FM18 - The community formation experiment

[reerdo]

When I used to play football (at a crap Sunday league level) my manager regularly played a back 4 in a way that would most fit the sweeper one discussed above due to the fact one of our centre backs was great in the air and often functioned as what FM would see as the stopper role where as the other guy was great on the deck quick across the ground and good at distributing the ball as he used to be a midfielder. He never played as a cover centre back as FM would see it he truly did line up as a sweeper as we out and out didn’t play off side as it was not to my managers taste. At no point did I ever see them standing on top of one another in the way FM portrays it.

They did at times flatten out to a central two if dragged out of position but the way we play was for us full backs to sit narrower to cover the space when defending and then spring wide when we recovered the ball. Now as I say this was lowly Sunday league and we could pull off a four at the back sweeper and trust me we weren’t great players of managed by the next Pep. 

That formation is bugged to allowing to player to literally sit on top of one another. Any level player represented in FM is so far beyond the level I played it’s light years and if we could pull it off and not stand on top of one any other as a default the players in FM shouldn’t. 

Your right it doesn’t have to be an effective formation and just cos it’s there shouldn’t d mean it has to be effective but it should at least make sense and not automatically make good quality players act like idiots worse than my old Sunday league team.  

[juusal]

20 minutes ago, reerdo said:

When I used to play football (at a crap Sunday league level) my manager regularly played a back 4 in a way that would most fit the sweeper one discussed above due to the fact one of our centre backs was great in the air and often functioned as what FM would see as the stopper role where as the other guy was great on the deck quick across the ground and good at distributing the ball as he used to be a midfielder. He never played as a cover centre back as FM would see it he truly did line up as a sweeper as we out and out didn’t play off side as it was not to my managers taste. At no point did I ever see them standing on top of one another in the way FM portrays it.

They did at times flatten out to a central two if dragged out of position but the way we play was for us full backs to sit narrower to cover the space when defending and then spring wide when we recovered the ball. Now as I say this was lowly Sunday league and we could pull off a four at the back sweeper and trust me we weren’t great players of managed by the next Pep. 

That formation is bugged to allowing to player to literally sit on top of one another. Any level player represented in FM is so far beyond the level I played it’s light years and if we could pull it off and not stand on top of one any other as a default the players in FM shouldn’t. 

Your right it doesn’t have to be an effective formation and just cos it’s there shouldn’t d mean it has to be effective but it should at least make sense and not automatically make good quality players act like idiots worse than my old Sunday league team.  

I agree with everything else than calling it a bug. It is not a bugged formation/system, it's badly done features from SI. There is nothing than doesn't work like SI intended it (since sweepers line up with the rest of the defence in every system, and this must be intentional because old fashioned sweepers that sat behind the line were from the era before the change in the offside rule), so it's not a bug. Hence taking it to the bug forums is not the correct way, I'm all for going to suggestions pages though.

I wish your Sunday league team was in our group though

[warlock]

3 hours ago, juusal said:

both the sweeper and the central defender play the way they are designed to play, so it's not a bug.

I'd beg to disagree. I think a sweeper behind a BPD-stopper should play very differently - the BPD should be aggressively closing down and the sweeper should be sitting back and sweeping. The 'bug' in the formation - or the roles - is that regardless of what role you give the CB, the two play in exactly the same way. They're joined at the hip. If you gave the CB a cover duty, I can see that they'd get in each other's way, but not otherwise.

[GreenTriangle]

Is not a bug.  All sweeper configurations were created with the intention of being used in the case of a more defensive approach.  Sweeper role is a "less aggresive CD-defend" and libero is a "slightly more offensive BPD". But with the same purpose : creating  highest possible density of defenders in the own penalty box.

All these default configurations (tactics) are listed because these are all configurations known by AI. A human player can create hundreds of different symmetrical configurations (and a huge number of assymetrical configurations). AI needs a list of usable configurations, but some of them are not necessarily the best, the most realistic or the most used.

 

This is a list of configurations used by 3000 AI head-coaches :

 

By the way, 5-2-3 WB wide is not in the list of available tactics.

[warlock]

14 minutes ago, GreenTriangle said:

This is a list of configurations used by 3000 AI head-coaches

You're saying that because it was used by, at best, three coaches, that justifies the formation? And - by quick estimation - that puts it in the bottom 1% of formations. In any event, in the real world, I could tell the CB to do one thing, and the sweeper to do another, as suggested above. In FM, it's bugged.

And I don't know about your version of FM, but in my installation, 523wb is in the default list of available tactics.

[GreenTriangle]

No. I say this list of configurations known by AI is incomplete and obsolete. Some configurations are not used irl, or if they are used then the way are they used can not be true to life. Some of them are almost impossible to use because some current roles and duties are not are not appropriate. I hope that in the future this list will be improved.  In any case, these default configurations containing sweeper have a limited usability in FM and are hardly usable more than a few matches. Same for strikerless configurations, especially because default strikerless configurations are using at most one AMC.

5-2-3 WB Wide is in the default list but not in the challenge list.

 

 

[Deisler26]

in my new reset of the 4-1-2-3 Narrow, can I offset the DM to a Segundo Volante?

[Vali184]

7 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

in my new reset of the 4-1-2-3 Narrow, can I offset the DM to a Segundo Volante?

it clearly says in the opening post that you can't move any slot in the tactic screen.

[Deisler26]

22 minutes ago, Vali184 said:

it clearly says in the opening post that you can't move any slot in the tactic screen.

But my arguement would be that the DM slot is the only one you can move left or right without changing the dynamic of the formation.

[Vali184]

you change it a lot by moving it to dmcl/dmcr.

[jc577]

2 hours ago, Deisler26 said:

But my arguement would be that the DM slot is the only one you can move left or right without changing the dynamic of the formation.

Evidently, moving the dm to dmcl/dmcr changes the dynamic of the original formation, as the SV role isn’t available from a central position.

[Jean0987654321]

 

Looks like my experiment is a success. We had a lot of up and downs but my team is just not good enough to fight for the title. At least we exceeded expectations

[jc577]

5-1-2-2 DM Narrow 

The Tactic:

Over the weekend I finally had a chance to crack on with this save, and results have been okay-ish but i'll go into that a bit later.

So, my initial thinking when looking at this formation is that getting the full-backs up the pitch is crucial to making it work. I need them to act as orthodox wingers in attack, stretching the play and providing width, so i've opted for two complete wingbacks. I've never used this role before, but it really is a fantastic role. Both wingbacks have been crucial to how we've played this season, and although their delivery has been disappointing at times, they often take up good crossing positions which is reassuring. 

The security afforded by the three centre-backs allows me to play a support duty DM, who acts as an attacking pivot for the team rather than a defensive holder, and Joijic definitely has the passing range/vision i'm after to be the 'quarterback' of the side, a la Pirlo during his tenure at Juve especially. I've seen quite a few pinged balls out to the wing-backs out-wide which is nice, although not much in the way of balls over the top for the DLF/P combo. The Carilero is there to cover for the attacking wing-back, although for some reason one of my new signings seems to consistently get terrible ratings despite having good attributes to play that role. Something to keep an eye on in upcoming games for sure. Considering the narrowness of this formation, a Mezzala seemed perfect to finish off the midfield trio, having the freedom of the left-half-space to operate and link up with the DLF. Up front i've gone for a simple creator/finisher combination. 

Transfers 

Not much done in the way of transfers. Both Hoger and Lehmann both lack acceleration/pace which I need in order to cover the right flank efficiently, so I brought in Barrios as another defensive minded midfielder but with a bit more mobility. The squad also lacked a backup poacher, and Zoller also has the ppm 'comes deep to get ball', so Hrgota was brought in from Frankfurt. In way of departures, unfortunately only Risse left the club. He brought in a decent amount of money but I was hoping to ship out a few more. 

Results

 

Pre-season went okay, nothing really to shout about, and I never see a correlation between how we play in pre-season and competitive matches, so i've left those results out. Surprisingly, went 12 matches unbeaten, but that came to an abrupt end in our last game against high flying Leipzig who currently sit top of the table. Overall i'm pretty happy with the results, but i'm afraid that defeat to RBL is a sign of things to come. We were really lucky to win against Bremen, which was a game they absolutely dominated. On occasion we play some good stuff, moving up the pitch well as a team, but too often we struggle to break the opposition's defensive line. I feel we can be too direct in our approach, and if we play a ball to the forwards from deep they're still miles away from goal which results in long shots/the ball being played back into midfield. Currently unsure on how to fix these issues, but looking forward to find out.

[Sanno11]

5-3-2 WB

Performance

 

I suppose I have to be content knowing we exceeded expectations. To finally hit top spot after the penultimate game and to throw the title away at home to Hoffenheim was really gutting. We were so consistent throughout the season and only really struggled when we were heavy favourites at home (please see Hannover and Hoffenheim games).

The squad's performance was exceptional and I have grown fond of a few of them. I was really impressed by Lukas Klunter my wingback, he kept Clemens and Bittencourt out of the starting line up. To get a combined 62 goals from Cordoba and Ndlovu was a massive part of our success.

I was hugely disappointed to be humiliated by Bilbao in the Euro cup, they scored a penalty and from two corners but we were still poor. However we ended the season on a high. Overcoming Bayern in the semi final was our best performance, finally getting revenge for the two league defeats they inflicted. Milas Jojic got sent off after 17 mins in the final but our system can handle losing a centre mid reasonably well. Cordoba scored a great solo goal and we hung on well.

The formation

 

We largely kept things the same all year, our only adjustment was to remove 'exploit the middle' as a default instruction as I was removing more often than not before games. I only used player instructions on certain players, mainly the 5 (CM and WB)  having 'tackle harder' and 'shoot less often'.

Our goals typically came from a couple of patterns of play. Either a fast counter attack after winning possession, this usually ended with either a forward or mezzala cutting the ball across for a tap in. We were also able to create goal scoring chances from safe possession with the GK. His first pass was always to the 3 man defence, they would work the ball to the DLP or WB, this could take several passes as a rule it was fairly direct. The next pass would was often a defence splitting pass to either a forward or mezzala, this would either end as a shot or cross and tap in. The set-up was well balanced in the end with the 3 man defence and wing backs always being defensively solid, allowing the two mezzalas and the two forwards to be our creative force. The wing backs were very conservative and only when we had possession for an extended time did they look to break past the mezzalas and look to get crosses in.

 

Final two screenshots, firstly to show the evidence of our direct approach, having the lowest possession in the league. Finally, our transfers, after generating some more transfer money we brought in Nikola Vukcevic in January, to add a little more quality and depth to our midfield.

Thanks for organising this challenge again @Jambo98

 

[Rashidi]

On 2/4/2018 at 10:43, Deisler26 said:

in my new reset of the 4-1-2-3 Narrow, can I offset the DM to a Segundo Volante?

Nope...did this challenge before, they all have to be in the same slots. SO you need to find a role that fits or adapt one to make it do what you want....if you want him to perform like a SV you can, though he won't be as perfect as the SV.

[Rashidi]

On 1/31/2018 at 00:34, cregan said:

where the inverted wing back doesn't seem to do anything like as much inverting as I'd hoped

He won't invert because he's the only one providing width, so he defaults to being a WB on whatever duty you have him on. Same applies when you use a double DM and opt to use a IWB. IWB won't work there too. 

[Rashidi]

On 1/31/2018 at 21:05, reerdo said:

Does anyone have any decent defensive set piece set ups? Especially corners?

Although its not actually tactic related in terms of what the thread is about it is currently my single biggest point of frustration with where I am at the moment with this challenge.

If you download any of my tactics from my YT channel they should come with the set pieces. There is a free kick one I love. If there are no set pieces let me know. The link to them should be in the description...though tbh the best thing about doing this challenge is actually making your set pieces work within the context of the tactic.

[Rashidi]

On 1/24/2018 at 23:26, Jambo98 said:

I am not actually sure the IWB works properly when there are 2 DM slots in the formation. The idea here is that Hector moves into cover for Jojic when he goes attacking, but the role description seems to suggest that it only works with 1 DM, so will need to monitor.

Won't work :-( not the IWB. 

Jeez what am I doing I should go to bed, instead of boosting my post count...not that I will ever catch people like Welshace

[warlock]

11 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Jeez what am I doing I should go to bed, instead of boosting my post count

Always to good to get your input, though.

13 hours ago, Sanno11 said:

I suppose I have to be content knowing we exceeded expectations.

Awesome performance! 

[sporadicsmiles]

Well, sorry guys for the delay. I have been finishing my main save season and got pulled in to play more (and also transport fever, what an addictive game that is). Let's say I am doing far better there than I fear I will do here. As a reminder, here is where we are.

That is how we played the last match, more or less. I did a lot of tinkering. We got absolutely smashed in the end, 4-2 away to Hamburg.

The stats make it look pretty close, but it really was not. We were 4-0 down before half time. We are so so vulnerable down the left flank, which is almost certainly due to having an attacking full back on that side. Who is not very good, but I have very limited options at the moment due to injuries. Every single one of their goals came down that side of the pitch. I guess the obvious thing to do now is to remove this role and make it more defensive. That will sacrifice my main width however. So I am willing to take any advice on how to cover from that side. This tactic, more than any other, is going to be exquisitely sensitive to the interplay between roles and setting everything up properly. If I can add just a little bit of defensive stability, we are scoring enough to win a lot of matches. 

On the plus side, we were not the worst team this week, Stuttgart lost 5-0!! Got away games against Bremen and Waregem (Europa) up next, I will try to get them played tonight. Let's sort that defence out!

[Chris330]

Hi, long time guest lurker but would like to test my skills If possible?

[seanDCFC]

5-4-1

OK, so the 5-4-1 has turned out to be a good formation overall. Finished 4th but with a bit of luck could have been champions. As you can see 19 goals conceded in 34 games is incredible, this formation is definitely rock solid and suits this squad as I feel good wingers to be crucial to make this work effectively. I think with a better quality striker I could have won some trophies. With this formation you don't create much but generally what does be created tends to be clear cut, as the AI doesn't seem to deal with wingers very well in this system. 

 

I was unlucky in the Europa league to draw Arsenal in the 1st knockout round and lost on away goals and got pumped in the Pokal semi by Bayern. 

The top performers are below, The wingers Clemens and Bittencourt were exceptional and Praet was a top signing. 

[warlock]

14 minutes ago, seanDCFC said:

I think with a better quality striker I could have won some trophies.

Looks like! If you could have upgrade a couple of wins into draws, and a couple of draws into wins, you'd have been right there. And Praet looks like an inspired signing!

[aRj00]

So i'm now upto the beginning of december (I'm such a casually slower player then 99% of people here, also a staging crash on some occasions of saving the game hinders my progress alot).

4321narrow

After the first few games in was evident my original theory of how i wanted to play was not working, so with a bit of research I tried to replicate the tactics of AC Milan in the Pirlo/Ancellotti era. Using two Carileros and a dlp in midfield with a playmaker and shadow striker behind a advanced forward. It worked to an extent, until a few serious injuries forced my hand

So I tinkered around ALOT, which shows in the beginnning inconsistant form of results. 

After the Leverkussen game I went with:

Basically wanted to use my attacking mids as the main threat, theoretically changing  to a 433.

My away form though is something to be concerned with, only won 1 an lost 6 on the road while scoring 4 goals.

Transfer wise it was an interesting transfer deadline day with the final 2 players joining us, and losing Clemens to fund them. I am overspending on wages by 10k atm, once I finally get rid of Risse an Rausch it will balance out.

An Stocker is excelling in midfield alongside Bittencourt

If Cordoba was a little bit more clinical, alongside his pace, strength and workrate he would be phenomenal!

I'm currently 10th in the league but only 3 points off 6th place, so with now a settled tactic an team im aiming to rise up the league. Also finished top of my Euro group ahead of Everton and Zenit. No pics as I've already clogged this post up lol

 

[cregan]

5-2-1-2 WB

Into the final third of the season, and while too many draws since the winter break has seen us slip 6 pts off the Champions League places, we're solidly in 5th (and with an easy-looking cup semi-final against Union Berlin coming in April). Gutted, though, that in a 4-0 demolition of Schalke so one-sided they'd have abandoned it in the first half if it were a boxing match, Guirassy picked up an 85th minute broken toe that's going to put him out for up to 8 weeks.

In the last 12 matches he's played since I started using him as the right-sided F9 (he played four, promisingly enough but without netting, at AMC), he's scored 11 goals, only failing to hit the net in 3 matches. Pace and height seems to be vital to playing such a counter-heavy system, and he's been far more consistent than Cordoba. Easily player of the season so far.

I signed a backup in January because Osako wasn't cutting it. £2m on Florin Tanase, the best-looking of what was available to me, though neither as big nor as quick, and now our hopes rest on him. In his five appearances prior to this he's contributed nothing. 

[NabsKebabs]

On 1/27/2018 at 13:34, NabsKebabs said:

So I've finally taken the time to properly get started on this. I initially had no idea how to go about using a formation I'd never even thought of using before - 4132 with 2 wide midfielders rather than central mids.

Like many others, my pre season has been successful.

Undefeated in pre season so far where I just let the Ass. man use my tactic. I have played one game so far and we dismantled our opposition in the German Cup.

Here is the system I came up with:

I knew I had to somehow get numbers in central midfield. So what I did was go for a wide playmaker on one flank who will come inside aswell as an inverted wingback from the other flank to support the midfield. I still have width on both flanks with an attacking fullback on the left and a winger bombing down the right flank. The idea with the tactic is to build up play through the left flank where I have the wide playmaker and support striker. This will draw the opposition to that flank and create space for my winger and advanced forward both on attack duty.

In terms of transfers, there have been 2 ins and 2 outs so far:

The squad lacked a striker who had good pace in behind as well finishing. Zoller actually has decent attributes for that but he has the PPM "comes deep to get ball" and his finishing a bit low at 13. I saw Sorensen was wanted by Stoke and and managed to negotiate up to 11m for him. This gave me the funds to go and buy Ademola Lookman from Everton.

Lookman has excactly what I was after, pace in behind, anticipation, off the ball as well as finishing and composure. At just 19 years old, he has a lot of room for improvement. 

The other signing I've made is a loan for a young midfielder. I like that this player has a very well rounded set of attributes. Not only can he cover for me in DM and CM but I can also see him playing as the inverted wingback or the wide playmaker in my system.

I'm still looking to bring in another player, I'm still trying to offload some players first to free up the funds. Probably looking at bringing in an attacking playmaker. 

Following on from initial post....the season went pretty well. 

8th in the Bundesliga and quarter finals in the Europa League was more than I expected. When I first saw my formation had one central midfielder, my main concern was how I was going to fight relegation.

[cregan]

5-2-1-2 WB

So the season's over and I've got to be happy with how things went.

In addition to 4th in the league - and with a couple of matches to go, there were I think five teams, down to Hannover, in contention for the last Champions League slot, so it was very close - we also won the cup, beating Augsburg 3-2 in the final. (Easier than it looked; they only got their second in the 93rd minute; that said, we'd lost twice to them in the league, conceding 5 and scoring 0.) In the Europa, we were dismal, winning only our last game to finish 3rd in the group, having failed to qualify with two games to go.

I changed to the final version(s) of the tactic after the Augsburg loss in early November. It wasn't as tight at the back - we finished with the second lowest conceded, having been easily the best defence at that point despite some ropy games (though we only lost four matches from that point on) - but it was much more effective going forward and the quality of the football on offer noticeably improved, especially once the team's cohesion maxed out.

Base, defensive version:

PIs: WB(d) - Stay Wider; DLP(d) - Dribble Less, More Risky Passes, More Direct Passes

More aggressive option when we needed to chase the game:

PIs as above.

Both are heavily based on counterattacks. The 'chase' version turns the ball over faster due to the attack mentality, with the D-line and passing setting dropped back to account for both increasing on attack, and I made the pressing more aggressive. It's more vulnerable, as you'd expect, but not that much. I'm happy that it still plays largely like its catenaccio ideal - a solid wall in defence, breaking very, very fast on the counter as soon as possession comes back - just with a bit more punch. The base version is a little more measured, or its players a little less adventurous, but it's still the quick ball forward that forms the basis of our attacks.

This is the first time I've consistently played Highly Structured and I've been genuinely surprised at how well it suited the system, stopping us falling completely out of shape and collapsing when we lose possession. And I've not had a good defensive-based attack system and/or a good counter-based system in ages. The first iteration I tried wasn't entirely successful, but I'm mostly very pleased with this one.

Advantages

• Good god, we can hit hard on the break. Some of the counters are glorious to watch.
• The narrow three-man back line is generally very effective. The stoppers close down, but when one goes the other two are normally tight enough together in the centre that there's not much of a hole left.
• I'm surprised at how keen the IWB(a) and/or Bittencourt is at closing down. He picked up 10 yellows, had the highest average distance in the league, and the 6th highest average tackles per game. We were nothing like as vulnerable down that side as I'd feared.
• The midfield pairing works very, very well. Deep-lying pivot to get attacks moving, with a rampaging destroyer as the first line of defence beside him.
• The front three too. Having the two strikers drop off makes all three keen to run at the opposition from deep (which in a direct, counter system is ideal) and pull defenders out of position.
• Against teams playing narrow - Bayern, with Robben cutting in, for instance - we were brilliant.

Disadvantages

• The IWB not inverting when its the lone wide player. Clemens (who has the PPM) did it more than Bittencourt - both are right-footed, so both did it to some extent - but I wish one of them had managed to train Gets Into Opposition Area as a PPM because that sounded like it'd help.
• We were definitely at our worst against aggressive, high-pressing teams playing at tempo. Leipzig, Dortmund, Hamburg and - in the league, anyway - Augsburg were really tough (from eight games against those teams, we picked up 2pts, scoring 4 and conceding 15, nearly half of the goals we let in all season). The 'chase' version of the tactic plays better against them because we move the ball faster, even if it does turn matches into table tennis.
• Otherwise, 4-4-2 was a tricky formation to play against, where doubling up on the flanks was more of a risk - I assume because the two wide players on each flank are more inclined to work together than in a 4-2-3-1. Crosses in general weren't a particular threat, though the match engine does like them; the narrow back three's pretty sound in the air.
• On the basis of our performances with regular players missing, playing this way relies on everyone but the two CMs having high Pace, and the two STs and three DCs ideally having high Jumping Reach. Basically, big, fast guys who can latch onto long balls forward and bully defenders, or big, quick defenders who can quickly get back into position or deal with crosses/long balls before they become a threat. Koln have a lot of pace in their squad, so it worked well, but we were weaker with second-stringers less suited to their jobs. In games where we were outmuscled by the opposition, we struggled.

Players

The regular squad ended up being mostly excellent. Up front, Guirassy contributed almost goal per league game (15 goals, 6 assists) in 24 appearances as a striker; we might have done better if I'd used him from the beginning rather than persisting with trying to get Pizarro or Osako to perform. Cordoba played every league game and finished with 15 goals and 9 assists. Neither of them have particularly attributes on the shooting-composure-decisions side, so this was pleasing. Risse spent a bunch of time out injured, but still ended with 9 and 9 in 24. Ozcan and Hector were rock-solid in midfield. Heintz in the BPD role and, from January, Wahlqvist made two members of a sound back line; Sorensen was occasionally accident-prone and Mere just isn't as commanding as the others, though neither was a disaster. Olkowski was far superior to Klunter in the WBR role. Handwerker made a few sub appearances in the back half of the season and looks promising, as did Quieros before I loaned him out.

I wish I'd been able to sell off my unwanted players (Rausch, Lehmann, Zoller) - though a trio of Brazilian offers for Pizarro in December neatly took that £34k p/w problem off my hands - to give me greater options in the market. Tanase started to look decent enough in the first three games after Guirassy's broken toe in February, but he promptly picked up a lower back stress fracture and was out for the season; his physicals aren't bad - 14s in the key stats, decent in most of the rest you'd look for - but with more cash I could've bought someone completely suited to the system instead.

All told, though, this was a far, far more successful attempt than I was expecting; normally everything crashes in flames whenever I try this challenge...

[Skint]

Greetings

Had a read over this thread and would love to join in if possible!

[warlock]

343dm

Just finished the season and this formation continued to perform. In fact, I've come to like it so much I'll almost certainly use it in a long-term save.

We finished in second place - behind runaway winners Bayern. It was nip and tuck down to the wire and going into the last game we were only a point ahead of Dortmund. But we managed to secure a nervy 1-0 victory over Hertha to secure the runners-up spot.

In the Europa League, we dispatched Everton in the first knockout round, and Napoli in the second knockout round before - curses! - drawing Juventus in the quarter-final. In previous rounds we had away legs first, which worked to our advantage as we managed to draw both those games before winning the home legs. Against Juve we started at home and I knew we'd need a good result. Instead we succumbed to a 1-3 defeat, and a battling 1-1 draw away wasn't enough.

As to the formation, defensively it's very solid - we managed 11 clean sheets in the 17 league games after the winter break - while up front we regularly scored 2 or 3. With a top-quality striker and a stronger group of CBs I think it could do even better at both ends. The two DMs are very adaptable - playing a standard/flexible at the beginning of every game, I could go more defensive or more attacking by varying the roles between SV-att, SV-sup and DM, and the two wide AMs also give a lot of flexibility and I regularly switched between wingers, IFs and Raums. Highly recommended!

[poobington]

Is there going to be a 2019 experiment?

[shevanonva]

On 28/03/2019 at 13:55, poobington said:

Is there going to be a 2019 experiment?

Hope so, I'd be very interested in taking part!

[warlock]

@Jambo98

Your loyal fans are gathering! Any interest in re-doing this for FM19? I found it hugely educational and entertaining last year, so I'd be very interested in a re-run. Equally, I understand there'd be a fair bit of work involved so no pressure!

[Jambo98]

ALrighty lads, not been on this forum since last year but i will dig around and try and find the magic spreadsheet and look at setting up a thread i guess. Why not eh

[warlock]

13 hours ago, Jambo98 said:

i will dig around and try and find the magic spreadsheet and look at setting up a thread

Top man