[Return of The Tactics Bible......Maybe.....]

Sutton United would never have won the Champions League without your articles back in the day, so thank you in advance Cleon.

 

Personally, I've always struggled to define what's a problem with my tactic versus what's a weakness with the players playing it.

 

Eg - my DM doesn't close down the opponent's AMC, who then plays a through ball assist. Is it the role? Is it a lack of cover behind him so he's trying to mark someone instead? Is it his positioning stats? His aggression? His decisions? Heck, is it even his acceleration and he was actually running towards the AMC, but I've forgotten I'm playing my 3rd choice 35 year old?

 

And while obviously you can't answer specifics like the above in one article, anything like a checklist, or system, or what one 'should' look for when reviewing a replay would be incredibly useful.

 

Also, I rarely go anywhere near the analysis tools because I just don't understand them. Maybe I'm missing something great. But if there was an article that explained the most useful parts of that, it would be incredibly welcome.

 

And finally, perhaps a squad building article? I'm sure many FM players (and I've certainly been guilty of this myself in the past) overly stock up on random wonderkids, and during preseason suddenly with tons of players on our books have to work out who to keep, who's going to get gametime, who needs to be loaned out...

Anything resembling a system for this would be very useful.

 

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

The goalkeeping situation. I seem to have found myself with three quality keepers and an excellent young prospect.

Rossbach was my number 1 and was very good for me.
Pena I signed from Barca and went on loan for work permit reasons, only to have a blinder at Napoli,
Guarneri... he looks good too.

Setford has the benefit of being English. I should certainly develop him.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

Defence:

 

CBs:

Spoiler

Cooper and MNW. It's... rare we concede from crosses.

 

 

FullBacks:

Spoiler

Escobar got all huffy about a new contract, so went on loan to Fernabche and was aces for them. So he's coming back to be my number 1 LB.
Romeo... long term servant of the club (and son of DJ & founder of Soul 2 Soul, Jazzy B). He's the only RB I have now, so I'll need two replacements to shift him and two's not happening this window. 

 

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

Midfielders. 

 

Middle of the park:

Spoiler

I'm looking to strengthen here as a priority. What I have is an enigma of a player in Jean N'Guessan. Poor ratings whenever I play him at DLP, but according to his stats and my staff, he should be a good player. Nothing in his Cons suggests otherwise.

 

Pretell was a mainstay for us this season i both Cm roles. Thompson came in a lot too, but is not Prem quality.

 

 

 

 

The Wingers:

Spoiler

My two most reliable players, Blesa and Wallace:

 

 

Coming through the ranks, I have Valgeirsson, a proper winger, and Mendez. I'm not sure about the former's mentals long term though.

 

 

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

In the middle of the Summer Transfer window, and failing so far to sign the players needed to step up a level. Not many are interested at playing for us, and those that are are too expensive - Got close to signing Pierre-Emile Højbjerg but I just couldn't afford hs wages.

Here's my current team.

Attackers:

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Rossi and Beljo are my starting strikers. Rossi scored 37 in the championship, and a respectable return this past season in the Prem. Beljo I'm starting to think may not be good enough, but I have such a soft spot for him.

 

 

 

 

Then there is Nascimento. He was dreadful two seasons ago, ad he kicked up a stink about new contracts so I loaned him out. He doesn't have the defensive side to his game to play in the centre of the pitch, but could be retrained as a F9. He'll take a new contract if I offered it, but I could cash in on him.

 

 

I also have Ismael joining in January from Madrid.

 

 

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

I think it does. I mean, it's my challenge, so I could do whatever I wanted with it (including just abandoning it of it's stopping the game being fun), but I feel like a flat 442 is the truest form of the formation, so that's what I should stick to.

 

Having said that, playing it with 2 DMs doesn't feel like straying away from it, so I reckon that's allowed.

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

I've had a good read of your thread @crusadertsar and I love what you're setting out to do, really fascinating stuff.

 

I think the purist in me would lean towards the classifying the above as a 4411, but I certainly wouldn't be insisting that is the case, because we're both wanting to achieve fluid styles and once the ball is kicked the players move everywhere.

 

One thing that really landed with me was you deciding on the tactic then developing the players for it. That's what I've done a lot of in the past, and as I'm not sure where to go now, I should do that moving forward. I think, because my players are pretty woeful, I can get a little lost in the immediacy of results instead of building a project.

Here's where we are on mentals.

 

Given I like free flowing football, that workrate is frankly shocking.

A massive clear-out is needed, to raise all the funds possible, to then rebuild the team around workrate, composure, decisions, OTB and positioning.

 

Here's what I'm thinking tactics wise.

 

 

The DLP and Wm should attract the ball (and in turn the opposition) to the left hand side of the pitch, thus opening up space for the winger and BBM to run into. The F9 should disrupt the backline, and with the PF having 'move into channels' hardcoded, it should further stretch the oppositions defence.

The IWB moves up to create a double pivot with the DLP, and provide a little more central stability.

I'm a bit concerned that I have too many specialist roles, a f9, BBM and IWB all on the same side feels like a bad idea with poor players.

I could also move the two CMs in the defensive strata, and have SV instead of the BBM, and have a simple FBs.

 

 

[When personal challenges result in getting lost in the woods]

Alright everyone. Long time player, first time poster.

We all like a personal challenge top freshen up FM, right?

This year, I vowed to stick to only using the 442. Why? Well, they say if a man can master the 442, he can master anything. 

Or they say something like that. 
I dunno, I wasn't paying attention.

 

Anyway, I've just finished my 4th season with Millwall, and our first in the Prem. We managed to avoid relegation - we were always likely to be safe, but we also always threatened to be pulled into the scrap.

 

I tend to favour high tempo attacking tactics. In past versions I've constructed free flowing, expansive one touch glorious creations, nuanced 2-3-5 in attack overloads, and gung-ho, score-more-than-you, ludicrous-ball insanities.

Often I base my tactics on real life constructions, and then try and make them score more goals. I'd always rather win 6-4 than 2-0, and I love passing round the opposition so quick that they can barely work out where the ball is, let alone get into position. If we concede one or two in the pursuit of glorious attacking football, it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Here's some examples of the sort of thing I like to see - a video where the quality of the goals are in binary contrast to the quality of the music.

 

 

 

Obviously, I can't do that with a first-season-in-the-prem Millwall.

And now I'm finding myself stuck. The Man Utd 98/99 style tactic that got me promoted is suicidal against the Liverpools of this world with the players I have at my disposal. The '2-2-6 shape in attack' tactic I pulled out when chasing a goal just sees me torn to shreds.

In desperation and a shameful abandoning of my principles, I've built a counter tactic that just about secured me enough points, but it's not how I want to play, nor is it interesting to watch. Plus using it I also got hammered 4-1 by City, 3-0 by Liverpool, and 3-1 by ManUtd - I'd rather go down at least attempting to play my game.

 

Now is the time to start building for the future. And I'm finding I've really hamstrung myself with my 442 requirement.
What style do I want to play? Is there a real life team should I emulate? How do I go about this with the resources at my disposal?

I could try to emulate the Arsenal Invincibles... but they had world class players, and I have Ben Thompson.

I want to play like the above now, because I'm 4 seasons in and it's taken me 4 real life months (life is busy innit). And it is after all, a game that should be fun. 

But can I start doing all this, in a 442, with my squad, £20m transfer funds, AND without getting relegated?

 

What would you do? How would YOU go about this?

 

 

A few of the tactics I've used this save:

 

The Man Utd 98/99 style that won me the Championship

 

The 226-in-attack shape that has no place in the Premier League (Rfb has get further forward as PI).

 

The survival tactic I reverted to to keep me up:

 

 

The base I was trying to start with before abandoning to ensure survival: