[433 Assistance]

Thank you for the tips - just create an away tactic which I'll trial and tweak over the next few away games and see how it goes - Barcelona away in the next game as good as any place to start! Did get a 2-2 draw away to Real Madrid using my other (Home) tactic though although we were under the cosh a fair bit.

Just watched the goal back several times - for some reason my right back got dragged over to the left hand side of the pitch (need to check set piece takers etc) and my right hand sided centre half got dragged out to right back. As my right back got himself back into position my centre half didnt shift across leaving the gap. So the issue with my right back which I need to investigate more caused it but would have hoped my centre back would have got back into position quicker - centre backs dont have PI's. Number 12 is my right back in below screenshot and 6 and 4 as centre halves.

West Brom were playing 4231 and actually the first goal was pretty similar (although with the real extreme gap) and came from their centre forward taking up a position between my two centre backs - a long ball came forward and my centre half went to challenge the striker and got beaten leaving a one on one.

Many thanks for the advice - much appreciated and has got me giving my tactics a bit more thought and doing things like analysing goals conceded to see where I can improve things.

[433 Assistance]

We did see much better movement in that game - felt like the players had much better options on the ball and transitioned from back to front in a much more fluid manner.

Followed that up with a horrid performance away to West Brom - 12 shots a piece and equal possession but just couldnt seem to get control of the game and lost 2-1 with a hole the size of the grand canyon in between my two centre backs. Is there any specific tweaks you would make to away games to get better control of those games?

[433 Assistance]

Thanks @13th Man and @Experienced Defender for the suggestions.

Have changed my set up to a regista in the DM position with Neri playing in their and Mijatovic as a mezzala and add the split block onto the front three and mezzala to see how that goes.

One game in so far - North London Derby v Spurs and won 2-0 15 shots to their 10. So an encouraging start - the teams passing, movement and interplay instantly feels a bit sharper than previously after 6 defeats in a row with only 2 goals scored!! Wasnt perfect in the Spurs game but hopefully have a base from which I can start to tweak from based on what is actually happening in the games.

One question I do have is my inside forward - screen shot below - in my first couple of seasons he was just gliding past players at will and generally terrorising players meaning he created lots of goals and scored loads - for last 12 months he seems to just run into players or is too tentative and almost waits for the defender to tackle him. Is there anything I can do to help he recreate his previous form?

@bezzy1970 Its called Base21 Dark (FM 20) skin - I have to play the game with stadium photos so it was one of the ones I found when googling this that lets me do that!

Many thanks,

[433 Assistance]

Many thanks  for the responses - I have attached some screenshots of my midfielders below just to add a bit more context to who I was using in the system.

I tend to use Rice or Neri has the half back, Kidane as the deep lying play maker and Mijatovic as the central midfielder on attack. Valdir I tend to use in a couple positions when rotating. I have tried Kidane and Neri as the two midfielders in front of the half back however Kidane has poor finishing so didnt feel he suited the central midfielder role and Neri has come deep for the ball as a trait which I also felt made him unsuitable for that role.

 

[433 Assistance]

I really need some help with setting up a team tactically. I cant get a result out of anywhere - I am using the tactic in my initial post except with a deep lying forward on attack duty and lost 4 on the bounce scoring only 2 goals.

My team is packed full of world class players in even position. It just doesnt seem right that given the quality of player I have and using a balanced tactic following a lot of the advice on here  on how to set up a tactic that I can be so bad. We are terrible we look terrible structurally, not organised as a defensive unit, can't keep possession and absolutely toothless going forward. Cant get any sort of performance out of my central midfielders who seem to get around 6.4 every game and pass up good simple attacking passes in favour of just hitting long balls straight to the opposition. And the opposition teams are so much slicker than me - good transitionsm, sharp finishing, move up and down the team as a unit and this is any team including the teams in 20th and 19th in the league who both beat me easily in successive games.

The thing I'm really struggling with is given the quality of player and my reasonable balanced tactic why are things so bad?

Any help greatly appreciated as close to tossing the game in the bin and walking away as never felt in 25 years of playing the game as clueless about setting up tactics as I have now. And not looking for a magic tactic but I just cant see what I'm doing so radically wrong to cause such bad performances and results given my players and tactics.

Thanks.

[433 Assistance]

I just dont understand how to get tactics working on this game. I am using the above tactic (with a deep lying forward on attack) packed full of world class players (all of them well suited to in theory create a well balanced team) and I just cant get any sort of result away from home. Every team I play away from home looks like 1970's Brazil whilst my team looks like a non-league team. I just dont understand what I am doing wrong.

Just played a poor Bournemouth team away from home and lost 3-0 with them having 19 shots and me 5 - posession was relatively equal. I just dont get how to make tactics work on this game.

[433 Assistance]

On 04/04/2021 at 17:23, Fatkidscantjump said:

This is pretty much the exact same tactic i'm using, except the striker, i'm using a Complete Forward (support), and some TIs, so i'll be following the thread closely. How are your Central Midfielders holding up ? Both my DLP and CM(a) have really bad average ratings despite being world class players and suited for the role.

Overall I have the same issues as you. Team plays good, lots of XG, sometimes it seems that I lack punch upfront, even though the XG are good. I'm first in league tied with 2nd, but I scored 12 less goals than them in 20 matches which is quite a lot ! I do have the best defense though, so there's that.

Yes I have been having exact same issue with my DLP and CM(a) - really bad average ratings despite top quality players.

Thanks @Experienced Defender and @Keyzer Soze for the advice just in pre season but will make a change to a more creative striker role and see how that goes.

Thanks,

[433 Assistance]

Hey All,

I would be very much appreciative if somebody could take a look at my tactic below and offer me some advice.

I'm Arsenal in 2028 - I won the league last season playing a 433 which had aggressive off the ball instructions (Very high defensive level, more urgent pressing and counter press) and the effectiveness started to wear off towards the end of last season and beginning of this season so tried to start developing a more rounded and less aggressive tactic. First half of the season went ok but form dropped off massively with only 4 wins in the last 14 (all at home against big teams - Man United, Barcelona, Liverpool and PSG). Struggled hugely away from home both this season and last season as well (last season I had a goal difference of +46 at home and +1 away from home).

In terms of style of play - I want to be pretty solid as a team, decent possession but not looking to pass teams to death and good coherent attacking play with front players linking up well to create chances both through crosses and through balls.

Have a really high quality of player through the team - no obvious weaknesses - good defenders, plenty of good passers, dribblers, finishers, etc. Happy to share screenshots of any key players to the system etc.

Below is my tactic as it stands now and then also the match stats from my last three games to show inconsistency of how we perform against big sides at home compared to how we play against smaller teams and away from home.

Only player instructions are for the two wide attackers to close down more to achieve the split press with the pressing forward.

Any advice or tweaks or weakness/contridictions in the tactic would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

 

 

[Scouting package set to Europe, however still have to pay a fee to scout UK based players?]

Just to add to this I am seeing the same thing - managing in England and upgraded scouting package to the whole world but not allowing me to scout outside previous package without paying extra.

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

2 minutes ago, rp1966 said:

Can't say I've had problems with loan position conditions. The one that bugs me is when you are in the transfer window and you bring in a midfielder, say, and then you bring in a second midfielder, so a complete revamp and the second transfer says 'strengthen the midfield' - it either needs to stop players asking for the squad to be strengthened in the position they are being brought in to strengthen or needs to recognise the other transfers that you have already made. 

 

 

With transfers I have had problems with my board. They are devastated that I failed to bring in any high profile players despite not giving me any transfer budget and having to reduce the weekly wage bill by £20k to come within budget. Like the issue you had everything isn’t linking up and being taken into consideration.

I'm enjoying the match engine on the new game but feel there are lots of niggles and things not quite working right that affect the overall gameplay and don’t feel like the interface is as intuitive and easy to navigate as FM20.

Another niggle was I had a poor season last year and got called in front of the board maybe 10 times and everytime I gave the answer stick to the plan and they said yes we agree etc. Sure this is a bug I should report just feels like there are lots of these little issues in FM21 where lots of features just aren’t working quite right.

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

56 minutes ago, Tyburn said:

Oh really!? I honestly haven’t encountered that. Most loans I’ve made don’t have it there to start with, and if they do I can normally remove them. If I can’t, and I really object to the position being asked for, I’ll just cancel the deal.

Weird. Perhaps it’s a much lower league thing. Started in league one in England recently and didn’t notice this issue.

Yeah I think every single loan offer I have made over 2 seasons the club have insisted on a particular position and role and if you remove it they reject the offer. So becomes the choice between completing the loan on a less than idea basis or settling for lower quality players.

Have had quite a few players recalled because been playing them in a different role than agreed even though playing them in the same position. 

 

 

 

[Football Manager 2021 Official Feedback Thread]

Playing a lower league game interactions on player loans is incredibly irritating.

I continually have managers of the clubs where I loaned players from complaining to me that I am not playing the player in the agreed position. Its in absurd scenarios such as it was agreed a player would be played in central midfield as an advanced playmaker but I am actually playing them as a deep lying playmaker.

Surely the whole point of the roles is just to give a tactical framework for individual players. The way the loan system is working at the moment is like its publicly declared what "role" each player plays within a team which just isn't realistic. In real life if you loan a player from a club the style of football that the club is playing and that the player is getting regular minutes is far more important.  Yes if you loan a midfielder and are playing them at right back that could be an issue but the "role" a player is playing would not even be known as its purely a method of giving players standard instructions for a style of play.

Feels horribly unrealistic and added to this I get the same managers every few weeks complaining about this I say they are playing a lot so whats the issue and then they respond saying I understand your position. And then 3 weeks later complain again!

Think this interaction needs to be looked at and tweaked as very unrealistic at the moment and miles away from what happens in real life.

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

Just about ready to throw my laptop out of the window and give up on the game altogther!

Just cant score goals and no idea how to get my team scoring goals! Plenty of quality attacking players but only 24 goals in 28 games.

I use simple logical tactics with players in the right positions and have tried making small tweaks to try and solve the issue but no difference.

Strikers with good finishing and composure stats in great positions never taking chances and normally just rolling the ball back to the goalkeeper. Wingers either not crossing or take an age to get a cross in. Wingers and full backs not squaring the ball when other players in great positions and easy to find. Players shooting miles wide from stupid positions even when there are players in much better positions and a simple pass would find them.

I have just completely run out of ideas - any help anyone can give on how to score more goals will be greatly appreciated otherwise I think that will be it for me with this game - does seem unfeasibly difficult to score goals on this game.

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

Many thanks both - I will give this a try tonight and see how it goes.

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

2 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

I absolutely agree with this (and that's one of my favorite role combinations). However, the problem is that IWB as a role can be pretty demanding, so he needs to make sure his fullback is good enough to play it. 

Thanks Both - below is my full back would he be considered a good option as inverted full back? And on what duty would you suggest?

Thanks

 

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

13 minutes ago, Experienced Defender said:

When you start overachieving. the AI will usually begin to approach matches against you with more caution and respect and will therefore look to adapt its tactic accordingly. I don't know what exactly your tactic looks like at the moment, so I am just guessing based on how you described the situation. 

Also an important question is how realistic you are when it comes to your expectations. Because - as far as I remember - you are managing a team that have just been promoted to the EPL. 

Current tactic below.

Just finished the season (2nd season since being promoted) and actually in terms of league position I finished 8th which was pretty good in terms of where you would expect a team in its second season after promotion to finish. Its more the style of play that I find so frustrating - I have a host of good attacking players but just dont create chances or score goals. Finished the season with a winless run of 9 games and only scored 6 goals in those games and didnt look like scoring any more than those 6!

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

On 21/04/2020 at 22:26, Experienced Defender said:

As I said, there are different ways to do that. Given that your tactic is fairly well balanced and pretty simple (which is good), the first thing I would try is dropping the mentality by just one notch - from Positive to Balanced. You may also consider giving Soyuncu the cover duty, given that you do not use offside trap and he looks like more defensively reliable of your 2 starting CBs. 

Make these 2 tweaks - mentality and cover duty - then play and see what happens. If there is no tangible improvement, report back what you have observed to see what further tweaks could be tried. 

Made the changes suggested and things improved for about 10 games were we played good football and were scoring goals. And the usual thing happened that has happened every single time I appear to have found a tactic that works we completely regress and lose any idea of how to play attacking football.

I am completely at a loss - my teams just dont pass the ball with any sort of purpose its so slow for example the central defenders even when they have a easy pass on to a midfielder just pass it back to the goalkeeper. And my wingers rather than crossing dribble towards goal and shoot from stupid angles, my inside forward cuts in and shoots miles wide and when we dont finally create an opening my strikers are incapable of shooting with any sort of power.

Apologies for the rant but I just dont have a clue how to fix any of these issues nothing I have tried or any tweaks have worked for any period of time.

How often would you expect to have to tweak a tactic to keep it working? Because I cant keep one working for longer than 15/20 games even when they are simple and make sense from a distribution of roles.

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

2 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

 

Honestly, I do not see anything wrong in this tactic per se. And even after looking at your starting 11 player profiles - the tactic still makes sense. So I can only assume it needs just little tweaking. But only you yourself can sort out what these couple of tweaks should be. So you need to watch the matches carefully and take notes of what you observe. 

 

Maybe this suggests that the tactic needs to be toned down a bit. It can be done in different ways, but whichever way you opt for - make sure you keep the overall tactical balance, which is good in your current tactic. 

Many thanks for your advice (and to the others who give advice).

In terms of toning down the tactic what would you suggest in terms of areas to look at toning down a tactic for a newly promoted team?

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

16 hours ago, Justified said:

Are you good enough to play WBIB against teams of a higher quality then yourself? I don't think you have anything fundamentally wrong with your tactic apart from maybe you're not adjusting to bigger teams? Personally I don't play short passing as I prefer not to stick to just passing to the closest player to the ball. "There is no long or short, just the right pass" as the saying goes. But that's again a personal preference. I'd probably look to get Gouri on IFat, could be lethal in the box and you're playing a DLFat anyways, might as well use him to set up a better finisher.

So you would recommend playing both a IFat and DLFat? 
 

My only concern there would be becoming less solid especially down the left hand side where I have a full back on attack.

 

I did try and take off work the ball into the box and be more expressive but we still looked absolutely clueless in the final third!

[Help with 4123 - Leicester City]

Hiya,

I'm looking to get some advice on how to set up/improve my Leicester City team tactically on FM20.

Have attached my current tactic below - not working in the slighest - 1 win in last 13 games - haven't scored in 8 of the games with no goals in the last 6. 20 goals conceded in the last 6.

My team shows zero creativity in the final third despite having good attacking players and when we do finally create a chance my players attempts are finishings are equivalent to a pass back!

On the other hand when the opposition get in and around my penalty area they are blasting in shots into the top corner from all angles! We seem very passive defensively - my left back seems to just let players run towards goal whilst he runs alongside of them!

We started the season well using the below tactic but then started to all fall apart.

The type of football I want to play is to dominate possession but to play quick free flowing football in the final third to create chances. Would be happy to sacrifice a bit of possession if meant we could be more free flowing and creative in the final third. Not necessarily precious about using this formation either although I do like the balanced nature of it.

I took over a couple years ago when they got relegated to the Championship and this year is first season back in the Premier League

Below is a screenshot of my tactic and also screenshots of my first choice 11 (first 11 players) and select squad players who are on the cusp of the first team.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!