Ipswich - 3rd Season in - Premier League

[JustinJJJ]

Having a lot of trouble with conceding goals, crosses, stupid penalties, dwelling on ball etc. 

Won the Championship in the first season by 10 clear points fairly easily, even though in the second half of the season we could be dreadfully inconsistent. Played a 4-2-3-1 formation which was very successful for the most part and had little reason to change to anything else, the to wingers were assigned to winger roles but not really great at it iand the full backs were quite limited in their ability but still got forward a lot.

Second season we started well despite being only given a transfer budget of 15M but struggled like hell at the end of the season and only survived on the final day. At this point I felt something had to give so instead of playing good players in roles I had a big clearout and brought in more natural players to play in the roles thinking that it would lead to an upturn in fortunes

Pretty much all of the advice I can get from Ass Man, Coaches and staff suggests the team should be performing much better this year and rate the players in the roles as much better and also much higher star ratings, Everyone is at least a 3 with most 3.5 or 4. However on the pitch we seem to be playing even worse which makes little sense to me.

We have a continual issue with crosses and defenders dwelling on ball and ballwatching, the frustration of seeing a much worse team than us stick 10 men behind the ball for almost the whole game and see one player with barely good enough stats from the league below to manage to get past 5-6 players despite possesing no pace or dribbling skills is getting kind of boring. 

We also have a tendency to stand off players and give them too much space from crosses, which I have countered by dropping the back line to slightly deeper from the slightly higher system we used in the Championship, but this has hindered our attacks. I have also restricted the teams roaming freedom, but this has helped at the back, but the three men behind the striker are now much less effective. 

One thing I can't seem to sort out is players dwelling on the ball and stupid penalties and red cards no matter what I do. The sheer frustration of seeing someone sent off for a pointless tackle from behind or giving a penalty away, when there is no need to slide in, and then seeing the same players stand there when players are running towards them and not put a slide in is extremely frustrating. 

I have four central defenders who I am told and I believe myself are easily good enough for this level, two ball playing CB and two traditional CB and if I play a combination of these, or two of each, I still get the same problem, the traditional CB are just dumb and tackle decision making is awful whilst the ball playing ones just dwell on the ball. far too much. 

I could just sling an extra CB in there and a DM and play boring football and try and hit everyone on the break (I tried it in a few pre-season games and far too many 0-0s almost made me cry) but I'd like to be more attacking. I had a look on the various forums for variations of the formation I'm using with little success. 

I've even resorted to auto assign roles to see if that helps but we play even worse with that on.

[herne79]

In order to help you, we need to know your detailed tactical set up,  Please read the sticky about asking for help   Asking for Help? Please Read This

[lewis999]

Best thing to do without doubt when struggling is find your best players, try and get as many on the pitch as possible, use a simple formation that fits them in. I.e - 4-4-1-1 or 4-1-4-1. Then pick a mentality based on how you want to approach matches, counter if weaker etc etc. Base your team shape around the amount of creative freedom you want to give them, i'd recommend flexible as a starting point and use no team instructions at all. Take off long shots if you don't like them or make your goalkeeper roll the ball out but apart from that touch nothing.

Then watch games and change accordingly but only 1 thing at a time so you know what works and what doesn't. Now that's a really simplistic way and may not be the best advice but i've found when in a rut it's easy to get bogged down with loads of instructions and it just compounds things.

[JustinJJJ]

So I am going to stick with 4-2-3-1 but make it simpler, since I'm close to end of transfer window right now and don't have the cash to really totally restructure the side totally.

I've changed the Full Backs to be more limited now from wing backs added a ball winning midfielder to the mix to make the midfield a bit more defensive minded and changed the roles to be more reflective of the players we have and removed all team instructions and switched things to flexible.

My strongest players are my trio of midfielders, Poll, Onomah and Carroll generally I have no complaints with them, apart from the fact Onomah is not mine and Spurs want silly money for him,  Poll did an excellent job in the first game he played before getting injured after I'd used all three subs breaking stuff up and Carrolli is the heartbeat of linking up play to the wingers and striker. 

Looking further afield, realistically I could do with another striker, a better left Winger and some better cover full backs and better backup midfielders, bur the rest of the team shouldn't be struggling, my two CB's are very good attribute wise, I had to offer them good wages to beat off a whole host of better sides but they don't appear to put the performances in to show it. 

Defenders Attributes 
Zukanovic has at least 15 for all the attributes that are highlighted for ball playing defenders but he plays like a sunday league footballer and

Whilst Wisdom is not as good, he has at least 14 for all the same attributes. 

Djilobodji has 17 for tackling,, 17 for marking, 15 for heading, 16 for pass, 15 for first touch, and all the mental stats at least at 14 with most 15-16, Jumping Reach is 17 Strength 18. His positioning is 14 which is not great, but he is working on it and it went up to 16 before he got injured and had one game back.

It's a similar story with Maguire who has the odd stat 1 either way. 

Ignore the condition of the players, it's just after a match. 

I just really don't understand why we defend so bad, last year I could understand it but the whole back line is new and way better than this.

[JustinJJJ]

I just spoke to the board and got more money on deadline and managed to sneak Andrew Ayew from Swansea, much better than James McClean, and a better striker who can do complete forward role, both are big improvements according to my Ass Man and from what I see from the stats, they're both reflected as 4 star players, replacing 3 star players in the first XI

It doesn't fix my defensive issues, but literally nobody I could get on deadline day would so I figured I'd spend the money they give me on two of the other issues in my team, I'll play a couple of games and upload some PKMs. 

[lewis999]

Yeah just a few mate. The mentality of your wide players is going to cause you a problem and you should see it from minute one. A player on defend duty has a lower mentality than a player on support and so forth to an attack duty so your full backs being on defend and both wingers on attack, especially in AMR and AML they are going to be high and wide up the pitch and not coming short to get it and your limited full backs are just going to have to whack it long if your midfielders are marked.

This is purely just me but I would have a Pritchard type winger who can create and very good technically as an advanced playmaker on one wing and then on the other you could go with an inside forward, winger or even a raumdeuter which, if used properly, can be very lethal.

At the full back positions, for balance I would have an attack duty behind a support duty and vicer versa on the other side a support full back behind an attack duty wide man. It gives you different types of attack and options so your players are interacting with each other and not massive gaps between the defence and attack.

I personally wouldn't have a ball winner in a midfield two, especially with AML and AMR wide men. If they were at MR and ML so a 4-4-1-1 then you could maybe get away with it but unless you have super human CM's a.k.a Pogba etc I can't see it working long term.

I'm currently playing a 4-1-2-2-1 in League One so not at your level and i'm no tactic guru but i've won the league fairly easily. I'll get a screenshot up to show you what I said above with the duties. It's quite attacking role wise but it's thought out after hours and hours and hours of playing and being frustrated.

[JustinJJJ]

The winger and full back set-up pretty much developed towards that because of the fact it was the only way to stop crosses, originally my full-backs were not so defensive but it's the only way I could find to stop us conceding so many. 

Ball winner in midfield was again a counter to the centre backs getting run at and putting stupid tackles/reds/penalties in or dwelling on the ball, the idea behind it, which has worked pretty well to date, is that he cuts out the stuff before it gets to them, since I'm short on a true defensive midfielder. 

In my game, Pritchard is only really natural as a winger, all of the rest of the roles he's about 60% on the role at bestt, but generally last season Iwobi was much better in that role (50% of my goals came via him almost). However I did buy Ayew with verstiality in mind since he can be a raumdeuter, inside forward and a winger. 

I'm actually training them for 4-4-1-1 right now, although the issue is my AMLS are not great at MLS, but now the fact I have a natural complet eforward in my ranks, it gives me a few more options. 

Your suggestions are pretty good though and in theory they sound good and not too far off what I used the year I won the title in the Championship, but what happened at the end of last  year forced me to make changes, we had 28 points from the first 25 games but only took 7 from the last 13 which made me tear my hair out and gradually I started trusting the defense less and less and less and restricted them more and more. whilst trying to play off the strengths of our wing play and our midfielders. 

Realistically, if things don';t improve I'm going to have to go to more defensive formations, Iiked to play with 4-4-2 diamond in previous games but because of the crosses in this game it's just too risky since you get marauded down the flanks. 

[lewis999]

So like I say it's not a super tactic, i've never created one of those. I'll try explain my thinking behind it that, fingers crossed has worked so far. I'll start with the best player Hammill, he's easily good enough for the Championship so that helps but he's my creative force in the last third, he drifts inside to collect the ball off Hourihane and makes defenders either leave him or go with him and get dragged about. Brownhill usually sets off and gets in the box with his attack duty which takes another midfielder with him unless they decide not to and he's a late lampard type runner. That gives Hammill even more space.

Hourihane is always an option as the roaming playmaker and is what I call, my second midfielder, the guy who gets it off the defensive midfielder and gives it to the attacking players. Scowen as a half back, similar to how Eric Dier played last season, drops in and gives the CB's an option so they don't have to just smash it up field and waste possession. As Hammill vacates his wing to come inside and be creative Aidy White at LB bombs on and holds the width to give is that option. It is quite risky to play the attacking full back on the same side as the attacking central midfielder but it's all about risk vs. reward and sometimes it costs us goals to the counter attack but we score more going forward so i'm happy to leave it there. Obviously next season in the Championship I may need to dial it down a bit but I didn't want both my playmakers on the left hand side to give everything a bit of variety.

Watkins on the RW as the raumdeuter is basically as it says on the description, a space investigator. He's always looking to get in behind, think Muller which is where the role came from. He's not fantastic on the ball, Watkins I mean, he's competent though but he is powerful and a good runner and primarily a striker so it works well. Behind him is Bree who is on a support duty to keep a player back as Watkins doesn't do as much defensively. Again, as before that sometimes costs us goals as Bree gets over loaded 2v1 but Watkins and Isgrove who both play on the RW have a lot of goals between them and are my top scorers so I can live with the odd goal going in when we score a lot.

Lastly up front is Winnall who really is better with a partner but being Barnsley we don't have a lot of money but he does his job well. He occupies the CB's and drops deep to ask them questions and gives simple passes to either Hammill coming into the AMLC area, an onrushing Brownhill if his vision (which is 9) allows him to. Remember i'm Barnsley or the ever willing Raumdeuter who is looking to get behind his full back and a 1 on 1 vs. the keeper.

Sorry I rambled and it probably didn't help but I thought a visual pic and an explanation might help. I'm not fully happy with the HB role and the RP role in CM but for now it will have to do. why change something that's working eh? But i'm one of those annoying perfectionists who wants every goal to be scored how I see it in my head rather than acknowledging that's not what football is like.

 

[lewis999]

11 minutes ago, JustinJJJ said:

The winger and full back set-up pretty much developed towards that because of the fact it was the only way to stop crosses, originally my full-backs were not so defensive but it's the only way I could find to stop us conceding so many. 

Ball winner in midfield was again a counter to the centre backs getting run at and putting stupid tackles/reds/penalties in or dwelling on the ball, the idea behind it, which has worked pretty well to date, is that he cuts out the stuff before it gets to them, since I'm short on a true defensive midfielder. 

In my game, Pritchard is only really natural as a winger, all of the rest of the roles he's about 60% on the role at bestt, but generally last season Iwobi was much better in that role (50% of my goals came via him almost). However I did buy Ayew with verstiality in mind since he can be a raumdeuter, inside forward and a winger. 

I'm actually training them for 4-4-1-1 right now, although the issue is my AMLS are not great at MLS, but now the fact I have a natural complet eforward in my ranks, it gives me a few more options. 

Your suggestions are pretty good though and in theory they sound good and not too far off what I used the year I won the title in the Championship, but what happened at the end of last  year forced me to make changes, we had 28 points from the first 25 games but only took 7 from the last 13 which made me tear my hair out and gradually I started trusting the defense less and less and less and restricted them more and more. whilst trying to play off the strengths of our wing play and our midfielders. 

Realistically, if things don';t improve I'm going to have to go to more defensive formations, Iiked to play with 4-4-2 diamond in previous games but because of the crosses in this game it's just too risky since you get marauded down the flanks. 

Yeah always go with your own instincts I just thought i'd offer an alternative, basically an assistant manager haha. Also don't worry about the ratings that the staff give it's a load of... well you know. Scowen at HB for me is rated at half a gold star and he's good at it. Pritchard has all the PPM's for an advanced playmaker and the passing (14) and creativity (14) to do well there. As it stands both wingers will just get the ball and head off down the line set as wingers. If you want that then that's 100% fine mate, you're the gaffer but again I thought i'd offer an alternative as you were getting frustrated. If the ball winner is working, again, keep it there. Everyone has different players and buy different players with different stats and different PPM's. That's why there's no 1 rule for what works and what doesn't. 4-4-1-1 is a good route to go in my opinion and again don't worry about them playing at ML and MR, they'll still do a job. I've played Gabriel Barbosa at RM before and he was world class and he's not even 1% trained there on his profile.

[JustinJJJ]

I just played a game against Everton when we lost 4-3, good going forward and this time it didn't come from the flanks, but actually it came from through the middle and defenders not trying to stop the attackers,. Elementary stuff and I'm really surprised to see it from two centre backs who had much bigger clubs after them when I signed them. 

I'm going to dry 4-4-1-1 and see how it goes, wat kind of roles would you consider giving them? 

My main worry is the CB's though, they just keep making mistakes and since I switched the full backs to be limited from Wingbacks I've noticed that the defenders in the centre come under a lot more pressure since previously the wingbacks were dealing with things before it reached the CB's on occasions, but of course the downside of that was they were getting caught out of position too often to allow crosses,. 

[lewis999]

4-4-1-1 will see more defensive solidarity straight away as the wide midfielders help out defensively a lot more. As I said before you could use a full back with an attack duty behind a midfielder with support and vicer cersa or you could have 1 attack on the wing and 1 support and behind them two full backs on support if you don't want to commit too many forward being a fairly new team to the big league.

You may already know but the wide midfielder is the most customisable role in the game, you can make your winger act like an inside forward by using player instructions like cut inside with ball, dribble more and get further forward or you can make them act more like a Beckham type of winger with cross from deeper, not dribbling with the ball all the time and holding the width. It's about what you want and how you see your team playing. The reason I don't use wing backs is because it adds "dribble more" as an instruction and i'm not comfortable with my full backs dribbling with the ball, not until I have very good players there anyway. I doubt you would want your full backs dribbling with the ball, get it took off them by the better players in the Citys and Uniteds of the world and them punishing you with a quick goal.

[JustinJJJ]

I tried 4-4-1-1 and now I have severe problems with crosses again and lost 2 games on the spin heavily without scoring and my full backs look more exposed than ever as the ball keeps coming back down the flanks since they're not keeping possession further up the pitch. 

More worryingly they were both games against teams who had not won all season and we look absolutely useless going forward. All of my midfielders barely got above a 6.5 which is very strange and we don't have the outlets on the wings anymore that used to support the front-man.

Most of the goals though once more were stupid mistakes by defenders who should have put tackles in and cut them out, I'm loathe to tell them to get stuck in since that is just going to bring the stupid reds and penalties back again. 

We are still dominating games against most of the teams in the lower half of the table though, we just continually have problems keeping goals out and since changing the tactics, we create far less CCC

For example against QPR Just now (us first)
Posession 67-33
Shots 17 - 5
On Target 9-3

We lost 3-2.

The most frustrating thing is that it's just poor defending by the back 4 over and over again, 9/10 you'd see stuff like that get cut out routinely by any back 4 in any Championship game, we're just handing them goals on a silver platter almost every week because no matter what I do the amount of silly individual errors are ridiculously high. 

[JustinJJJ]

4--4-1-1 didn't work very well in the end, close to the sack after losing 5 straight games so I've gone to something else

4-4-2 with the two widemen operating as wingers in ML and MR, one of the CM's on deep lying playmaker with defend duty and one of the centre backs given stopper, defensive line further back, offside trap on and full backs restricted much more to do nothing but 

Result has been much more tighter defensively, but issue now is stopper giving too many free kicks away and two sendings off in two games and conceding from them. I then have to sub the DLF who is supporting the CF an then the CF gets isolated. 

I honestly think I will get sacked, It's just 2 wins out of 22 in the League going back to the second half of last season. 

[lewis999]

Not sure why 4-4-1-1 didn't work very well, it's always usually a safe bet if you're struggling defensively as you have 2 banks of 4 and an out ball in shape of the AM. What roles and duties did you have on the wings and at full back?

[JustinJJJ]

I will check in my save when I reload it since I saved it before I changed to 4-4-2 with a DLF.

I just beat Arsenal 2-0 actually with a 442 DLF although that match was a very strange affair, we actively battered them for the entire 90 minutes (24 shots to 5 and 59% posession) but honestly I never felt more frustrated after a game. Because I saw what were fairly ordinary rotational Arsenal defenders making slide tackle and last ditch tackle, and great defensive play after great defensive play, shutting down almost very sniff of a goal I had despite hammering them. I even put it on overload at 0-0 at 60 minutes to try and break them down since we were over-running them in midfield. 

In the end it took Nathan Dyer to hit two complete flukes from the touchline from 40 yards out to give us a 2-0 win (ironically something I have been trying to train him out of and be more of a team player) and for Sanchez to miss a penalty and an absolute sitter following defensive mistakes to get us the 2-0 win. 

The frustrating thing is that I just don't seen the defensive mistakes I see from our team in other team, at this point it doesn't even seem to be about shape or formations, more about the fact the defenders are just not defending or closing players down, making tackles at the right time, playing Arsenal was a real eye opener to see how defenders should behave, this is what happens game after game lately, we are dominating posession and the shot counts every week and we're scoring without too much issue, just constant silly errors at the back., it seems more decision making than actual tactics at this point, the defenders just act stupid and act like they are afraid or the ball and have no desire to go and win the tackles or stop someone scoring. 

[Earnie is God!]

Part of the problem might be because, as you say, your whole defence is new this season. They might be better than you had before but it takes a while for them to 'bed in'.

Another reason, and I mention this because it is what screwed me up for a while, is Opposition Instructions. I had my AssMan doing these for me each game but defensively we were shocking despite, like you, having some really good defenders. The problem I (eventually) figured out was that there were just too many OIs which just confused matters.

So I stopped using OIs and just used preset ones for every game which were very simple: Close down all strikers and move/show strikers and all wide players onto their weaker foot. Occasionally, if they have a really tricky player, I'll add an instruction for him too but not often.

The result was that my defenders (and midfielders) were not now being drawn out all over the place to close down this player or mark that player. Our previous two seasons using the AssMan OI, we conceded 1.5 goals a game and finished 9th and then 6th. This season, even though we have lost our best defender to Chelsea and most creative midfielder to Man City, we are 3rd with 12 games to go and have conceded less than a goal a game.

OI might not be your issue but I don't know because you don't mention using them at all. But if you are using them extensively, I'd suggest stopping that and try doing what I do and see if that works.

[JustinJJJ]

I'm not using OI instructions and I've took everything off my ass man in the last few games and I have seen some improvements.

The last five games we have cut out being exposed through the middle and down the flanks and on crosses, that is pretty much sorted and we are looking more dangerous than ever going forward thanks to the additions of a great complete forward and Ayew in the last transfer market but in the Man Utd game I had two strikers taken off with broken legs, which is typical that when we just start to sort the defense out....

However my results have been like this

Liverpool D 1-1 (Battered them and a stupid lapse in concentration on 89 minutes)
Man Utd L 2-1 (Most frustrating game of my life, we're 1-0 up and they're down to 9 men with 10 minutes to go, we get a man sent off, concede two penalties. I almost threw my laptop out the window!.
Watford L 1-0 (Slaughtered them but stand in strikers couldn't hit a barn door. 86th minute a defender under no pressure overhits a backpass to the keeper and it goes from the corner of which a giant CF heads in)
Tottenham D 1-1 concede on 74 minutes, defender dawdling on the ball 
Bournemouth L 2-1 (Own goal, and two CB's who don't bother tackling a guy who can hardly run who just ghosts past them.

Honestly what pisses me of the most is we're not getting tanked any match, we lose by the odd goal and 9/10 they are stupid mistakes,. I'm seeing 55% posession in all of the above games, the highlights I am seeing are 80% our attacks and having watched it in Comprehensive, the defence generally are not that bad, but constant stupid silly avoidable mistakes happen over and over again. 

The worst thing is I'm seeing us have 20/25 shots a game and I'm seeing goal line clearances, last ditch tackles, really hard but fair challenges , players closing down my strikers at the speed of light, diving headers off the line, very tight marking, from much worse teams than that, hell it even happens in Carling Cup, I just think to myself, I've never seen us do anything like that. Every single match report I'm seeing headlines like "x strike it lucky" or articles about smash and grab wins, flukes, errors. It feels like we have to work damn hard to score whereas we offer goals to the opposition on a plate.

[Earnie is God!]

Well, at least you have seen some improvements. Frustrating I know but give it some time and hopefully things will improve. Always tough when you are struggling for form and your players' morale is rock bottom but a couple of wins and that could all change.

Just to add: My results listed above are with Cardiff so the comparison to your Ipswich side is relevant as we are quite similar in stature. We too won promotion in our 1st season and are now in our 4th.

[JustinJJJ]

The problem is that we've only won 1 game out of our last 25 in the League, and whilst things are improving, it's another month and a half until the transfer window opens and both of my good strikers are out for a few months and the other decent back-up is injury prone. 

The most frustrating thing is the fact we are not getting thrashed. It's like we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory all of the time, the Man Utd game is a prime example, there's always one moment in every game where someone switches off or does something stupid. Last year we were getting tonked, that has been addressed, it's just now seeing the stupid mistakes time and time again, with no obvious reason for it.

It's not even tactical at this point it feels because we are not getting exposed, murdered in midfield or broke against, it's just people who are making errors for what should be routine defending. Even the big teams are only beating us by the odd goal. 

[summatsupeer]

Firstly I would suggest reading the FAQs if you haven't already, that should give you some ideas about issues with your initial tactic.

Secondly i'd post screenshots of your updated tactic.

Thirdly how do you want to play?  All i've noticed so far is you don't want to play boring football? Whats your teams DNA?

[padelno91]

yes more information regarding your tactic will be much appreciated, 4-2-3-1 is maybe asking too much for your team to play since it is suited to more fluid style of play where your midfield and defenders need to get off their line to link up play. if you use other fluidity, the transition of play is just not as good and you will see your players hoof the ball more often.

example your fullbacks need have ppms like run the ball often, and should be played as a wingback and your wide midfielders played as inside forwards

every team has specific play style if you check their dna and ppms,  https://sisportscentre.com/playing-styles-the-attribute-side-of-the-game/

[JustinJJJ]

I think morale is a key problem here, we're playing well every single match now but still not getting the results.

Just played Arsenal and were 1-0 up and defending well, on 78 minutes I had one hooked off the line in probably the best goal-line clearence I've sever seen in FM (some of the ball was already over, but not enough, player had 20 pace to get back, of course it would happen to us!) and they went up the other end and broke against us and scored.

Then to top it all off on 89 minutes my best central midfielder was the victim of a horror tackle that went unpunished was dispossessed and  they scored. I put us on overload to go for a late equaliser, and the most stonewall penalty you are going to see wasn't given and 3 of my players got booked for protesting. 

After the match my whole team was pissed off and I slammed the referee and no action was taken of course because he made an absolute howler, As the MAtch Report, says, Arsenal strike it lucky, they certainly did. 

I will post screenshots later, ideally I want to play a short passing game with a 4-4-2 diamond as I normally played in other FM's, but the fact crosses are so prevelant in this game makes me want to play a 4-4-2 with 4 across the midfield to shut that down. 

We then lost to Chelsea 1-0 from a ball which deflected off two players and off one post and onto the keeper and then into the net, and had a clearly onside goal disallowed which resulted in one of my players being sent off for arguing. Honestly, it's like real life, when you are down there, NOTHING goes  your way.

To top it all off I have Norwich next, and the sending off and two yellows for other players against Chelsea means I have three suspensions as well. You know, a game actually we have a good chance of winning. 

[summatsupeer]

1 hour ago, JustinJJJ said:

...

I will post screenshots later, ideally I want to play a short passing game with a 4-4-2 diamond as I normally played in other FM's, but the fact crosses are so prevelant in this game makes me want to play a 4-4-2 with 4 across the midfield to shut that down. 

...

Thats not a club DNA, that's a passing instruction and a formation.  Think of it as your style of play, then think what attributes that requires of all (or most) of your players.  Whilst having players rated great at the role+duty you give them, the game doesn't consider what team settings you've given them.  Even if you want them to perform very specific roles you still need to consider what your team style is, are you sitting deep, pushing high or somewhere in-between will require a different balance of attributes to do effectively.  Consider playing Anita or Ozil as Advanced Playmaker, they will perform the role very differently because of there attributes, which would fit your team style better?

Are you building a technical team who are good on the ball and look to keep possession and play around your opponents?  A counter attacking style so need players who can defend deep well, and then those in counter positions have the ability the break forward quickly?  A high pressing aggressive strategy that needs good workrate, aggression and fitness?  A fast high tempo style that needs good physical and technical attributes to play at speed.  Just a few examples, there's obviously a lot of other possibilities.

 

[JustinJJJ]

Following a lack of available strikers for various reasons, like injury, ineligible, suspensions and international duty, Whilst I started with 4-4-2 I soon had to abandon it back to 4-2-3-1 and one striker due to lack of strikers.

In the last twenty minutes we scored twice to grab a draw and in the week before the next game I had almost a full squad to select from, save a striker with a broken leg so I figured that against Norwich we were worse at the back after the change, but the midfield battle was much more convincing.

We have 3 strong central midfielders who are excellent and often are sold short by the defence who makes their efforts for nothing, so I figured I'd just play around them and also play Ayew and Iwobi to get my best five midfield/wing players all on the pitch at the same time.

The results are a major turn up for the books. I've basically severely locked down the full backs freedom, and got them sitting quite deep, same with one of the centre backs, against good teams they are still getting found out too much for my liking, but the number of stupid errors has been cut by about 50% they are being less exposed because of the excellent midfielders and against all but the best teams we are dominating midfield and playing some beautiful football and retaining the ball better. However one game we lost 4-2 to Tottenham, most notably that was a game where I had to rest two of my central midfield 3 that got over-run. 

I figured that if we want to stay up, with little money to spend, we need to play to the strengths of the already strong players here. I did something I've always avoided in the past. I sold Wonderkids, raised £20m used that to bring in a couple of strong midfielders to provide backup to my 3 strong ones and sign the one loanee midfielder on a full deal. Whilst I hate selling wonderkids, I haven't been able to blood youngsters for two seasons now and they're rotting in the reserves since I simply can't justify playing them in a relegation battle in anything but cup games. 

Before the draw at Norwich I'd won 1 out of the last 16 games. Since then we've won 6 out of the last 12 including Everton 4-0, QPR 5-0, and Man Utd 2-1. We got a hiding from Tottenham 4-0 where they over-ran the backup midfield, and the other defeats were only by 2-1 or 1-0. Honestly the defending is worse with 4-2-3-1 and we leave oruselves more open at times, but often we're getting early goals now which takes some of the pressure of and raises morale and sometimes the opposition sides heads go down and we hammer them. 

It's not really a long term tactic, but until we can do something better about the defence, next year when we should have more money and time, as long as we stay up I don't care what happens but at one point we were 8 points adrift of safety after 16 games and at the end of the day it's a results business and right now it doesn't matter how we pick up the points long as we do.

When safety is confirmed I can then start to think about further tweaks. 

[JustinJJJ]

Still concede too many goals but in the third season we cut out the stupid errors by about 50% by tweaking 4-2-3-1 and ended up finishing 6th (with 1 point separating 6th-8th) but in the second half of the season we were very inconsistent due to an injury crisis across the attacking positions from January pretty much until the end of the season.

I had my AML, AMR and AMC pretty much out from January onwards for the rest of the season apart from last two games with another winger injured in African Nationas Cup (3 months) and our replacements were not of the same standard and my STC went on a goal drought and backup broke his leg. Second half of the season we managed a lot of 1-0 wins, thanks to teams starting to play 10 behind the ball, which is the last thing you want during an  injury crisis of creative players. 

I still have problems with my left back, I've had 3 different players there last year and all of them played crap no matter what I do with them and how much I tweak them, and we're still prone to stupid mistakes at the back, mostly from the left back area. and no matter what I do nothing stops, the strange thing is it doesn't happen on the right at all, although the players are given same instructions and similar attributes wise. 

However defensively we are better, I recruited Gary Cahill,, Daryl Janmaat and Jack Butland to restructure the defence again, knocked the GK, DR and CB that did poorly last year to reserves which allowed me to clear out the previous backups who were not really fit for the Premier League, but were considering Leading Championship players. 

I've spent more money in this game easily than any other game FM, although I've made a huge amount of money by selling wonderkids, but part of me is really annoyed that virtually none of them have got any game time, since they've literally been developed to raise cash to sort the first team out, but I wasn't going to reject £27.5m for Andre Dozzell when he's only 1.5 stars even if he's potential 5. 

[Earnie is God!]

I share your frustration with this year's version. We finished 3rd in the end so a very successful season but the game just infuriates me. Like yourself, I've raised a lot of money through player sales and actually started the new season with a transfer kitty of £180m! This has accumulated over the seasons and has mainly come from buying really good but unwanted/undervalued players on the cheap and then selling them on 12-18 months later for a huge profit. I've done this with Wilshere (£9m, sold for £34m), Kranevitter (£10m -> £30m), Varela (£550k -> £14m), Rui Pires (£475k -> £32m) and a number of others.

So, financially, it is going great. Results are good and continuing to improve (1st in Championship followed by 9th, 6th and 3rd in EPL). So it's not as if things are going really badly. The game is just a massive pain in the arse in other ways, mainly tactics/set piece instructions not being followed, stupid errors (see my "Ever Have One of those Games?" thread) and average players managing to splay the ball superbly 50yds to a FB who crosses to the far post for his fellow FB to smash into the net.

I'm actually now back playing FM15 as I don't get so annoyed with it.

[herne79]

There seems to be a lot of anecdotal discussion here about new players, budgets and results but very little about what you are doing tactically.  There is a 4231 posted on 7 August, but since then there has been discussion about 4411 and 442 as well (although not in terms of how they are set up).

Are you still looking for help?  If so please post your detailed tactical set up and exactly what it is you need help with.