Let the players play!

[AnarchyAnt]

Looking for general advice on a tactical theory I was hoping to put into practice somewhere (haven't decided whether to try with my current Weston save or move to a new team, I'm getting kind of tired of England). The general idea is to micro-manage games as little as possible. Find a good tactic and formation I stick with that allows the most creative freedom to make the players in charge.

Tactic wise, I am assuming I want to use as few specialist roles as possible and go Very Fluid, more creative freedom and roaming.

For players, good decisions and creativity. Maybe teamwork to ensure everyone is on the same page.

I was hoping some of you long-timers might have given this a try and could provide some tips. I'm sure that this might work better in higher leagues where I would have much better players, but part of me thinks it will work well in lower leagues as it provides my team with a lot of flexibility and makes the opposition spin, never knowing how my team will actually end up playing.

Any ideas and tips would be fantastic! I'm hoping this becomes more of a discussion rather than me just begging for advice and allows me to have the opportunity to put ideas into action and let you know how they turn out.

[ModernLefty]

Reminds me of this, if you haven't read it, do. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/265090-Meet-The-System

[AnarchyAnt]

Reminds me of this, if you haven't read it, do. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/265090-Meet-The-System

Genius! That's almost exactly what I had in mind.

[podunkboy]

Reminds me of this, if you haven't read it, do. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/265090-Meet-The-System

For once, I read a tactics discussion and could understand what was going on. I still can't believe you can have 6/10 players on attack duty and not suffer for it, and I wonder if it still works for FM 13, but either way, it's a great read.

[Sarmatian]

Well, 10 world class players do give you much better base for it, obviously.

And SFraser did have 4 attacking players who were fast, creative, great passers and had extremely good movement. It was through balls/no collision galore.

Also, the A or S next the player's role isn't everything. All of his 4 attacking players had Run From Deep sometimes, 4 defensive players had it on rarely. Only two fullback had it on often.

[furiousuk]

Also, SFraser loved to micro-manage. The system he created in that thread, whilst relatively simple in explanation (this is largely due to his writing skill) has real depth of understanding—there are some fairly involved concepts at work to bring about the decisions, whilst this is a good thing it does mean that a large amount of tweaking happened to get the players in the right place for them to play the way SFraser wanted. He moulded the TC to his own want which takes no small amount of skill but also required constant adapting to the opposition to really get the best from his players and that is a way of playing that many of us round here enjoy.

Creating a framework to just 'let your boys play' does still require your direction, but it is through suggestions rather than instructions.

You can play by creating a framework and just letting them go, and you can probably have a lot of success doing so, but you probably won't see consistent high quality because you're not adapting so much to the opposition.

Having said all that, nothing wrong at all with playing very fluid, giving players the responsibility and then focussing on small tweaks (shouts) and picking and motivating the best team for the job. I use balanced but this is my exact philosophy on playing the game (I tend to tweak a fair amount though).

Playing with high creative freedom is probably necessary and you'll probably also want roaming if you want truly 'free' play-style.

I couldn't find a decent weblink to some decent player-centered coaching stuff but this, from NZ, is close although a little dry, not sure if the link will work link

[ModernLefty]

Also, SFraser loved to micro-manage. The system he created in that thread, whilst relatively simple in explanation (this is largely due to his writing skill) has real depth of understanding—there are some fairly involved concepts at work to bring about the decisions, whilst this is a good thing it does mean that a large amount of tweaking happened to get the players in the right place for them to play the way SFraser wanted. He moulded the TC to his own want which takes no small amount of skill but also required constant adapting to the opposition to really get the best from his players and that is a way of playing that many of us round here enjoy.

Creating a framework to just 'let your boys play' does still require your direction, but it is through suggestions rather than instructions.

You can play by creating a framework and just letting them go, and you can probably have a lot of success doing so, but you probably won't see consistent high quality because you're not adapting so much to the opposition.

Talking about S Fraser's micromanaging, and thought process, these are tackled in a great couple of short posts of his #11 & #14 on this thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/259848-Analysing-the-4-2-3-1-Why-Your-Playmaker-Should-Be-Upfront. He talks about how he tackled the narrow 4-1-2-1-2 and how he uses jonjo shelvey, out of S Frasers usual position for him in a Champion's League semi-final so he can press high and limit Juventus.

Having said all that, nothing wrong at all with playing very fluid, giving players the responsibility and then focussing on small tweaks (shouts) and picking and motivating the best team for the job. I use balanced but this is my exact philosophy on playing the game (I tend to tweak a fair amount though).

S Fraser himself used balanced as a philosophy, because he still wanted that bit of specific control in player movement, getting Rooney to drop deep, allowing Aguero to cut inside.

If you can get this type of football going, it is superb. I think its probably going to be my Fm14 challenge, along with trying to make a strikerless formation work.

[AnarchyAnt]

The thing I find most interesting in SFraser's post is that he seems more willing to exchange players for the desired effect, much like Cleon has suggested in many posts. I imagine that would involve clearly defined PPMs. Maybe you start a player that likes to hug the line, see that isn't working and have space in the middle and instead of changing that with a shout, you can switch in a player that likes to cut inside.

Lots to think about, thanks for all the tips!

[Steve Odom]

Teamwork, workrate, creativity,.. are also things to consider that define a players stylo of play. I change my team all the time based on those attributes, PPm's and the shape whe and the opposition are using.

[furiousuk]

The thing I find most interesting in SFraser's post is that he seems more willing to exchange players for the desired effect, much like Cleon has suggested in many posts. I imagine that would involve clearly defined PPMs. Maybe you start a player that likes to hug the line, see that isn't working and have space in the middle and instead of changing that with a shout, you can switch in a player that likes to cut inside.

Lots to think about, thanks for all the tips!

This is usually my preferred approach too, hence my post on building a squad, I think versatility (in terms of the squad) and choices are crucial in building a good squad. If you have 2 good DLP's but need another midfielder then it's probably best to get a tougher tackling guy in there so that you have some variety in your squad for when you need it, the real talent is getting a tough tackling guy who still fits your squad 'ethic' or ideal.

There are times too when you're unsure what to do tactically and this is a situation when changing personnel can really help, but, of course, you need the squad to do it and you need to be good with motivation to make sure all that variety in personnel are going to play for you.

[AnarchyAnt]

I'll be trying this with renewed focus soon. My problem right now is I'm playing with a semi-pro team in the Blue Square Premier and am having squad issues. The board gives me barely enough money to field a full team and substitutes. I'm in the last year of my contract (10 years at the Mare!) and hopefully will get a job where I have a bit more money to play around with. Semi-Pro is really hard!

Once that happens I am hoping I can concentrate on actually building a creative team with player options as you suggest, which is why I was looking for advice, for my next gig. Right now I'm just fighting to survive!

[Steve Odom]

I'll be trying this with renewed focus soon. My problem right now is I'm playing with a semi-pro team in the Blue Square Premier and am having squad issues. The board gives me barely enough money to field a full team and substitutes. I'm in the last year of my contract (10 years at the Mare!) and hopefully will get a job where I have a bit more money to play around with. Semi-Pro is really hard!

Once that happens I am hoping I can concentrate on actually building a creative team with player options as you suggest, which is why I was looking for advice, for my next gig. Right now I'm just fighting to survive!

This is common with LLM teams. Though the rewards coul be great, once you promote and build a reputation for yourself, it can be a hassle the first season(s).

[furiousuk]

I'll be trying this with renewed focus soon. My problem right now is I'm playing with a semi-pro team in the Blue Square Premier and am having squad issues. The board gives me barely enough money to field a full team and substitutes. I'm in the last year of my contract (10 years at the Mare!) and hopefully will get a job where I have a bit more money to play around with. Semi-Pro is really hard!

Once that happens I am hoping I can concentrate on actually building a creative team with player options as you suggest, which is why I was looking for advice, for my next gig. Right now I'm just fighting to survive!

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you came back and said that you couldn't get it to really work, or, probably more likely, that your plans always seemed to come unstuck against the same problem i.e. you always lose/play badly against a certain team/formation.

I’m a big advocate of basically playing the same way in the lower divisions as you would in higher ones as things are relative but there are concessions to make and probably the biggest one is squad depth. You simply have less choices in the lower divisions which means that the relative weighting on each decision is higher, i.e. those choices matter. Now, you could look at this the other way round and say I can’t make many changes because I don’t have options so it doesn’t really matter what I do and in some cases this will happen but mostly you can tweak things in your favour and because the opposition also don’t have the resources to make choices you might well find that your tweak hits a weakness that the opposition can not plug.

I guess a player like Dzeko at City defines this. A good player, but he doesn’t quite fit how they play although he gives them a change and their whole playstyle can be shifted towards slightly more direct, or to head, when he plays and in certain situations this is favourable to banging your head against a brick wall with whatever your preferred playstyle is. However, keeping a high-profile but not first-choice player like Dzeko at your club just isn’t usually an option lower down. You’d have to sacrifice a first choice player somewhere else more than likely and that probably defeats the point.

However, the goal of playing a fluid player-led system is still very possible in the lower leagues.