Making the leap from 14 > 15, can anyone help?

[Cpt_Short]

So I got FM 15 for Christmas but have only got my laptop working again yesterday. I didn't have a HUGE amount of experience in FM14, but I was just starting to get the hang of things when I had to stop playing for a variety of reasons (See my previous posts about my time at Exeter for evidence of this).

Now I'm aware I've not been in the new game long but I'm finding getting to grips with it a much more shocking process than I had anticipated. I'm currently at

Aldershot Town in the Conference Prem, using a modified tactic of the one with which I won the double with Exeter. I know some tactics don't work every time, but the performances of the squad have been bizarre. Only one of my DC's is actually getting poor match ratings, everyone else is performing at a respectable level. The squad isn't amazing but it's solid, especially since I spent my limited wage budget on a couple of loanee's/free transfers to add a bit of depth in defence. but despite having what you would describe as a reasonable set up, we are getting pummelled at the minute.

Allow me to explain. In pre-season we had good form against pretty weak opposition, with 5 wins and 1 loss. But only 2 of our wins were in any way convincing and one of those was against my own U21's. In our second friendly i played a weakened side, with the aim of getting all members of the squad some match fitness. We were 2-0 down to Didcot at HT so I threw on some first XI members, and we somehow scrounge it back. The same thing happens the following week at Halesowen, only this time it was the First team that gave away 2 goals and the reserves who rescued us.

This went on through all of preseason, with the exception of a 3-0 win at home to Crawley Down Gatwick. So when the league season arrived, we were high on

morale but neither here nor there in form. I had tinkered with formations and tactics all through preseason, eventually settling on the one that suited us the best. This tactic has seen us lose all 5 of our opening matches of the season, and badly too as we only scored one goal and conceded 16.

This is my second attempt at a career. Last nights foray at Kilmarnock followed an identical trend, despite the weaknesses of the squad and the tactics I used being noticeably different. I'm at a loss of what to do next. If anyone knows what could be causing this or can see a fault in my tactics based on the changes between FM14/15 it would be greatly appreciated, as feeling like I'm getting reasonably good at the game whilst getting absolutely nowhere is becoming quite frustrating. My tactics are shown with screenshots below (Sorry, screenshots are in hyperlink form)

Squad/formation: http://puu.sh/f6xJD/c77b3f53f0.jpg

Team instructions: http://puu.sh/f6xPl/e94bf57de1.png

I play a counter attacking game, as Aldershot are considered a tad inferior to the other teams in the division, with flexible shape.

[peleJunior]

Drop deeper and close down more as instructions is going to really stretch out your shape in my opinion. Your asking players to drop off and then go and hunt the ball; stretching them out away from their defensive line creating holes in your defence.

The tactic it's self might have some faults. The wings have no movement. Support role wingers and defensive full backs. There is no forward runs here, very one dimensional. Your AMC on attack duty coupled with the Advanced Forward on attack duty is a little top heavy, it would be better in my opinion to allow one of them to be on a support role to help pull defenders out of positions.

What were your ideas for the tactic to begin with? How were you picturing your goal types?

[Cpt_Short]

I've made some tweaks to my formation and tactics based on what you've said. Attacking-wise improvement has been amazing, Putting in 2 goals against top opposition on a regular basis. But we are defensively a shambles. It's all very well putting 2 goals past Bristol Rovers inside half an hour, but if you concede 3 sloppy goals after that point then it's all for nothing. I know my players in defence aren't amazing, but, based on watching extended highlights of my last few games, all I need is for them to be solid enough to rely upon so that my strong attacking lineup has a platform to work from. Bottom line is though, while we've scrounged a few draws, we really ought to have won some of these games if the defence hadn't caved. I'm still winless in competitive games as manager and even when we play well we are let down by silly errors (A bit like Everton in the Premier League IRL)

New Formation: http://puu.sh/f8uTB/d23d8c9950.jpg

New Instructions: http://puu.sh/f8uVH/3e2ce0e01d.png

Example of the goals we concede (Recorded yesterday evening, match finished in a 1-1 draw):

I've also reduced the number of instructions each individual has as I read somewhere this overcomplicates things.

[peleJunior]

Are you still on counter mentality?

[Cpt_Short]

Yes I haven't changed mentality

[peleJunior]

Ok, your trying to play a very quick game when you win the ball, you have a lot of direct runners; two wingers and AFa, the APa also pushing ahead. The BWM too a quite aggressive role. Now, when you turn over the ball high up the pitch (could be from rushed play due to high tempo direct style) you are exposed down the wings and the centre is a little soft with the APa and BWM positioned high. This is where I see your problems potentially. If you are turning over possession easily and high up the pitch then try calm the game back down with lower tempos. You might also want slower transitions at this point so pulling a winger back to support will keep him deeper and involved in more of the build up, you could then allow a fullback to overlap him, this will happen much later in the move due to a more considered build up play.

[edtheguy]

That's excellent advice from peleJunior. I have tried (and failed) similar setups myself. Two things specifically stand out from my own past failures:

1. I have found that even in FM 14, when I had a DM/D (or A/D or HB/D - I tried them all) in front of the D-line in this type of setup the team tended to be too passive without the ball, just inviting pressure until they would inevitably crack. Once I even tried to help the situation by adding a BWM to the formation but he was way too undisciplined and just left the midfield open for the other team to walk through at will. What worked for me was putting a DLP/D in the DM strata then changing the AP/A to a CM/A (he would charge into the box from the central midfield on attack and give the other team something to worry about.) Oh and I think I used a B2B/S instead of the devil... er- BWM, I mean.

2. I swore off using 2 W/A's after being sacked, um, -several- times with strategies using them (I'm sure it's something that can work, I just gave up). Now when I have a AMR/L combo, I'll usually have a IF on one side with a CWB/A behind him to provide some overlapping width and it seems to work much better. I think that is part of what pele is saying when he mentions 'direct runners' - if everyone is going in a straight line its easy for the defense to cover - get some overlapping runs and attacks from different areas and it occupies the other teams players, taking them away from attacking your defenders.

I'm not saying those exact changes will work here, I definitely had different roles and instructions as well, and as we all know it all has to work together. Just some food for thought, maybe someone else can learn from my mistakes (there's plenty to learn from.....) As an aside, I also made an unexpected transition to '15 at christmas (when my son gifted it to me.)

[Cpt_Short]

That's an interesting point you make. However I'm not sure how well this'll work for my Aldershot side. I'm on an annoying streak of starting new careers with teams only to find that the squad is hugely unbalanced in some way. IE I started a Network game with my friend yesterday, at Bristol Rovers, and they have so many left sided players yet so few right sided ones! My ability in scouting and transfers has always been a weakness, and usually i have to be at a club for a full season (or at least a half-season) before I can make any meaningful Transfers and upgrades to my squad. This means i often have a team that i'm unhappy with and i'm forced into using an awkward formation because I have no other choice. If I had a balanced side then I could use other formations, which would help immensely as my tactical knowledge isn't the best so if i'm using a formation i know about, i'm more likely to get the rest of the tactic right.

It would be greatly appreciated if you guys know of any well balanced teams in the Conference league with which i could more easily experiment with my tactics? (I'll probably make another thread dedicated to this though so no worries if not). My favourite formations are essentially the one's i use on Fifa (4-2-3-1 [both wide and narrow], 4-4-2 Diamond Wide, 4-3-3 [of any kind really] and 5-2-2-1)

[Reggiana]

If you have too many left wingers and not enough right, I would think about which of the left wingers could be retrained to play on the other side. I seem to be finding players are learning new positions more quickly on FM15 (might just happen to have more versatile players this time). Pick a left footer and they should be well suited to cutting inside like an inside forward will.

I do like to have an IF/s cutting in and a CWB/a to overlap round the outside.

As peleJunior asked, have you thought about what style of football you want to play?

[Cpt_Short]

I'm a fan of two styles really. The style that Arsenal play (I support Arsenal so slightly biased) with the slow and controlled passing build up play, though this is obviously highly inappropriate for most if not all non-league sides. So the other is a fast paced counter attacking strategy. So against tough opposition we sit deep with a strong DM sat in front of the back 4 organising things, and when we win the ball go bursting forward to capitalise. And against slightly weaker teams where we are afforded more time on the ball, I've had success on FM14 with having 2 wingers playing very wide and fullbacks that can overlap, then having a target man to aim at; the objective being that the target man will attempt to finish the move. I usually have an AM set to simply Attacking Midfielder to hover around the edge of the box so that if we can't get the cross in, the Target man will be heavily marked and can draw people out of position, and so we can play a ball across the box for the AM to run onto and finish. On FM14 with Exeter I had a 21 year old regen in this role, and he and the target man scored something like 35 goals between them on the way to winning the league. However this same style has been far more difficult to implement so far this year.