my 451 system has reached plateau, what to do? (inspired by Jambo98)

[hugorafael]

Hi, in the sequence of this thread http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/426113-4-5-1-in-FM14-Tuning-ideas-needed?p=10302741#post10302741

I'd like to Cleon and Jambo98, or anyone else who feels in the mood to help me.

I'm using a system created by Jambo98 (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/412695-The-4-5-1-The-swiss-army-knife-of-formations/)

1st half of the season was great but now I feel the system/tactic reached a plateau level. I'm playing with Newcastle 4-5-1 and I lost the last match against Chelsea by 3-0 and dropped to 2nd in league table.

Here is my best Team

----------------------- GK (D) ------------------------ (Krul)

-------- CWB(A) -- CD(D) -- CD (D) -- CWB(A) ------- (Janmaat, Coloccini, Thelander, Haidara)

-- WM(A) -- DLP(S) -- CM(A) -- DLP(S) -- WM(A) --(Cabella, W.Hughes, Sissoko, D.Pereira, M. Jojic)

------------------------ F9(S) -------------------------(Azoye)

Mentality : Standard

Fluidity : Very Fluid

TI : Push Higher up, Close more Down, Short Pass, Play out of Defense, Pass into Space, Higher Tempo

Inside this dropbox folder you will find the PKM file against chelsea and the profile pictures of every player that played in this match along with the formation vs formation picture an match stats.

Can you Help me with this? What am I doing wrong? Should I change player roles or shape?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jaufefpqs..._4cMjpCHa?dl=0

[Jambo98]

Apologies i had missed you had created a new thread so answered in the other one. WIll keep any further replies to this one, and past what my reply here.

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I kinda go back to what i said before - Might the reason that you often lose to bigger teams be simply, that they are quite a bit better than you at this stage?

Your players are probably good enough for 7th or 8th at very best. For context, i just looked up the 3 main signings you made in my game, which is in 2020. Thelander is Crystal Palace U21 team waiting to be released, Jojic and Periera are at Granada and Braga respectively. These type of players are likely all you can get in season 1, but you really have to temper expectations IMO. Perez is not yet developed enough to be a top 4/6 team first choice striker.

Sometimes the big teams will just beat you. I know its sometimes tricky because there are some real "experts" on these forums who can achieve great things with small teams. I respect them and admire them, but for most of us, its not possible.

If you really are obsessively wanting to look at out performing to that degree, your going to have to get down to micro management in some ways. For the Chelsea game, i might have gone "Much higher Dline" and "exploit the flanks" and possibly take off "shorter passing".

The even higher Dline is to try and counteract some of the natural "pushing back" that happens against such a top side, but you need to watch for balls in behind and particularly with Colocini who is slower than a week in jail. With Chelsea having the wide men pushed high, you might find the flanks an area to exploit, but equally you need to be able to generate the supply which is not always easy. In a game like that, i might also look to play a more physical striker, to help hold the ball up more because you are going to have less possession and be deeper. Perez is tricky and fast, but in a game like this i might get creative. I might stick him at CM(a) and put either Cisse (if you still have him) or even Sissoko at F9 (although Sissoko was lethal at WM in the short newcastle save i did a while ago).

Your season there reminds me a little of my second QPR season in the simplicity thread/approach (which used this tactic exlusively). We were good enough to beat most lower teams and we had no issues really with parked bus teams, but the big boys were just flat out better than us. How did i get past it? I bought better players, more suited players, blended them in ,looked at the basics like set pieces etc. Won the league the next season.

[RTHerringbone]

Completely agree with a lot of Jambo98's points here. The bottom line is that yes, tactics are important. They can and do make a difference, but they cannot solely make up the difference between a disparity in player quality. Chelsea are significantly better man for man than Newcastle. Sometimes you just take a defeat on the chin and move on, because if you make knee jerk decisions or changes based on a match like that, you'll lose sight of what it was that got you up the league in the first place. Like Jambo98 did with Q.P.R., the key is to make the improvement over time - sign better players, fit them to the system, close the quality gap organically over time.

[Torskus77]

I still have problems with the big teams in a save that is 10 game years old, with a pretty much world class squad built to my needs. I do well against them, but now and then I will take a beating off one of them, Chelsea being the main culprits. They have world class players too, it's not realistic to expect that world class players won't do any good just cos my team is good. Same as Jambo said, in my first couple of seasons in the Premier League I really struggled to take anything from them, but I still finished in a good league position by beating the best of the rest. With Newcastle's squad at the start, gonna be tough to beat them. You obviously get the odd result, bit like real life too, every now and then a shock result comes up, but it's not the norm.

Sure you will be just fine once you have signed some better quality players, the higher you can finish the better quality you will be able to attract.