CARRERA

No, because the duty of a player is more then just their mentality and the roles instructions. The duty is about the players responsibility within the tactical construct. Attack duty players create depth ahead of the ball and move to receive the final pass. Support duty players link up play and offer safe passing options to support the team Defend duty players create depth behind the ball and try to protect the pace. Ideally you place your players in a way where every attack/defend duty player has a support duty player around him. And yes, there are some role / duty combinations that are kind of inbetween, playmakers with an attack duty for example.

Mentality is the basic layer, the big picture of your tactical approach. It has effect on almost everything, like Tempo, Passing Directness, Pressing, individual Player Mentality and many more. Its refined then by adding team and player instructions. Its adviseable to choose the Team Mentality in context with your set up of roles and duties.

I think that might be just visual, also I think it actually fades throughout the whole pitch. I've looked up the officiall FM Sources and it states as follows: Source: https://www.footballmanager.com/features/match-ai-and-animation

As far as I understood it correctly, theyve split up the Defensive Width setting into these two, to allow the manager to modify the teams behaviour, depending on where the play actually happens. If the other team progressed to your defensive third, you can either protect the center of the pitch against play through the middle or the wide areas to prevent crosses. If the play happens in the middle or final third, you can have your team set up pressing traps either centrally or in wide areas and try to funnel the play through that area. Or in simple words: You can now instruct your team to defend wide or narrow in two areas of the pitch (defensive third + rest of the pitch) instead of going always wide or narrow as it was before.

A Carrilero is a shuttler that helps to construct the play. Its most likely a defensive role. They can play as outter central midfielders or as wide defenders (wingbacks) in a back five. In FM there is only the midfield role available. And i doubt (just in terms of the FM ME) that the carrilero role will play like a wingback.

They either „step up“ to keep the space compressed and provide pressure, maybe potentially even play for the offside or they „drop off“ if nessecary to potentially prevent balls over the top. the defensive line is just where the players position themselves when the opposition has the ball in their own half. I don’t think there is a right or wrong when combining it with a higher line. You can either complement the high line or use it for balancing the risk.

I would use my wide midfielders (IF/IWat) to pin down the outter central defenders. Have my striker dropping off to either utilize the space between the lines or pin back the DMs. Use the Fullbacks to create width in the final third. That will help your team to create space, 1v1 situations or superiority

Your defensive line will drop to prevent balls over the top. The downside is that they can’t support a potential high press. But might be worth if that (balls over the top) is the main reason for conceding

Did you try asking your Defensive Line to Drop Off? (One of the new instructions)

Just a few ideas for improvement. Your Fullbacks should provide width in the final third to stretch the opposition. To achieve that use more progressive roles like (Complete) Wingbacks on support or attack. To remain solidity and defensive balance you could use a Halfback in DM slot to form a back three wehen in possession. That will allow your CB to protect the wings against counter attacks. You also may want one of your CMs to support the channels. Try the Carrilero role. The other CM should be creating depth by holding position and link up with the Halfback, a DLPs could do the job. For the attack you got the AF who is occasionally moving into channels to open up space or create sone for himself. One of your AM should focus on occupying that space. I think an AM(a) would to the job. AP is fine utilize the space between the lines. Instructions: Remove Narrow attacking width, your formation already is very narrow and your team will primarily play through the middle anyway. Remove Lower Tempo, you need your players to make quick decisions for breaking down the defense. Lower Tempo is useful for resting your players or to see out a match in the final minutes. Remove dribble less, to progress the ball into dangerous areas, your players need to penetrate space by either passing the ball or moving with it. You are already quite conservative with your passes, so I‘d suggest to at least take some risks with dribbling If your attack is getting too compressed in the final third, try to set up your Duties in a more structured way to create more depth. It will help your team to stretch the opposition vertically and creates space between the lines. You then may need to add „be more expressive“ to allow your players to utilizing the space and then be more fluid with their movement in the final third

Do you mean the Offside Trap? It was removed and included into the "Hold Defensive Line" instruction

Yes, it got removed For me it would be advisable, as they need to provide stability in the center

First impression on ME looks great, same goes for the squad planning / scouting overhaul (much more streamlined)

Good find, didnt notice that. Both teams have relatively low pass completition compared to FM22. I like it. Looks more realistic. Anyway, Data Hub Upgrade and MLS seems nice to me. I always moved around MLS in the recent years, i might try this time.

I don’t know guys, can’t you just not buy the game if you don’t like it this year instead of trying to make other people not buy it? I understand the frustration, especially if none of the features / overhauls, was one you were waiting for. It’s totally fine to review the features and give some feedback. That’s what the Thread / Forum is for. But everyone can make their own decision whether it’s worth buying or not. Some care about 50 quit, some don’t. Whatever. SI has their own business plan. You won’t change it anyway. They are growing their team, they reach out to other platforms and they introduced women’s football for the near future. Overhauling and extending existing features is a common process, especially for yearly licensed games with relative short development cycles and a set environment. Decisions are business driven, not by popularity. For the best case they match each other. If they don’t, it’s your choice to move on.

Well, things sometimes go that way. Getting into a bad streak at the beginning of a season can snowball quite heavily. You can even watch irl teams qualifying for european competition and then battle relegation the next season.

The whole planning, scouting & recruiting process seems to be more streamlined which is nice and more realistic. However, for me it all comes down to AI and ME changes, which read nice, but we have to see how they actually play out.

Its good for finding a starting point with a balanced tactic.

It seems like they made some changes to the base mentality modifiers. But it’s hard to say what how much exactly changed. Or if they just changed what’s displayed. The changes might be ever so slightly though, as I didn’t notice any real difference to mentality of earlier versions of the game.

I think that’s a myth, both can work very well together as PooD is about how the ball is being played and the GK instruction is about where the ball is played. Also PooD affects every build up from behind no matter of the possessions origin. While the GK Instruction just effects the Goalkeepers decision

Commit more players forward by increasing the amount of attack duties and / or changing the formation to a more attacking one, like 4-2-3-1 / 4-2-4. Force more penetration with instructions, like you already said, increase tempo, passing directness and dribbling. Also being more aggressive defensively can halp to regain possession more quickly.

Its not that easy, because just telling a player to play more direct doesnt mean he will carry out a specific patter. A switch of play does often involve a 3rd player thats located more centrally. I've painted some possible patterns of swiching the point of attack into a random formation from google so dont look at the roles or whatever. However, what will help you to carry out switch of play patterns, is building up through the flanks to overload those areas of the pitch and therefore carry the opposition to that specific side. You need a patient attacking approach which allows your players to cut back to your central midfielders or defenders (those players should be allowed to play more direct passes to increase the likleyhood of those risky diagonal balls). WBIB might help with that patient approach. Have players who stay wide on the opposing flank, like Wingers or Wingbacks. Its also advised to play with a certain tempo, as the benefit of that specific pattern is to exploit a disorganised defence due to the switch. Of course there is also a possibility to carry out that pattern with just two players being involved.

In short: Yes. Switch of play is an attacking pattern thats used quite often in football to free up space for a different area on the pitch. Dragging the opposition to one side of the pitch to then switch the point of attack with tempo and (most likely) diagonal passes.

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Go for more penetration. increase e.g. tempo, passing, dribbling, mentality. Have movement from different angles and occupy all channels. Your team is way too passive, looking for meaningless possession and saving their energy. That’s not gonna work against an organized Defence. Key for successful attacking patterns is to create and penetrate space.