FM17 - A Tactical Journey

[BlueScreen]

Fantastic thread so far.

I'm focusing on the tatical side of things, more than ever, and this thread is helping a lot. The inclusion of videos is very helpful, because we can see the full picture. With just images of the gameplay, it's not so clear, at least for me.

Keep up the good work

[herne79]

Preparing for the Champion's League (off-season trading)

So despite my best efforts at trying to cock things up (yes, Barcelona still rankles) we'll be playing CL football next season.

Potentially that's a step up in the quality of opposition and so I might need to re-assess my squad to see where I can develop things.  So:

1) Manager errors not withstanding, we successfully traded blows with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico and Man City, plus we won La Liga, all of which show I have a capable squad already so I don't believe I need a major overhaul.

2) I have a couple of 18/19 year olds ready to break into the first team that I don't want to send to my affiliate clubs.  This means I need to move on players to make room for them.

3) A lot of my players are wanted by other teams, so I'll have some decisions to make.

4) There will probably be some surprises so I need a Plan B for most of my players if the worst comes to the worst and I need to replace them.

5) My back-up keeper came to me before the end of the season and wanted to leave, so if nothing else I'll need a replacement there.

 

Young Break Out Players

This is the central defender I want to bring into my first team.  Massive potential and more than ready for the step up.  Possibly not the best ever personality, but not the worst either and my coaches don't have any bad things to say personality wise.  He's also been training really well and successfully concluded Tutoring from my Professional tutor.

But I already have 4 central defenders and I don't need more, so one has to go - and my 30 year old Professional tutor is the one for the chop.  He was only a Back up / rotation option anyway and not really good enough for the coming season.

 

Wanted by Other Teams

I refuse to lose my best players, so I'm going to upset some of them.  Sure enough, I start to receive offers from some of the giant clubs which I reject, which are swiftly followed by players wanting a chat .

In these situations, my first port of call is always my Captain.  There's an option to ask the Captain to intervene, there's nothing to lose so why not.  And whether by luck or judgement I found my Captain was successful in several of these situations.  This only left me with 3 players to deal with myself.  I convinced two to stay through telling them I didn't think they'd get much game time which left me just one that I upset.  I eventually told him he could go when someone matches his buy out clause which he didn't like, but tough I didn't want to lose him.

This did also result in a team meeting as a couple of his mates weren't happy I'd blocked his move, but I explained selling him would weaken the squad which they accepted.  How you set yourself up during the Manager creation process helps here, as does Manager progression.

As it turned out, I eventually had an email telling me he was happy to stay at the club as the other team had dropped their interest in him.

 

Surprises

The first surprise was losing the young left back I'd been developing.  I'd signed him the previous summer on a free as someone with loads of potential and he'd been having some first team action since.  Spurs came in with his buy out clause fee (£19m) so off he went.  I'm really not going to get upset about a £19m profit after 12 months.  This is his replacement that I picked up for just £750k (also his buy out fee).  Probably won't ever be a super star, but plenty of potential to develop into a sound squad player.  Normally I'd have put him into a reserve / Youth team as I think he cold use another year there, but I reckon he'll be ok to bring on towards the end of matches or play in easy cup games.

My second surprise was my first choice 'keeper wanting to leave for Monaco.  I could have fought to keep him, but being offered £26m (rising to £33.5m with add ons) was a no brainer, especially as I already had an even better 'keeper lined up who only cost me £15m:

I'll say a quick word about keepers here as I never really see much written about them.  The first two things I look for in a keeper are Reflexes, One on Ones and Height/Aerial Reach.  OK that's three things, but Reflexes and One on Ones are my prime concern here.  And being good in the air.  For me, everything else is of secondary importance and a bonus.

So why those two attributes?  Here's what the Online Manual says about these attributes:

Reflexes

How good the goalkeeper is at reacting to unpredictable events. If he has a high Reflexes rating, he will be able to respond to the unforeseen with more success and be able to pull off highlight reel saves, or clear the ball to safety.

One on Ones

The ability of the goalkeeper to do well when faced with an opponent in a one on one situation. Higher attributes will see goalkeepers attempt to impose themselves and win the ball with confidence.

"Highlight reel saves".  "Win the ball with confidence".

How often do we see keepers pull off miracle saves from seemingly improbable angles?  It's not exactly uncommon to see posts made about that (usually followed by calls for keepers to be nerfed or to buff Finishing).  So yeh, I'll have me some highlight reel saves thanks.

And One on One situations aren't uncommon either, so having my keeper ready to deal with that can only help.

(Height / Aerial Reach gets an honourable mention to deal with crosses).

 

Back up Keeper

Not overly fussed here to be honest as he's really just a bench warmer.  However I'll still make a nod to my desired keeper attributes.  This guy was available on a free transfer and happily accepted a small wage with Back Up status.  He has a decent personality too, so should train well and could eventually be used as a Tutor.

 

All in all not an awful lot of squad building really as I'm in a pretty happy place with my players.

Next post will be a write up for my Spanish Super Cup match against Barcelona at the Camp Nou.  I am not going to make the same mistakes twice .

[Jellico73]

Rulli was the keeper for PSG in my Dunkerque save for many years.

I took to calling him the 'Great Wall of Rulli" because he stopped everything (well, nearly) that came his way.  

Jellico73

[nextqprmanager]

My Youngsters don`t look that good !

Just changed my HOYD though

Great post - I`m always learning - thx

[herne79]

36 minutes ago, nextqprmanager said:

My Youngsters don`t look that good !

Yeh that central defender is a bit of a freak.  A few years and he'll be world class I reckon.  When I took charge 12 months ago the kid was already there and pretty much ready for the first team then.  I just kept him in the U19s for an extra season and gave him some tutoring. 

Sevilla have an excellent youth set up and HoYD.

[herne79]

Barcelona vs Sevilla 2: Camp Who?

I've been itching for some payback and I had an early season opportunity in the 1st leg of  the Spanish Super Cup away at the Camp Nou.  Although you'll be pleased to know that stupidity hasn't entirely left me as I forgot to press record for the live action, so the video is highlights only. 

Luckily that's not a big problem as in terms of watching out for tactical tweaks and changes during the match I changed precisely nothing.  It was one of those matches where changes simply weren't needed.  Take a look at the Match Stats and you'll start to see why:

A 4-0 win, 61% possession, 13/19 shots on target (just 4 off target shots) while restricting Barca to just 2 on target shots, almost 900 passes with 83% complete.  This ranks as one of my best ever results, and I forgot to press record .

I'll also link the Player Stats page.  Note who's making the passes:  Morango (my RPM) and Merino (my TQ) dominate proceedings.

Here's the highlights video, with some points of interest described below.

Overall, when Sevilla are in possession, try to watch my players who don't have the ball.  I think their movement to find pockets of space all over the pitch is excellent and not only helps with possession but also to make good use of the possession.

Video time 00:25 - Barca's winger Amaro makes a good break down my left flank and attempts to pull the ball back to the edge of the box for the waiting Barca attackers.  It's my BWM (Otavio) who cuts out the cross with great anticipation, having sprinted back from deep in the opposition half when our move initially broke down to take up a covering position in the left back position.  I really like how that worked out and I think is a good example of Aggression, Anticipation, Positioning, Work Rate and Determination.  I know I keep banging the same drum, but have the right players in the roles you pick.  The highlight finishes with a nice ball over the top played by my Trequartista, ending in a decent shot at goal.  This is a great start.

01:50 - A common theme throughout the match: goalkeeper and defenders playing out from the back, not wasting possession.  Move ends with another ball over the top from my TQ, although the shot was blocked this time.  If I hadn't changed Retain Possession to Shorter Passing, I wouldn't be seeing these passes being attempted (at least not so often anyway).

02:15 - Barca make a good break, but again it's my BWM putting in the hard work and making the tackle so that my defenders don't need to.  We then clamly play the ball out of defence until Lato doinks it to Neymar, but the BWM picks up the pieces again and this time we launch a very good attack which should have ended in a goal.

03:00 - Why I bought Rulli and his Reflexes.

03:08 - Great build up play for our first goal.  The passing and movement is excellent, especially the quick one touch passing on the edge of the box just before the final pass comes in.

06:17 - Twenty passes in the build up to the 2nd goal, and pretty much everyone on the team except the keeper touched the ball, before my TQ makes the final through ball.  That's a great team goal which really shows off how effective this system can be in possession with the right players in place.  Lovely jubbly.

08:03 - The second half gets underway.  I'd told my players at half time to keep up the good work.  I expect Barcelona to come out in the 2nd half with more fire in their bellies, but it remains another half of Sevilla dominance.  We score our 4th from a set piece and Barcelona should have scored a consolation goal, but then we could have scored more as well so I can't be too greedy.

Revenge is sweet and even better I didn't make any cock ups.  The moral of this post?  Don't change things for the sake of changing.  If things are working, leave it alone.