Joey Numbaz

June 9, 2023

Best I can tell, players only build partnerships while playing for the senior team. I think when players play on U23/U18 (or any other teams) they should also get "partnership credit". It's realistic, and it would also be neat to see two youth players promoted at the same time with a partnership. These partnerships should also impact U23/U18 games themselves too. This would be especially interesting/fun for managers who build through their academies.

June 4, 2023

Just finished my 2026-27 season, I play pretty slow. I pushed the WBL/WBR to WML/WMR, but with the same instructions a wingback-support or attack would have, including Cleon's sit narrower addition. At times I would drop them back to wing backs. To protect a lead, or when developing players so they would get experience in both positions. Note that in converting this for FM22, I went with:

Very Narrow
Standard Tempo
Standard Line of Engagement

It would say it was a resounding success! We dominated the toughest league in the world, clinching the title with 4 matches to go.

We nearly completed the treble. We were a 2-1 loss away to Newcastle and a 4-3 loss away to Arsenal (in a game where Onana was at the African Cup of Nations and Pickford gave up an own goal) from an invincible season. We scored the most goals in the league (104) and allowed the fewest (27). In 2025-26 I scored 80 and allowed 20. I did add Alphonso Davies over the summer and Jude Bellingham in early January, so we were a little better talent wise too.

Here's the full schedule:

3 key players were out for the Champions League Final against Manchester United. The Regista Sandro Tonali, WBR/WMR Reece James, and CB Anel Ahmedhodžić. That being said, we were up 2-0 in the second half before giving up 2 late goals, the second of which came on an own goal off of a corner kick. We lost 3-2 on another corner in extra time. Which is really ironic because we did not give up a goal on a corner kick all season, while scoring 12. No trick plays or cheats, my players are just good and mostly very tall.

We had beat ManU 2-1, two and a half weeks earlier, in a game where the xG was 2.45-0.82 in our favor. In the Champions League Final we out xG'd them 2.28-0.97. Sometimes you just get unlucky.

But there's more! Our youth teams which are considered "average squads" also had amazing seasons, playing the 3-1-4-2 almost exclusively. This despite not being very deep at all, and sometimes not even having enough players during international weeks. I play all available leagues and every game at every level on full detail for all league. I think that means the youth games around the world also use the real engine and not the fast engine.

The U23s also won the Premier League Cup.

The U18s were even better, winning the the North and the final game over Aston Villa U18s.

They also won the UEFA Youth League, taking out Inter, Dortmund, Barcelona, and Feyenoord.

So this tactic really can work, even without perfect players everywhere.

*******

Some things I noticed that are probably needed to make the WM version of the tactic work.

Depth on the wings. These guys work their arses off, James especially (the attacking WMR/WBR) was typically the tiredest player on the team, and he's got great stamina/natural fitness. I play with attributes slightly masked, but his are 15-16 there. Goes without saying but you need to make WB your WM, they need pace, acceleration, work rate, stamina, etc. Just because you are pushing them up doesn't mean you can play a no defense winger or wide forward there.

The entire back 5 really need to be stars. But when they are it is amazing to watch. I said this earlier, but it's like playing with 13 players out there.

Late in games I would switch counter-press to regroup. When my normal back 3 were tired, and I had to play Sebastián Coates, who is now 36 years old, with acceleration in the 6-8 range and pace in the 9-11 range, I would drop the line back from high standard. I would also do this late to protect a lead sometimes.

The Advanced Forward is going to be a star. Even my backup advanced forward, Luis Suárez (the Colombian one) scored 17 non-penalty league goals in 14 starts with 5 sub appearances. Granted he was typically playing against the lesser opponents, but that's a decent number over a full season let alone half of a season. Starter Domenic Calvert-Lewin (now 30 years old) scored 21, with 8 assists in 22 starts + 5 sub appearances.

Actually I can share all of the stats, maybe you'll find something interesting in there:

Obviously I have great players, which helps a lot. But at a minimum, I think you can push the wingbacks up with minimal risk if you are chasing a goal.

Here's some data hub stuff

The 3-1-4-2 created a chance every 37 minutes and allowed one every 227 minutes, over 2731 minutes in our last 50 matches.

The 5-3-2 created a chance every 53 minutes and allowed one every 213 minutes, over 1704 minutes in our last 50 matches. Many of those minutes were played while protecting a league late.

I occasionally used a 4-1-3-2 DM WB Asymetric M(L) and a 4-1-3-2 DM WB Asymetric M(R). That's a fancy way of saying sometimes I only pushed up one of the wingbacks. Mostly this was player dependent. One of them needed some experience there or was much better suited to a WB or WM position/role than the other. I probably could have done this more to counter specific opposition threats, but I was kind of winning a lot anyway :-)

Anyway with only the left back pushed up, we created 5 chances (one every 47 minutes) and allowed one over 239 minutes. With the only right back pushed up, we created 1 once in 206 minutes and didn't allow any. Combining them it was one chance created every 89 minutes and one allowed every 445 minutes. That's probably just small sample size noise, but maybe that was a little better defensively with less punch? Probably not.

Goals/Assists (Last 32 league games)

Goals/Assists Allowed (Last 32 league games)

Hah, I somehow missed that a keeper scored against us. I wonder if that's Pickford's own goal against Arsenal.

Also there does not appear to be any formation that was "Kryptonite" for us. We were positive chance wise against any formation that we played against for at least 90 minutes. In the 6 games against the 4-4-2 opponents had a chance every 99 minutes, but we had one every 37 minutes. Maybe there is something to that as those weren't great opponents or anything, Wolves (7th), Leeds (10th), Stoke (19th). We outscored them 18-6 in those games and went 5-0 with a draw. We also had a 1-1 draw against Fenerbahçe in the Champions League, they used a 4-4-2. We did beat them 4-0 at home. We didn't play our top lineup in those games either. I'll keep an eye on it though. Maybe keep the wide players as WB against the 4-4-2.

Against a 5-3-2 WB Wide we only had a chance every 58 minutes but we only allowed one every 291 minutes. Maybe I'll make the DLF a F9 against that one next season.

Anyway, this is an amazing tactic that's a lot of fun, and it's even more fun and crazy if you can push those wingbacks up higher!

Oh, next season, we are adding Erling Haaland from PSG, we closed that deal in early May. The goal is an invincible treble with him in the fold!

May 3, 2023

1 minute ago, Cleon said:

Also squad rotation, if your players start getting tired half way through the season, then again it might not play as well as it is now.

Excellent point. I don't think I'd keep the WB -> WM if Davies and/or James aren't playing. I need all-world players in those spots for it to work I think.

Thanks for sharing this one. It's fun to play around with, and I can't wait for the upcoming articles.

May 3, 2023

I'm in FM22 still beginning of the 2026-27 season. I always like new things tactically so this season I am trying a variation of this that pushes the wingbacks up to wide midfielders, but with all of the wing back instructions (except for get further forward on the left wingback since he's already further forward some by being a WM instead of a WB :cool: So its a 3142

I also set the in possession instruction to very narrow (since there are plenty of attackers out wide anyway). I assume mid block = standard line of engagement.

It seems to be working pretty amazingly in a small sample. Granted I have an all-star team practically. The WB/WM are Alphonso Davies and Reece James. The back 3 are De Ligt, Cuenca, and Ahmedhodžić. The regista is Tonali, b2b is Declan Rice, with Tchouameni as the Mezzala. Calvert-Lewin and Kane up front. Sometimes for more attacking punch I'll play van de Beek as the Mezzala, sit Cuenca, make Ahmedhodžić the CD-C and put Tchouameni in as the WCB.

De Ligt is a superstar, but he also has stays back at all times. It hasn't been a deal breaker, but he doesn't get forward nearly as often as Ahmedhodžić and Tchouameni do. Instead De Ligt will occasionally bomb a long cross field pass to James from over the center line when De Ligt pushes forward. Which is a lot of fun.

The pendulum attacks are just awesome to watch. It feels like I'm playing a 2-1-7 in attack! And a 6-2-2 when defending. It's like I have 13 players out there when it's clicking.

After burying Valencia 4-0 (5-0 if Kane hadn't missed a penalty) including a hat trick from Rice as the B2B in our last friendly (the first time I went with the wide midfielders), we obliterated a Manchester United team that has Kylian Mbappé amongst others in the Community Shield, up 3-0 20 minutes in with a brace from Davies and another goal from James. We gave up a goal near the end of the first half, so I called off the dogs and dropped them back to WB for most of the second half.

Same thing away to Burnley on opening day. Up 3-0 15 minutes into the game. Another late first half goal allowed. Moved them back to WB in the second half and won 4-1, with Calvert-Lewin scoring a perfect hat trick.

I also added a variant that regroups instead of counter presses and drops the line back to standard for closing things out and that seems to be pretty tough to score on, though there isn't nearly as much attacking punch there. It's a fun set up, especially with great players. We'll see how it plays out in some more games. We beat Barcelona 3-0 in a friendly with that one, but only had 1.04 xG.

Any thoughts on whether any of these tweaks can work long term or if I'm just having some beginner's luck but missing some gaping hole that will bite me?

February 24, 2023

Raising this from the dead, but I love this tactic. I'm using it on FM22 and doing very well. Of course you need the right players. Check this out from the Advanced Analysis reports:

We got a ton of shots, though they aren't always great shots. On a lucky day we'll have 1.5 xG and 4-5 goals. On a rough day we'll have 2 xG and no goals.

Also look at this - the defense is extremely solid despite no DM, and support and attack duty fullbacks:

We never dribble, despite having pretty good dribblers.

We don't win the ball in their half much, but that' not an issue:

We are very hard to break down ... note, we don't have a lot of tackles, interceptions, or blocks. And an average number of interceptions. But we concede 2/3 of the xG and half the goals of an average team. And this isn't because we play keep away with the ball. We have 54% possession on average.

I do have a really good roster, we won the Champions League the year before playing a 541. But we only finished 2nd/3rd with 83/82 points the last two year in the EPL, we aren't some insane super team. We are second again this year through 24 games. City (coached by Klopp since 22-23) is still really tough and going for a 3-peat.

Anyway, thanks @kr10this one is a lot of fun.

June 14, 2022

So that tactic above. Yeah, I bailed. I just started thinking, it's not taking advantage of Adeyemi or Draxler in their best roles. I decided to go with this instead.

We've got a wide-playmaker which could be fun. We've still got a Mezzala, but he's tuned down to support. We can let Richarlison press some too with that great work ethic. West Ham played with two inverted wingers which is why I went with Force Opposition Outside.

We ended up falling behind 1-0 just before halftime, gave up a goal on a corner.

In the second half we ratcheted up the pressure, brought on Alli for Doucouré and he scored! We were running on the counter but the ball kind of bounced around after a tackle attempt and landed at Van de Beek's feet maybe ten yards outside the box. He passed it back to Allan, who bombed it forward for Adeyemi in the box. He dribbled the post, kicked it back to a running Alli who blasted the shot into the back of the net. It was pretty fun to watch. I technically was breaking the rules here; two hybrids (AM-A, IW-A) and no attacking creator. But hey, it worked!

The game finished 1-1, but we played pretty well. Dominated early, West Ham then dominated the last 3rd of the first half and got their goal. We owned the second half but kind of coasted home, I went cautious after scoring, didn't want to blow it, and we'll take a home game in the replay in a week and a half, likely with Dominic Calvert-Lewin back.

Bad news though, Gilberto will be out for 2-3 weeks with pulled knee ligaments. I guess this is why we added depth!

June 13, 2022

Couple of other updates.

I completely forgot, but back on January 14, we signed André Onana, the Ajax keeper, who will move to Everton on a free after the season. We are getting one heckuva player. Also, I imagine we'll be able to sell Jordan Pickford for a nice chunk of change. He's valued at £32-35 million, and signed through 2024.

We will only be paying Onana, £53K p/w, with a £3.5 million loyalty bonus. £19.25K appearance fee, £12K clean sheet bonus. Pickford makes £110K/week, £15K appearance, £20K clean sheet, and has a bunch of incentives that aren't cheap for once we start winning things.

Also, Onana is 2 years younger. This is a no brainer moneyball type move. As much as I love Pickford, I had to do this. Note the GK-D column is his rating as a keeper, whereas the SK-D, SK-S, SK-A are his rating for the additional sweeper keepering things only.

I, P, S are take from the Ajax TIPS system. The intelligence, personality, speed (which really means physical for me). Black cells are for where the player's rating is less than 29.3 so I don't even look at it. You can ignore the I as it isn't keeper specific, I should have removed it.

Here's my latest report card now that we've gone through a transfer window.

June 13, 2022

It's February 1, 2022. Dominic Calvert-Lewin returns between February 8-15. So the first question is do I create one tactic for before he returns and other for after?

I know I'm supposed to start with defense, but I think that's kind of settled for now anyway. My initial idea is Draxler as the hybrid, Van de Beek as the creator, Richarlison as the scorer, until Calvert-Lewin returns to full strength. But let's start with a quick look at the numbers for anyone who could possibly be in one of those three attack duty roles:

Goalscorer Roles

Richarlison as an advanced forward makes a lot of sense here. Calvert-Lewin can insert into that role once he's back. I would like to go with a pressing forward on attack, but not sure how that will work with my lower line of engagement. I also like that I am not wearing out my striker having him run all over the place.

Creator Roles

I don't know how I can move Van de Beek off of being our Mezzala. He has 8 goals, 5 assists, 12 clear cut chances created. That's with missing the equivalent of about 12 of our 29 games so far. Perhaps I could push him up to an AM-A (see below) allowing Draxler to play as a Wide-Playmaker, or a wide-Trequartista which seems like what he was born to do.

Hybrid Roles

I can not stomach playing a 4-2-3-1. So I think the best fit here is going to be:

AF-A - Calvert-Lewin/Richarlison
IW-A - Draxler
MEZ-A - Van de Beek

We'll have the two center backs on defend. Though when Schlotterbeck plays, he will be a BPD. Perhaps one day even a wide-wide-centerback!

While Adeyemi is best as a Winger-Support on the left, in my opinion, Draxler is best suited (in this tactic) to being an IW-A which will require him to be on the left flank to get the most out of him. So Adeyemi will be and IW-S on the right.

I am also going to try to be a little more aggressive with Doucouré - he's going to be a Mezzala on support now, instead of a Carrilero. That being said when protecting a lead, or if we aren't solid enough it's simple enough to switch him back to being a Carrilero.

Mykolenko gets the third defensive duty - wingback on defend. He naturally gets further forward though, so it won't be insanely defensive.

Gilberto sets up as a fullback on support, but he also gets further forward and even gets into the area naturally. I'm going overlap on the left, and underlap on the right. Both Mykolenko and Gilberto stay wider, and Allan as the ball-winning midfielder will hold position for attacking cover.

We've got 13 partnerships here, 11 direct and two overlapping, so I'm going to try out slightly more direct passing too. I've got a lot of options here, so I'll have to pay attention to how it plays out and make some adjustments I'm sure. It's nice that we get the FA Cup game at struggling West Ham before diving into a pretty rough month and a half schedule-wise. But they have a new manager now (Frank Vercauteren, and they've beaten Blackpool 6-1, Watford 4-0, and lost away to Chelsea 1-0 since he took over. They might not be as easy a draw as it looks. Especially away, where we've struggled.

Also, here's an updated table. Seems weird pushing our leading scorer to the bench, but Dele will be a great super-sub; players get hurt, etc. But also, every 20 games he plays costs me £10 million, through the next 59 games (3 more potential installments, we just paid the first). So slowing that down a little isn't the end of the world.

Chelsea fired Tuchel and has gone 20 games without a loss. Perhaps interim manager Neil Bath gets to keep the gig permanently? Pep is hanging on by a thread at disappointing City. Bielsa's starting to turn it around at Arsenal.

We've got a bit of a loan army thing going too:

June 12, 2022

There was no real transfer budget waiting for me on January 1. The board granted me ~£190K week in a payroll bump. I went from £125K transfer budget with £44K/wk payroll available to £164K transfer budget with £237K/wk in payroll available. I was able to turn this into £68.5 million in spending!

To get some initial flexibility, I adjusted this to £2.37M transfer; £196K p/w payroll.

First out the door, André Gomes, £3 million now, plus four 6-monthly installments of £325K each from Burnley for a total of £4.3 million. More importantly, he was making £120K p/w!

Concurrently, we made a small offer for João Resende. £400K, but another £900K if he ends up playing 20 games for us. Plenty of upside here. He's 18 years old. Consistent, adaptable, determined and resolute.

Also gone to Burnley, Andros Townsend and Cenk Tosun.

For Cenk Tosun we received £400K up front, and four 6-monthly installments of £300K each are on the way £1.6 million. Also, savings of £67K per week in wages! This is like found money for someone who never plays. We wish you the best.

Townsend is a decent player, but doesn't really fit here. Guess where he is headed. Yep, Burnley. Sean Dyche has my number on speed dial.

He's headed out on a loan where we'll get £75K per month in fees, plus 40% of his wages covered for another £18K per week; total £155K per month coming in. After the season, there is a mandatory £7 million future fee, along with another three annual installments of £1.67 million each; total £12 million fee. For my backup, out of position left back. Very nice.

Salomón Rondón is off to Krasnodar. £900K now, six 6-monthly installments of £150K each for another £900K and savings of £39.25K per week in wages (they made us pay £5.75K of his £45K salary).

Nathan Patterson is off to West Brom in the championship on loan. Couldn't get any money for this, but he wasn't playing, and needs to play. Hopefully he can help them get promoted (8th place at the time of the move). I am skeptical that he'll ever be good enough for us.

So by January 15, we are at £15.51 million in transfer budget with £207K p/w in wage room. We've sold practically nothing of value; and that doesn't even count the money coming for Townsend after the season, or the Rondón money since he doesn't leave until January 26. Getting all of those big wages off the books really helps.

How were we able to spend £68 million more from this? Mortaging the future for the now!

For Adeyemi, we only paid £8 million now, and we'll send RB Salzburg £3.33 million a year for the next 3 years, and another £4 million after his 50th appearance for the Toffees.

Lewis Dobbin went out on loan for a whole bunch of money! AZ from Holland is paying £150K per month for him, £275K if he doesn't play.

Anthony Gordon is off to Fulham. Pretty funny, they are paying £1400 of his weekly salary, and £650 per month for him. Note, there are no K's there. Not even sure why they bothered, but I'll take it, every little bit helps.

This led us to the Gilberto offer. £1 million now. Three annual installments of £1.43 million each for another £4.3 million. If he plays 50 games, Benfica will get another £4.4 million.

After his signing January 29, we were sitting on £2.38 million with £65K in wage budget available.

This set up an exciting deadline day. I was some how able to spend £32.5 million from this while paying £98K p/w in wages. While selling nothing of value.

Side note: I love the way deadline day works now, moving each hour with dashboards to show you available players agents are shopping for bargains, your own players with expiring contracts, etc.

First up, the outbound players.

Alex Iwobi ended up rejecting what was a great deal for us. Brentford was going to send £80K per month for a loan, £105K if not playing (which includes 10% of wages). Mandatory future fee of £3 million. Three annual installments of £1.16 million for another £3.5 million. 25% of the profit from a future sale. He's making £100K per week. So more addition by subtraction for a player who cannot find his way into the lineup.

Strasbourg offered £150K per month (£275 if not playing) for Jarrad Branthwaite on loan. Which would have been great for development and my wallet. Alas he rejected it.

Instead we were able to loan Iwobi to West Ham for 60% of wages and £51.3K per week (£77K if he doesn't play). I am loving that for someone not playing.

Jonjoe Kenny is gone. Off to Preston for £1.3 million, also saves us £15K p/w in wages. In baseball we have a label for guys like Kenny, AAAA players. Too good for the lowest level of the minor leagues, but not good enough for the major leagues. Kenny has been this from the first time he showed up in FM14 or whatever has a 16 year old. He just cannot play at this level. We wish him well, and would love to have him back as a coach some day.

First in, Nico Schotterbeck, a German center-back, who can bring the ball out of defense, above average passing and vision, we've finally got a ball-playing defender. He still needs to work a bit on the defendering part. But he's only 22. He's also playable as a FB (50) or Inverted Wing Back (49) on Support in a pinch or as a more defensive option to close a game out. He isn't great for pushing the line higher, but whatever, we'll deal with that when we are good. He's playing every game for a team that's a surprising 5th in the Bundesliga.

How were we able to afford him? We whipped out the credit card!

£1.5 million now. Three annual installments of £3.83 million for another £11.5 million. £6 million more if he plays 50 games.

Here's how the central defenders and left backs shape up now. Godfrey will probably see some more time as a DC with Gilberto joining. Keane and Mina aren't getting any younger. Schlotterbeck will get £40K p/w wages, and is a squad player, promised regular starter for 2023-24. 4.5-year contract. He's now worth £29-35 million.

Schlotterbeck may have some trouble adapting to a new country, so we will break him in slowly. With European football as the goal for next year, perhaps a deep FA Cup run this season, we are going to need to start building out some depth.

He does speak basic English at least, and we brought in two other Germans this window. Two? Who is the other one besides Karim Adeyemi?

PSG was over Julian Draxler. He's barely playing and available for a song according to his agent!

He's still creative, a little on the old side at 28, but hey this seems like a great opportunity. He's our best hybrid player (harmonic mean of scorer and creator), our best creator and our 3rd best pure scorer. He's able to play anywhere in the midfield or attacking midfielder strata. He's both footed too (strong left foot, very strong right).

What did we pay for this guy?

£500K from the current transfer budget! Four annual installments of £1.33 million, another £4 million in total eventually.

PSG will get £2 million after Draxler plays 20 games, another £2 million after his 30th, 40th, and 50th games. If we make the Champions League, they get £1 million more. So potentially £13.5 million total.

Salary £58K p/w, 3.5 year contract. Not bad for a German international with 57 caps. Plus-Plus First touch and technique, plus dribbling, composure, flair, off the ball, vision, acceleration. Above average finishing, long shots, passing, teamwork, agility. He can also take corners. He's a really good player, and we are happy this opportunity was presented to us. He is not a great decision maker, and he's worthless defensively, awful tackling and marking, poor but playable positioning, below average work rate and strength. But he'll be an excellent creative presence, and again more depth.

That being said, our entire tactic is going to need to be re-worked after these changes (next post). Let's hope the Dreifach Deutsch window propels us into Europe for the 2022-23 season.

Here's a summary of the window. We trimmed down the U23's a bunch too. We only have 12 players on the under 23s team now. But several of the seniors and a few of the U18s will help us fill out the roster for games.

June 12, 2022

January 2022 was a busy month! We've brought in some fresh new faces, tweaked the tactic some, and will have to tweak it more after some creative (financially and on the field) impulse buys on deadline day. Let's get to it!

First the results. The upcoming schedule looks a little crazy though.

That is one heckuva month. Liverpool absolutely destroyed us in the first half, but in the second half we went toe-to-toe. After Dele scored I really thought we'd get an equalizer but it didn't come.

Donny Van de Beek has been amazing this month, his average rating over the last 5 games is 8.16 as a Mezzala. The above doesn't even include his hat trick against Northampton in the FA Cup game. I am going to try to keep him when the loan is up at the end of the season, but I don't know if it will be possilbe.

The Leicester game seems like where it all really came together. If you remember back to Boxing Day, we lost 2-1 at The King Power Stadium. But it probably should have been 3-0. xG were 2.58-0.57 and it was ugly.

Five weeks later at Goodison the could not muster anything. We outshot them 14-5, xG was 1.16-0.34 and they had just one shot on target, as we won 2-0. We also debuted a new tactic there, as we had two of our new players in the lineup, Karim Adeyemi and Gilberto:

Note Doucouré moved out wide as a WMa, a new role I've never used before, but it seemed to fit. Adeyemi brings a much needed left-footed wide player into the mix. With a winger on support on the left, Mykolenko scaled back to a fullback on defend as opposed to a wing back on support. Yerry Mina was away on international duty as CONMEBOL scheduled World Cup qualifying during the club season, so Godfrey slide over to CDd and newbie Gilberto took over as the inverted wing back. It worked like a charm.

Seems like a good time to show off the new guys! Adeyemi signed two days after his 20th birthday. He cost £25 million. He's already valued at £53-69 million! He scored 12 goals in 14 games for RB Salzburg. But I see him as more of a winger on support right now, despite his below average (40 on the scout scale, 9-11 in FM attributes) crossing. In my system he shows as a 53 W-S (AMRL), 52 W-A (AMRL), and

That being said, I am not ruling out a two-headed monster up top with Dominic Calvert-Lewin at some point. He's also some pretty nice insurance should we be forced to sell DCL. I was forced into a £66 million release clause, but 1) that's not the end of the world if forced on me, and 2) I'll renegotiate that out of his contact at some point if he becomes the star I think he will become.

Scorer:

Creator:

Hybrid:

Wide Support:

Central Attack Support:

That's kind of why I land on winger-support for now. I've got better scorer options with Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison. Van de Beek has been amazing as a Mezzala, and we really only want one from that group which is where winger-attack would land. He's not nearly as good of a fit for any of the hybrid roles. If Van de Beek were out, I'd probably play him as a winger attack. At least for now.

Color reminder
Red = 1-8 (awful or poor but playable)
Yellow = 9-12 (below or fringe average)
Blue = 13-15 (average, above average, or plus)
Teal = 16+ (plus, plus-plus, or world class)

That decisions and compsoure are a concern, both also below average. But he's young, and I cannot exactly afford or convince Erling Haaland to come to Goodison. Yet. And wow, look at that off the ball (plus), acceleration and pace (both plus-plus). He's got a plus weak foot too.

Let's also welcome Gilberto to Goodison Park. 28, nearly 29 is a little older than what I usually go for. But I need to get better now, so we can turn this thing into a dynasty. Several players I wanted to bring in, wouldn't consider us because of our "poor league standing". Guys like Nikola Milenkovic, for example, who Manchester United ended signed for a comically low price of £26 million. 😭

The outspoken Gilberto is naturally a DR or WBR, but can also play MR, which is important as my original base tactic has a W-S in the MR position. This could be useful if I want to get both him and Godfrey in the game on the right flank at the same time. I think he might even be able to score from MR if I put him in the proper role (I do realize he's scored 5 goals in 175 senior games, but they all came in 46 games with Fluminese, maybe they knew how to get this out of him?). He's got average finishing, above average anticipation and plus off the ball movement. He'll cost £9.75 million if he plays 50 games £5.25 million if he does not. Also note his value is now £15-16.5 million. A decent bargain here. But also another guy that needs to work on his final third (composure/decision) mentals. His are fringe average (45/12), which is the top end of the yellow range.

He's 50-51 for all of the DR/WBR/MR roles, defend, support or attack, except he's a 49 as a wide playmaker or IW-A. His best role is actually as a ball winning midfielder, which isn't something I'll use him as, but I like that he can defense some too, I want clean sheets. This kind of versatility in a player is super useful for the way I run the tactics here! The stars get roles that fit them like a glove, and the support players need to be slotted into roles that fit and support the stars. He can play whatever role I need from him on the right side. He's also got plus natural fitness, so I hope he ages well - he'll be 32 when the contract runs down.

That's all for now, but there were three more players brought in, two on deadline day, plus one 18 year old I have high hopes for earlier in the window. 15 players are gone, though 9 were loans, including one with a mandatory future fee. I'll get into the details in the next post.

June 5, 2022

We got destroyed by Leicester, the score was only 2-1, but it was ugly. Completely dominated on Boxing Day. 2.58-0.57 xG, outshot 19-7. Somehow we were in the game and got a goal from Dele at 42' but right before the half (45+3) we gave up a penalty. Vardy locked the win up with a goal at 74'. I think that shadow striker experiment with Doucouré is over lol. Also we've lost 3 of 4 now, even though we've only been outscored 5-4.

Two days later we had to play West Ham, who just fired David Moyes and are near the relegation zone. Obviously everyone was tired, so I had to swap out my entire 11. I came up with this crazy mess, based on the players I had and following the principles for tactic creation.

Once the game started I realized focusing play down the right made sense. Gotta love the old 4-1-3-2 DM WB Asymmetric AM (R) formation.

It wasn't pretty and we went into halftime down a goal, but we came back and won with two second half goals, the second from a corner. I'll take it! It did not "feel" like West Ham dominated or anything. I felt like we actually controlled the game pretty well, despite the xG. Early in the second half I was able to get Kenny and Coleman out of there, and I brought on Van de Beek for Iwobi right before the scored the winner. Closed it out with the 5-1-2-2 I mentioned the other day over the last 10 minutes or so.

That's it for 2021. Still no transfer budget. Next up - the Merseyside Derby on New Year's Day. We knew this stretch would be rough, but nine points from the five league games so far is pretty good all things considered. We are a very strong 8th in the league right now, only 3 points behind Chelsea, City, and Leicester for 4th.

June 3, 2022

We lost to Chelsea 2-1, but weren't overmatched by any means. The tactic wasn't a disaster. About 20 minutes in, ended up moving the SS to the AMCL position and focusing play down the left. There were times where Richarlison and Doucouré were in the same space, but when switching play across the field to a running Van de Beek (Mezzala in MCR) he ended drawing a penalty for our goal. Also Chelsea grabbed a soft goal where Chillwell (DL) essentially dribbled all the way to the goal unmolested and placed it between Pickford and the inside post. Ick. So I made Allan support and Godfrey defend after that.

I probably need to attack wider to get some more space now that I think about it.

The U18s played a friendly with this, I did drop a couple of the U23s down and it went fairly well. 36 shots! 4.71-1.57 expected goals. The opposing goal did come from a ball over the top though.

June 3, 2022

So we are off to a great start in the 3 weeks of hell. We also picked up an excellent FA Cup draw.

We completely dominated both Manchester United and Arsenal at Goodison Park. We struggled with Chelsea, but it was a League Cup Game, and City and Liverpool are still in. We aren't that deep, and am not even sure I want to play two semifinal legs in January. Focusing on the league, I rotated the entire lineup and lost 1-0 on a penalty. We aren't scoring a lot, but we also haven't given up a goal in open play since the Newcastle debacle. Things are going well!

We've moved into 6th place, but we've cut the gap to 4th from 4-5 points (we had a game in hand on one of the teams tied for 4th) to 2 points! Hell we are four points behind Liverpool in 2nd, and 5 points behind leader Tottenham, with a game in hand on them.

United was racking up cards and started focusing play at those players and running at the defense. Eventually Wan-Bissaka got card #2 electric boogaloo and we scored up a man.

In the Arsenal game I switched to this tactic to close the game out the last 15 minutes. Allan holding position, the two MC closing down more. Alli man-marking the BPD tighter. WBs both staying wider.

Just noticed the screenshot, note, Holgate was the CDd on the right, and Godfrey was the WBs on the right. I just missed that when recreating the lineup for the screenshot. Anyway, we scored on the counter about 5 minutes after I changed and locked the game up. It was based on the attacker for defender sub explanation here:

Basically Holgate came on for a tired Richarlison. I'd already subbed out a tiring Calvert-Lewin, thinking towards the rest of this run of games. Which is relevant because, the day before the Chelsea league game this happens:

Merry Freaking Christmas. Ugh. He'll be back in late February or early March.

He was high risk for injury. So I gave him an extra day off after the Arsenal game (no pitch time Sunday or Monday), and had him at half intensity for a training day that only had one session (Defending) the day before the Chelsea game.

So back to the drawing board. I don't thinking asking Salomón Rondón to be Dominic Calvert-Lewin is the answer. Remember this?

Looks like Abdoulaye Dourcouré is going to the goal scorer now. How will I make that work?

I could keep everything the same, and make him a pressing forward - attack, and just let Tom Davies hop in as the Carrilero. But I don't like that since Doucouré is an awkward striker. If this idea doesn't work, I can fall back on that, of course. Instead I'm going to give this a shot. Mykolenko has get further forward and stay wider (note, his role was tuned down to fullback with the thinner midfield), Gray has get further forward too.

One thing I've started doing a little more of game to game is forcing teams inside/outside based on their winger setup. Also been showing the AMLR onto the foot that pushes them outside if they want to cut in or vice versa. Also, selectively man marking a BPD with my striker, hard tackling players with low bravery and tight marking the midfield playmaker. It seems to be working.

Curious to see how this goes. No practicing it at all, let's just go run it out there at Stamford Bridge and cross our fingers :-)

June 1, 2022

Four more games in the books, which takes us up to a gruesome run of 7 games in 22 days.

Yikes

First the good news, Richarlison really has been playing well. Three goals in three November games, along with an assist, an 8.0 rating was good enough for player of the month. And he dedicated the award to me. Nice stuff.

Despite that, it has not been a fun set of games. I cannot wait for the transfer window:

xG from those games was

1.45-1.39 at Watford
1.34-1.42 vs. Brighton
0.55-1.74 at Wolves (we scored early and grinded out a result, it really was pretty impressive, played most of the game on cautious)
3.05-1.88 at Newcastle (this one was a soul crusher, look at the xG story)

The latest table:

That being said if you look at goal differential, we are right there in a group from 3rd through 9th that looks pretty similar. If we can make some improvements, who knows where we might end up.

I would love a center back who can play as a wide center back. I could also really use an attacking right wing back, and/or an attacking winger. I am also planning to cut some dead wood as well, assuming I can find takers:

I still don't have a transfer budget, and we are £42 million in the hole cash wise. So no idea what I'll get from the board.

Tactic wise I've been playing with the roles a little when I've had to rotate, and it hasn't gone great. Like in the last game I had to play André Gomes since Allan was tired, so he played as a deep lying playmaker, he's not a BWM and we gave up three goals. Because Van de Beek was hurt, I had to start Dele, so I moved him to Trequartista in the AMCR spot instead of MEZ-A in the MCR spot.

Here are everyone's stats. Team is averaging 1.55 G/90, .94 GA/90. It's not apples to apples since the better players tend to play against the best opponents, but it's still interesting to see. Obviously anyone who played in the 6-1 Southampton rout gets a bump too. Despite his terrible ratings, we sure seem to do better when Allan plays than when he doesn't (2.08-0.81). He missed most of the Liverpool (0-2) game; all of the Leeds (0-1) and Newcastle (1-3) games. Also missed the Wolves League Cup game (0-0) and barely played in the Brentford (2-1 {1-1 when he was in}) and Norwich (1-1) games. So we are 6-2-2 when he starts in the league; 1-3 with 1 draw when he doesn't. Damn. I did not realize he was that important but it makes sense. I need to get him out of games that are decided and do my best to keep him fresh and healthy.

May 28, 2022

2 hours ago, Manunited_fan said:

Good to see you're getting a tune out of Richarlison. I've used him in a couple of different saves and he just never seems to perform.

I skipped FM21, but I've ended up selling him in earlier FM saves (I usually only do one or two saves for each game). His mentals are pretty terrible for a star, especially Anticipation, Composure, Decisions, Vision. His Passing and Balance are below average too. It's an interesting skill combination for sure.

That being said the Work Rate and Stamina are great; he is two-footed, he can dribble and shoot. I guess he needs a system that emphasizes his strengths and hides his weaknesses. Not saying I've found that, but he's doing a lot better (7.95, 3 assists, 2 goals) in this system than the old one (6.69) so maybe I'm on to something here! He was a monster in that West Ham game, the first one in the new system, 2 assists, 4 dribbles, 4 key passes, hit 3 of 5 crosses, made 4 tackles, 3 interceptions, 2 clearances.

That being said, I could buy a whole of things for £62-78m, so I wouldn't rule out selling him again.

May 27, 2022

We've played some games! The red line on the calendar is the before/after line. We've outscored our opponents 11-2 over the 5 games, but we haven't really played anyone good.

This takes us up to the November international break. That Southampton game was something else. Ward-Prowse was sent off early, so we cranked up the pressure (positive, higher line, etc.) and eventually just destroyed them. I think that's a good sign that the tactic is sound. You should beat the crap out of bad teams, 10 man sides for 86 minutes, etc. I am using the in game tweaks from this post pretty well I think.

Training wise, I've set up 3 tactics. The base tactic is nearly fully trained. The other two tactics are a chasing a goal positive mentality version and a protecting a lead cautious version.

In the chase version I added:

Slightly More Direct Passing
Be More Expressive
Overlap Left
Higher Tempo
Counter Press
Force Opposition Outside
Higher Defensive Line
Higher Line of Engagement

In the cautious version I added:

Shorter Passing
Be More Disciplined
Lower Tempo
Hold Shape
Regroup
Force Opposition Inside
Lower Defensive Line
Much Lower Line of Engagement

I won't use these specific combinations in their entirety. But my players will be trained on all of them. So when I add these as needed based on game situation my players will be prepared.

Back to the games:

The League Cup tie away to Wolves was a decent result considered I screwed up and played a bunch of first team subs in the U23 game by mistake the day before. So Rondon was playing back to back days, I had to play Jonjoe Kenny as a BWM. I tweaked up the roles too, because André Gomes isn't a Mezzala, but it all seemed to work. We out xG'd them 2.15-0.97 and won 4-2 on PKs.

Losing on a penalty to Leeds at Elland road in a game where the xG was 1.77-1.69 was kind of a bummer. Partly there was a hangover, as Calvert-Lewin and Mina ended up having to play the last 30 minutes of the Wolves game since Holgate and Rondon had played the day before. I couldn't use Branthwaite against Wolves, so Keane didn't get the midweek game off, things like that.

Salomón Rondón (value £2.7m) and Andros Townsend (£10.5m) want more playing time, so I've promised to sell them in the next window. They don't fit here.

Also, Sheffield Wednesday wants to keep Lewis Gibson who is on loan there. He already 21, only rated 45 as a DC-D which is 6th or 7th organizationally. And he's worth £10.5-11.5m? Please make a reasonable offer Mr. Darren Moore and he's yours!

I like smaller squads. Ideally I'll have about 18-20 first teamers, five additional young guys that can go back and forth between the first team and U23, 15 or so "organizational players" in the U23s (guys that aren't really first team prospects) and 18 or so U18s (preferably nine 16-year olds and nine 17-year olds) so we keep cycling through. Figure 4-5 of the graduating U18s make the U23s the rest are released.

That would give me about 55-60 players total at the beginning of each season. I don't loan very many players out, the circumstances have to be just right.

Right now we have 80 players. That's way too many.

We are up to 5th in the table. The schedule is backloaded though. Our last four of the first round of league games are ManU, Arsenal, away to Chelsea and Leicester; with a League Cup Quarterfinal vs. Chelsea at Goodison between ManU and Arsenal. That's a crazy 16 days. Two days later we host West Ham and 4 days after that we are at Anfield for New Year's Day 2022.

Mikel Arteta was just fired by Arsenal.

World Cup Qualifying is almost over. Once the field is set I'll share it here.

I wish there was a simple way to make these images smaller. Key being simple :-)

May 27, 2022

@Manunited_fan File is shared!

First you need the "Everything" view (see below). That's all of the attributes and a few more goodies.

Squad-Everything.fmf

If you hit Command+P (on a Mac) it will ask you how you want to export. I export to a web page.

Then I open the page in Safari, and highlight everything from the first player name, through the last attribute for the last player. Copy that, and paste it into "Sheet 2". I click the box for the first player name and then right click and choose "Paste and Match Style"

You need to make sure the players in your Sheet for "Ratings" and "Ratings-1" are sorted alphabetically, and match the list of players in Sheet 2.

Then I copy everything in sheet 2 from Personality through Best Pos into Ratings, again, "Paste and Match Style" seems to work best.

Then I do the same thing for all of the attributes.

Now you'll notice over in Ratings-1, cell KH4 has this formula:

Quote

'IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$L$2,20,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$M$2,30,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv440,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$O$2,45,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$P$2,50,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$Q$2,55,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$R$2,60,IF(Ratings::Table 1::gv4<$S$2,70,80))))))))

What that does is tell cell KJ4 to look at the corner rating for the first player (cell GV4 of Ratings:Table 1) and converts the attribute to a 20-80 rating. Then you can drag the formula across, and then down for all of the attributes for all of the players.

But you need to hang on to that formula, because if you ever want to sort the sheet non-alphabetically, you'll need to copy and paste all of the 20-80 attributes back over themselves as values. So copy them all (KJ2 - MD85 or whatever your last row is) then you want "Edit" -> "Paste Formula Results".

You do not have to do this for the Wft, column KI, because that just looks at the players weaker foot and converts it to a 20-80 score.

When you reimport new values say 6 months in the game later, you need to repeat.

Cells L1:S1 are the ratings you want to covert to.

Cells L2:S2 are the attribute rating + 1 that you want to convert from.

So L1 is 20, L2 is 6. That means any attribute from 1-5 is converted to 20.

Category - Column S - that's just a mess right now. In the past I used this to group players generally like midfielder, wide left, defender, etc., but it's not updated for this new setup. I'll probably figure out a way to separate out goalscorer, creator, hybrid, defend duty, support duty at some point, but it's more complicated than I care to noodle on right now with the U18 and U23 players mixed in, I can't just say everyone over 52 for goal scorer is a goal scorer, for example. Feel free to have fun with that one.

Cell K2 is the current in game date. Manually edit as appropriate to get correct ages of players.

Please let me know if you have any feedback or catch any mistakes. Thanks!

The file is 11.5 MB need to figure out how to share it.

https://www.icloud.com/numbers/0411_8W44j0ZR89VKmcyLVWEA#JoeyNumbazFM22

I set it so only I can edit the file, but I think anyone can download it, then edit it yourself. Just let me know if that doesn't work.

May 27, 2022

20 hours ago, Manunited_fan said:

This looks really interesting and great to see your analysis of the Everton squad as I recently started a save with them too.

The spreadsheet looks great. Is it something you'd be able to share? I tried to follow what you'd done to create it, sounds like you've put a lot of work in to it. I love graphical tools like this that make it clear to see what role to use people in, I can't easily tell from just viewing the player stats like some people can.

Thanks!

Sure, I can share it. I’d ask that anyone give credit if they share it is all.

I’ll need to clean it up a little and write up some instructions for how to use it. Also, it’s Numbers, not Excel. If you don’t have a Mac though, I assume you can find a way to convert it.

May 25, 2022

On 22/05/2022 at 05:01, DavidBeckham said:

I love the Moneyball concept and will definitely be following this! Good luck mate!

Thanks! Should be fun!

On 22/05/2022 at 06:38, karanhsingh said:

Nice concept and good to see another Everton man!

Same here! I am very happy we won't have to try to get the Toffees promoted in FM23!

May 25, 2022

Squad is updated. We'll take a quick look at the top prospects next then on to playing some games!

May 23, 2022

I finally wrote up my tactic and thinking over in the career updates thread. Thanks again for this dcayton9!

May 22, 2022

Reserved - Down on Finch Farm

May 22, 2022

Setting the Stage

June 5, 2021: Carlo Ancelotti walks away from Everton in a most traitorous way, the board room has to scramble.

June 30: Rafa Benitez hired at Everton and the fans instantly revolt.

July 1: Benitez bails out, fearing for his safety.

July 2: Frank Lampard takes the job.

July 3: Lampard has second thoughts after his first board meeting and backs out.

The board, with training starting in two days are in a panic. They get word that 48 year old former Italian/Dutch Evertonian Joey Numbaz might be interested in getting back into the game. Joey also played for Ajax and Napoli in a career that included 41 appearances and 3 goals for The Azzurri. He always had a keen footballing mind. The tiny complete wing back was a great defender, worked great with the younger players and was astute both tactically and technically. Always the most determined player on the pitch, the disciplined star was his teams' captain from the age of 24. Joey was considered a great motivator who always knew what to say to a teammate to get them out of a funk.

Everyone assumed he would get into coaching, but after his career he went back to Sciacca on the left coast of Sicily, enjoying the wine and the sun.

After a quick Zoom call, a deal is made. Joey also convinced Ashley Cole, who was set to join with Lampard, to hang around.

July 5: Joey Numbaz flies back to Liverpool and signs a 3-year contract with the Toffees for £2.262m per year. Nearly £7 million, and "a chance to knock Liverpool off of their high horse" is enough to draw him back to Merseyside. Also there is no way Numbaz would leave paradise to get into the pressure cooker without a 3 year deal.

The agreed upon vision is somewhat ambitious. Mid-table this season is reasonable, Europa League next year for the first time since 2014 seems like a stretch. But following a legacy of Koeman, Allardyce, Silva, Ancelotti, Benitez, and Lampard (I guess those last two count) over the last 5 years, Everton hope they've finally got it correct, but mostly they are just happy to have name recognition and a fan favorite as a coach.

Fast forward to October 10, midway through the second international break of the season. Joey Numbaz has been running a narrow 5-2-1-2; he switched to that after some early friendlies weren't going well enough and the results were fine enough. Decent results so far. 11 points from 7 games, despite playing 3 of those 7 against the big 6 where the Toffees went 1-1-1, including a huge win over Manchester City! Tied for 9th, but only 2 points from the teams tied for 4th and 5th (Brighton and Burnley!) is providing a lot of hope at Goodison Park. Everton have been really solid in terms of goal prevention, and scoring enough to get by. 9 goals for and against through 7 matches. Also, 8 goals to 4 when not playing Tottenham and Liverpool.

But there was a lot of retraining going on and it didn't feel right. So the tactic is going to be changed up to focus more on what these players can do. Allan has been a disaster, with a 6.54 rating. the experiment to move to a ball-playing defender has not gone well. Ratings of 5.9 and 6.2 in his two league games there are pointing to failure. He was benched for the Manchester City and Liverpool games. Joey needs to focus on what he can do instead of trying to make him into something he is not. Allan is not happy learning a new position and is unhappy with training overall.

This is what led to posts above. We will see how this all goes!

Now let's meet the squad and see what we have to work with here.

Keepers

Pickford is the clear starter, but Begović is a very capable backup, and will start the Cup games. Unless we are deep into a Cup against a good squad and I really want to win. I love Pickford and we are lucky to have him. Jordan has got plus-plus agility, reflexes, and kicking; plus command of area, one on ones, and vision; above average anticipation, concentration, positioning, aerial reach, communication, handling, and throwing. His composure is below average but he's working with our Goalkeeping Coaches, Rui Barbosa and Alan Kelly on this every day.

Note the SK-D/S/A ratings are only the additional ratings in game for sweeper keeping on that duty. It's not the overall rating. This is the one spot where I do this, as we know how he can do the stopping goals part, so I want view into only the sweeping part.

Centerbacks

These are the guys who could conceivably play DC-D for us this year and how the look with each role/duty. It’s a pretty thin group, a couple of injuries and we might have Seamus Coleman or Jonjoe Kenny playing back there. See why we wanted Allan to be able to do this when I was going with three centerbacks? “Ball Playing” on the left is similar to sweeper keeper, it’s the ratings for the game recommended added attributes for a BPD, the “BP” skills.

I love ball-playing defenders. Even better though, in my perfect world we’ll have two WCBs and a Libero on Attack hahaha. Someday it will happen.

Keane and Mina are the two obvious starters here Mina is the vice-captain, but since Coleman doesn't play much he is usually the leader on the field. Mason Holgate provides cover, he's a solid #3 and younger, but he's not as good as the others technically or aerially. He would be better if I need to push the line up for some reason, so he can also be a good situational player. Also, who knew a healthy human male could be 6' tall and weigh 141 pounds? Joey Numbaz is 5' 3" and clocks in at 153 these days.

Godfrey is mostly going to be playing IWB on the right, and maybe some destroyer when Allan needs a breather. But he may play some DC so figured I’d include him in the chart at least.

Jarrad Branthwaite is a promising both-footed giant (he does like his left foot slightly more). The 6’ 6”, 19-year old with jumping reach as good as anyone in the world (80), brings the ball out of defense. Add to that plus-plus bravery. He may get some time in the cups. He’s got to work on his fringe-average positioning, concentration and tackling but he’s got a shot at being great. Man if those mentals develop he would be a fun Libero! Also, no Cons (other than only being Championship Level right now) in the scouting report. He’s either going to be great or I’m going to sell him for a bunch of money before someone else with deep pockets realizes he won’t be.

Fullbacks

We only have one real DL/WBL:

Mykolenko has been playing great, and should get better. Delph is hurt. Townsend is a stop gap at best. He's been playing cup games and the occasional late sub in a game that's been decided. And obviously he can't defense at all. So if Mykolenko gets hurt and Townsend plays in a game that matters we'd probably have to flip that role to CWBs and deal with the ripple effects and adjust other roles on the left. I also need to guard against Mykolenko becoming jaded.

.

Moving to the right

Ben Godfrey is the choice here. He's got great athleticism, but his mentals are troubling. The thing that made Earl Weaver a great manager for the Baltimore Orioles is that he focused more on what players could do than what they couldn't, and put them in a position to succeed. Godfrey needs to be used in a way that maximizes his plusses and minimizes his deficiencies. IWB-D with an underlap instruction, and his brings ball out of defense trait does this really well I think, even with his poor but playable dribbling. He's working in training on the positioning and decisions, important things for an IWB-D.

On to the attack duties!

Meet the three key players for this team. If we are going to exceed expectations, we'll have to get the most out of the scorer, the hybrid, and the creator.

Talked about these guys earlier, so don't really need to add anything here.

Working our way back for the rest of the first team, starting with the wide players and strikers

I envision Dele as a super-sub, rotation cover player. He can step in as the IW on the left, or the Mezzala in the middle. He's more creator/hybrid than goalscorer. I am a little nervous that his playing time is set to Important Player, we'll have to keep an eye on that. I would not be against selling him in January if the right offer comes along.

The three G's, El Ghazi, Gray, and Gordon will all get a chance as the right winger and we'll see how plays the best. Gordon will need to be retrained there and will play a lot with the U23s., but it shouldn't take him too long to learn.

I like Iwobi, but he can't really crack the first XI. He's a versatile bench player, and we can player him in cups and for cover as needed. If Rondón or Cenk Tosun play outside of cups or keeping Dominic Calvert-Lewin fresh, something has gone horribly wrong.

We'll wrap up with the midfielders.

Allan is my destroyer. He was horribly misused as a BPD, but we'll move on from there. Doucouré will be the Carrilero, and as I mentioned, when Van de Beek is out he is capable of Mezzalaing also. André Gomes as this point has all the mobility of a turtle, but he is quite creative. He's really suited to being a Regista or a Deep-Lying Playmaker. If I have to play him regularly due to an injury I will tweak the tactic to hide his physical shortcomings (acceleration, agility, jumping, pace, and stamina).

I would love to see Tom Davies develop, but time is running out. He's probably best as a ball-winning midfielder at this point. Maybe he'll surprise and take a step forward. I'd love nothing more.

That's the squad! I wonder what kind of budget we'll get in January to upgrade.

May 22, 2022

Support Roles

So we've got an AMR, three CMs and a DL to assign roles to.

I've become a fan of the Guide to FM System Analyzer as a kind of sanity check to make sure I am doing things like stretching play on the wings, have decent attacking and defensive cover, etc. It has not been updated for the wide center backs of FM22 yet, which is kind of a bummer, but it does do the trick. It helps me with things like adding a PI to balance the tactic out a little more too.

First thing, I need to complete this chart:

AFa covers the middle. MezA in the right half space. IWa in the left half space.

So the left wing is going to have to be the DL getting forward. This is as thin as can be. Here is every left footed player we have including the youth teams and the DL/WBL support duty roles. I am retraining Andros Townsend as a DL in case Mykolenko gets hurt before Delph comes back. This position has to get forward with the IWa at AML. Or I'd have to redo the whole thing.

Mykolenko is best as a WB-S in the DL strata, that suits this tactic fine. He'll also have the stay wider instruction to ensure he stays wide. He could also be a FBs with overlap turned on if we need to be a little more solid. He naturally gets further forward too, so just need to be careful of that when we are closing games out and tuning that down with the role. There are options here based on the rest of the tactic.

Right wing is tougher. Here are the options; not based on everything else we need someone who stays on the wing, so IWs and IFs aren't really options. If I had a world beater I'd rethink the MEZa but I don't.

A whole lot of meh. Dele as a wide or advanced playmaker is kind of interesting. But there is this problem:

That being said, I love those player traits. Well not the tries to play out of trouble one, but the killer balls and tricks. And the plus-plus flair. But, the advanced playmaker cuts inside. We've got Mezzala in that channel already. And Dele is right footed. And the guy behind him is on a defend duty, so there isn't really anyone behind him stretching play and the APs and WPs can't get further forward to do this. It just doesn't fit the rest of the tactic, and he's not good enough to build this whole thing around.

So we are just going to go with a boring old Winger on support. Whoever plays W-S will need the get further forward instruction or there is no one on the right flank stretching play. Dele isn't really a fit there if I'm trying to play guys wherever they are accomplished or higher, he might become a super-sub or just backup Van de Beek as the Mezzala. Below average acceleration and fringe average crossing and pace does not exactly scream support winger.

So right now I've got a support issue on the right side. Looking at the system analyzer, leaving the open roles generic for now:

Let's see what we can do with the DR and MC to get those support scores up a little. First the DR

Interesting. Ben Godfrey (who scores best as a BWM) playing DR - Inverted Wing Back defend could be fun. Especially with an underlap right team instruction and his ridiculous athleticism running past that winger on support.

Underlap kicks Godfrey to 7 solid and 1 support, and kicks the winger down from 5 penetration, 3 support to 4/4. That brings the right side to Penetration 3.5, Solid 0.5, Support -0.5. We'll get back to the -0.5 later.

What about the MC? That's going to be Allan as a Ball Winning Midfielder/Destroyer. That's what he was born to do and he's still good at it. Remember an 80 rating? That's like the best of the best. 19 or 20 at something. We only have a few attributes on the whole team rated 80 anywhere. Allan has 80 tackling and balance. He is plus-plus aggression, bravery, determination (I know that doesn't matter in game anymore), positioning, teamwork, work rate and strength. And he doesn't dive into tackles, so he's kind of card proof there too. He will be a BWM on support probably at MC, but I can drop him back to DM too. And switch the duty to defend once I get a support capable WB. Not playing him as a DestroyerTM would be criminal.

So we are down to one last role/duty. What to do with Abdoulaye Doucouré, who is kind of the perfect (for our level of squad) support midfielder. Look at all of the green through the middle there. So it boils down to what balances out the left side of this tactic best as a midfielder on support. With an inverted winger on attack and a wingback on attack, an MCL Carrilero seems like a perfect fit. I wish his left foot (weak, or poor but playable) and tackling/positioning (fringe average) were better, but we are already working to improve that. Plus-Plus teamwork, work rate, stamina scream Carrilero; Plus technique, above average first touch, passing, composure, decisions. He's a good fit there and it fits the tactic.

We are still -0.5 for solid score, which I am not all that worried about. But this has me concerned.

We probably aren't good enough in our balanced tactic to get away with no attacking cover. This has a simple fix. Allan doesn't need to get forward and isn't really capable of that anyway. All I need to do is tell him to hold position and that goes way.

We are nearly there.

Left side looks good. Optional tweaks include adding dropping the DL to a FB-S with or without Overlap Left, Get Further Forward depending on what type of penetration, solid, support mix I want, either toughness of opponent, game situation, etc.

Tweak Pen Sol Sup
WB-S 3 0 2
FB-S 3 2 0
FB-S, overlap 2 1 2
FB-S, get forward 3 1 1
FB-S, gfwd+overlap 2 0 3

Right side still a little light on support.

I could tell make that side more direct. which lowers the required support score by 1 (short passes increases it by 1), but who knows what that will break.

You know what we could do though? How about dropping that AMR W-S to a MR W-S? Who doesn't like a little bit of an asymmetric tactic, right? This makes us MUCH more solid, adds support too, at the cost of penetration. Another alternative is to keep the W-S with get forward as an AMR, but switch the defend duty from the IWB to the BWM. It's a little weak defensively, but could work in a pinch if I need more push from the right.

I think we've got a tactic now. Pending some team instruction tweaks. I'll edit this a little later to add those.

To review PIs are WBLs stay wider, BWMsMC hold position, WsMR get further forward. Also underlap right. And lower line of engagement.

Defining Attacking Team Instructions

Width - The recommendation is balanced but if you have fast attacking runners (AF, IF, W) and good passers go wide. If you have are technically great but limited athletically go narrow.

Our attackers, specifically Calvert-Lewin, Gray, Richarlison, Mykolenko, and Godfrey have good pace, Gordon and Patterson aren't bad either.

Good passers? Van de Beek, Doucouré, and Allan are pretty good, so are Gomes and All. But Calvert-Lewin, Richarlison, Mykolenko, Godfrey, Coleman are not. I am going to lean towards standard width, but if we feel the need and the fast guys are out there we might go wide situationally.

Play out of Defense - need CBs with average or better passing, technique, composure, decisions, as well as a keeper playing with the ball at his feet (I interpret that to mean the attributes above, plus first touch). I would have a lower standard for keepers here - I'm fine with Pickford (44) in this situation. But my centerbacks, not so much. Which is a bummer as I normally love play out of defense. These guys really aren't capable of it. If Mina was my worst CB at this I'd give it a shot, but he's my best.

Passing Length

Quote

Similar to width, this should be kept shorter if you have technically gifted players that aren’t as athletic and more direct if you have runners that can reach balls in space or athletically superior players that can win headers or challenges. There is a notion that more direct translates to purely hoof-ball and shorter creates solely beautiful possession play.However, it is possible to have passages of play that are each of these styles, even when set to the opposite style. Furthermore, each of these are valid styles of play that should be used when necessary for effective attacking. That is why I don’t recommend the furthest extremes here, as there is often a right pass that could be either short or long, and you don’t want to box your team out from playing that. Passing length purely defines the tendency for a player to do one or the other, not necessarily making them do that every time, so choose what suits your players and stick with it. Further, keeping it on standard passing can be a valuable tool, as it lets the players decide, and allows a strong element of diversity.

Another thing I read, I can't remember if it was in that thread, but makes sense is that shorter passing is more dependent on the passers, longer passing is more dependent on the receivers, where pace, acceleration, jumping reach, heading, strength, and balance would be drivers there. We already looked at the passers and they aren't really good enough outside of the midfield.

Not great outside of Calvert-Lewin and Rondón who will rarely if ever be on the field together. We'll stick to balanced. But if the game situation calls for it, I wouldn't be against going long or short.

Tempo

Quote

Tempo directly relates to the time that a player takes to make a decision on the ball. Whether it is the right decision or not depends on their mental attributes. Because of this, set to high when your players are capable of making good decisions with high anticipation to quickly read the next move. If they are poor decision makers or can’t anticipate the team’s next move, you may want to drop it a notch, and give them more time on the ball. However, if their composure is low, they may get pressed into a bad pass, so be wary of this. If your players are good or bad at both, maybe keep your tempo on normal and let them react as they will. Results should still follow.

In this chart, high tempo is decisions and anticipation; low tempo is the inverse of anticipation and decisions (so 100 - the scouting rating), and composure. So even if their anticipation/decisions are bad, you don't want to go low tempo unless they have decent composure.

I could see maybe lowering the tempo is Gordon, Godfrey, Van de Beek, Richarlison and Patterson are both on the field, perhaps in a Cup game, but really this is a bang average team, and keeping this standard seems like the correct call.

Defining Team Transition Instructions

Regroup/Counter-Press - recommendation is nothing, unless your has the quality to counter-press in every situation or lacks any ability to win the ball further upfield. The players getting forward (the graphic shows us who - everyone not in the back line) and the key attributes are aggression, teamwork, tackling, speed, bravery, work rate, and stamina. Also recommends keeping a third player back when counter-pressing, which our formation does with four.

Hold Shape/Counter - Looking for pace, off the ball from the forward players. Counter if you have this, regroup if your players are terrible at this, but keep it normal most of the time. In this situation, it's the front 6, plus Mykolenko that would be countering:

Calvert-Lewin, Van de Beek, and the wingers aren't really good enough to counter-press. They aren't so bad we have to regroup. But we'll leave this standard.

Countering though - we may have something there. Calvert-Lewin has both plus-plus pace and off the ball. Richarlison is also plus/above average for those attributes. Mykolenko and Gray too. This also suits our lower line of engagement and the winger dropping back to the MR position. Counter is on.

Goalkeeper Distribution - go with what your keeper is good at.

Quote

If your keeper is good at kicking and you have an aerial threat or an extremely pacy striker, look to distribute to a target man or over the top of the defense. They won’t do it every time, but it will be successful when they do. On the flip side, if your keeper is good at throwing, look to throw it long or if you want to play it out of the back and your keeper can pass, select short kicks and and distribute to CBs or a deep midfielder. Last, if your keeper isn’t great at anything, roll it out to a better player on the ball or leave it blank.

Pickford is great at kicking it long (plus-plus), has above average technique, plus vision and Calvert-Lewin is a great receiver up top. We are going with Take Long Kicks here.

We've got a base tactic now! A couple of notes - Godfrey will be the main IWB on the right, but Coleman will get some time there too. Not sure of who amongst El Ghazi, Gray, or Gordon will emerge as the W-S on the right. Gordon needs to learn the position, but since he's long-term here (assuming he develops) I am fine with that. I may try Calvert-Lewin as a TF-A, if moving into channels (default for AF) looks like a detriment.

I absolutely love that intensity bar!

PIs - DL - Stay Wider; MC - Hold Position; MR - Get Further Forward

May 22, 2022

Roles and Duties

From dcayton9

Quote

To start, I identify the duties I want each player to occupy to use, then fill the roles based on the player’s specific profile. Generally, you can set up a well balanced tactic before looking at your players, then fill who you have in your squad into the roles, but since each tactic should be custom-built to suit your squad, you need to know which players you want taking the risks or covering the space before you can define your responsibilities. Furthermore, duty can be seen like a mentality slider similar to team mentality, with attack taking the most offensive risk, and defend taking the least. Therefore, I like to pick who I want in the duties, before I settle on my tactic.

Starting from the back with the keeper, basically he recommends not using a SK on support or attack unless he's good at acceleration, tendency to rush out, first touch, passing, and one-on-ones.

Pickford has plus one-on-ones, above average tendency to rush out, but only fringe average passing, below average first touch, and poor but playable acceleration. Begović's profile is a little worse. Number 3 keeper Andy Lonergan doesn't even show up in this respect, I black out any overall rating lower than 29.3 - which seemed like the magic spot for showing guys unplayable even as U18's or to black out outfielders as keepers, makes it a little easier to scan visually.

So do we go with SK-D or GK-D?

Quote

regular keeper with low DL on balanced or a normal DL on Cautious, G or SK(d) with a normal DL on Balanced, SK(d) or SK(su) with a high DL on Balanced or normal DL on positive, and a SK(su) or SK(a) with a high DL on Positive

That's a SK-D!

Quote

Defend duties - in a positive or balanced setup, the recommendation is 3 defend duties.

I usually settle on my two central defenders (out of necessity in back 4 systems) and my most limited player offensively. This means the player that either can’t recover quickly (low physical ability) leaving a gap when he gets forwards, or player that will constantly lose possession in deep, dangerous zones (likely low passing, first touch, and vision along with mental attributes such as decisions, anticipation, or composure) so the defend duty can put a harness on his errancy.

The third defend duty will come from the zDR/L or MC positions. Lets look at these guys under the lens of physicals and shaky in possession:

I love Seamus Coleman, I became a fan of more than just the World Cup, and Everton in 2010. He's been there for my entire fandom. In FM2014 or something I had a CWB heavy tactic and got him to EPL player of the year. Other than Tim Cahill he's probably my favorite player.

But it's pretty clear when he's on the field, he's the defensive duty, both by physical or lose the ball standards. Since Ben Godfrey and perhaps Tom Davies will also play back there and are also shaky with the ball, it probably makes just make the DR the defend duty. If for some reason I have to play Doucouré back there, Allan would get the D duty wherever he happens to be. If I have to play Jonjoe Kenny ever things are really bad. I cannot believe he hasn't been sold off already he just isn't good enough for this level, but I digress.

So far we have this:

Balanced, Lower Line of Engagement

DL DCd DCd DRd

SKd

Now we get to the fun stuff! Attack duties!

Quote

Similar to the defend mentality, you should aim for 3 attack duties in balanced or cautious setups. In positive ones, it is possible to use only two attack duties,

First we identify our best goal scorer. It's obviously Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but I'll show the numbers too. From dcayton9:

Quote

acceleration, strength, off the ball, anticipation, decisions, composure, finishing and technique. Acceleration, off the ball and anticipation get the scorer in the right position to score, decisions and strength allow them to make the right choices to shoot or pass and hold off defenders if necessary, and finally, composure, finishing, and technique should allow them to slot it away cooly. This player should be set to attack in a ‘goal-scoring role’ that attacks the box often. (Note: Complete Forward can operate as a hybrid or goalscorer depending on the player and his traits, even though I laid it out as a hybrid player in the chart)

He's talking about this chart:

Here's the roster from a goalscorer/creator perspective:

For reference, Erling Haaland is 67 scorer, 59 creator. Nicolò Zaniolo is 55 scorer, 53 creator.

So Calvert-Lewin is the scorer, and isn't really a hybrid. That means he needs to be one of these roles:

The creator is much tougher.

Quote

identify your most creative player to set to an attack duty. The attributes here are a little easier to identify, as everyone knows to look at passing, technique, and vision for killer balls, but anticipation, composure, and decisions are still key, so that your creator can read the game, even under pressure. Along with the passing side of creation, an often under-looked trait of a key creator (at least in FM) can be dribbling skill. Here, first touch, dribbling, flair, and agility can allow a wing player to create an immediate numerical advantage by winning a one-on-one or allow a technical maestro to final third weave between midfield ball-winners or avoid pressure with a first touch. The roles to utilize for these special players are ‘pure creators’ or ‘hybrid attackers’.

Let's look at Van de Beek, Dele, Andre Gomes, and we'll throw in Doucouré, El Ghazi and Allan in the interest of completeness. Remember the scouting ratings are just a guide, more of a filter for narrowing things down.

Allan isn't a D/WBR, so that really doesn't work in terms of putting him on attack, though we could retrain him if we had no other options. We are going to be overhauling this roster in the next year or two, so I'd rather not waste time retraining if I can help it for a marginal gain. Plus he's basically a rock-star BWM, why spend six months to make him a decent to good right back, when he's nearly 31 and declining physically. That's a non-starter.

Van de Beek is an up the middle player, and is a loan. We probably can't keep him, I'm not retraining him either.

Doucouré isn't as creative as Van de Beek though he's probably his equal as a Mezzala. We can keep an eye on that.

Gomes, Dele, and El Ghazi really aren't good enough at any of the pure creator roles. But we are given the options to put one of these guys in a hybrid role, does that work?

Dele's best roles require him to be a AMC or a ST and we were going for a single striker with wingers.

Maybe we can adjust that, but that's kind of an if nothing else fits thing for me right now. I've got a bunch of wingers.

A Segundo Volante would be fun as hell, but that's not really a fit. If Allan is a 59 at something he should do that instead of being a 54 at something fun, unless I have another 59 that can do what Allan does. I don't. This is Everton, not Liverpool.

Let's take a look at our up the middle support duties really quick.

Doucouré seems a lot more suited to support than Van de Beek. So there you have it. The second attack duty will be Donny Van de Beek, from central midfield. Based on what he is natural/accomplished at, as well as our 4-3-3 wide, we can go with CMa, APa, or a MEZa. My character in the game is Italian from Sicily (where several of my great-grandparents made the journey to Ellis Island over 100 years ago) and a runner through the right channel sounds fun, so we are going with a Mezzala on Attack as our "pure creator". Also Doucouré can easily slide into this role when Van de Beek can't play. Dele can also play there if needed.

Now for the third attack duty:

Quote

For the third attack duty, identify the player that can attack from a separate area of the pitch than your first two attack duties, so you can have even attacking pressure. This doesn’t necessarily have to be your third-best attacker, but still must be someone you can trust with creation in the final third or shooting if they end up in the box. The role should reflect their skillset, but generally I’d look to fill the missing role of the three types of attackers I’ve laid out. Circling back to the even attacking pressure I mentioned, I’d go against having two flank roles both on attack, or having a CM and wide player on attack on a given side. I do think a stacked AM-ST or two ST on attack duty can work however, provided the roles are balanced right. I recommend two attack duties in the ST or AM(CLR) or M(LR) positions with one more in another spot, being either CM or D(LR), but three in the front line can work, however it will cause your attack to be more direct than expected. This can be a pro in cautious setups or a con in possession systems, so distribute as needed.

So this 3rd player, should be on the left side, since the Mezzala is on the right and we don't want the attack winger also on the right. I don't have a left footed Wide-Target Forward option. I don't have a left footed wide midfielder attack, the best option there is injured Fabian Delph and if he's my #3 attacker yikes. Let's look at our hybrid candidates:

Ideally we'd have a wide player on the left in the AML or ML position. That's an IWa.

I just happen to have one of those.

Richarlison on attack, cutting in from the left wing seems to make a whole of sense here. He's definitely a flawed player.

Those mentals are shaky, but the strengths outweighs the weaknesses, and he's a good fit for this role. Other than IW-S it's his best role according to the game too. The work rate and stamina will be great for tracking back.

Almost forgot, what role for Calvert-Lewin?

We are going with a lower line of engagement and trying for a lower intensity tactic. so PF is out. He's not an AMC and we've already got Richarlison on the left wing. I'm going to roll with AF-A. I think he's got a little more to offer than just a poacher, but he's not really a CF-A either. I thought about Target Forward too, but I've never used one and I'm not sure I want a ball magnet in this tactic. I could be convinced otherwise, if you are still reading and think I'm missing an opportunity here I'm all ears.

So now we've got:

Balanced, Lower Line of Engagement

AFa

IWa ?

? ? MezA

? DCd DCd DRd

Wow this post is long already. I don't want to lose what I've done to any kind of internet or computer glitch. So let's just post this now and finish out the rest in the next post.

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Posts posted by Joey Numbaz