[Need help with mentoring]

So, I took over São Paulo on this new save and I want to make good use of the youngsters since it´s oneof the best youth academies in the country. Thing is, I´m really in doubt about 2 things.

1- Mentoring 

- My squad is full of balanced personalities or ''fairly x'' ones. Also, I have players like Pato which have great influence over the group but his personality is iffy (fairly loyal) and his determination sucks. Thing is, is it better if I put a highly influential player with crappy personality/determination or one with not that much of an influence but with better stats? Or should I straight up ignore mentoring since I don´t have the personalities to pull it off?

- Youngsters. Should I just promote the best prospects to my senior squad in order to start mentoring them? But if I do that, my mentoring groups might become too big since I already have quite a lot of young players on the first team. In this case, is it better if I just leave them in under 20s until they grow a bit older? And is it worth it start mentoring them at all considering the squad doesn´t really have many great personalities?

[(FM19) Blackpool first season, need tactical advices.]

Okay, so this is the one I came up with, as simple as I could get it, with no individual instructions as of yet. Standard mentality, line of defense is lower and line of engagement is standard, other things such as passing and tempo are on standard as well. The rest of the instructions are on the screen.

[(FM19) Blackpool first season, need tactical advices.]

Yea I got an idea oh how the instructions and roles work a bit, I feel I can tweak some things to get solid defensively (like the instructions and roles on the sides you mentioned for instance). With this setup, is it too risky to leave my wingers that  high up the field or is it fine as long as I tweak the tactics?. Also, what roles should I have in midfield, especifically the two ahead of my DM?

Also, I still have some questions on the tactics in general.

A solid direct counter-attacking style being my main strategy, what would be my defensive and attacking usual state? I´m trying to avoid the scenario of being bombarded, only launching unwinnable balls to a lone striker and they get possession back almost immediately. My thought process (correct me if I´m wrong) would be :

1- Defensively  - a deeper, narrower defensive line with a deeper (not so sure) line of engagement. Pressing intensity I have no idea, my brain simply fails to understand why it shoulnd´t be as urgent as possible, I know it envolves the defensive positioning and players but I feel like I´m letting the opposition do as they please.  Either way I would like to know how urgent should I set it.

2- Transition - would be counter distributed to flanks and regrouping upon losing possession

3- Attacking - wide, focusing on the sides, pass into space with slightly or more direct passing on a higher tempo. Final third I´m confused as well. Should probably be early crosses if I´m looking for through balls and stuff, or is run at defence a better option? Creative freedom I believe should be disciplined.

Having that said, I´m not sure about mentality as well, is there one that is very close to this setup or should I just set it to balanced and adjust based on these settings (with corrections obviously)? Also if you have some practical examples to show instead of explaining everything that would be ok as well.

 

[(FM19) Blackpool first season, need tactical advices.]

Thanks for the response, let´s go.

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

First off, I don't understand why you use 2 so different tactics (including even different formations). 

Oh nevermind, it´s just I´ve been trying 2 different ones due to injuries or simply to have more or less in the midfield, but no big deal. My long term plan doesn´t involve 2 strikers anyway so we´re good with the 4-1-4-1.

 

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

But I have to ask you a couple of questions first:

I´ll give my thought process behind it and If those instructions are somewhat contradicting my game idea feel free to explain it. 

1- my idea is to utilize my wingers to the fullest due to their good pace, acceleration and crossing so I can reach the attack quickly.

2 - my idea with the overlap was to make use of my left back to go up the field help the winger since he is very athletic. Don´t really know why I put the underlap on the right since my RB is supposed to stay deep.

3- Again, point is to utilize the flanks since that´s a strong department in my team, so on transition they move to the line to receive the ball against an exposed fullback or maybe even behind it, or to deliver through balls quickly to my forward.

4- I selected all those because in my head my team must fight hard for the ball with intensity so I can recover the ball quickly, I started the save with the idea of an ''intense'' team but one that puts pressure on the opposition all the time. 15 games in and now I think I need to change my approach since the team apparently can´t pull it off as of now.

 

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

So you actually want to play some sort of fast, direct and simple counter-attacking football built around tight, compact and hard-to-break-down defense, right?

Yea, at least for now that´s the approach I´m looking for. Gegenpressing is one that also appealed to me at first glance but let´s keep it simple for now. 

 

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

How fast is your striker? And how technically gifted is he?

My top goalscorer has 15 acceleration and pace, 13 in technique agility and dribbling. Only 11 at finishing but it´s the one that worked most so far. Buut he´s injured so we have: 

Cullen with 14 acceleration and finishing, 13 pace but only 9 technique. Meanwhile Dodoo has 16 acceleration and 15 pace, along with a technique of 12 and 13 in finishing.

I have also a target man and a DLF but they lack in speed and so right now they´re only as options on the bench.

 

 

[(FM19) Blackpool first season, need tactical advices.]

Newbie here, started a LLM  with Blackpool last week. Thing is, I'm currently 2/5/7 in the league and I feel like the team is not playing like I want it. Not only I concede a crapton of goals (23 in 14 games) but my attacking is totally clueless, either my players launch the ball long to nowhere upfront or I keep useless possession until one of my wingers cross from the byline only for my strikers to waste it anyway and I'm dead on transition. I have an idea of building a team around intensity, quickness, pace and transition, but right now I need to SURVIVE so any suggestions are appreciated. About the squad:

-My wingers are pretty nice, with good pace crossing and dribbling (amongst highest in the league)

 -my CBs are meh, I also concede a lot from set pieces.

-my left back is pretty good, the one on the right is useless apart from tackling and heading.

-the midfield consists of a good DM in Guy and my key player Spearing is the CM with good passing along with the marking. Little to no depth in this department tho ( 2 subpar BWM/BBM, only one CAM, which is an 18 year old).

- my main forward is Delfouneso which does what I ask fairly, consistenly runs into space behind opposition although weak on 1v1s, but he's injured. The others have similar stats, but none seem to work.

- There's always a void in midfield and I basically have less 2 players since my forwards help in utterly nothing. From what I've read my squad roles fit the counter tactic but all I see is launching balls ahead to no one until I concede from a set piece . 

Be as honest as you wish in the comments and please give some explanations, I'm fairly new to this game.