Franky's PUNISHER Tactic for FM 17 (17.3) - upgrade of HUSTLER & DESTROYER tactics!!!

[Franky.]

PLEASE NOTE: I've removed this tactic because the more I modified it, the more it was looking like my HUSTLER Tactic and the be all and end all is that HUSTLER v3 is the superior tactic so no point wasting anybody's time with this one. The write up will remain for now, in case the tactic gets resurrected at a later date.

This is basically an amalgamation of my HUSTLER and DESTROYER tactics and is called PUNISHER because yes , you've guessed it..... it PUNISHES your opponents . The two main philosophies of the tactic are high pressing and central overload, whereby you outnumber the opposition defence in the central area in order to create passing options that lead to goal scoring opportunities. A third strategy is for the wing backs to provide a wide option when things get congested in the middle. Opponent full backs are left with a dilemma. Do they go out wide and engage your wing backs or do they stay central and help the centre backs deal with your 5 attackers driving forward (STCR,STCL,AMC,BBMR & BBML)? This ensures that your team can overload your opponents either centrally or out wide and is the main attacking strategy deployed by the tactic. The team instructions are also much simplified in order to allow the attacking  players to make their own decisions when to go wide and when to play centrally in the final third. Not much is forced upon them and they are allowed to make choices within the confines of the tactic. It's a two set tactic and the standard version is also far more possession based and you can now dominate opponents like never before but without sacrificing too much attacking potency. I would have called this TOTAL DOMINATION but alas, that name's already taken . In my humble opinion, I really do feel it is an upgrade of the two aforementioned tactics with probably the biggest difference being that it's defensively tighter so if you enjoyed either of those, I'm certain you will absolutely love this.

FORMATION

PLAYERS REQUIRED

Wing Backs – These guys will get forward and provide a wide option and also to act as decoys by stretching the defence, which helps create space for the attackers through the middle. High dribbling, crossing and work rate are the three most important attributes from an attacking perspective. Should also be quick in order to work the flanks effectively.

PPM to set (in order of importance)......... 1) gets forward whenever possible......... 2) does not dive into tackles......... 3) hugs line.

Training focus - crossing or dribbling, whichever is less.

Centre Backs - There's a regular centre back in both DCR and DCL positions...... no specific requirements.

PPM to set......... 1) runs with ball rarely......... 2) plays short simple passes (if passing ability is poor).

Training focus - positioning, marking or tackling...... whichever is less.

NOTE: Unlike my previous tactics, do NOT change to 'ball playing defender' even if they are more suited to that role.

CM – Sits in front of the back four and sweeps up a lot the opposition clearances, thus putting out fires before they start. His ability to win the ball in the middle of the park allows the the front 3 plus both BBMs and IWBs to operate in a highly attacking manner. Also offers a passing option as he's always unmarked. When it's played to him, he's on the lookout to play it forward and get the attack going again. Needs to have a reasonably high work rate as he'll be doing a lot of closing down so a hard working player with decent passing/vision like Schneiderlin would be perfect.

PPM to set......... 1) stays back at all times........ 2) tries first time shots.

Training focus - 'passing' if less than 13, otherwise 'long shots'.

NOTE: You can also use a ball winning midfielder or central midfielder if your centre mid has less than 8/10 in the green 'role suitability' circle. However, only make the switch if he's at least 2/10 better in the other role. If used as a BWM, when he picks up a booking, switch him back to the default CM role and set him to 'ease off tackles'.

Box to Box Midfielder (right and left) - They play a triple role. Firstly providing defensive cover on the flank in front of their wing back, ensuring the opposition's wide man doesn't get an easy ride. Secondly, getting forward to score and assist and thirdly, making decoy runs to take a defender out of the game, thus freeing up space for a team mate. Will work relentlessly to help the team win the ball back so a high work rate is very important. From an attacking perspective, they'll be getting into goal scoring positions so good finishing and composure will also be helpful. Decent long shot ability for your BBM on the right will net your team many bonus goals throughout the course of a season.

PPM to set......... 1) gets into opposition area...... 2) gets forward whenever possible. If long shot attribute of 13+ then 'shoots from distance' and 'shoots with power' then 'tries first time shots'.

Training focus - finishing or composure, whichever is less.

NOTE: The better long shooter of the two BBMs should be on the RIGHT as set-pieces are designed to create long shot opportunities for him. Again, if your BBMs have less than 8/10 in the green 'role suitability' circle, you can use them as BWMs or CMs if they are at least 2/10 better in either of those roles. Just make sure to retain the 'get further forward' player instruction.

Shadow Striker – Will support the strikers and get on the end of attacking plays so needs decent finishing and composure. Not essential but being quick will be an advantage as he'll regularly be played through on goal and his pace will allow him to get free of his marker and get a 'one on one' with the keeper. If he's not quick then make sure he makes up for the lack of pace by being creative instead so high passing and vision will then be a must.

Training focus - finishing or composure or 'off the ball', whichever is less.

PPM to set........ 1) gets into opposition area...... 2) places shots or shoots with power (doesn't matter which)...... 3) plays one-twos.

NOTE: If your SS has less than 8/10 in the green suitability circle then you can use him as an Enganche or Attacking Midfielder (attack) if he is at least 2/10 better in either of those roles.

Complete Forward (right) – Playing a dual role of creating chances for others and scoring himself, although not absolutely essential, he should be a creative striker. Creativity (passing and vision) will mean many chances created for others. He'll be sitting deeper at defensive set-pieces and will look to play in primarily his strike partner but also the Shadow Striker. If you don't have a creative striker then it's no huge problem, just use anyone suitable for the role.

PPM to set......... 1) if good passing and vision then 'tries killer balls often........ 3) moves into channels....... 4) shoots with power.

Training focus - passing.

NOTE: If your CF has less than 8/10 in the green suitability circle for the CF role, you can use him as a False 9 if he is at least 2/10 better in that role.

Complete Forward (left) - The main goalscorer of the team. Aside from decent finishing, composure and 'off the ball' ability required for all strikers, must be quick as he'll be played through on goal by those behind him and his pace will allow him to get free of his marker.

Training focus - finishing, composure or 'off the ball', whichever is less.

PPM to set......... 1) likes to try to beat offside trap...... 2) moves into channels...... 3) knocks ball past opponent........ 3) places shots...... 4) likes to round keeper.

NOTE: If your CF has less than 8/10 in the green suitability circle, you can use him as an Advanced Forward or Poacher (in that order of priority) if he is at least 2/10 better in any of those roles.

NOTE regarding both strikers: Ideally, you want a creative striker on the right and a fast striker on the left, although if you don't have such a strike pairing then it's no big deal..... just use whoever you have with the quicker of the two on the left.

TACTIC USAGE

This is a two set tactic (attacking and standard) and you start with the attacking version when pre-match favourites at home and standard version for ALL other matches. Attacking is highly aggressive and designed to beat teams who come up to your place and park the bus or to be used when chasing the game. Standard adopts a more sensible and balanced approach without being aggressive or overly cautious and can also be used to see out games. All player instructions are the same for both versions, the difference is in the team instructions. Tactic usage is a little bit more complicated than just using one or the other as it's dictated by the match situation and what your objective is so I've tried to simplify it by advising on what to do in the following scenarios......

Pre-match favourite at home - start with attacking.

All other matches - start with standard.

Do NOT switch tactics until half-time, after which I would advise the following............

You need to score (home and away) - attacking.

Started on attacking (at home), are ahead but want more goals and don't feel the opponent is good enough to get back into the game - attacking.

All other scenarios - standard.

NOTE: Make sure to keep the opponent formation box open in the corner of the screen and set your wing backs to support duty WHENEVER your opponent goes to an attacking style unless you need to score, in which case leave them on attack duty. Also, when switching tactics, any booked players that you have set to 'ease off tackles' will automatically revert to 'tackle harder' so will manually need to be re-set again to 'ease off tackles'.

Needless to say, majority of the time you will be using the standard version. Bear in mind that the attacking version is there just to break down teams who park the bus or when you are chasing the game in the second half. Standard is also less physically demanding on your players and will help conserve energy better so if you have a hectic fixture schedule and don't have maximum rotation options, it's best to use attacking only when absolutely necessary.

OPPOSITION INSTRUCTIONS (3 options)

There are 3 options here and as with the tactic usage formula, hard to say which works best. Personally, I don't use any OIs myself and it's dubious whether they make any difference whatsoever other than give you extra work to do in-game .

Option 1: Do NOT use any opposition instructions.

Option 2: Simply leave them to the assistant manager.

Option 3: Use the following...........

All strikers........... closing down - always

Wide players (WBR/WBL, MR/ML, AMR/AML)............ show onto foot - weaker foot

When using option 3, make sure to monitor the opponent's formation so if they change, you can maintain the above OIs.

TEAM TALKS

I let the assistant manager deal with team talks as I'm playing the Touch version of the game where you can't do team talks yourself. Just make sure to have a decent assistant manager who has high attributes for Tactical Knowledge, Judging Player Ability and Motivating. Obviously, if you know what you're doing then would be better to do team talks yourself.

FURTHER INFORMATION/ADVICE

Both CB's and BBM (right) must NOT be on corner taking duty as they will be your main scorers from attacking corners, plus inswinging corners are preferable. The right sided striker (STCR) should also not be on corner taking duty unless his corner taking ability is head and shoulders above the others. 

As soon as a player picks up a booking, manually set him to 'ease off tackles' in order to avoid a second yellow.

Do not buy any midfielders or wing backs with a poor work rate as they're not compatible with the demands of this tactic. The absolute minimum in the top division should be 13, although you're really pushing it even with that.

For your best free-kick takers, set their PPM to 'tries long range free kicks' as the default setting is to float the ball into the box, even when there's a clear scoring opportunity with a direct shot. Once this PPM is acquired, they won't waste such opportunities.

Every player that has less than 13 for long shots (in the top division) should be trained to 'refrain from taking long shots'. For the strikers and AMC, this is a priority as they're most prone to wasting good passing opportunities by taking ridiculous shots from distance....... this PPM will help to minimize that.

ALL players with a finishing attribute of less than 12 (in the top division) should be trained to 'looks for pass rather than attempting to score'. Again, this is in order to minimize the amount of wasted efforts on goal. They will still take shots at goal but only from decent scoring opportunities.

Any player with a 'passing' and 'vision' combined total of 28+ in the top division, set his PPM to 'tries killer balls often' and 'tries long range passes'. Once acquired, these guys will more often look to play the ball over the top for one of the attackers to run onto.

In the top division, make sure all 4 defenders have minimum combined pace/acceleration of 25. Any less than that and they could be a liability as due to the high defensive line and 'offside trap', they will stand less chance of being able to recover if they get caught out of position with a ball over the top.

If you get a red card, remove one of the strikers and resit the other one directly in front of the SS. 

This is optional but will help. If your best long shooter has 'shoots from distance' as one of his PPMs, set him to 'lurk outside area' from attacking corners so just switch him with the BBM (right) who is in that position by default.

As always, please leave feedback....thanks in advance 

 

I've mainly just used this in testing and haven't actually played much with it as yet but here's a couple of screens of how dominating it can be, although ignore the fact that my attackers were extremely wasteful..............

EDIT 24/4/17: Tactic has been updated to version 1.1ca. Now a two set tactic so please see the TACTIC USAGE section above for complete instructions on how to use. As always, feedback is appreciated 

 

 

 

 

[Wecantstopwewontstop]

I am going to start a new game and test this with Galatasaray.

I will get back to you with results.

[mcgaffer]

Great Work again Franky, How are you using Strikers? I've had a fair bit of success with a Right Footed Striker on CFA on the left coming inside and powering home. Have you any preference?

[Franky.]

1 hour ago, mcgaffer said:

Great Work again Franky, How are you using Strikers? I've had a fair bit of success with a Right Footed Striker on CFA on the left coming inside and powering home. Have you any preference?

With this tactic, I don't particularly want them coming inside. They're more effective when running the channels as they'll take a defender out wide, drive to the byline and get a cross in that will lead to a tap in for his strike partner or the runners from midfield. This is why I recommend both strikers to be trained with the PPM 'moves into channels'. Also, as already mentioned in the original post, the fast striker should be on the left and the more creative one who has better passing and vision on the right as he'll be sitting deeper at defensive set-pieces and will look to quickly release the fast striker and AMC on the counter. 

[mcgaffer]

I get what your saying but my Milan team (3 Seasons in and not really suited) who I would like to use this with. What combo would you recommend?

Bellotti is the best stiker, his currents ppms are Beats offside and Move into channels and training Shoots with Power, Diego Jota is the fastest and most skilful so I'm retraining him and Bernardeschi for that right sided role. 

The thing is with my planned right side being much quicker than your recommended settings would it be better to use the left side on CF attack?

[Franky.]

28 minutes ago, mcgaffer said:

I get what your saying but my Milan team (3 Seasons in and not really suited) who I would like to use this with. What combo would you recommend?

Bellotti is the best stiker, his currents ppms are Beats offside and Move into channels and training Shoots with Power, Diego Jota is the fastest and most skilful so I'm retraining him and Bernardeschi for that right sided role. 

The thing is with my planned right side being much quicker than your recommended settings would it be better to use the left side on CF attack?

I suppose with conflicting attributes for your strikers, it can be a dilemma as to who you want to play on which side so I would ignore the PPMs as they don't affect which side you should play them. For example, 'likes to beat offside trap' PPM is preferable on the left striker but okay to have on either side, it's not gonna make or break anything. For simplification, just look at four attributes..... A) pace/acceleration and B) passing/vision. The striker with highest A attributes should be played on the left and the one with highest B attributes on the right. If he has the best A and B attributes of both strikers then doesn't really matter. In my Wycombe game (season 3 in EPL), I had to pair up two slow strikers and I just used the one with best passing/vision on the right and ignored all other attributes....... really important to train them up to 'move into channels' as that makes the tactic tick.

Jota would be best on the left  as that's where you want to play your fast striker.

[TioPatinhax]

Does this work at very low level? Im playing in 3rd div of Portugal and it doesnt work

[Wecantstopwewontstop]

The issue I am having with this formation as Galatasaray is that, we destroy ( as we should ) little teams but when I face against Fenerbahce, Besiktas or Trabzonspor, then my team plays like ****. :|

[mcgaffer]

23 minutes ago, Wecantstopwewontstop said:

The issue I am having with this formation as Galatasaray is that, we destroy ( as we should ) little teams but when I face against Fenerbahce, Besiktas or Trabzonspor, then my team plays like ****. :|

Just my 2 Cents and I Don't know how franky thinks on this, but for me and in most tactics I'v tried on 17.3 ticking Dribble Less in big games or against stronger teams helps the team be more precise with everything they do. They don't dribble and lose the ball as much and they seem to only dribble nearer to the goal when appropriate. Passing becomes much quicker and crisper and I'v had some amazing results in doing so. Also try playing a few ticks wider if they have a DMC, players will run at them just a little wider thereby opening up the pitch in the middle.

Also as Franky says, Lower the Mentality to what you think your side is good enough to be doing, you will then learn what works for your particular team and will get much better performances. 

 

[Franky.]

27 minutes ago, mcgaffer said:

Just my 2 Cents and I Don't know how franky thinks on this, but for me and in most tactics I'v tried on 17.3 ticking Dribble Less in big games or against stronger teams helps the team be more precise with everything they do. They don't dribble and lose the ball as much and they seem to only dribble nearer to the goal when appropriate. Passing becomes much quicker and crisper and I'v had some amazing results in doing so. Also try playing a few ticks wider if they have a DMC, players will run at them just a little wider thereby opening up the pitch in the middle.

Also as Franky says, Lower the Mentality to what you think your side is good enough to be doing, you will then learn what works for your particular team and will get much better performances. 

 

Yes, there's lots of things a manager can do depending on the opposition. The reason I don't advise on adjusting certain settings (eg. play wider, dribble less etc) is not because it won't work but because I prefer to focus on the tactic basics and advice regarding the tactic itself. Changes such as the ones mentioned are entirely up to each individual manager. To keep my original posts from containing too much information and getting over complicated, I only ever advise on universal settings/advice...... obviously when you get down to it, there's lots of micro management that can be done depending on opponents and the individual attributes of your players. A very simple and basic example would be to get good dribblers to dribble more and poor dribblers to dribble less......... and much more that can be done to tailor a tactic to the strengths of your team/players.

[mcgaffer]

Absolutely agree, just giving a little micro managing advice as this is a killer tactic.  

I'm so confident in the tactic that for 1st time on FM17 I'm actually using 2 completely different 11s for a bit of rotation and i'm unbeaten since i began using it. 

[M.U.F.C....TSVR]

I can't download it, its forbidden

[Franky.]

Updated to v1.2 but reverted back to v1.1 as upon further testing, 1.1 is more consistent.

3 hours ago, M.U.F.C....TSVR said:

I can't download it, its forbidden

Try it now  

[M.U.F.C....TSVR]

4 hours ago, Franky. said:

Updated to v1.2 but reverted back to v1.1 as upon further testing, 1.1 is more consistent.

Try it now  

That's brilliant, thanks  mate. Your hustler tactic is amazing, doing really well 5 years in as United. Wanna try this, will report back after a few matches! 

 

[rammalc]

i take it by the lack of activity on this thread it's not getting rave reviews ? I tried it on a save where i already was 2nd in the Championship with half a season to go , finished 2nd but had a losing run of 5 games at the end and just lost first game in Prem 4-0 at home to Watford so think it might be back to the drawing board for me at least . Was dominating games but losing by odd goals in Championship , Prem is a different kettle of fish clearly especially with Watford favorites to go down 

[Xtal1]

I like this tactic a lot.

Love the fluidity in attack, although I feel like the full backs don't have a lot of impact in the attack compared to every other tactic I've used.

It takes a bit of time to get going, even then it might be quite some time until the players learn all of the required PPM's.

[Ross Ingersoll]

took some time away from fm for a break but back now so will give this new one a try. 

[Punt]

22 hours ago, Ross Ingersoll said:

took some time away from fm for a break but back now so will give this new one a try. 

Same here. Going to start a long term save today and give a thorough try.

[Franky.]

23 hours ago, Ross Ingersoll said:

took some time away from fm for a break but back now so will give this new one a try. 

 

57 minutes ago, Punt said:

Same here. Going to start a long term save today and give a thorough try.

 

On 4/18/2017 at 02:56, Xtal1 said:

I like this tactic a lot.

Love the fluidity in attack, although I feel like the full backs don't have a lot of impact in the attack compared to every other tactic I've used.

It takes a bit of time to get going, even then it might be quite some time until the players learn all of the required PPM's.

 

On 4/16/2017 at 17:36, rammalc said:

i take it by the lack of activity on this thread it's not getting rave reviews ? I tried it on a save where i already was 2nd in the Championship with half a season to go , finished 2nd but had a losing run of 5 games at the end and just lost first game in Prem 4-0 at home to Watford so think it might be back to the drawing board for me at least . Was dominating games but losing by odd goals in Championship , Prem is a different kettle of fish clearly especially with Watford favorites to go down 

Guys, treat this tactic as a beta version. I will be updating it but need your feedback as to what you think needs addressing. Personally, what I've found is that it's susceptible to the cheap cross to the near post tap in goal that the FM match engine loves so much...... if there's anything else you find, please let me know as I'd like to address any issues before updating....... thanks in advance  

[Franky.]

DELETED.

 

[rammalc]

Franky , Don't scrap it !!! i went back to start off with the updated tactic on the save i had and a miracle happened lol The save had a match about to start so instead of changing tactics i let it play , i beat leicester 7-1 !! so i let it role and went on to then beat Chelsea , Tottenham , Arsenal and Man City plus Middlesborough 7-2 . I'm now 5th in the Prem and really flying , i pick up a few too many yellow cards for my liking but can live with it . The tactic obviously needed a bit longer than i gave it to kick in but by the Gods it's working now

[rammalc]

keeps on getting better ..............

[SiMats69]

I'm having fun with this tactic. Have taken Eastleigh into the Premier League so I don't think you should scrap it. I get some strange results sometimes and consistency is almost non-existent, but I love the simplicity of it as I don't have a lot of time to play.

[Baron Greenback]

Hi Franky,

I've played through pre-season with the first version of this (before the last update) and it's been going well. I just played each match with it in it's default form and gave Stoke a 4-0 spanking along the way (just to remind you I am Salford in L1 following successive promotions)! Totally smashed them.

I've just played my first game of the season proper away from home and was 1-10 favourites to lose and won 3-0! This time I followed the tactic usage setting for the scenario and set the mentality to Standard. When I went into the instructions to set the tempo to normal it was already there so went for it and the result speaks for itself.

Quick note; because I am shooting up through the leagues I haven't bothered training the PPM's. I've just started to this season as I may have some of these players for a couple of years now so hoping it's going to get even better!

I hope this goes some way to reassuring you that this tactic has some fantastic potential. I will be getting a few more games played tonight so will update when I'm finished for the night.

BG

[Baron Greenback]

Hi,

Forgot to update last night but some mixed results. I dominated all but 1 of the 5 games I ended up playing. Despite that, I lost 3. 1 loss was to Prem Bournemouth in the EFL 3-1. I had the best of the game but lost to superior finishing. Another was 1-0 when i absolutely dominated allnaspects of the match. Only had 4 shots against compared to my 20 something but still somehow managed to lose. This isnt unusual at the start of a season though so not deterred by it.

My worst result was a 4-0 thrashing where I was just battered throughout but I countered that with an 8-1 demolition of Crewe at home so still some promising signs! I need the tactics to bed in for a few more games but I think its looking good.

One thing to mention, I seem to be playing with quite a high tempo in the default mode. I forgot to check what it's set at but it seems to be working nonetheless so will stick with it. The reason I mention this is because in the tactic usage section you mention default being a much lower tempo in line with Hustler but they're pinging the ball around quite quickly.

BG

[Franky.]

Baron and Rammalc, thanks for your feedback. The thing that made me pull the tactic was the fact that more than any other tactic I've created, this one seemed to get FM'd the most. Dominate games, only for my opponents to score with their only shot of the game. I know this is hard coded into the match engine where your world class strikers are not very clinical and the AI's average strikers are deadly assassins  but when using this tactic, things went up a notch and it was happening almost every game, which led me to believe there may be a flaw within the tactic that is causing this to happen continually....... of course, it could just be that I was being extremely unfortunate and thus getting paranoid. Still, what's done is done and I've reverted to using regular wing backs instead of IWBs and have updated PUNISHER with a two set tactic, attacking and standard. You start with the attacking version when pre-match favourites at home and standard version for ALL other matches. Attacking is highly aggressive and designed to beat teams who come up to your place and park the bus. Standard adopts a more sensible and balanced approach without being aggressive or overly cautious and can also be used to see out games. All player instructions are the same for both versions, the difference is in the team instructions. Tactic usage is a little bit more complicated than just using one or the other as it's dictated by the match situation and what your objective is so I've tried to simplify it by advising on what to do in the following scenarios......

Pre-match favourite at home - start with attacking.

All other matches - start with standard.

Do NOT switch tactics until half-time, after which I would advise the following............

You need to score (home and away) - attacking.

Started on attacking (at home), are ahead but want more goals and don't feel the opponent is good enough to get back into the game - attacking.

All other scenarios - standard.

NOTE: Make sure to keep the opponent formation box open in the corner of the screen and set your wing backs to support duty WHENEVER your opponent goes to an attacking style unless you need to score, in which case leave them on attack duty. Also, when switching tactics, any booked players that you have set to 'ease off tackles' will automatically revert to 'tackle harder' so will manually need to be re-set again to 'ease off tackles'.

Needless to say, majority of the time you will be using the standard version. Bear in mind that the attacking version is there just to break down teams who park the bus or when you are chasing the game in the second half...... your feedback is valuable so please let us know how you get on.

 

 

 

[rammalc]

Franky , i'm by no means anything than a plug and play manager , i've no idea what i should and shouldn't be doing but this tactic straight out the box has been incredible for me . I'm currently 2nd in the Prem with Derby County and some astounding results scoring 7's and 8's along the way . It's by no means unbeatable , i've had bizarre freak results with 30 shots and lose 3-2 to their only 3 shots but by and large it's pretty impressive . As i said i've done nothing when playing , the AM takes everything but for half time where i give aggressive you're not good enough talks . One thing i have noticed is i see a lot of 0-0 at half time scores that i then win 2-0 or 3-0 after the rollicking

[rammalc]

As you can see we do like a shot , if only i had decent strikers lol 

[Baron Greenback]

I know exactly what you mean by FM'd. It's very annoying! I'll make the switch to the updated version when I hopefully get on later and see how it goes as I have had 2 results go against me where I was clearly the better team.

I'll let you know how I get on!

[Franky.]

DELETED

 

 

[Baron Greenback]

I'm on it as we speak.

Another thing I was going to mention earlier; none of my strikers can play as a CF so I switched the left sided guy to an AF and the right side to a F9. I'm still training them to run into channels etc but there's a serious lack of CF's at this level so I'm having to improvise. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on those changes.

If you think the tactic would work with 2 AF's then please do say because all of my strikers are natural!

[Franky.]

17 minutes ago, Baron Greenback said:

I'm on it as we speak.

Another thing I was going to mention earlier; none of my strikers can play as a CF so I switched the left sided guy to an AF and the right side to a F9. I'm still training them to run into channels etc but there's a serious lack of CF's at this level so I'm having to improvise. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on those changes.

If you think the tactic would work with 2 AF's then please do say because all of my strikers are natural!

I've not tried using AFs but there's no reason why they shouldn't work as well as CFs. The only thing with AFs is they don't 'move into channels' to clear the way for the marauding shadow striker and BBMs but I imagine this can be overcome by setting them to 'roam from position'. In reality, all striker roles should be suitable for this tactic so long as they either move into channels and/or roam from position because the idea is to take defenders away from the central area, thus opening it up for the runners to attack. The only role that would make a big difference to how the team plays would be the target man role, as the players would lump it up to him but even then, if he wins the aerial battles, there should be lots of knock downs for the runners to latch onto....... anyway, let us know how it goes and I advise using the tactic(s) in the second update today (i.e. v1.1cab).

[Baron Greenback]

Just played the first match and been hammered 4-1! The team looked very vulnerable to the counter.

[rammalc]

First game with newest variant , a decent win against 7th place Stoke but does seem way less shots than have been producing 

[Baron Greenback]

2 losses out of 3.  I think I'm going to switch back to Hustler for a bit. Something just isn't working and I'm not sure if it's my players not being up to the standard requires for the league or an issue with the tactic.

 

The play around the box is great to watch but it's inconsistent.

[Franky.]

1 hour ago, rammalc said:

First game with newest variant , a decent win against 7th place Stoke but does seem way less shots than have been producing 

 

23 minutes ago, Baron Greenback said:

2 losses out of 3.  I think I'm going to switch back to Hustler for a bit. Something just isn't working and I'm not sure if it's my players not being up to the standard requires for the league or an issue with the tactic.

 

The play around the box is great to watch but it's inconsistent.

Thanks for that. It's made up my mind that v1.1ca (the first upload today) is the better version, although not much in it so for that reason, I will just leave it at that and not tinker any further. I'm also going to introduce a standard version for HUSTLER and will update that thread to make that a two set tactic as well.

[Baron Greenback]

Just so you know, I played one more match tonight before shutting down and used Hustler in its most recent form and won 6-1 away from home against superior opposition using the standard attacking version. I find that it works better for me than the standard mentality version... Just some food for thought!

[Franky.]

1 minute ago, Baron Greenback said:

Just so you know, I played one more match tonight before shutting down and used Hustler in its most recent form and won 6-1 away from home against superior opposition using the standard attacking version. I find that it works better for me than the standard mentality version... Just some food for thought!

Is that v1.2c or v2?

[Baron Greenback]

Erm...it's the version which was the update following the release of the 17.3 patch, so v2 I think...?

[Niall76]

20 hours ago, Baron Greenback said:

I'm on it as we speak.

Another thing I was going to mention earlier; none of my strikers can play as a CF so I switched the left sided guy to an AF and the right side to a F9. I'm still training them to run into channels etc but there's a serious lack of CF's at this level so I'm having to improvise. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on those changes.

If you think the tactic would work with 2 AF's then please do say because all of my strikers are natural!

I've done the exact same with L1 Poole Town. The F9 was immense in our first and only game - a 4-3 (aet) loss at Premier League Reading in the League Cup. The standard mentality seems to create more chances!

[rammalc]

well i used the 2 new variants in this thread against Spurs who'd passed me into 2nd place . Mistakenly used attacking and lost 4-1 , switched to Standard as save game was day before match and replayed and won 4-1 . Really reluctant to completely change tactic again with only 2 months of season left so will carry on with this for now and see what you guys find

[Baron Greenback]

I'm still using Hustler and having played 7 games now since switching back, I've won 6 and drawn 1. I've scored 19 goals and conceded 5. I've started every game on attacking regardless of the odds as I seem to get better results like that. By contrast, using Punisher, I'd played 9 games and lost 5 of those. Scored 17 and conceded 15.

Both sets of tactics were fully fluid. The actual play from Punished was much more impressive to watch, but the results just weren't there for me. Hope this helps in some way.