who is in space. Perhaps consider changing one of the IW to an IF, or the BBM to a CM on attack so that you have another body in the box and not leaving the striker so easily marked. I personally have not noticed this as being an issue in my game, so I don't think it's a match engine issue.

Probably reflect top-flight football IRL. You don't see 442 being used much at all these days as a DM double-pivot in a 4231 or tight midfield 3 in a 433 will leave your midfield outnumbered and after all, it is in midfield where games are won or lost. Also looking at your tactic I don't think your central midfield is very well balanced. You've got 2 DLPs on support which means you have two players doing the exact same job. DLPs will sit deeper but they aren't necessarily too focussed on protecting your back 4. If you do want to persist with a 442 perhaps consider changing one of your CMs to a defensive role. I notice you also have ASM as a winger, which is fine because he can fly, but you also have overlap right. Asking for the overlap doesn't necessarily do what you think it does; instead it instructs ASM to hold up the ball and wait for Trippier to bomb on, which he won't be doing so much as a FB on support. Maybe consider getting rid of the overlap and allowing ASM to do his thing down that flank.

I don't know if I'm just being an idiot, but in FM22 there was a setting to automatically make members of the first team squad who were not match fit available for U21 matches. I can't seem to find it this year and I keep for getting to manually make players available!

I think you may struggle to find penetration here with those two conservative full backs. Maybe consider making the FB behind the IW a WB so they can get forward and offer some width on that side?

I go relatively straightforward. If I've got a game within 4 days or so I'll rest every player with <60% condition for a day, maybe two days if I'm concerned that I might not have sufficient cover if anyone isn't fully recovered. If I get the message saying that a player is jaded and in need of a rest, I'll play them at least once. If they still perform well then I am happy that that fatigue isn't having a negative impact on their level of performance, and keep playing them until I feel there is an easy enough game to allow them a week or so rest.

I started off with my tried and tested 4-2-4 that served me so well near the end of my 15 year career in FM21. Got some good success winning both domestic cups and finishing 4th in the league in the first season but was absolutely embarrassed in the Champions League group stages in the second season. I changed it up then to the out-of-the-box trio of (433DM) control possession as standrd, with gegen when struggling and park the bus when absolutely needing to hold. Reasonable success but so often had to go gegen to get anything. I don't want to have to go gegen all the time. So last night I was watching some RDF stuff on Youtube and saw one of his videos about an effective 4-2-3-1 mid-block and I'm really enjoying it. It's plugged in quite nicely with my Villa team though I am going to try out one tweak, removing 'get stuck in' as games tend to go one of two ways: we either dominate with no issues, or we don't and pick up >6 yellow cards. One thing I believe for certain this year is that pressing forwards are essential.

I've noticed this somewhat. ~6.8s are routine, but I'd say every other game one of my CBs will register a 6.5 at best. I think one reason behind that for me anyway, is the fact I want to play out the back and my defenders don't have >18 first touch, technique & composure.

I experienced some success in S1 (finished 4th; won FA and League Cups) so this is likely boosted by that but I got around £50m and made it up to just over £70m by getting rid of some of the loan returnees and a couple of non-first teamers who were moaning.

Yes I'd say that the second tactic with CMs would definitely offer more going forwards because whilst the segundo volente/dlp combo is probably as close as you'll get to the real-life double-pivot, you don't really have anybody anywhere near them in midfield. You've got an SS in the AM role and their main focus will be to get in to goalscoring positions. You've also got the SS and AF who I would suspect are both trying to do the same thing and perhaps getting in each other's way? The DLF there is a good compromise but they'll not drop back deep enough to fit that gap. So you've essentially got no central penetration; your entire attacking outlet is via the wings and unless you're playing with a big mean brute of a target man you probably won't get too many chances as the opposition will quickly figure you out and restrict your wing play. Looking at your shape I would assume you are playing for counter attacks, yet your instructions to play out from defence would slow down your chances of those lightning quick breaks. Moving the defensive midfielders to CM, and with a box to box, really opens up your central penetration as they will drive forward and occupy the space left by your SS whilst they are concentrating of getting into goalscoring positions. I'm by no means a tactical expert. I would keep the 2nd tactic, but change the SS to an AM on attack, perhaps even an AP. I wouldn't worry too much about having two playmakers, they should be far enough apart that they wouldn't get in each other's way, in fact they could complement each other quite well with the DLP dictating play from deep and the AP picking that final killer ball. Thinking about it, the BBM might not even be too necessary in this set up. The role of the BBM is to offer a bit of everything; getting back to defend and contributing to the attack, but with a DLP who will naturally sit deep and 3 central defenders I think you've got a lot of bodies back there. Perhaps consider changing the BBM to a CM on support; that way they'll be a bit more positionally disciplined and more of a link between the DLP and your AM.

Interesting points re: 3 and 4 just after conceding. I didn't think before about adjusting based on current pattern of play. I'll consider that for sure. My usual approach is to spam the magic 'Encourage' button and hope for the best. If it's >55 minutes I'll sub off any attacking players with a rating of <6.8, After then I'll just generally shout at my laptop a bit and hope that my tried and tested tactic will shine through. Quite literally the definition of insanity but that's just how I roll.

Having just finished my first season in the Premier League I've noticed that pressing forwards are extremely effective in this game. To the point of being too effective. Both Raul Jimenez (Wolves) and Jamie Vardy (Leicester) scored ~30 league goals as lone PFs in season one. I'm Villa and Ollie Watkins netted around 25 but as part of a front 2 so the responsibility was shared - presumably his tally would have been higher if he was lone. Has anybody else noticed this in their games or is this just a funny isolated quirk?