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When out of possession in a 442 DM the DMs are lower than than the wingers, leaving a gap in front of the DMs. In a flat 442 the CMs and wingers are aligned when defending. The latter is solid irl but leaks goals in FM, even with compressed lines. I think they should fix this instead of just hiding the problem by making the AI use 442 DM.

Holding when i possession yes, but when defending the mid and wingers are flat, which is not the case when using 442 DM in FM as the DMs wil be lower than the wingers.

Defending in a flat 442 is a very solid way to defend in real football, so it shouldn't be needed to drop CMs to DM.

It's goals galore in beta, getting 5-5- type results even with low blocks.

Flat 442s in the beta suffer from CMs not occupying the space between midfield and defense, even with defensive roles/duties. 442 with two DMs do not have the same problem, even if it's a volante duo on attack.

Steam, discord pages, FM forums etc. Zealands discord has a channel for finding online saves.

3 DMs work just fine with both 3 and 4 defenders. The norm is to have the central DM as a holding DM and the two others as volante on attack or support. It's good defensively simply from having so many bodies in the center. I wouldn't go strikerless with it, seems a bit toothless.

High press, high tempo and shorter passing. High press even works with really well with very low defensive line for some reason. If you don't have time to use x amount of hours making and testing tactics, just go for a gegenpress variant.

I tend to get bored when regens start dominating, but I seen three times this FM a swede with english second nationality named Andy Harwood. He is always a fullback, but more the no nonsense type.

In real life turkish clubs don't reach the latter stages of the CL and pay EPL wages, so how would you know. Mid table PL clubs have a massive pull in real life because of money. Players leave top clubs in other big leagues (excluding top top like RM, Barca, Bayern etc) for PL clubs without european football, because, money, money money, money. If he has european football AND offer PL level salaries to his players, there is no logic in players wanting to leave so strongly.

https://fm-arena.com/table/fm23-hall-of-fame/ Here you can see different plug n play tactics in different formations with set pieces included.

Drop CMs to DM. You get more defensive cover and there are no drawbacks to it. Get the FBs forward instead by making them WBs or FB on attack duty (or add get further forward PI). Remove Step Up More, it can be a disaster in certain games so better just avoid it if you don't know what you are doing. Make the PF and AF, he will press almost the same but AF is better at attacking space and you are using pass into space. You might want to make a version of the tactic that conserves a bit of energy, to use at the end of games when you are winning. Aggressive tactics are great, but your team can get run to the ground with all the games in the championship.

Having a youngster get that good is a tall ask. Players that could become similar would need high pace and PA, so someone like Garnacho, Doku, Duranville, Gittens, Gnonto, None of them are cheap. On a lower lvl players like Ernest Nuamah have most of the key attributes to play like Vini, just far from the potential to be as good.

Lots of valid points. I don't disagree with any of it, it's not like I ran a one season simulation and consider it to be proof. I think simulations I've done, I've seen others to, and the larger tests done by FM-arena gives a clear indication of how important pace is compared to other attributes. It's flawed, but it's something and it's more than purely anecdotal. Flawed empirical data can still be valuable if you take the limitations of it into account. I'm not holding anyone to a higher standard than myself, and would hope people on the other side of the argument could produce something that would suggest that me and others are wrong in our assumptions. The reason I only tested for one season is that: 1) Personal time limitation 2) The result was so shocking that even if the total points deviated by 20+ points from an expected average, it would still be insane to me considering the low quality of the players. The team is the worst team in terms of every single attribute except speed, it's just insane to me that it is possible in a game that has been developing for decades. 3) This was never intended as an experiment thread, I just rolled with it when the thread was moved and people requested me to do more (not just here, but on DMs and reddit). About disproving my(our?) hypothesis, this was never meant to be an experiment, so anything I've done after the original post have just been requests from people on how to disprove it. The attributes I changed aren't random, the pace was decreased and other attributes highlighted for the role was increased for the CA to remain roughly the same (+ - 1-2). I then tested it with a preset tactic because that was also requested to see how the team would do with a weaker tactic, with default set pieces. About the whole exploit tactics thing. Without derailing the entire thread, I'd say that I think the word exploit is thrown around on this forum very lightly compared to any other game I've played. I think it's much more accurate to call them meta tactics, and I don't think there is anything wrong with playing the meta (in most games it's the norm). I had corners aimed at front/back post and scored 11 goals that way, 3 from indirect free kicks. If you get annoyed by frequent hyperbolic claims that understandable. It's not optimal but ruffling feathers usually brings attention to a topic instead of having it instantly die out. EDIT: I tried to upload the save files but I get an error saying the file sizes are too large.

I'm asking for something less anecdotal and more empirical.

It's not nuanced enough for a lot of people. They would have to test it with different play-styles and by subtracting attributes only for certain positions etc for it to be convincing enough. I still think it's very valuable information, like how unimportant team work is, despite the description suggesting it should be important for ANY tactic.

I wont do that, it's intentionally hyperbolic to get the point across. I made it to inform people how overpowered pace is compared to other attributes and how much you can overachieve with it. Then people had some critical remarks and had me test other things, so I did that to the best of my ability. I'm not gonna be convinced that pace is not as important as I think unless people have their own test that suggest that I might be wrong, anything that's not testable and repeatable is just talk to me and not of much value. So again, if you have anything to prove us wrong then please come forward with what you have. Something specific not just statements.

Keep the arguments of each test seperate. Most of it is just follow ups to request and you have to include the context to avoid straw man arguments. You are all over the place atm and it's not very constructive. When I transfer league one/championship lvl players to a prem club and play very ambitious I expect the team to get relegated and outplayed by better teams, because that is what would happen in real life. I think this is a fair expectation for a simulation game, and I'm clearly not alone here. I also find it out right ridiculous to say that Forest would never play this way and therefore the test isn't valid? Are you saying that a newly promoted side should only play a certain way or else we can't expect the game to function properly? Sounds like an awfull way to make a simulation game. What about Bielsas Leeds side when they got promoted, they played way more aggressive than I did in the test. Links or other resources to disprove the importance of pace are welcome. I'm not gonna look trough your post history and guess what you refer to.

Feel free to contribute in any way that you don't need pace to win. Would be hard with West Ham unless Zouma is at the front post banging 30+ headed goals.

You are going of the rails here. I didn't edit any players for the original post or s2 post. Nothing unrealistic about high press on balanced imo (even some presets press higher), and about the formation I can change it 4231, 442, 433 or whatever. I can also lower the defensive line, still works.

I can relate to this, it's what have made me play almost only large online saves because it's the only way of being challenged without purposely limiting myself.

Apart from having 4 Adama Traore in the team, how is the way play unrealistic? Would I be playing in a realistic way if I played with a normal Man City team and only had one Adama Traore? If he still wins the golden boot in a normal team, do I have a point then? No matter how you want to play pace is a factor, is not something you can ignore just because you build a team differently. You will be affected by having lots of, or little of it compared to the opponent regardless of how you play. Also they are guides, so it's rather vague. Do any of them state that pace is not important? Because if so I would like to look at it. Other attributes matter, the title is hyperbole. It just matters a lot less than pace. I'm under no illusion that SI don't know this, I don't think it's a bug. They don't play him as a striker so he never will (also Haaland exists). With higher consistency he probably could if he was played as striker by the AI. In the few saves where Wolves play him consistently he does really well. From the original test with Forest:

I think this is a good point also. Adama Traore should be a useful player in FM, but he should not be able to win the golden boot as a striker, or get the most assists from open play in the premier league as an attacking midfielder (which is what he did in my simulation). Yes FM can never be a perfect simulation and different play-styles should be viable etc etc but common this is too much.

Can work rate, determination, strength etc really be important? Like, how do you actually confirm this assumption? I would think work rate would be incredibly important to pull any style with a high press, but it isn't, you can have the lowest work rate in the league and pull it off while also winning game after game. To me a lot of attributes act complimentary, but are not vitally important like pace/acc. I would be happy for it to be proven otherwise as it would make me more romantic about the game. I like to recreate styles and real life tactics, but for me that is more role play than anything. To put it simply, I think people should be given answers to the question they ask. If they want to recreate a Bielsa style tactic and need advice then deep dive into it, if they are desperate for a win and not having fun because of losing constantly, tell them how to win. This is not specific for this forum btw.

I think a lot of people know that pace is important, they just don't understand how important. They also don't understand that it is important regardless of player position, player role, formation, playstyle etc. What I find frustrating is that people come to these and other forums asking for advice about how to get their team to perform, and sometimes the answer could simply be: "ehm maybe get a striker with higher pace and put him as AF".