[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

If a player has move into channels as PPM, do you still leave his wideplay with move into channels when choosing a role like Trequartista? I'm asking because i'm not sure how this affect the player move in the pitch. Thanks

His PPM will over-ride the tactical instruction. I dont think there is any way to stop him moving into channels.

It's why specifically training PPM's like that aren't really worthwhile, because they can be set in tactical instructions.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Screen shot wasn't taken during a game, so it's not down to shouts, i only just noticed it whilst tweaking a few things, rather strange.

Just out of interest, what PPMs do the players have? (I dont think this has anything to do with it really, just never seen it before).

Only the corner instructions differ between players? Sure there is nothing else?

Also, is this a consistent problem? Try moving the left winger to another formation slot and role/duty and then back again and swap him back to a W/Supp and see if the problem is still there.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Can someone please tell me what does the wideplay instruction 'move into channels' do? I have enabled it on my winger and AMC...also, Which wideplay instruction is better for a lone striker "Normal/cut inside/ move into channels"?

Very simply, a player with 'moves into channels' attempts to move into the space between DC and FB of a flat back 4. So, a wide player will move in a bit (probably undiscernable) and a striker will move out wide to try and receive the ball.

As for which on your lone striker it is a matter of preference depending on what you want, how you set up and how they set up. There is no right/wrong answer.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

That was enlightening. Thank you.

So you suggest I man-mark instead?

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/274033-The-Art-of-Defending This link has some little gems in it regarding the subtle differences between man and zonal, both from a theoretical real-life standpoint and how they differ in FM.

To be honest, the difference between man and zonal systems in FM is smaller than common perception of real-life differences, you could even argue the difference is negligable in FM. For me, man-marking in FM works similar to zonal, in so much as my defenders will still maintain their positions but they will quickly pick up 'threats' in their general vicinity (i.e. in their zone). The difference I guess is that the 'zone' is based more around the player than a specific area on the pitch although I wonder how it works under the hood because picking up the differences by just watching the ME is hard.

Trying to keep it simple: I guess try man-marking and see if it suits what you are after any better. Give it a few games, you might find that it just tightens things up for you.

Caveat: It almost sounds like I'm discouraging zonal heavy pressing but I am not, just suggesting an alternative that might better match your vision.

"...right players for the front 4..."; is that in respect to their stamina, work rate and team work or what do you have in mind as "the right players for the front 4"?

Yes, pretty much. If you want them to do some defensive work then they'll need the right mentality (attribute make up) for it. A lazy creative genius is never going to do a whole heap of defensive work but it will be even less if you stick him in the Attacking Midfield strata on the formation screen. Someone a bit more rounded and determined (Rooney for example) will chase around and do more work for you.

There have been numerous threads in the last couple of years bemoaning the defensive contributions of AMR/AML. The short and simple answer is that those players will defend if they have the right attributes but don't expect them to regularly track right back to their own byline to make tackles, I'd argue this would be very poor behaviour if they did.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

I play 4-2-3-1 with 2 AP(Advanced playmakers on the left and right respectively) using FC Valencia. Also my tactics settings are:

With this in place I am having issues "effectively" closing teams down. When I play against others, I see how quickly they close my players down there by denying them space and time on the ball, but my players aren't that effective with the closing down and I find it irksome as players just seem to glide past my players with ease most times!

Also, my manager profile under "Pressing style" reads "Mixed" instead of "closing down", which further confirms my suspicion.

Am I doing something wrong? Have I failed to set something I should have? How do I set the pressing style to close down more effectively than they are doing now?

You can try hard tackling as well, if your team aren't chasing tackles to make then sometimes it looks like they aren't closing down as effectively. The tackling works in a fairly simple way, if a player judges he has a 50/50 chance of making a certain tackle, with light tackling he'll shy away from it and stay on his feet (note PPM's also play a part here), with default tackling he'll probably go for it and with hard tackling he certainly will. Similarly, with only a 20% chance of success he'll likely still go for it with hard tackling but leave it with the other 2 settings, this doesn't mean he'll miss 80% of the time because some of those 'failures' will be clattering the opposition, some he'll get away with, some he'll get pinged for.

Apart from that you're setting up right; making the pitch smaller is good and zonal is fine (probably technically suits standing off more but a high press zonal system is perfectly fine, even in FM) so I'd look at 2 things:

1) Pitch size. Trying to aggressively close down on big pitches (even by pushing up and narrowing) is very very difficult and frequently a bad idea so approach with caution on big pitches.

2) Personel. This is probably your killer. Not every team is suited to closing down heavily. Look for things like work rate, stamina, team work and general intelligence (so they close down smartly).

Just had a further thought - you have 3 players with designated playmaker responsibilities. Check that their closing down isn't restricted by their role.

Also also, unless you have the right players your front '4' wont do a massive amount defensively and the attacking FB's could get caught upfield, this potentially leaves you very stretched as midfielders try to cover wide. Your players could be haring around but getting nowhere close and then tiring and exacerbating the problem.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

When looking at the comparison page to see what kind of style/tactic you will use. For example arsenal are the best team in the league at passing, would you do direct passing or short passing?

It's not quite so simple. There are pros and cons. Direct passing might be good because you'll have the accuracy to launch long balls but you might not have the runners and movement to make it worthwhile and/or you might not like the risk/reward ratio. Short passing might be good because you've got the raw passing attributes to make it work but you might not have the work rate, touch, intelligence or movement to make it work.

Also, it might be that your midfield are absurdly good at passing while the rest of your team are not, but your midfield skew the results so you might think your whole team is good at passing when that isnt the case. If your attackers weren't particularly good at passing then its unlikely a short passing strategy (as standard) is going to be particularly potent for you.

Think of it holistically - a player needs to see space, he then needs to move into space, another player then needs to see the run or at least see him in space, the other player then needs to execute the pass, the first player then needs touch to control the ball. For every manouever there is plenty going on.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

What does workload in coaches area really mean? They were light but now some of them changed to medium

I think, and might be wrong, but if a coach is overloaded then their overall efficiency will drop. I suspect there is no difference between medium and light although other factors such as the professionalism etc of the coach will probably dictate this.

E.g if a coach will guarantee you a 2 point rise in all the stats (I know this is impossibe but you'll get my drift) then on heavy workload his efficient will drop and you may only get a 1 point rise.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Simple, stupid question after all this time: is there any way to somehow see, in a simple way, like a meter or any kind of indication, if your training is benefiting the team or not?

There are graphs that show player progression for each attribute (these are still there right? I dont use them and cant check right now!) but you can also set it so that you get arrows whether each stat is rising or falling. If you see mainly greens then training is going great, mainly reds and you'll need to investigate.

Training in FM is about players really. Then the players make the team.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Thanks mate. Will try it out.

Meanwhile, I was just wondering if anyone might know how to counter the following:

1. A defensive flat 4-5-1 and a defensive flat 4-1-4-1

2. An awesome defender part of the abovementioned formation tackling hard against my team

Would appreciate some kind thoughts on the above other than praying for a good referee for (2)!

With any flat formation there is generally a little space in between the lines so get an AM, get a striker dropping deep, or get a midfielder pushing on (or, if you wanted more fancy you could get your wingers cutting in and operating in there).

Defensively against a defensive formation with a lone striker you have to be aware that the striker may be looking to win easy free kicks against over-enthusiastic defenders, it is usually advisable to not tackle hard the sole striker but just try and frustrate him as much as possible by limiting supply and severely limiting his space and time on the ball.

A 4141 with the DM is hard to break down but I'd probably be looking to attack the crease between FB and CB and have wide players cutting in. Alternatively you might want to employ lots of movement to try and get around the DM. The DM is usually the heartbeat of this type of formation so as a rule of thumb I'd close him down, tackle hard and show onto weaker foot (possibly even specific man-marking if I'm really worried and have a guy to do the job) and try to get him playing as badly as possible.

It's worth thinking about your selection as well. If you have a Maradonna like creative little maestro who likes a bit of space at AM and a bigger, harder-working guy you might want to pick the latter guy who won't mind (so much) being tight marked and will offer you more defensively and generally work hard in a crowded space to make room for your team.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Thanks. I can see the advantage of different lineups compared to just different roles and strategy. The problem is, that you buy good players for the position you have in your standard formations, so you would often have to either field players out of their usual positions, or use a lower quality of player to fill out the other formation(s).

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/309213-Building-The-Squad This is my way of dealing with a squad, most applicable to clubs with some money who have a lot of decisions regarding squad building. For me a good squad has to be about more than the 'best 11' and what is a 'best 11' for one day may not be for the next day.

I can't make a winger amc or striker help out much in defence. I tried building a defensive 4-2-4 once, but it didn't really work... With the right roles all midfielders will pull back and help though. Either way three cm's or a dmc are sometimes a good thing to have.

They won't really, but they are in that 'strata' because they aren't really defensive players. Really hard working clever players will track back from AMR/AML, particularly if the opposition attack slowly, but its highly contentious whether they should. I'd argue that their position should be to remain high, if you want them to track back use them at MR/ML.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Thanks for the reply! I usually have a defending, standard and attacking tactic in the three slots, offen with same basic lineup (4-4-2 usually). Maybe I should reconsider that strategy.?

That would be my advice. Every formation (and tactical setup) has inherent weaknesses and there will be other setups that naturally hit that weakness, sure, you can tweak but sometimes just a change of formation is better than trying to bang square pegs into round holes. For example, the 442 can be overrun in midfield by the popular 4231 and 433(41221) formations, sometimes rather than trying to make the 442 work against those formations it is best just to change from your normal and fight fire with fire (its a tough call though because I generally prefer to maximise my strengths than specifically target the opponent - I prefer to focus on myself first but sometimes its just best to change)

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

I've played this game since the early 90's, and I'm still an amateur...

I read a lot about people changing a positions role, depending on what player is available. Switching a striker from target man to poacher (and changing team strategy to not playing with a target man).

My question is this: Doesn't this decrease the tactics fluidity (the one you can improve with pre-match training)? I always thought it did.

Potentially this will decrease fluidity but the effect would be minimal and should be vastly out-weighed by the advances you gain from changing that role.

I've found that chopping and changing is more effective with a side you've had for a while and can be confusing or devisive when you first start managing a side. It's like they get used to your management style and learn all those different changes that you like to make (this sounds incredibly advanced for FM but its the short of subtle thing that FM does all the time so I really don't think I'm imagining it).

A side question: Lets say you have two tactics trained to fluidity (one is defending and the other is overload in mentality). Does that mean, that you can change the overload one to defending mentality while playing without losing fluidity?

I hope I stated these questions clearly enough - otherwise I'll gladly elaborate.

Yes you can change without worrying about fluidity at all.

I'd advocate using more extreme tactical changes and not clog up 2 tactic slots with different mentalities. So, for example, I might have a 41221, a 4231 and a 442, all on standard, loaded into the 3 tactic slots and not worry that they might take a slight hit on familiarity when changing mentalities. To be honest, I've never explicitly noticed a difference in fluidity when changing mentalities (sometimes maybe in pre-season but it was hard to tell because there are other changes happening too).

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

any advice on how to hang on to results late on in the match? so frustrating

The simple answer is to drop your strategy to defend or contain. Beyond that its not so simple.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

OK, thanks. I made mistake and bought too many young Striker (around 8-9) so right now I'm worried about developing them.

Another question, does determination and other status can be lowered by tutoring? I have a player tutored by Giggs and now he is model professional. I want others player to tutor him so he'll learn some PPM but worried but the tutor have fairly professional and lower determination. It is better for me to have the player learn PPM manually?

They'll be fine in the U18's but they need to be playing and that'll be too many for one squad. Get some out on loan so they are playing and just keep 3-4 in your U18s (less is better so they are playing as many games as possible), you may end up keeping more if you are tutoring them though.

Determination and other attribs can indeed go down through tutoring, you have to decide whether you can take a point or so hit if the outcome is worth it. You can tutor them back up later on. Tutoring and developing players is hard and requires long-term strategy to get the best out of it. Managing who is tutored by whom and when is difficult, but the rewards can be great.

The good news is that they'll only shift their attribs towards the tutor, not copy. So, if you had a youngster with 19 determination tutored by a tutor with 10 determination, the youngster would probably end up with 17-18 determination which I'd say is fine (you may disagree) if he's getting other benefits from the tutoring session.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Does playing in reserve/U18 match help increase a youngster stats? Sorry if this has been asked before.

Yes (as in, it's better than not playing at all). It should be part of development (if a player needs it, some players—e.g. Rooney—are good enough from an early age and don't need that step).

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

I kinda forgot the answer to this so thought I'd ask here to make sure 100%. What does your base formation shape represent in FM? Attacking with the ball or defending without it?

Anyone confirm?

It more accurate to think of it as your defending shape, as you would in real-life. The players will deviate more from it with the ball than without.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Does pitch size make a noticeable difference to the effectiveness of tactics?

I'm playing a 4-5-1 with a counter strategy, I use the shouts "press higher up" and "hassle opponents" at the beginning of the match. This means that pressing is on full, and the D-line is somewhere in the middle after using the shouts.

I've always used the largest pitch possible, since I wanted space behind the opposition D-line for my forwards to counter-attack into. However, recently I've been thinking that the smallest pitch possible could be beneficial since it will be easier to aggressively press the opposition (less ground to cover), defence will be tighter (less space to mark), and counter-attacks could be faster (as there is less space needed to cover when moving up the pitch).

Thinking (reminiscing ) about the old Highbury pitch is what brought me to these conclusions, the pitch was notoriously short and was a large factor in our lightning fast, 3 pass counter attacks of old.

Does this logic translate into FM? does pitch size actually make a noticeable difference?

Thanks for any replies

Yep, you're pretty much spot on and FM simulates this perfectly. I pay little attention to pitch size but I know that I should, it can and will make a difference to how effective you are.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

A question of my own. I have a player who is Natural in the AMC position and Unconvincing in the MC position. I want to train him to be at least Accomplished at MC. Would he lose PA for that, considering he already has some 'experience' of that position?

I'm not sure exactly on the mechanism but I've heard retraining to a position does use up PA, although I don't know what happens when a player loses positional competency - does it free up PA in return? Seems unlikely.

I'd probably guess that rather than actually using up PA it just takes time away from training that would use that PA to up attributes, so, it wouldn't use PA but it would limit it from leading to player improvement, which would probably look like the same thing. If this is correct then it would just take longer (possibly too long) for PA to get converted to attributes.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Hello,

One question.

What about High Press, Shorter pass, Counter Attack and Balanced mentality using a 3-5-2 (with 1 DM).

It's possible to have sucess?

I will not have a big player in attack, but have one fast player.

Should i user a more possession football?

Just one note, I'm with Cardiff.

Sounds like it would probably work nicely. Are you also going to 'make the pitch smaller' by playing higher up? Would seem to complement shorter passing and pressing.

The counter attack would only refer to when a counter situation is on (particularly if you have a fairly smart team who can make decisions) so they'd play the ball more direct only when it was on, and, in any case you'd have 2 guys up top to try and move around and get on the end of a more direct ball. Presumably they'd also be supported with wingers, or possibly a midfielder who likes to get forward quickly.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

When someone mentions "frameworks", what do they mean and how does it relate to creating a sound tactic? Also how widely is this technique used?

Do a google search for Tactical Theorems and Frameworks and you'll find the TT&F. It's a little old now but the theoretics are superb and are a great example of creating frameworks.

Basically a framework would be a set of tactical instructions (usually fairly generic) that define your general style of play i.e. direct 442 (smash-and-grab/wimbledon), fluid 433 (tika-taka/barcelona), expressive 4231 (short-intricate/arsenal) etc etc etc.

Then from that framework, or base, you make smaller more intricate 'tweaks' that adapt how you play. Some of these 'small changes' can actually be far reaching. A framework encourages making changes and adapting to your situation as, by itself, it's not normally something too special. The tactics creator makes creating a framework fairly quick, fairly simple and pretty intuitive. The TC also allows you to make more intimate changes too, especially when used in conjunction with the shouts (which is really how it should be used).

I'd say that probably most regulars in here use frameworks and make adaptations from there but probably across the whole spectrum of FMers the adoption of using frameworks, shouts and changes is likely quite low. Which is a shame because surely you buy and play FM to make decisions, even if you don't want to play particularly realistically?

The game evolves year on year and gets more sophisticated which means that in order to beat it you have to get better too and over the last few years the game has encourages those that like to make decisions and has all-but-killed the 'super tactic beats all' of previous FMs.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

A question about pk taker.

For eg,

Player A pk 20 composure 5 finishing 5

Player B pk 10 composure 10 finishing 10

Does that still make player A a better pk taker than player B?

For me, no, player B would probably work out better.

Technique would be important too. Tech 10 Finishing 10 would be better than Tech 1 Finishing 20 in my book. Technique modified all the technical attributes. Similarly, the mental attributes tend to modify all the technical attributes.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Have a question regarding mentoring... I took forever to pick a club and finally seem to have found one that fits what I was looking. There are a number of promising young players and veterans. Mentoring time! After matching a few of them up, I "disocvered" that a few of the veterans have very diverse personalities. So one might have high Determination and Loyalty but very low Professionalism. Or high Professionalism but much lower Temperment and Controvesry. I assume that if the player being mentored is actually more professional than their mentor, they would still move toward what the mentor is in that trait? Or do they not take on negatives?

Yeah, they take on negatives! Mentoring is hard man!!

Sometimes it is worth a hit in determination though to get a boost elsewhere, it is usually possible to rise determination (or the hiddens) back up at a later time with a different tutor.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

A lot of FM games in the past have had a side bias (the left side more time than not). For example two wingers both with the same attacking role and both with same level of ability, and the one on the left nearly always has the most assists, most goals and the higher average. So the stupid question is, In an Barca shape 433 which central midfielder and which side winger is more likely to create and score more (out of two box 2 box mids and two wingers attack)????

It's to do with footedness and which side they are shown onto by the opposition. If your side has roughly equal footedness then you won't see a bias. If everyone is heavily right footed and the opposition show onto weaker foot you'll tend to see a left side distribution pattern, this doesn't mean that you'll be more successful focussing down there, it's just a natural consequence of the setup of the 2 teams.

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

Just the one question. Signed Cavani and although he's scoring goals for me on a regular basis, his stats have dropped by 1 or even 2 points in some cases. He's happy with his training schedule and is performing well. Can anyone explain to me why this is happening?

This sometimes does happen when they change training regime or club. It can be indictable of a player struggling to settle or general unhappiness that is not otherwise reported by the game. Or it could just be the change in schedule (from his old club).

It is most likely temporary and will sort itself out, just make sure he is training hard enough. By the end of the season he should of bumped back up (if not improved) from the time you bought him (depending on his age, games etc), if not then it might mean something more problematic is happening (training is poor, training facilities/coaches too poor for player, unhappiness, jadedness, unsettled etc)

[Quickfire Questions and Answers Thread (Tactic and Training Questions Only)]

So what would you do when marking a fast-technique striker? (opposite situation to the one with the tower with aerial power). Should I always leave him space and maybe instruct my players to tackle easy so they dont end in the grass?

I'd play a little deeper, probably not tight mark (technique may beat you) and definitely not close down often (normal is fine though). And I'd probably kick him up in the air if I could get away with it.

Of course, you could play fire with fire and tight man-mark him out of the game but this is risky and asks a lot of your defender.