ryandormer

I played this system for the whole first season at Arsenal: Normally, I try to vary the roles a bit, but this system worked incredibly well, and we almost won the league (until a freak losing streak right at the end of the season saw us finish third, which I still considered a great result). The only player instructions added were for the IF(s), both right and left, who I asked to stay wider. The would still cut inside when we were close to the box, but held the width better in the build up, giving the Mez(s) more room to move. I think 'Be more expressive' was probably an important instuction, as it encourages roaming, as far as I'm aware. This meant that on each flank, at any given time, the IWB(s), the Mez(s) and the IF(s) could either be positioned in the middle, or could hold/drift out wide, depending what the other players were doing. If the IF was wide, the Mez and IWB would typically be a bit closer to the middle. When the IF came inside, either the Mez would drift wide, or the Mez would stay closer to the middle and the IWB would go out wide. If you want your full back to overlap all the time, then definitely use a FB, WB or CWB. But if you only want it to happen sometimes, then I found that using roles on the same side of the pitch with horizontal movement (central drifting wide, or wide cutting inside) worked really well. Hope that helps.

That's great news, thank you very much

Going to start a new save once the winter update is out--has this been fixed/is it being fixed with the update? Thank you

Thanks for that, appreciate it, I'll see if I can find anything. Took a quick look at simple shot stats, and found that my deep lying playmaker has taken more shots overall than my striker! Might be a bit of an issue.

Thanks for that--is there a way of finding out average XG per shot, or something similar?

I have won the league two years in a row, but my current season has been a comparative disaster (propped up only by the fact that other teams around me aren't taking full advantage). We're in third, which doesn't sound too bad. But, we are statistically the worst chance-takers in the league, scoring 12 goals less than our XG suggests we should have scored: The next nearest teams are Man Utd and Fulham (you can't see Fulham), both of whom are under-scoring by nine goals. I'm not really sure what to do about it. My players are still largely the same as the last two years, so I'm not sure it's a personnel issue. Our tactic is pretty much the same. Given our XG is actually pretty good, it suggests that the team is playing well. But we're suddenly just awful at taking chances. Has anybody faced this scenario, and what do you do to get your players to score?

If you have a narrow lead and need to try to see out a game, what would you do? Naturally, you could change the entire team set up to play a 'park the bus' style, but your team might be completely unsuitable for it, or untrained in it. So what sort of small changes would you make (if any) to try to hold on to a narrow lead?

Aside from: 1. Encourage; 2. Praise (when winning); and 3. Berate (when losing). I haven't had any success with any of the shouts. All of the others seem to ruin morale during the game. Does anybody have any tips for using shouts to boost morale in game?

I think the difficulty here is when you consider, for example, Pep's Barcelona. That team would generally be considered one of the most creative teams in modern football. And yet, Henry explained how Pep was furious with him for leaving his assigned position to cut inside and look to impact play in the centre, even when he ended up scoring. He wanted Henry to stick to his position out wide instead. So was Pep's Barcelona 'expressive' (given the amount of creativity in the side) or 'disciplined' (because Pep wanted each player to do exactly what he told them to do)? I agree, that's why I raise the example of an attacking mezzala in a 'disciplined' system. Would being disciplined stop him from roaming (being more disciplined positionally), or would he roam even more (sticking rigidly to his role)? I guess I've just never been sure what 'be more disciplined' does to the team. 'Expressive' seems to be explained slightly better. It says that players use vision, flair, and roam more. That makes sense. But it isn't clear whether 'be more disciplined' means 'stick to your positions' or 'stick to your roles.' So I never really use it!

That would make sense. So with 'expressive,' a player who wouldn't normally roam might start to roam from position a little, while on 'disciplined' a roaming player will likely roam slightly less? Or something like that

That's what I thought, but then the description says that they play as a stronger unit, with a focused tactical shape. I was wondering therefore if this instruction might actually override some of the TIs and PIs, rather than tell the players to stick to them. E.g. If you had an attacking mezzala, but with a TI to be more disciplined, would that player (a) Roam all the time, and go wide all the time, as those are his PIs, or (b) Roam less, and go wide less, to maintain tactical shape? (god knows why you would have an attacking mezzala in a 'disciplined' team, but you get the point!)

I'm sure it's been addressed before, but does anybody know exactly how these work, and what sort of teams are suitable for the instructions. Logic would suggest that 'expressive' is for better teams, 'disciplined' is for worse teams. Based on the below, I imagine if your team has players with good vision, flair and off the ball, the expressive setting may work nicely: But what about discipline? I'm not entirely sure what this actually does. If your team shape is already fluid with a lot of attacking players, lots of roaming, etc. then telling the players to stick to that tactical shape will not make them robust, surely. I tend to use 'expressive' when I need a goal and have completely run out of ideas! But I'm never sure when to use the other one, as I have no idea what it actually does. Any ideas?

Is there an update from SI on when this will be fixed?

I think you can still do it yourself manually, but I would have thought that if you left it as 'assign any scouts,' your chief scout wouldn't be silly enough to keep giving additional assignments to already busy scouts. Nor that, even if you were to do that, it would then completely ruin the original assignment to the point you have to delete and re-create it. I really like the idea of being able to create multiple focuses easily, it just doesn't work particularly well at the moment, as far as I can tell

It looks like it should work so much better than it actually does. I've tried several ways of setting up scouting (lots of shorter focuses vs long-term ongoing focuses) and none of them seem to work very well. Also, if you set several ongoing assignments, the game doesn't seem to handle the setting of short-term focuses well. My scouts on ongoing assignments routinely get assigned to the short term focuses, too, which seems to cancel/indefinitely pause the ongoing assignment. I hope this is something that they fix asap.

That all makes a lot of sense, thanks guys. I changed the striker's training so that it matched his role, and he seemed to start performing much better. He was ok originally, but it looks like there's been a big improvement (unless it's coincidence, or just confirmation bias). I'll be looking to match the training to the role used in the tactic from now on

I'm currently playing Jesus as a DLF(S) in my tactic, but I have him training the attributes for CF(s). As such, his 'Position/Role/Duty' familiarity appears to be really bad. Does this actually make a difference in game? I haven't noticed him performing especially badly, but the game tells me that he is having a negative impact on tactical cohesion. Does anybody know if this is actually a problem, or if it can be safely ignored?

If it were just that instruction, that would have been my assumption, too. But then we also have 'trap inside' or 'trap outside.' I assume that 'trap outside' means that the defenders should sit narrower. Which would surely mean that 'trap outside' and 'invite crosses' do essentially the same things, but I can't imagine that's the case. I like the facts that we have more options, it would just be really helpful to know what each of them mean!

How much does everyone use the new specific defending instructions? And how effective are you finding them? Also, does anybody know specifically what the defender is asked to do with either of these instructions? Stopping/inviting crosses could mean several things which aren't made too clear in the description. Is the defender being told to show the winger onto his weaker/stronger foot? Is he being told to show a right winger onto left foot/right foot? Is the defender being told to close down/stand off the winger? It isn't massively clear from the instruction. I like the idea of the new instructions, they (in theory) mean that your defensive style can be tailored a little more than previously. But I would like to know what I'm actually asking the defence to do in these scenarios, above just saying 'let them cross.'

The revamped scouting area in FM23 looks really good, but it's left me unsure how to set up scouting assignments optimally. Previously, I would send each scout to a nation/region, leave them there, and never touch it again. In FM23, however, looks like it is encouraging players to use several shorter-term scouting focuses. Has anybody got any tips on how to best set up a scouting team? Has anybody found a strategy/focus that helps find young unknown players/newgens?

I've uploaded it to the SI Cloud Service under file name 'Game file - Chief Scout not assigning scouts.' I hope that helps. Another screenshot, the Chief Scout seems to only set up two focuses at a time, and only three or four scouts are assigned:

Brilliant, thank you