Karnage94

Yeah I forgot to re-tally my specialist roles. Looks like I'll be leaning towards Balanced/Rigid. 2 half specialist roles (CF and SS) with 2 playmaker roles. A Rigid philosophy is probably more in line with what I am looking for, more emphasis on players doing a certain job and playing a certain way. This isn't a save I'm taking hugely seriously so I'm willing to chop and change things.

I can totally see the argument for that. I tried this out in a 3-0 away win at Everton which has been one of the first times I've been happy with an away performance (boosted however with a pair of free kicks). I have Januzaj on the left as he is definitely a playmaker type, Kagawa will play here as well. Shaqiri and Rooney would be the main choices for the SS role, Rooney for his striking ability and Shaqiri for his direct nature, then Insigne, Shaqiri and Zaha on the right as the other direct option from the AM band. Does that look and sound about right to you? I the personnel I have at FB means I'm not tied to which side I play the attack duty on, and since both wingers are going to come inside in different ways, does it matter which way around I should have it? I'll have the CM-D cover on the side of the attacking full back to keep everything balanced

Thanks llama3. The thing with Shaqiri on the right is that he has the PPM cuts inside, so he plays more like an Inside Forward anyway. I still can't grasp why RVP (and to a lesser extent Rooney) have been so poor for me. I'll implement the changes there and I'll report back with results.

Hi everyone, I've been toying about with a Manchester United save but I've been having a horrible time of getting anything resembling good football. First season was a massive struggle and eventually I lost the title to Chelsea, knocked out of the semi's of the FA Cup by Chelsea and lost the CL final vs Real Madrid. It's been a few years since I've had any sort of trouble with United so I have to go back to the drawing board and look at my tactics. Defensively we are ok, nothing special but I wouldn't mind if we were good going forward. I've spent nearly every game making some minor change because I'm quite unhappy with what I see. I'm sure I've tried nearly every sort of combination of front 4 whilst still trying to retain some balance to the attack but there is an incredible lack of forward movement from the AM band. This may be because 3 of my starting 4 have the PPM Comes Deep to get Ball? I'm not sure, but I'd like to think that when RVP drops deep that he has options running past him, but I don't really see this anywhere near as often as I'd like. I think what I have here seems logical enough, Fellaini is set to Hold Position so that I retain some structure in the middle of the pitch. I think the back 4 and Keeper are self explanatory. I could set the left back to an Attack duty as well if that isn't overkill. The CM's I feel are grand as they are. I've used them as DM's too but I feel I lack a connection from the AM's to the DM's which I tried to change with Rooney as an AP - S but that would mean having to use RVP as an AF, but he still comes deep so we sorely lack runners in behind. RVP has been woeful for me throughout last season and has shown no sign of progress, but I feel that's more to do with the lack of good movement around him. I'm a touch lost and need help at this point... Thanks

You're right, I do have 3 playmaker roles in the side which is a possibly a touch overkill. I've toyed about with the AMR a fair bit, trying to get the behaviour I want from him. He cuts inside as a PPM so changing that whilst he is on loan isn't something I'm looking to do. I don't want my wingers to do much crossing, I leave that to my full backs as a secondary form of attack. The reason for this is that Max Clayton isn't the best in the air, albeit still has good heading. I should possibly point out here as well, I'm not intending to rely on counter attacks. I have the counter strategy to try and promote a neat and tidy system, letting players keep hold of the ball if they need to or to launch a quicker move if thats what is required. Just a question to the thinking of playing a CF-A or AF to push the D-Line back giving more space for the IF to run into, I'm looking more for the IF to be running between the gap of full back and centre back getting on the end of through balls, if the D-Line is deeper, surely that makes that idea a little more difficult, no? I'm also unsure on the role changes for the 2 CM's. Surely I would need a creative role in there to try and set up chances? I do apologise if I seem so dismissive, I'm just trying to understand what effect each role change has within my system and whether I feel that it will benefit me.

Hello all. It’s been a while since I last posted on the Tactics forum but I do lurk pretty often, silently gathering whatever information I can to improve. However I have come across a bit of an issue, and it’s one that looking back I’ve always had. I am a bit stumped on how to get a lone striker with no AM support to score goals on a regular basis. This is probably due to my desire that I want my striker to do everything in an attacking sense, dropping deep and having options to either play the ball through to an inside forward, turning and running himself, but also as an option running beyond the last defender in the style of an Advanced Forward. So below is my current team and the roles, duties and shouts I start off with. The Player Instructions: Both wingers set to tightly mark to help with tracking back. AML sits narrower so he starts off closer to goal, AMR roams from position to try and get him to cut inside but in front of the defence before firing off either a shot on goal or a through ball. The GK is also set to pass shorter and distribute to defenders after watching how often he hoofed the ball long, gifting the opposition possession and inviting pressure back upon us. The plan that I want to have is that from the back, everything is neat and tidy. Keep the ball on the deck and move the ball forward in a calm manner. I want both full backs to get forward, with the personnel that I have, I favour the right side over the left for the attack duty. The AMR is probably the less direct out of the 2 wingers and looks to naturally come inside more so this has also influenced my decision. This in turn influences my decision on which way around my 2 central midifelders are positioned. Since I have the more attacking wingback on the right, I play the DLP on that side, just as a little extra cover. The plan I have for the 3 midfielders is the Anchor Man is there as a water carrier, passing the ball on to more creative players. Defensively he is there for covering and dealing with midfield runners, or with AMC’s if I am faced against them. The DLP is there to play a Xavi style role, taking the ball from a pass from one of the back 4 or Anchor Man and then moving the ball along either out wide, to the AP or even to the striker. I don’t intend on having him as a scoring midfielder and my first choice player in this spot has dictates tempo as a PPM, which I feel adds to the DLP role I want. The AP is my clear link from midfield to the front 3. Chuks Aneke is my first choice for this position and has good technical attributes at this level for the style I want but lacks some mentals. I want him to be feeding the front 3 with as many through balls as possible, whilst still giving him the option to take advantage of his good long shot attribute by letting him shoot from range. The front 3 is where I am not really sure what I want to do, the players that I have to play on the left are better goal scoring options than on the right and since I want somebody to put the ball in the back of the net, I have the AML as an IF with the AMR playing a more creative role. I’ve already outlined above what I want from my striker, somebody who can score and assist. However the striker I have is Max Clayton. He’s got plenty of potential and I very much want to keep hold of him, I busted my wage budget just to stop him from leaving at the end of the season, but I am quite unsure how to properly make the most of him whilst still fitting into this jigsaw. In 14 games he’s scored just 3 and assisted 4, which is a worry. I started him off as a F9 and quickly realised he wasn’t doing what I wanted, so I’ve tried a DLF on both Support and Attack duties to see if that does the trick and so far I’m just not getting the end product. It’s not like he’s missing sitters either, he’s not even getting into many positions to start missing them. So I ask the great tactical minds here, what do you think I’m doing wrong, what do you feel I should change and is there any more information I can provide you that will help you help me. Thanks

Good start Tom. Mattheus looks like a very handy little player

Just got myself back into following career threads. Your journey is the first I've come across and you've done a superb job so far. Good luck with Benfica, I'm sure you'll do well

Honestly if you're team is good enough to get promoted then I'd say the majority of the time, it's good enough to scrap for survival in the division up. Of course you will need to get rid of the players who clearly aren't good enough and replace them with players more than capable at the higher level, but I try not to rip away what got me promoted in the first place.

If you want to go down this path of OI's just ctrl+a to highlight all players and ctrl+left mouse to highlight/unhighlight players as you see fit, then change all their instructions on the right hand side. Personally, although I'm not Rashidi, I'll give my 2 cents. I'll apply the OI's to players who may be dangerous or players who can be exploited, so an AMC playmaker in the other team will be tightly marked, closed down and probably tackled hard by my DMC as an example. As a general rule, central midfielders get a lot of attention especially if their weak and I don't do much to strikers, but this can change depending on my players and who I'm up against.

Hey Guys, I've been pretty busy at Uni over the last while, so that's why there is basically no activity on this. Also as of right now I haven't had the same motivation to continue on with this save. I will return to this at some point but for now there won't be any updates... Sorry

Oh boy loads of good reading material for me. I'm always on the hunt for new ideas and methods so this is greatly appreciated Cleon

Thanks guys. Honestly as soon as Bruno Mestre got injured, it was very much downhill from there. My tactic is designed to overload the right flank, as he is the best attacking player for any position I feel outside of the "B" team players. He got injured and the replacements were cack. Should I go back and do an end of season update for Louletano? In my fit of rage I've already made it to July and already got myself a new club. Pretty tough to take considering how comfortable we were all season, but it's my fault for getting a bit complacent to be honest.

Louletano - April League Games Really poor month. We got so so sloppy against Penalva Castelo, sacrificing leads twice. We had to scramble a draw against Mafra before losing to one of them weird miscued 50 yard crosses into the top corner. We didn't play all that bad in any of the 3 games but weren't good enough defensively League Table Ouch What's Next? We shall see what comes up next. In my head there was only one thing that would happen, which was win promotion. From the position we were in, not doing that was unacceptable. So hopefully somebody better equipped can do what I did not and take them on to glory. I, on the other hand, am back on the market again. I did enjoy my season in Portugal, but I think what I want to do is move on and try different leagues, then work on the reputation maybe.

Just finished the last game of the season. Update on its way. Gonna love having to write this out.