Football Manager 2019 Feature Blogs: Revamped Tactics Module

[kpsia518]

31 minutes ago, hoppo1982 said:

Sarri at Napoli is the closest. Might not have reached there yet with Chelsea. 

 

will AI play that kind of tactic or style in FM19 ?

imagine that kloop play that real genpressing,PEP at city with tiki-taka & sarri,& mourinho bus parking.

will AI play that style ?

[Tom8983]

On 28/09/2018 at 14:25, Weston said:

Does this mean it will be possible for players to actually score direct free kicks in FM19? Because if so, this is a really nice touch.

I've had Zivkovic banging free kicks in for me for years on 18. I don't really understand why so many people moan about this. Though I suspect it's just unrealistic expectations on quantity, and the quality of players taking the free kicks.

On 30/09/2018 at 08:54, westy8chimp said:

Now, hopefully we lose the ridiculous idea that players close down in isolation based on a radius of themselves. So i should be able to play an attacking mentality AF who will drop deeper when we defend if i set my line of engagement deeper. 

I have a feeling people are going to be very disappointed in this, and blame the TC for their own bloated expectations. Setting a low line of engagement isn't going to turn all of your strikers into Bobby Firmino. Work rate, determination, team work etc are going to play a part in how successful this is, as will player roles no doubt. An AF isn't going to suddenly track back as well as a DFd, you're still specifically telling him to stay up the pitch and concentrate on being in the best possible position to attack from. He might jog back and stick a token leg out if the ball is close, but I suspect no more than that.

On 30/09/2018 at 14:06, rdbayly said:

I have a feeling a giant swathe of the userbase will immediately pick Liverpool with a gengenpressing style; which will fail to live up to their expectations in how it plays out on the pitch. 

Yep. I can see loads of people picking the wrong players in the wrong roles and blaming the presets, which is a shame. FM has been crying out for these presets for years. See below...

On 30/09/2018 at 17:55, kingking said:

With these changes i expect my team to actually play like liverpool using a 4-3-3 (2 AM-RL)

With Possession

• High Tempo
• Play through the wings
• dribble less
• long balls

In Transition.

• Counter and Press
• Press from the middle and forward area
• High intensity Pressing
• Quickly Counter from the wing when the ball is won

Out of Possession

• Narrow Defense, 
• Defensive Line is standard with an offside trap 
• Foward Player being high up pressing the defense of the opposition  

Liverpool don't play 433 for the whole game nor do they play a super high tempo, 'headless chicken' counter press for the whole game. It's not possible. Trying to do so *should* result in plenty of misery in game. Whether it does or not, we'll wait and see. And they certainly don't counter from the wings. The 'trademark' counter Liverpool do when the opportunity arises is an overload through the centre of the pitch, with Mane, Salah, and Firmino all within the width of the penalty area, overloading the two opposition centre backs. They go wide when in possession but not countering, trying to work an overlap for Robertson/TAA, which is typically where the most width comes from.

23 hours ago, kingking said:

It has always been too hard or a struggle for users to play like Barca or Klopp because FM in the past has made it hard through the tactic UI and ME.

Yea, it's not been possible so far due to limitations within the game. However, it should still be difficult to do even with these improvements, because it's extremely difficult to play that way IRL. That's why only a few teams are capable of TT/Gengen

[westy8chimp]

16 minutes ago, Tom8983 said:

have a feeling people are going to be very disappointed in this, and blame the TC for their own bloated expectations. Setting a low line of engagement isn't going to turn all of your strikers into Bobby Firmino. Work rate, determination, team work etc are going to play a part in how successful this is, as will player roles no doubt. An AF isn't going to suddenly track back as well as a DFd, you're still specifically telling him to stay up the pitch and concentrate on being in the best possible position to attack from. He might jog back and stick a token leg out if the ball is close, but I suspect no more than that.

You are missing the point. The engagement line will be a modifier. Im not comparing af to df... Im comparing an af set to high line engagement vs af on lower line. If there is no difference then the instruction is broken. 

Attributes are always key... Thats the player dna... But as i mentioned before, all instructions, when selected, should increase the tendency that a player tries something. The number of times and the success of those actions are down to the player. 

[themadsheep2001]

1 hour ago, hoppo1982 said:

Sarri at Napoli is the closest. Might not have reached there yet with Chelsea. 

This. 

I'm not sure the name is great. But I'm sure there are legal reasons around not calling it Sarri Ball. 

[Tom8983]

1 minute ago, westy8chimp said:

You are missing the point. The engagement line will be a modifier. Im not comparing af to df... Im comparing an af set to high line engagement vs af on lower line. If there is no difference then the instruction is broken. 

Attributes are always key... Thats the player dna... But as i mentioned before, all instructions, when selected, should increase the tendency that a player tries something. The number of times and the success of those actions are down to the player. 

I don't think I'm missing the point, and indeed I only used a quote from you to show what topic I was commenting on (line of engagement in relation to player roles). I didn't mean *you'd* make this mistake, but rather that a lot of people will expect these new features to turn their AF to a DFd when the team is out of possession and say the new features are at fault when that doesn't happen. I'd put money on it even!

[westy8chimp]

1 minute ago, Tom8983 said:

I don't think I'm missing the point, and indeed I only used a quote from you to show what topic I was commenting on (line of engagement in relation to player roles). I didn't mean *you'd* make this mistake, but rather that a lot of people will expect these new features to turn their AF to a DFd when the team is out of possession and say the new features are at fault when that doesn't happen. I'd put money on it even!

Hmmm... Its an out of possession new instruction tho... Itl need to be used in line with other settings but:

If i select the role AF in my attack... With regroup in transition (in say a defensive 442) with line of engagememt at the semi circle... I would expect him to run the line when we have the ball and work channels. When we lose the ball i would expect him to retreat to the line of engagement area before he presses (as ive chosen to regroup rather than counter press) and then act defensive minded. The danger will be in transition im asking him to cover a lof of ground before he joins in the phase so if the opponent is direct the play will bypass my AF. 

If i choose the same but counter press instead of regroup, im effectively asking the player to play three styles... Run the line, press then drop deep. So he will need good stamina, work rate and mentals. Id expect him to tire easily and be out of position frequently. 

Or i could counter press and leave him high during each phase, just means i have less players in defence if the opponents evade the high line. 

All should be possible and of course id want player attributes to be the determining factor... A striker with low team work and work rate should fail to press hard or regroup quickly... This will be part of the make or break in success of the new TC/ME

[rdbayly]

10 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Hmmm... Its an out of possession new instruction tho... Itl need to be used in line with other settings but:

If i select the role AF in my attack... With regroup in transition (in say a defensive 442) with line of engagememt at the semi circle... I would expect him to run the line when we have the ball and work channels. When we lose the ball i would expect him to retreat to the line of engagement area before he presses (as ive chosen to regroup rather than counter press) and then act defensive minded. The danger will be in transition im asking him to cover a lof of ground before he joins in the phase so if the opponent is direct the play will bypass my AF. 

If i choose the same but counter press instead of regroup, im effectively asking the player to play three styles... Run the line, press then drop deep. So he will need good stamina, work rate and mentals. Id expect him to tire easily and be out of position frequently. 

Or i could counter press and leave him high during each phase, just means i have less players in defence if the opponents evade the high line. 

All should be possible and of course id want player attributes to be the determining factor... A striker with low team work and work rate should fail to press hard or regroup quickly... This will be part of the make or break in success of the new TC/ME

We’re only guessing of course, but perhaps deviating from suggested preset roles you are given after selecting a tactical style, is a sure fire way to unhinge the entire system?

What you’ve said makes sense to me, but how it’s pictured in your head is seldom how it plays out on the pitch. 

Edited October 1, 2018 by rdbayly

[Tom8983]

3 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Id expect him to tire easily and be out of position frequently

 

4 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

A striker with low team work and work rate should fail to press hard or regroup quickly

Exactly. But are you honestly not expecting, with all the weird and wonderful complaints we've probably both seen regarding tactics which just turn out to be user error/overinflated expectations against reality, that there will be endless moans about this from people who don't/won't understand the points you make in those two quotes? I'd willingly bet that it's going to turn into the new 'my team always takes ridiculous long shots despite me clicking WBIB and expecting that to cure everything' issue.

And you acknowledge that teamwork and other mental stats will play a part. Well, if a forward has those stats he's more likely to be a DF/CF anyway :P

Anyway, I've got a Mario Kart comp to get to, wish me luck!

[westy8chimp]

3 minutes ago, rdbayly said:

We’re only guessing of course, but perhaps deviating from suggested preset roles you are given once selecting a tactical style is a sure fire way to unhinge the entire system

If theyve created a TC whereby using any human input unhinges it then thats a pretty big bug thats not to say its not a concern that the presets arent set up in such a way as seen the 'right way'... And by changing to more logical use of roles might be seemed 'wrong'. But we wait and see. My initial reaction and i think first comment in this thread was a raised eyebrow at the use of a BWM in a counter strategy... 

[rdbayly]

2 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

If theyve created a TC whereby using any human input unhinges it then thats a pretty big bug thats not to say its not a concern that the presets arent set up in such a way as seen the 'right way'... And by changing to more logical use of roles might be seemed 'wrong'. But we wait and see. My initial reaction and i think first comment in this thread was a raised eyebrow at the use of a BWM in a counter strategy... 

Of course tweaking the presets is a must to refine the system based on the limits of your players; I’m talking about radical customisation.

I can count on one hand the number of forwards that are able to effectively fulfill the number of duties you describe the example AF doing.

 

[Weston]

1 hour ago, Tom8983 said:

I've had Zivkovic banging free kicks in for me for years on 18. I don't really understand why so many people moan about this. Though I suspect it's just unrealistic expectations on quantity, and the quality of players taking the free kicks.

Of course there are outliers but the overwhelming general consensus is there are not enough goals from free kicks in FM18. I played 5 seasons and very, VERY rarely ever saw one scored for or against my team, whether directly or otherwise. And for multiple of those seasons I had a 19 free kick taker - I'm not saying he should be banging them in every match, but come on! People may have unrealistic expectations, but FM18 had a problem here for sure.

According to this source, "a player shooting from 10 yards have an approximately 24% chances of scoring a goal. A shot from 16 yards end with a goal in 13% of the cases and the attempt from over 20 yards is successful in only 3% of all cases. This changes completely when the player have the opportunity to strike the ball from a set piece. In case of the penalty kick, the chance for a goal is roughly about 80%. As for the free-kick, the football statisticians claim that about 5% of all attempts ends with a goal. Whether it is a lot or not is debatable. For example, in the 2011 / 2012 season of the English Premier League, 5,2% of all direct free kicks ended up with a goal. In 25% of the cases the keeper saved the shot, while 38% of the shots were not on target and 32% were blocked by the players in the wall." According to this source, "the average number of free kicks per game in England, Spain and Germany is 23.1, 29.3 and 32.9 respectively."

Now I'm not saying these stats are perfect or paint the whole picture, but clearly something is off in the ME. Even the bit about keepers saving feels underrepresented to me when nearly every single shot fails to even land on target. This is another example of a great improvement to tactics, but one that will only be effective if coupled with accurate ME representation. You can tell your team to play for free kicks all the time, but if it doesn't actually increase the amount of them won or scored then it's not really an improvement.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Weston

[kingking]

2 hours ago, Tom8983 said:

I've had Zivkovic banging free kicks in for me for years on 18. I don't really understand why so many people moan about this. Though I suspect it's just unrealistic expectations on quantity, and the quality of players taking the free kicks.

I have a feeling people are going to be very disappointed in this, and blame the TC for their own bloated expectations. Setting a low line of engagement isn't going to turn all of your strikers into Bobby Firmino. Work rate, determination, team work etc are going to play a part in how successful this is, as will player roles no doubt. An AF isn't going to suddenly track back as well as a DFd, you're still specifically telling him to stay up the pitch and concentrate on being in the best possible position to attack from. He might jog back and stick a token leg out if the ball is close, but I suspect no more than that.

Yep. I can see loads of people picking the wrong players in the wrong roles and blaming the presets, which is a shame. FM has been crying out for these presets for years. See below...

Liverpool don't play 433 for the whole game nor do they play a super high tempo, 'headless chicken' counter press for the whole game. It's not possible. Trying to do so *should* result in plenty of misery in game. Whether it does or not, we'll wait and see. And they certainly don't counter from the wings. The 'trademark' counter Liverpool do when the opportunity arises is an overload through the centre of the pitch, with Mane, Salah, and Firmino all within the width of the penalty area, overloading the two opposition centre backs. They go wide when in possession but not countering, trying to work an overlap for Robertson/TAA, which is typically where the most width comes from.

Yea, it's not been possible so far due to limitations within the game. However, it should still be difficult to do even with these improvements, because it's extremely difficult to play that way IRL. That's why only a few teams are capable of TT/Gengen

With the new improvements S.I said, the user should be able to replicate there favorite football such as tika taka and Gegen more efficiently given the new tactic style feature, 3 Phases of play, and counter-press and counter-attack.

It isn't a silly assumption for users to expect they have the ability or option to play tika-taka or Gegenpress when playing the game.

as long as i have the option and ability to replicate football like liverpool or barca when they use tikataka or Gengen this year then that is ok

Edited October 1, 2018 by kingking

[Sticx]

1 hour ago, kingking said:

With the new improvements S.I said, the user should be able to replicate there favorite football such as tika taka and Gegen more efficiently given the new tactic style feature, 3 Phases of play, and counter-press and counter-attack.

It isn't a silly assumption for users to expect they have the ability or option to play tika-taka or Gegenpress when playing the game.

as long as i have the option and ability to replicate football like liverpool or barca when they use tikataka or Gengen this year then that is ok

I think there isn't nearly enough variance in skill level in previous FM's. Ive seen world class players continually make horrendous decisions like pass the ball into the heels of his teammates, while at the same time below average defenders regularly make inch perfect long balls over the top of my whole team. I would like for there to be more variance in player skills. When I play with city I want to watch some great football, and when I load up a mid-table or below squad I don't want them to ping the ball around like they're Barcelona. Choosing tiki-taka should come with some big consequences if your squad isn't capable of playing it effectively, but if you have world class players at your disposal it should effectively produce the beautiful game. This is probably all wishful thinking though, but we'll see how it goes.

[kingking]

1 hour ago, Sticx said:

I think there isn't nearly enough variance in skill level in previous FM's. Ive seen world class players continually make horrendous decisions like pass the ball into the heels of his teammates, while at the same time below average defenders regularly make inch perfect long balls over the top of my whole team. I would like for there to be more variance in player skills. When I play with city I want to watch some great football, and when I load up a mid-table or below squad I don't want them to ping the ball around like they're Barcelona. Choosing tiki-taka should come with some big consequences if your squad isn't capable of playing it effectively, but if you have world class players at your disposal it should effectively produce the beautiful game. This is probably all wishful thinking though, but we'll see how it goes.

Yeah I understand completely 

I want to have the availability and option to be able to produce football like Gengenpress or Tiki-Taka when I have the correct form, the correct player and team instruction, good players in good form, solid player roles and moral etc.

However if my team don't have the right players, are in bad form, the wrong tactic, bad player roles, wrong player and team instructions, then I understand my team will struggle to and not play  efficient tiki taka or Gengenpress football because that is how realistic FM is and in-depth the game is.

I hope the ME is not bugged to a large extent where the Gegenpress or Tiki-Taka are flawed, poorly executed because of bugs no matter what tactic or team the user choose

Edited October 1, 2018 by kingking

[GreenTriangle]

10 hours ago, Sticx said:

I think there isn't nearly enough variance in skill level in previous FM's. Ive seen world class players continually make horrendous decisions like pass the ball into the heels of his teammates, while at the same time below average defenders regularly make inch perfect long balls over the top of my whole team. I would like for there to be more variance in player skills.

The difference between Messi attributes and a below-average player from a candidate relegation team in the first Spanish league is only 30 %.  This in FM. But if it were possible to evaluate real players' qualities the difference would be only 30%? I think not. Perhaps the difference would be at least 100%.  In which case players' attributes should no longer be measured on a scale from 1 to 200 but 1 to 1000. I do not think it's possible to make this kind of changes changes in the comiong years because of the complexity of match engine.

Edited October 2, 2018 by GreenTriangle

[Svenc]

Internally, the game works with finer values (0-200 or 0-100 IIRC). That said, players being mulitple times better than their rivals on their respective levels is one of the most popular but fundamental misconceptions of competitive sports. It's sort of perpetuated by punditry and commentary alike, who outright thrash players as "useless" or "invincible" as they see fit. Any competitive sports is settled in margins.  Even in non-team sports dominated by one guy, e.g. Tiger Woods era golf, that player tends to have just that edge that makes him win more. Equally, Messi, Ronaldo, et all don't score that many more than the competition on their levels because they would be that more deadly; they do so because they have multiple times the opportunity (naturally, also in parts a skill as off their movements and superior supply by superior teammates). That said, the attribute system accounts for that, sort of. Players are rated on semi/professional footballer scale, not a pub team level (1) to world class (20) scale.

I fully agree though that to account for the "styles" to shine through, there need to be some significant refinements made. On FM it's never been that hard to pass the ball over the park in general (no matter how "poor" the side); in parts as the engagement of the ball carrier has been lacking. In particular in deep areas on the pitch, the deepish midfielders in particular are oft given a free ticket; no less because the forwards have been AWOL in defending for so long. That's essentially the "Busquets" zone of play, the pivot zone that makes it pretty easy to recycle possession if it isn't pressured much. That said, FM still hasn't modeled proper "zonal defending" in general. And yeah, technical differences need to also shine a bit more.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Svenc

[djpdavey]

On 27/09/2018 at 16:16, mhaffy said:

Ahead of the Man City V Napoli Champions League game in October 2017 a Daily Telegraph Sport article looked at various tactical systems:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/10/17/napoli-bring-sarri-ball-man-city-glossary-footballs-tactical/

Napoli's Sarri Ball was described by L'Equipe as

"vertical tiki-taka", and is a possession-based style with plenty of short, quick passes but an emphasis on moving up the pitch quickly. In other words: "liquid football".

It will be interesting to see how FM19 implements gengenpressing, tika-taka, vertical tika-taka.........some experimenting ahead with beta before starting my long term Chelsea FM19 save.....

I really want to see a video on the gengan other tactical styles in action that have not been implemented.

[chocolatecoatedballs]

On 01/10/2018 at 06:00, kingking said:

With the addition of the Counter/Hold-Shape and Pressing/Regroup feature and the 3 Phases of Play, i wonder how much more SI can go in depth to allow users to create real life tactics?

The new Counter/Hold-Shape and Pressing/Regroup feature should be in all football games, however it is the tactic feature games don't add despite how important it is in modern football for elite teams.

How much more in-depth can SI go to create realistic tactics now that they have added the Counter/hold-shape and Pressing/Regroup feature?

What else can SI add to the tactic UI to allow the User to create realistic tactics? now that it should be possible to replicate Tika-Taka or GegenPress

Individual instructions during the 4 phases of play, for instance during a transition into attack you may want one of yuor fullbacks to push forward into the winger position, whilst the other goes back into the backline to form a 3 defender defence,

In transition to defence, you may want only select people pressing whilst the rest of the team organise themselves.

Positional play during the four phases of play, for example whilst in posession you might want an attacking winger to stay wide untill a ball carrier has gotten to the final third of the pitch to stretch play in build up.

Though I don't think this kind of depth will happen, I think it would be hard to implement. We have to waork with whatever roles si give us to work with.

[chocolatecoatedballs]

On 01/10/2018 at 06:59, Armistice said:

 

I’ll add to this: the game is not helping the players too much the way it is right now. There are scout reports, analysis of the opponent teams, you watch their games etc, but it is time consuming. If we’re going to spend 10-15 minutes to analyse every game it’s going to kill the fun imo, I don’t like nor want to be spoon fed, but I believe there should be more hints in the game report or maybe Assistant advises that tells you why your TIs are not working when it’s the case. I know it’s probably impossible to have the AI “guess” what style a human wants to implement and give contextual advice, but if we’re to watch on Extended and not full, would be handy if the Assistant would say “The opponent is pressing our defence” or “The opponent’s back four is hardly tested by us” rather than the “We’re being overrun in midfield” despite having 70% possession and using 4-4-2 Diamond.

I generally ignore the assistants advice, they tell you that you're being overun in midfield, so change the midfield to give you an extra man or two, then he complains about something else, he is never happy.

I just look at where I think overloads will happen, either for me or the opposition and either change the formation to constrict or exploit that, or choose my opposition instructions to acheive that goal, seems to work overall and is quick and easy to apply.

I usually have three formations, narrow, wide and defensive, which allows me to acheive the overload/constriction I want to acheive.

[Ampalaea4]

Will there be any short description on playstyles on the game? Like the descriptions on each player role, that will  explain this style of football..

[tyro]

On 27/09/2018 at 13:55, Neil Brock said:

We’ve also tweaked the mentality terms to make it clearer what each mentality does. There are still seven different mentalities to choose from but it’s goodbye to Contain, Counter (as you can set that in the transition instructions now), Control and Overload and hello to Very Defensive, Cautious, Positive and Very Attacking. These are all clearly explained in-game, so you can easily learn which mentality should be used in each situation.

The revamp of the tactical module is really one big thing that I look forward to. It is great to be able to differentiate between the different phases - something that the Gurus had always been talking about but that was very abstract when using tools in the game.

And the renaming of the mentality terms will also be very helpful. Together with the pre-set "styles" (for example direct counter) and the renaming of the mentality "counter" things become much clearer (Very Defensive, Defensive, Cautious, Balanced, Positive, Attacking, Very Attacking).

[XaW]

On 01/10/2018 at 15:34, Weston said:

 

@kingking My reservations regarding that strategy are the same as @HUNT3R's. How do you know what to change just by looking at stats? Not saying you're wrong - I'm genuinely asking. Analyzing matches and reacting to them is probably my single weakest attribute in FM as I typically hope sticking to my own tactics will make my team good enough at them to force other clubs to adjust to us, but that's definitely at least in part a cop out of my part as I rely on my superior squad building. Especially in light of this apparently improved tactic module, I want to become better at this, and I intend to try a mixture of watching more of the matches and taking a deeper dive in the stats, so I'm curious as to what tips you have in this area.

I used to have this as well, but after I built my first successful tactic from scratch and paying a lot of attention to where goals against came from I slowly started to understand why things happen. When I understood that I noticed I could sometimes "see" the same things from stats.

Take "Long shots" as an example. Unless you want your players to shoot on sight, then a very high number of long shots is a bad thing, at least in FM. The same is a very high amount of corners. Now, why are those things bad? Well, long shots are quite often a "I don't have any other choices"-choice from the player. Not always, of course, but to shoot from bad angles or under pressure is a more preferred way of losing possession rather than risk getting counterattacked. After all, sometimes you might score from those long shots, you rarely score with a poor backward pass or getting tackled. Too many corners often also indicate that your players are taking poor shots, or does so from poor angles. So both these things quite often have the same cause, lack of space or options.

So how to counter it? Well, the players might not be good enough for a high tempo tactic, or there are too few options. If everyone is bombing forward, you might want a player or two to offer support should the through-ball be too difficult or otherwise not possible. Maybe there is a lack of lateral movement, maybe to few players are making runs between the lines. All those things are possible, but it's only possible to pinpoint from your current tactic.

This is by no means a dig at you, but the way, but I quite often see a lot of players complaining about long shots, or players not following tactical instructions while at the same time have instructions who make it impossible for players to follow said instructions. Hell, I used to be one who struggled with the same. The thing I used to understand this are quite simple. For every single on of my instructions I asked myself: "Why do I have this? What does it do to my base tactic?". When I did this I noticed I had a lot of instructions added that I quite frankly didn't have any use for, and just had because I though it'd be cool or nice.

"Work into box. Ok, sure, but why? To counter long shots. Not good enough reason, why are the players shooting from distance in the first place?
Get stuck in. Why? To get players to tackle. Doesn't players tackle without it?"

And so on. I went into rubber ducking and tried to explain my thoughts to my dog actually, but failed for quite a lot of things. And then I started fresh with a base on what I wanted to do. And watched a lot of matches to see what the team did, then added something I thought would improve based on what I had seen. And watched a lot of more matches, and kept going until I had something solid to build on.

By doing it like this I knew what the strengths and weaknesses of the tactic were and had an inclination on how I could change things if the opponent somehow got the better of me. While I'm not a tactical genius or anything (I usually enjoy squad building and transfer much more than tactics), this were one of the most giving things I had ever done in FM. In my next game I tried to implement it as a plug and play, but failed. Mostly because the strengths of this new team were very different to the one I had played with before, BUT I knew the base of it were solid enough. So I did as before removed the things that were built around certain players and slowly introduced new things in the new team. Some where the same, but other were different.

Enough rambling from me. TL-DR: Know your tactics well enough to know when to change it and when to keep at it.

[AFCBeer]

If the new tactics module gives the greater level of flexibility which appears to be the case then I will be delighted. 

While mentality is obviously fundamental to a sides overall philosophy, I find it a bit limiting when trying to fine tune tactical set ups. For example, if I want a patient, probing possession style but with high intensity pressing I’m conflicted in the TC. The higher the mentality I use (to increase closing down and positioning) the more I’m increasing my tempo and passing directness too. I know using TI’s and PI’s it’s possible to get the set up I want but it’s not overly intuitive. 

That said, I have little sympathy for people who expect their side to play like, say Liverpool, because they think they’ve correctly replicated Klopp’s instructions. Liverpool play the way they do because their players have the attributes and (real life) PPM’s to make Gegenpressing effective. I’m sure the new ME will still place a heavy emphasis on the players themselves in simulating match situations. 

[chocolatecoatedballs]

4 minutes ago, AFCBeer said:

If the new tactics module gives the greater level of flexibility which appears to be the case then I will be delighted. 

While mentality is obviously fundamental to a sides overall philosophy, I find it a bit limiting when trying to fine tune tactical set ups. For example, if I want a patient, probing possession style but with high intensity pressing I’m conflicted in the TC. The higher the mentality I use (to increase closing down and positioning) the more I’m increasing my tempo and passing directness too. I know using TI’s and PI’s it’s possible to get the set up I want but it’s not overly intuitive. 

That said, I have little sympathy for people who expect their side to play like, say Liverpool, because they think they’ve correctly replicated Klopp’s instructions. Liverpool play the way they do because their players have the attributes and (real life) PPM’s to make Gegenpressing effective. I’m sure the new ME will still place a heavy emphasis on the players themselves in simulating match situations. 

Fine tuning has been a frustration because it's a game, but I understand what your're saying, but we are limited by the roles and have to as managers choose the right ones to bring about what we want

[Armistice]

2 hours ago, XaW said:

I used to have this as well, but after I built my first successful tactic from scratch and paying a lot of attention to where goals against came from I slowly started to understand why things happen. When I understood that I noticed I could sometimes "see" the same things from stats.

Take "Long shots" as an example. Unless you want your players to shoot on sight, then a very high number of long shots is a bad thing, at least in FM. The same is a very high amount of corners. Now, why are those things bad? Well, long shots are quite often a "I don't have any other choices"-choice from the player. Not always, of course, but to shoot from bad angles or under pressure is a more preferred way of losing possession rather than risk getting counterattacked. After all, sometimes you might score from those long shots, you rarely score with a poor backward pass or getting tackled. Too many corners often also indicate that your players are taking poor shots, or does so from poor angles. So both these things quite often have the same cause, lack of space or options.

So how to counter it? Well, the players might not be good enough for a high tempo tactic, or there are too few options. If everyone is bombing forward, you might want a player or two to offer support should the through-ball be too difficult or otherwise not possible. Maybe there is a lack of lateral movement, maybe to few players are making runs between the lines. All those things are possible, but it's only possible to pinpoint from your current tactic.

This is by no means a dig at you, but the way, but I quite often see a lot of players complaining about long shots, or players not following tactical instructions while at the same time have instructions who make it impossible for players to follow said instructions. Hell, I used to be one who struggled with the same. The thing I used to understand this are quite simple. For every single on of my instructions I asked myself: "Why do I have this? What does it do to my base tactic?". When I did this I noticed I had a lot of instructions added that I quite frankly didn't have any use for, and just had because I though it'd be cool or nice.

"Work into box. Ok, sure, but why? To counter long shots. Not good enough reason, why are the players shooting from distance in the first place?
Get stuck in. Why? To get players to tackle. Doesn't players tackle without it?"

And so on. I went into rubber ducking and tried to explain my thoughts to my dog actually, but failed for quite a lot of things. And then I started fresh with a base on what I wanted to do. And watched a lot of matches to see what the team did, then added something I thought would improve based on what I had seen. And watched a lot of more matches, and kept going until I had something solid to build on.

By doing it like this I knew what the strengths and weaknesses of the tactic were and had an inclination on how I could change things if the opponent somehow got the better of me. While I'm not a tactical genius or anything (I usually enjoy squad building and transfer much more than tactics), this were one of the most giving things I had ever done in FM. In my next game I tried to implement it as a plug and play, but failed. Mostly because the strengths of this new team were very different to the one I had played with before, BUT I knew the base of it were solid enough. So I did as before removed the things that were built around certain players and slowly introduced new things in the new team. Some where the same, but other were different.

Enough rambling from me. TL-DR: Know your tactics well enough to know when to change it and when to keep at it.

So how do you prove your point? You only said that long shots and corners could be an effect of poor quality chances but that’s it. It gives you an idea that something might be wrong. But to see why those pot shots were taken you still have to watch the move. Saying that you tweak your tactic only by looking at the stats is pure superficiality imo.

[Weston]

2 hours ago, XaW said:

I used to have this as well, but after I built my first successful tactic from scratch and paying a lot of attention to where goals against came from I slowly started to understand why things happen. When I understood that I noticed I could sometimes "see" the same things from stats.

Take "Long shots" as an example. Unless you want your players to shoot on sight, then a very high number of long shots is a bad thing, at least in FM. The same is a very high amount of corners. Now, why are those things bad? Well, long shots are quite often a "I don't have any other choices"-choice from the player. Not always, of course, but to shoot from bad angles or under pressure is a more preferred way of losing possession rather than risk getting counterattacked. After all, sometimes you might score from those long shots, you rarely score with a poor backward pass or getting tackled. Too many corners often also indicate that your players are taking poor shots, or does so from poor angles. So both these things quite often have the same cause, lack of space or options.

So how to counter it? Well, the players might not be good enough for a high tempo tactic, or there are too few options. If everyone is bombing forward, you might want a player or two to offer support should the through-ball be too difficult or otherwise not possible. Maybe there is a lack of lateral movement, maybe to few players are making runs between the lines. All those things are possible, but it's only possible to pinpoint from your current tactic.

This is by no means a dig at you, but the way, but I quite often see a lot of players complaining about long shots, or players not following tactical instructions while at the same time have instructions who make it impossible for players to follow said instructions. Hell, I used to be one who struggled with the same. The thing I used to understand this are quite simple. For every single on of my instructions I asked myself: "Why do I have this? What does it do to my base tactic?". When I did this I noticed I had a lot of instructions added that I quite frankly didn't have any use for, and just had because I though it'd be cool or nice.

"Work into box. Ok, sure, but why? To counter long shots. Not good enough reason, why are the players shooting from distance in the first place?
Get stuck in. Why? To get players to tackle. Doesn't players tackle without it?"

And so on. I went into rubber ducking and tried to explain my thoughts to my dog actually, but failed for quite a lot of things. And then I started fresh with a base on what I wanted to do. And watched a lot of matches to see what the team did, then added something I thought would improve based on what I had seen. And watched a lot of more matches, and kept going until I had something solid to build on.

By doing it like this I knew what the strengths and weaknesses of the tactic were and had an inclination on how I could change things if the opponent somehow got the better of me. While I'm not a tactical genius or anything (I usually enjoy squad building and transfer much more than tactics), this were one of the most giving things I had ever done in FM. In my next game I tried to implement it as a plug and play, but failed. Mostly because the strengths of this new team were very different to the one I had played with before, BUT I knew the base of it were solid enough. So I did as before removed the things that were built around certain players and slowly introduced new things in the new team. Some where the same, but other were different.

Enough rambling from me. TL-DR: Know your tactics well enough to know when to change it and when to keep at it.

Interesting. You and I are the same in that we definitely favor squad building and transfers most. If I decide I'm playing a certain formation I love finding players to fit it, however things get a bit muddy when it comes to player roles. If I find a great player with a different player role than I was originally looking for, as long as they fit the general balance I'll try to fit them in even I'm not always 100% on what the difference will be overall. For example, in my narrow midfield diamond (which I use because it's easier to build a squad this way with interchangeable players and positions as opposed to balancing left and right footed players on wings) I like to have one ball-winning/defensive midfielder/anchor man, one deep creative playmaking player, one box-to-box type utility man, and one more forward creative/attacking player. More specific than that I'm not always sure...

I obviously have a set idea of how I want to play going into any save, but a lot of the individual bits are dictated by how my team's stats stack up to the rest of the league in that screen where you can compare. Do I have the best average tackling? Get stuck in! Strikers have the worst heading? Low crosses! Best passing but worst dribbling? You get the idea. The problem is, of course, some of these can wind up being contradictory, in which case you have to make some decisions. Further still, some of these can be antithetical to your preferred playing style (like trying to play narrow with strikers best at heading). The trick for me is figuring out what aspects of my players are in fact worth accentuating in tactics and what parts are best left alone.

The main way I find contradicting tactics arise, though, is when compensating for something. Because I play a narrow formation when I first set out years ago I thought, well, better tell them to play a narrow shape. But really it's the opposite - I now realize I should tell them to play a bit wider to spread out that narrow formation. These things can definitely seem counter-intuitive. How do you know when contradicting instructions will benefit you by balancing things out, and how do you know when they will cripple you? Sometimes it's hard to tell. For better or worse, I have never once tried to recreate a popular style from real life, so I'm usually building from scratch, slightly improving my own cobbled-together plans each year.

To get back on topic, ME implementation aside, I do hope this new tactics module will help us visualize our entire overarching strategy a little better and how all of the pieces fit together. I think I may start watching on comprehensive instead of extended to facilitate making the connection between these instructions and the way they're displayed, at least at first and/or for big matches. It's funny you mention long shots as a main statistical indicator something is awry because that is probably the one that has always been most obvious to me as well - if I see long shots I usually know something is not going according to plan, though I'm not always sure what to do beyond tell them to "work the ball into the box" (I already make a point to tell individual players with poor long shots to avoid them in general, whether through training away the PPM or individual instructions).

Edited October 3, 2018 by Weston

[Svenc]

On 01/10/2018 at 10:45, RBKalle said:

 

If you basically tell people "fine-tuning tactics isn't even remotely as important as you think and it's only about perfectionism and nitpicking"

SI are a bit guilty of promoting things that way too.. but then they are promoting the game as the "most realistic management game on the planet", and let's be honest, what kinda company has ever been 100% honest in its ad blurb? In particular if the product they promote is a fantasy that hinges on making you feel like that clever manager doing a better job than the real bloke. The advice you get from "gurus", as you call them, is only ever necessary if you want to decisively outsmart opposition to an extent that is impossible in football and exists nowhere in the history of the globalized modern game* -- e.g. if you prefer a power fantasy rather than a "football simulation". That said, it's surprising how many players struggle to cope with the team sports basic that are rewarded by the game (either by UI design, or in general -- see the talks in the posts above about width and stretching a pitch vs keeping things tight and compact, for a start...) I'm not tactical expert at all, but that's something that a) everybody should be able to grasp and b) the game has obviously expected you to grasp either way, so far anyway (unless you let the assistant take over entirelly). It's been even a thing in action games like Fifa/PES for like years and years.

 

* the reasons players are able to do this are in big parts connected to that FM still hasn'T modeled intelligent zonal defending (I'm with MBarbaric on that one). There's always space on the pitches of FM that simply a) would not exist on a real football pitch and b) only the human player is ever aware of -- if he is, that is. Hence the observation that the line between "tactical nous" and "engine/AI exploit" can be pretty damn thin.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Svenc

[Weston]

35 minutes ago, Svenc said:

SI are a bit guilty of promoting things that way too.. but then they are promoting the game as the "most realistic management game on the planet", and let's be honest, what kinda company has ever been 100% honest in its ad blurb? In particular if the product they promote is a fantasy that hinges on making you feel like that clever manager doing a better job than the real bloke. The advice you get from "gurus", as you call them, is only ever necessary if you want to decisively outsmart opposition to an extent that is impossible in football and exists nowhere in the history of the globalized modern game* -- e.g. if you prefer a power fantasy rather than a "football simulation". That said, it's surprising how many players struggle to cope with the team sports basic that are rewarded by the game (either by UI design, or in general -- see the talks in the posts above about width and stretching a pitch vs keeping things tight and compact, for a start...) I'm not tactical expert at all, but that's something that a) everybody should be able to grasp and b) the game has obviously expected you to grasp either way, so far anyway (unless you let the assistant take over entirelly). It's been even a thing in action games like Fifa/PES for like years and years.

 

* the reasons players are able to do this are in big parts connected to that FM still hasn'T modeled intelligent zonal defending (I'm with MBarbaric on that one). There's always space on the pitches of FM that simply a) would not exist on a real football pitch and b) only the human player is ever aware of -- if he is, that is. Hence the observation that the line between "tactical nous" and "engine/AI exploit" can be pretty damn thin.

Sometimes I think I am way behind in tactics and then sometimes, after reading comments like this, I think I am doing just well enough for FM and any better I would be exploiting the game. In general I worry if what I'm doing is "realistic enough," but that's a whole other discussion.

[herne79]

12 minutes ago, Weston said:

Sometimes I think I am way behind in tactics and then sometimes, after reading comments like this, I think I am doing just well enough for FM and any better I would be exploiting the game. In general I worry if what I'm doing is "realistic enough," but that's a whole other discussion.

And therein lies the quandary.

We've got so much information on our hands - much more than we're supposed to have btw - that the game can become a numbers chase.  We end up trying to beat the game rather than play it.  We try to connect the dots: get our players "good" personalities so they can train better and achieve their PAs; employ the "best" coaches; sell our players for as much as we can; buy new ones for as little as possible; avoid bad reactions from players when I talk to them; employ perfect players for roles; constantly build better facilities; try to qualify for the CL as West Ham in my first season; get brilliant youth intakes year in year out...

But that's not real life.  In reality it's ok not to have perfect players; it's ok if my winger isn't a perfect fit for his role; it's ok if I don't get a brilliant youth intake; it's ok that West Ham doesn't qualify for the CL (*cough* no it isn't ).  Of course different people play the game in different ways and that's ok as well.  The odd annoyance that crops up can get frustrating (really? a crap youth intake again 10 years after building my perfect training centre?), but that sort of thing notwithstanding, all the game's really designed for is to help us play Manager.  Anything else is just people being people and finding innovative ways to make themselves "better".

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, Weston said:

Sometimes I think I am way behind in tactics and then sometimes, after reading comments like this, I think I am doing just well enough for FM

That's only something you can gauge. How well you are (By SI's standards coded) is pretty simple. How well does the AI do with a team, and how well do you do with that same team. That's your opposition, not Rashidi replaying the same match 500 times,  studying the second by second play like he does a master thesis (and losing girls over it). Football, naturally, isn't "beatable", as Herne uses a similar term to Rashidi. Try it in-game, but be prepared to put the effort in (and probably still fail -- Rashidi also has a bit of indepth knowledge gained over the internal testing and communicating directly to the ME staff throughout the years, I reckon, which a majority of users will not get). Know I don't know about you personally, but the above doesn't sound a very fun pastime to me, but totally to each their own!

Edited October 3, 2018 by Svenc

[Weston]

18 minutes ago, Svenc said:

That's only something you can gauge. How well you are (By SI's standards coded) is pretty simple. How well does the AI do with a team, and how well do you do with that same team. That's your opposition

I took a Parma side newly-promoted to Serie C to Serie A with two straight promotions in two years. I was proud and excited, but had a nagging worry perhaps it was just simply absurd and unrealistic that I managed to pull it off.

It's not the AI of course, but real-life Parma then did it in real life, too. So I breathed a sigh of relief - I achieved an impressive feat clearly shown to be within the realm of realism! And then I wondered if I should be upset they lessened my accomplishment instead 

(I certainly never took them to the Champions League, though.)

16 minutes ago, Svenc said:

Rashidi replaying the same match 500 times,  studying the second by second play like he does a master thesis (and losing girls over it).

And wow!! That's intense. I'll definitely remember this next time my girlfriend says I play too much -  now I can gently remind her it could be worse 

[SD]

53 minutes ago, Weston said:

I took a Parma side newly-promoted to Serie C to Serie A with two straight promotions in two years. I was proud and excited, but had a nagging worry perhaps it was just simply absurd and unrealistic that I managed to pull it off.

It's not the AI of course, but real-life Parma then did it in real life, too. So I breathed a sigh of relief - I achieved an impressive feat clearly shown to be within the realm of realism! And then I wondered if I should be upset they lessened my accomplishment instead 

(I certainly never took them to the Champions League, though.)

And wow!! That's intense. I'll definitely remember this next time my girlfriend says I play too much -  now I can gently remind her it could be worse 

I have similar inclination to the point where I was quitting the save unless I was doing perfect, winning titles and Champions Leagues first season in charge and all that.

For me, the cure was to focus more on the narrative and less on the achievements. As long as the save tells a compelling story, then it's all that matters.

[XaW]

16 hours ago, Armistice said:

So how do you prove your point? You only said that long shots and corners could be an effect of poor quality chances but that’s it. It gives you an idea that something might be wrong. But to see why those pot shots were taken you still have to watch the move. Saying that you tweak your tactic only by looking at the stats is pure superficiality imo.

Well, I might not have gotten the point clear enough, with the longer ramble about tactics in general. Once I KNOW my tactic well enough, I can see the signs of the same problems emerge and then change on stats only inside single games. I only do this once I know the tactic well enough though, so until then I watch the game (usually in 2D since I feel it give me the best overview of the match and the movements.

Using the tools for analysis in FM does give you quite a lot of feedback just by pure numbers. If your key playmaker have a horrible pass accuracy, then he might be the issue (and not something you would necessarily know by watching highlights I might add!) or his role is wrong or he has too few options, or just had the odd poor game.

In real life football the smallest of margins and random chance often decides close games, and I think FM at least partially try to emulate this. That's why I never look at the scores when deciding tactical changes, because you can have the perfect setup and still lose the first game by random chance or failure to pray to RNGesus or anything rare and amazing.

When I build a tactic and try to make it work I use all the tools I have available, including watching matches, detailed stats and the analysis tools. Because either one can have the answer to why things don't work.

15 hours ago, Weston said:

Interesting. You and I are the same in that we definitely favor squad building and transfers most. If I decide I'm playing a certain formation I love finding players to fit it, however things get a bit muddy when it comes to player roles. If I find a great player with a different player role than I was originally looking for, as long as they fit the general balance I'll try to fit them in even I'm not always 100% on what the difference will be overall. For example, in my narrow midfield diamond (which I use because it's easier to build a squad this way with interchangeable players and positions as opposed to balancing left and right footed players on wings) I like to have one ball-winning/defensive midfielder/anchor man, one deep creative playmaking player, one box-to-box type utility man, and one more forward creative/attacking player. More specific than that I'm not always sure...

I obviously have a set idea of how I want to play going into any save, but a lot of the individual bits are dictated by how my team's stats stack up to the rest of the league in that screen where you can compare. Do I have the best average tackling? Get stuck in! Strikers have the worst heading? Low crosses! Best passing but worst dribbling? You get the idea. The problem is, of course, some of these can wind up being contradictory, in which case you have to make some decisions. Further still, some of these can be antithetical to your preferred playing style (like trying to play narrow with strikers best at heading). The trick for me is figuring out what aspects of my players are in fact worth accentuating in tactics and what parts are best left alone.

The main way I find contradicting tactics arise, though, is when compensating for something. Because I play a narrow formation when I first set out years ago I thought, well, better tell them to play a narrow shape. But really it's the opposite - I now realize I should tell them to play a bit wider to spread out that narrow formation. These things can definitely seem counter-intuitive. How do you know when contradicting instructions will benefit you by balancing things out, and how do you know when they will cripple you? Sometimes it's hard to tell. For better or worse, I have never once tried to recreate a popular style from real life, so I'm usually building from scratch, slightly improving my own cobbled-together plans each year.

To get back on topic, ME implementation aside, I do hope this new tactics module will help us visualize our entire overarching strategy a little better and how all of the pieces fit together. I think I may start watching on comprehensive instead of extended to facilitate making the connection between these instructions and the way they're displayed, at least at first and/or for big matches. It's funny you mention long shots as a main statistical indicator something is awry because that is probably the one that has always been most obvious to me as well - if I see long shots I usually know something is not going according to plan, though I'm not always sure what to do beyond tell them to "work the ball into the box" (I already make a point to tell individual players with poor long shots to avoid them in general, whether through training away the PPM or individual instructions).

I don't always know, if I would, I'd be winning much more!

What I do though, is try to explain why I change what I change and try to see how it affects the tactic. You play a narrow formation, just by doing that you know that you are overloading the middle and allowing space on your flanks. If you add the instruction to play narrower, then the players will try to do that, but most likely they will be stepping on each others toes. And if you did this you would hopefully notice in the match that you were TOO narrow.

I usually base my width on my tactical philosophy. If I expect to attack I play wider, and more defensive tactics will be narrower. I'm talking about the instruction here, not formation, mind!

I would advise you to try to replicate a real life tactic though, it really helped me to understand the tactics aspect of FM better than before. And it always give you a decent base philosophy that SHOULD work in FM. A small warning though, not everything is easy to replicate in FM so be ready to let a few aspects out when implementing things. In FM18 gegenpress/counterpress were practically impossible to do, but FM19 could really help these things.

In my main FM18 tactic I very rarely get more than 5 long shots at any game (I do have "work the ball into the box" added, but that is because I really want to encourage quick short passes around the box). However, when I started out I did have a lot of long shots even with the instruction added. After a particularly poor match I looked up every situation that involved a long shot and paused just before the player shot to see what the situation were. I actually posted about one such situation here. Now, a lot of people disagree and said the ME is broken, and I'll leave it at that, but I made it work by changing player roles and instructions. For that situation in particular I actually dropped a midfielder deeper to allow a way to recycle possession should our attack come to a halt. I also changed another midfielder from a support role (Box-to-box midfielder) to an attack role (CM-A). This created movement between the lines and had several good outcomes. He now ran through the opposition lines and created much more space for my other attacking players. This were already something I had though about since my lone striker often were a bit isolated, so pushing him further up and making more forward runs were just the thing I needed to reduce long shots.

Though, and this needs to be said, this does leave me a bit more vulnerable to getting exploited by good teams since the CM-A sometimes are a bit too far upfield when we lose the possession. But this is the trade off of tactics, and something I try to evaluate to use or not with different opponents.

The one issue I have with long shots in FM is that in real life long shots can be used as a tactic for the attacking side. If the defense set very low long shots (from good shooters) can be a tactic to disrupt the defense. If you have several dangerous long shots, defenders will try to close down more naturally, thus leaving space behind that the attackers can use. However, this is not something that I believe is possible to replicate in FM18.

[DP]

5 long shots a game seems far too much, especially for the top sides. Here’s hoping that’s been toned down. 

If it’s about ‘lack of options’ then pass it sideways or backwards - like what happens in real life - rather than aimlessly shoot at goal. 

[themadsheep2001]

3 minutes ago, DP said:

5 long shots a game seems far too much, especially for the top sides. Here’s hoping that’s been toned down. 

If it’s about ‘lack of options’ then pass it sideways or backwards - like what happens in real life - rather than aimlessly shoot at goal. 

If this is a team statistic, then 5 long shots a game isn't that high at all. I'll have a look at my Opta stats again later to confirm. 

[XaW]

22 minutes ago, DP said:

5 long shots a game seems far too much, especially for the top sides. Here’s hoping that’s been toned down. 

If it’s about ‘lack of options’ then pass it sideways or backwards - like what happens in real life - rather than aimlessly shoot at goal. 

5 long shots are not a lot, I'll let @themadsheep2001 show stats.

And my point is, that the player doesn't have any passing options, neither sideways nor backwards and he is under pressure. I wrote that one of the things I did to reduce it were to have another player drop deeper as a way to recycle possession instead of shooting. Passing options are exactly that, OPTIONS. If you lack options, then you don't have passing options... That was half of my text, did you not read it?

In that spot the smart thing to do is either shoot, if you are semi close to the goal, or simply clear it upfield. The absolutely last thing you want is to lose the ball and allow a counterattack.

 

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, XaW said:

5 long shots are not a lot, I'll let @themadsheep2001 show stats.

 

The averages are in between 30% and 50% respectively, typically no matter much the competition (team stats, shot zones). You can try to "force" to keep it to zero (that "beating" football the game thing) . I once did it too. I set up my team in a way so that they would take NO SHOTS AT ALL. (e.g. keeping all players behind the ball). But inevitably, a set piece is going to be awarded in the oppositon half. That will result in a shot, not seldom from range. E.g. direct free kick, corner clearance to a guy sitting at the edge of the area, that kinda thing. Which also was kinda useful, as it showed me that the "long shot" stat on FM always tends to be "inflated" by exactly such occurances.

BTw: I personally find it fascinating that this is always seen from the attacking team's end. If you're sitting deep, forcing opposition to additioanlly long shots (or moments of individual brilliance rather than a team move, in general) is a pretty standard gauge of things working. Space and (passing) options aren't meant to become merely available; for the defending team, they'are also meant to be reduced for said team. This has to go two ways, and naturally, it some always does as soon as teams set up to park that proverbial bus.

That "attacking" bias shows in several ways though. Everybody seems to be looking forward to a Barcelona that in-game may or may not play like their real world counterpart. **** that. With all that pressing talk (and the aquirements of the official licenses), I'm personally looking forward to a Bundesliga that's just as ugly and tightly contested as its real world counterpart, with matches being the equivalent of a coint toss every single damn week!

Edited October 4, 2018 by Svenc

[pauly15]

Will 3 strikers still be OP?

[TheInvisibleMan]

On 27/09/2018 at 12:55, Neil Brock said:

Last year we introduced the pre-match briefing and we have built upon this for FM19. Firstly, you’ll notice that the briefing has been redesigned make it easier to navigate through and clearer on how you can talk to your team, with more options available. Your assistant manager will also provide recommended topics for discussion.

Hope these have more of an effect this year. Too often on 2018 you could talk to your squad and nobody even react to what you said.

I understand players probably don't have much of a discussion in a pre-match meeting, rather just listen to the coach, but it'd be better to get some sort of indication as to whether they're taking in what you're saying to them.

[Viking]

The FM show #3 just reseased and the guys discussed this. I really like this feature. Hopefully it will make life easier for tactic-illiterate muppets like me. 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Viking

[DP]

9 hours ago, XaW said:

5 long shots are not a lot, I'll let @themadsheep2001 show stats.

And my point is, that the player doesn't have any passing options, neither sideways nor backwards and he is under pressure. I wrote that one of the things I did to reduce it were to have another player drop deeper as a way to recycle possession instead of shooting. Passing options are exactly that, OPTIONS. If you lack options, then you don't have passing options... That was half of my text, did you not read it?

In that spot the smart thing to do is either shoot, if you are semi close to the goal, or simply clear it upfield. The absolutely last thing you want is to lose the ball and allow a counterattack.

 

Yes, that is absolutely the last thing so players tend to retain possession. I know the way the ME sees it but it simply isn’t a true reflection. You’ll never hear a manager say ‘if you have no option just shoot’. It doesn’t work that way. 

In fact De Boer was saying on Monday night that he would tell his players to not shoot from distance at all. That instruction is impossible in the current ME as there are times it’ll happen for the reasons above. 

If there is nothing on a player can always go backwards or attempt to go sideways or forward rather than ridiculously shoot. 

Edited October 4, 2018 by DP

[masno]

Find quite interesting park the bus being one "style". Let's see how it goes.

[DP]

10 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

If this is a team statistic, then 5 long shots a game isn't that high at all. I'll have a look at my Opta stats again later to confirm. 

Be interesting to see how many shots outside of the area Liverpool and City take. 

My point is, if the manager says don’t take any long shots, no matter the circumstance, that can happen. I’m sure there are games where those two don’t shoot at all from outside the box owing to their style of play. 

Now in FM the way the ME is wired means you can’t quite get the level of control you need - because of this ‘if there’s no option the player will shoot’ programming. In reality there’s always another option to shooting from range. 

[bvbpeter]

Will the player instructions be different too?

[kpsia518]

 

[DP]

Love that they were bold and got rid of sweeper. Antiquated terminology. 

Weird that we had a big discussion on this a few weeks back

[themadsheep2001]

1 hour ago, DP said:

Be interesting to see how many shots outside of the area Liverpool and City take. 

My point is, if the manager says don’t take any long shots, no matter the circumstance, that can happen. I’m sure there are games where those two don’t shoot at all from outside the box owing to their style of play. 

Now in FM the way the ME is wired means you can’t quite get the level of control you need - because of this ‘if there’s no option the player will shoot’ programming. In reality there’s always another option to shooting from range. 

That virtually never happens

Last season Liverpool took 638 shots in the league. 247 of them were outside the box. That's average of 6.5 a game

Man City took 665 shots in the league, 254 outside the box, that's an average of 6.68 a game

[DP]

14 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

That virtually never happens

Last season Liverpool took 638 shots in the league. 247 of them were outside the box. That's average of 6.5 a game

Man City took 665 shots in the league, 254 outside the box, that's an average of 6.68 a game

Fair enough but the point is that it can happen. And those 6 shots I’m betting were not a a result of the player having no other option. That’s my point really. The ME felt like it was slightly too balanced in favour of long shots - at default - and you had to work hard on instructions to stop it. 

[kpsia518]

1 hour ago, kpsia518 said:

 

looks like team shape not choose able in FM19 ?

 

[GOODNAME]

No Retain Possession ?