Left Back problem

[Jebuz]

Hi,

I am playing FC United of Manchester in Skrill North. I am 6 month into the game and are currently in 3rd position which I should be very happy with considering that I was expected to battle against relegation. I have played FM all the way back to the first edition of Championship Manager so I am not new to this game - also in both FM12 and FM13 I have played FC United and brought them to Premier League.

But in FM14 I am currently facing a huge problems getting either of my left backs to preform decently. And I was wondering if any of you tactics expert can spot my problem. I will say that even though I have played all these years I have almost always used the same tactic with small modification from game to game but nothing major, so I am not an expert into tactics.

I will put up some screenshot of my tactic and my 2 left backs and hope that some of you can spot something that I am doing wrong. If you need more screenshots of anything then please tell me and I will upload them.

Thank you in advance.

Tactic:

Left Back 1:

Left Back 2:

[tomtuck01]

Your images arent showing.

However, it is a known issue that fullbacks in general are currently rated very poorly. This will be (hopefully) fixed with the next update.

[Jebuz]

Your images arent showing.

However, it is a known issue that fullbacks in general are currently rated very poorly. This will be (hopefully) fixed with the next update.

Fixed the images and thank your reply.

[Telemachos]

Something I noticed with the defensive backs, whether it is the case or not is, when you are setting your opponents instructions, that you are setting Show on Foot correctly. Basically, I was lazy and would just use weaker foot. Basically, your FB cover their WM and ultimately, you want to show WL their left foot and WR their right foot. (You can also figure in high and other factors but basically I think the AI aims more for faster winger types wide).

Additionally, your FB are not good in any area other than the little mental that Williams have. Even in the lower leagues, it's easy to find players with at least 10 in their key stats. Your FB's are very poor even for Skrill. Look at it this way:

1) Williams has great concentration and team work. He works with his defensive line to co-ordinate to take on an oncoming winger with the ball... problem is, his positioning is very low and he wasn't exactly in the right place.

2) Since he is slow and turns like a brick, the winger probably has no reservations on being able to dribble past him so he charges forward.

3) So here is where you pick your outcome:

a) Williams gets brave and dives in for a tackle... even though he concentrates, his composure is low and fails in his 2-footed dive earning himself a foul, booking or an early shower.

b) Williams decides to stay on his feet and take on the opponent... while he is standing off, he physically just can't keep up with the attacker. The attacker burns past him like Pele for a killer cross that is headed in.

c) Williams succeeds in tackling/winning the ball from the opponent.... his great teamwork, he decides to pass but the problem is his anticipation is average at best and has to wait till he see's a teammate that is in "position" for a pass, his leadership communicates a teammate and he gets ready... but the problem is he can barely pass to a brick wall so the ball goes anywhere except where he wanted.

d) Williams gets possession and decides... to brave it out and go for goal... dribbling at a pace of almost negative.... an opponent's defender walks up to him and breathes on the ball stealing the ball away.

First off, consider your team instructions- you have too many:

1) Your formation is already wide and you want to play wider.

2) Exploit the flanks.... you don't have flanks to exploit to... at best you have 2 wingers. Exploiting flanks relies on WM/W as well as FB/WB pushing up behind either overlapping or supporting from deep.

3) Do not use tighter marking.... you need good anticipation... you need good marking... you need composure... and you need quickness- you are very lucky to have one player who can tightly mark in lower levels.

4) Your formations are not fully realized to be fluid. At your league, you should only have 1 tactic being learned- there is no point in learning a second especially with the lack of quality training facilities. Pick either a 4-3-3 (push your DM up to CM) or 4-1-2-2-1.

Here is my current formation for Serie C1/C (I am in my 3rd season being promoted from C2 and winning Italian C twice):

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/903265683820393142/42EF992F943A7F722589A570EC9FB1BA2FD7084A/

I picked up on this FB on loan from Udinese and having him placed him on my last CWB's position, I notice that I can make some adjustments:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/903265683820390370/629B19203F10F62067EF1B5AF6F51394DF5DC6AE/

If you notice, my loan is little bit more creative on the pitch. While his composure is still undeveloped, I might want to try lifting the restriction of "Fewer Risky Passes". Additionally, since his finishing is low, I will have to tighten down on the amount of shots he attempts so I will probably add "shoot less often". While his dribbling is only 10, he is still fast and I will leave dribbling as the base value and continue to monitor it to see how well he does.

I will retain cross from deep because my formation does have a Target Man: Attack in the front yet the primary scoring opportunities come from my Inside Forwards. The Target Man is the plan B option.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/903265683820608053/79667AE7E1264625390D85CC2D27C8B952BE9090/

I hope this hopes explain a little more in depth as to why/how. Don't focus so much on your team instructions but more so your individual instructions especially in the lower leagues.

[Jebuz]

@Telemachos - thank you very much for your reply - I will try to cut down on my team instructions. I know the 2 players are not exactly dream players but trust me, they were the 2 best I could get to join my club. FC United is newly promoted to Skrill North with low reputation and poor facilities, so there are not a large amount of players to choose from. When choosing players I always look at their key stats and when playing in the lower leagues stats counts for 90% of my decision to sign the player.

Edit: Regarding opponent instruction then I always just let my assistant handle this part (hence my assistant is they one with the highest tactical knowledge available to me)

[Telemachos]

No problem and dafuge's challenge is always great.

Even with your two FB, you can make them produce if you adapt the role that they are playing into your formation. They have work rate as well as team work. Basically, Top leagues a stat of 16 is ideal and excellent. As you progress each league lower, subtract basically 1.5 and with Skrill, I generally figure around 12 and 13 is great. I also think picking a single stat and building up on that can produce some great results- like Tom Davie seems to be the taller of the two and I would work on his quickness. Really you are doing good and you will get it. Definitely try to hit the loan market, Skrill Premiere should have some teams that would like to get rid of some of their older players or loan them out.

Additionally, with the low reputation and low player reputation, I would recommend going more defensive and maybe just using a more compact formation and compact tactic. Feel free to try mine out for a few games to see if it will produce, but I recommend going in with defensive or standard tactic and try to win the possession game.

Another formation I personally like is the 4-1-2-1-2 and the 4-3-1-2, but really, look at a good balance formation such as the 4-4-2 or 4-3-2-1, both with a defensive approach- such as standard with a lower tempo using much lower tempo to play more defensively and select nothing to be more attacking during the game.

To be honest, I think your players do have potential. I like higher team work, when I send out my scouts- I have them look for 4 stars, with 10+ natural fitness, 10+ work rate and 10+ team work. (I try to avoid using the player search unless going through the known players from my scouts).

If you do go with a lower tempo, pushing down the AMC in my tactic and setting him to CM:A should work for you too if you want to do 4-3-3 (which is how I think a 4-3-3 should STC+ AML+AMR).

[Telemachos]

I forgot, let me know how things work out for you. If anything worked for you.

[Jebuz]

Well I have made a few changes to my tactics and dropped a few of my team instructions and haven't lost in 8 straight games in a row. But I guess I can't do much about the low rating of my backs if it is a bug.

Regarding training I have a philosophy that I only use position based focus when setting Individual training in the lower leagues. I don't ever concentrate on a single attribute or use preferred moves training. I believe that players in lower leagues just need to concentrate on becoming better at their position.

[Jebuz]

No problem and dafuge's challenge is always great.

I am not familiar with dafuge's challenge?

Top leagues a stat of 16 is ideal and excellent. As you progress each league lower, subtract basically 1.5 and with Skrill, I generally figure around 12 and 13 is great.

I am not sure how you get 12 and 13 from subtracting 1.5 for each league. Shrill North is tier 6 so 5 leagues lower than the top league. This makes a 8.5 in my calculation.