Will my team be able to pass their way to world domination?

[Djuicer]

2 minutes ago, KyleHyde said:

It's just my experience managing very weak teams but playing a simple yet positive passing game. One of the hurdles is to be compact on the flanks as well to avoid the deadly (in fm20) fullback cross. I only found success when i went to default pressing and line of engagement settings so my players didn't leave their position too early. There are other factors of course but player attributes are key. A winger with low teamwork will be a problem against attacking fullbacks. Improving full backs makes a huge difference though. With a world class team like Man City obviously you can get away with pretty much anything so I guess it's more about making the team play how you want them to.

Its definetly valid points. I would not use this in lower divisions for example. A lot of my players are complete, technique is fantastic and work rate too. Also I change around during games. LOE, DLINE and urgency. This is the starting point though. 

[retrodude09]

Given that Cleon's thread was one of your sources of inspiration, I'm going to guess you're using the 4-2-3-1DM Wide variation (at least, I think that's what the game calls it). 

Although, I'm not sure if the pass map that you shared is related to this new tactic or the original 4-3-3. If it's the new tactic, then I'm guessing it's 2 Ams & 1 DM with roles to give you a 4-2-3-1.

[Djuicer]

24 minutes ago, retrodude09 said:

Given that Cleon's thread was one of your sources of inspiration, I'm going to guess you're using the 4-2-3-1DM Wide variation (at least, I think that's what the game calls it). 

Although, I'm not sure if the pass map that you shared is related to this new tactic or the original 4-3-3. If it's the new tactic, then I'm guessing it's 2 Ams & 1 DM with roles to give you a 4-2-3-1.

Its the deep one in defence, in attack it becomes something else 

[OJ]

Hey guys, I'm also one for whom the only "proper" way to play football is to dominate posession, control the game and pass your way through and score beautiful goals. In FM I'd say my tactics/philosophies are a mix of Wenger and Pep. From Wenger borrowing his propensity of re-training players to other positions based on their skills (most famous example of course Henry in Monaco/Arsenal), and his love of midfield playmakers and especially using one on the wing as well, for example. From Pep/Total football the rest, complete control with agressively winning the ball back etc.

 

Reading this and other similar threads inspired me as well to share some, been thinking of starting a small thread as well (think I've found a very effective counter to the whole AI playing extreme defense tiki taka keeping the ball in their defense like prime-Barca to counter and kill you in FM20), but before that let me share 2 clips from the match I just finished, where we scored 2 delightful goals, Kieran Tierney (the best Scottish left back in the world) scoring one and assisting the other.

 

Apologies for the slightly poor vid quality, I'm on Mac and for some reason uploading clips from the game directly to Youtube doesn't work, just get a black screen. So had to record on my phone and upload.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIiFOfwqDc

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c83nFdEspKQ

 

Of course I'm playing with Arsenal and have had time to mould the squad exactly to my liking, but nonetheless I'm liking this hehe.

[Djuicer]

13 hours ago, OJ said:

Hey guys, I'm also one for whom the only "proper" way to play football is to dominate posession, control the game and pass your way through and score beautiful goals. In FM I'd say my tactics/philosophies are a mix of Wenger and Pep. From Wenger borrowing his propensity of re-training players to other positions based on their skills (most famous example of course Henry in Monaco/Arsenal), and his love of midfield playmakers and especially using one on the wing as well, for example. From Pep/Total football the rest, complete control with agressively winning the ball back etc.

 

Reading this and other similar threads inspired me as well to share some, been thinking of starting a small thread as well (think I've found a very effective counter to the whole AI playing extreme defense tiki taka keeping the ball in their defense like prime-Barca to counter and kill you in FM20), but before that let me share 2 clips from the match I just finished, where we scored 2 delightful goals, Kieran Tierney (the best Scottish left back in the world) scoring one and assisting the other.

 

Apologies for the slightly poor vid quality, I'm on Mac and for some reason uploading clips from the game directly to Youtube doesn't work, just get a black screen. So had to record on my phone and upload.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIiFOfwqDc

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c83nFdEspKQ

 

Of course I'm playing with Arsenal and have had time to mould the squad exactly to my liking, but nonetheless I'm liking this hehe.

Total Football is the style I feel brings the most joy when it clicks. Its not easy though and often requires a lot of thinking and consideration before it works. What roles and TI's do you use? Is there any TI or role you feel are key to it working? Me myself love a silky midfielder, and honestly it just adds to it if he is lazy and/or weak too. Reminds me of someone like Riquelme, Aimar, Ortega. Argentina seems to produce this ilk in abundance.

 

The quality is awful! but the football makes up for it nice patient football you have going there.

 

Have you kept a lot of the up-and-comming players? Smith-Rowe, Nelson, Nketiah, Saliba, Maitland-Niles, Guendozi. Tierny I saw with the goal, he is fantastic although he possibly aint even the best LB Scotland has. Amazing how Scotland can have like...all good players are left backs!!

[OJ]

2 hours ago, Djuicer said:

Total Football is the style I feel brings the most joy when it clicks. Its not easy though and often requires a lot of thinking and consideration before it works. What roles and TI's do you use? Is there any TI or role you feel are key to it working? Me myself love a silky midfielder, and honestly it just adds to it if he is lazy and/or weak too. Reminds me of someone like Riquelme, Aimar, Ortega. Argentina seems to produce this ilk in abundance.

 

The quality is awful! but the football makes up for it nice patient football you have going there.

 

Have you kept a lot of the up-and-comming players? Smith-Rowe, Nelson, Nketiah, Saliba, Maitland-Niles, Guendozi. Tierny I saw with the goal, he is fantastic although he possibly aint even the best LB Scotland has. Amazing how Scotland can have like...all good players are left backs!!

Haha yeah the quality of he vid might have been a bit more than "slightly poor"

Right on the money about the enjoyment it brings when it clicks, nothing like the joy you get from those goals where everything just goes according to the principles you set (I'm also a bit of a control freak in some aspects like Pep, hence also why Total football is right for me )

But yeah, I've never had to work this much with my tactic to get them to score the way I want to, I've gone for example about 85PL matches unbeaten, 2 full seasons, but I've been tinkering and changing every year to get to the max so to say. I love a silky midfielder too, especially a playmaker, was one myself as well (played ice hockey till I was 18 and a lot of football too), so also basically like Pep and Wenger my ideal team would be 11 playmakers on the pitch lol. So to answer your question about the key roles etc, I feel like the biggest thing is not any one individual role, but overall literally all my midfielders and wide forwards and even strikers pretty much (as playing with F9) are either great or at least good level playmakers with high vision, passing, decisions etc and also feel like the tactic is so demanding, and fairly aggressive, that number 1 thing is just excellent technical quality, vision and decision-making (with as high teamwork, work rate as possible around the team). And I've trained literally everyone except my central defenders to have the 1-2's PPM to just max them out all the time, which is one of the best ways to create the space to move around especially packed defenses. So there's tons of those all the time, which I love and it helps hehe. And a lot of the players have roam from position, to allow them to use their intelligence to find the spaces and drag the defenders away.

However with that said, most goals come from the IF's on the wings,  they score fairly equally, but if you have fullbacks who are excellent technically, this tactic will get them in a lot of excellent scoring opportunities and they punish teams. I currently have 2 regens, 1 left side and one right, who are originally AML and AMR that I've trained to fullbacks and they should be crazy good. This is my other regen DR who doesn't even have lights out great technicals, but check his stats. 6 finishing but he's pretty deadly.

Below also my standard formation I start matches on, the key player instructions I have:

roam from position on the front 3 plus the 2 CMs (B2B and RPM), get further fwd for the IF(s) on the left and the B2B CM, dribble more and more direct passes for both RPM and B2B, and RB has get further fwd, stay wide, run wide with ball, cross from byline and cross near-post.

Smith-Rowe, Nelson, Saliba, Saka, Willock and Martinelli are key players. I started with an updated DB so they had gotten I think some boosts to their stats and PA's, so they've turned excellent also with some careful training. Nketiah I sold because I just loathe poachers (hate Pippo Inzaghi above all other footballers lol), and anyways poachers aren't the best fit for posession football. Maitland-Niles I sold cause got a really good offer from Chelsea and had more promising youngsters coming through, Guendouzi I only sold cause Atleti one day decided to come with an offer of 117M pounds for him, which was just too good to turn down (bought De Jong from Barca for 80M to replace), but I've felt bad about it ever since hahahah.

Tierney being the best Scottish left back was a bit tongue in cheek hehe, but to be honest as long as he stays injury free I think in the coming seasons he's going to show again he's better than Robertson (this was the case before Robertson went to Pool, and as good as he is, plays in a tactic and team that is all about making the fullbacks look the best and have tons of time and space on the ball so he looks better than he really is).

Just to end a bit on the philosophical side of things, I've also been heavily influenced through ice hockey, and the Soviet Union team of the 1980's especially. They called it the red machine, because they just swept through all the best teams in the world at the time by playing total control hockey, i.e. total football on ice. Most important aspects of those teams/players were super high intelligence and technical quality. And from hockey you can take some good principles that apply to football (it's equally about space, finding angles to play around etc like football), but done on a much smaller pitch size, and with proper tackling, at a higher speed, so space and time are a premium. One of the best ways of scoring goals in hockey are 2-1's against defenders and heavily utilising cutbacks, so for example those I try to get applied in my tactic as much as possible. Hence the low crosses, cross near post PI for the RB and so forth.

In case you're interested, this is a pretty good clip showcasing the CCCP team and some of their most dominating plays, like the best football, it's pure poetry in motion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QoOArMQ6YY

Oh, and Aimar and Ortega are some of my all time favourite players! This regen is German instead but think you're going to like him hahaha.

[retrodude09]

On 13/05/2020 at 10:17, Djuicer said:

Its the deep one in defence, in attack it becomes something else 

I'm interested to see what it is then! 

[Djuicer]

7 hours ago, OJ said:

Haha yeah the quality of he vid might have been a bit more than "slightly poor"

Right on the money about the enjoyment it brings when it clicks, nothing like the joy you get from those goals where everything just goes according to the principles you set (I'm also a bit of a control freak in some aspects like Pep, hence also why Total football is right for me )

But yeah, I've never had to work this much with my tactic to get them to score the way I want to, I've gone for example about 85PL matches unbeaten, 2 full seasons, but I've been tinkering and changing every year to get to the max so to say. I love a silky midfielder too, especially a playmaker, was one myself as well (played ice hockey till I was 18 and a lot of football too), so also basically like Pep and Wenger my ideal team would be 11 playmakers on the pitch lol. So to answer your question about the key roles etc, I feel like the biggest thing is not any one individual role, but overall literally all my midfielders and wide forwards and even strikers pretty much (as playing with F9) are either great or at least good level playmakers with high vision, passing, decisions etc and also feel like the tactic is so demanding, and fairly aggressive, that number 1 thing is just excellent technical quality, vision and decision-making (with as high teamwork, work rate as possible around the team). And I've trained literally everyone except my central defenders to have the 1-2's PPM to just max them out all the time, which is one of the best ways to create the space to move around especially packed defenses. So there's tons of those all the time, which I love and it helps hehe. And a lot of the players have roam from position, to allow them to use their intelligence to find the spaces and drag the defenders away.

However with that said, most goals come from the IF's on the wings,  they score fairly equally, but if you have fullbacks who are excellent technically, this tactic will get them in a lot of excellent scoring opportunities and they punish teams. I currently have 2 regens, 1 left side and one right, who are originally AML and AMR that I've trained to fullbacks and they should be crazy good. This is my other regen DR who doesn't even have lights out great technicals, but check his stats. 6 finishing but he's pretty deadly.

Below also my standard formation I start matches on, the key player instructions I have:

roam from position on the front 3 plus the 2 CMs (B2B and RPM), get further fwd for the IF(s) on the left and the B2B CM, dribble more and more direct passes for both RPM and B2B, and RB has get further fwd, stay wide, run wide with ball, cross from byline and cross near-post.

Smith-Rowe, Nelson, Saliba, Saka, Willock and Martinelli are key players. I started with an updated DB so they had gotten I think some boosts to their stats and PA's, so they've turned excellent also with some careful training. Nketiah I sold because I just loathe poachers (hate Pippo Inzaghi above all other footballers lol), and anyways poachers aren't the best fit for posession football. Maitland-Niles I sold cause got a really good offer from Chelsea and had more promising youngsters coming through, Guendouzi I only sold cause Atleti one day decided to come with an offer of 117M pounds for him, which was just too good to turn down (bought De Jong from Barca for 80M to replace), but I've felt bad about it ever since hahahah.

Tierney being the best Scottish left back was a bit tongue in cheek hehe, but to be honest as long as he stays injury free I think in the coming seasons he's going to show again he's better than Robertson (this was the case before Robertson went to Pool, and as good as he is, plays in a tactic and team that is all about making the fullbacks look the best and have tons of time and space on the ball so he looks better than he really is).

Just to end a bit on the philosophical side of things, I've also been heavily influenced through ice hockey, and the Soviet Union team of the 1980's especially. They called it the red machine, because they just swept through all the best teams in the world at the time by playing total control hockey, i.e. total football on ice. Most important aspects of those teams/players were super high intelligence and technical quality. And from hockey you can take some good principles that apply to football (it's equally about space, finding angles to play around etc like football), but done on a much smaller pitch size, and with proper tackling, at a higher speed, so space and time are a premium. One of the best ways of scoring goals in hockey are 2-1's against defenders and heavily utilising cutbacks, so for example those I try to get applied in my tactic as much as possible. Hence the low crosses, cross near post PI for the RB and so forth.

In case you're interested, this is a pretty good clip showcasing the CCCP team and some of their most dominating plays, like the best football, it's pure poetry in motion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QoOArMQ6YY

Oh, and Aimar and Ortega are some of my all time favourite players! This regen is German instead but think you're going to like him hahaha.

I see your point regarding players. My own favourite and the one who often makes the most good games is definetly B. Silva. What a player, simply fantastic. 20 Work rate, 15 team work, 18 vision, 15 anticipation, 17 composure, 16 decision, 17 flair. Add the magnificent technique and well rounded physique. You have a player capable of dominating and create any style you want. I have used him mostly on the flank and he scores and creates a lot. He is probably though even better in central roles but I like when he switches play to the other flank (PPM), and the effect feels bigger when he is deployed on the wing. For me the centre forwards got most goals, than probably followed by the IWFs and regular IWs. The MEZs also chips in around 8-14 in a year.

1-2s is probably my favourite PPM for possession styles and I want it in all my players except the holder and the centerbacks. I also like movement altering PPMs a lot, but not for every player and often 1 or max 2 of them. Do you use roles with roaming or do you find it better to add it into for example AP instead of going with the RPM from the begining? I have been shown your roles now but as a general point? I find it better most of the time to not add that many PIs. The correct role from the start often works better imo.

Is the narrow width something that makes this kind of style tick better? for me the feeling of it is just wrong. Cruyffs wingers, Guardiola use em too. But if it works, it works I suppose.

 

You manged to get De Jong for 80M? for me he has changed club twice but for around double that amount. He is just soo good. The best "dlp" in the game probably (attributes/PPMs). Selling Guendozi for almost 40M  more seems like some neat buissness, however I understand the bad feeling. Guendozi became a HG later on right?

 

Yeah, Robertson is being used in a way that maximises his strenghts. Although, he still is as good as he is even if he is helped by Klopps system. Nevertheless Tierny is younger and if he comes back to full fitness and form there is very possible he will reach or surpass Robertsons level.

 

They were probably the best hockey team ever (swede here), the line with Larionov, Krutov and Makarov has yet to been surpassed. Even if the Edmonton team in the eighties also was sublime. No other team really have had the same understanding as the soviets. Probably because they were enrolled in the army and trained and played together for years. Still, unparalled cohesion and understanding. Really impressive with the cross over from hockey to football with the crosses and the aim of them. To emulate the (in sweden we call it) "klapp klapp spel"  (yeah, it shall resemble something like 1-2) plays the soviets had. EDIT: The VID, insane skill and composure. + The keepers, mad times. No masks. Pucks (shots) in around 150-170khm I suppose at that era.

 

Insane players. Just mental. I could use both of them (my rightback is the weakest link in the team) and the german... there is no drool emoji but thats what Im looking like right now 

2 hours ago, retrodude09 said:

I'm interested to see what it is then! 

Hopefully it will be some good positions. Time to play has been sparse at the moment. Hopefully I will have more time to get some games soon 

One is something like 2-2-2-1-3 and the other is more of a back three.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Djuicer

[OJ]

3 hours ago, Djuicer said:

I see your point regarding players. My own favourite and the one who often makes the most good games is definetly B. Silva. What a player, simply fantastic. 20 Work rate, 15 team work, 18 vision, 15 anticipation, 17 composure, 16 decision, 17 flair. Add the magnificent technique and well rounded physique. You have a player capable of dominating and create any style you want. I have used him mostly on the flank and he scores and creates a lot. He is probably though even better in central roles but I like when he switches play to the other flank (PPM), and the effect feels bigger when he is deployed on the wing. For me the centre forwards got most goals, than probably followed by the IWFs and regular IWs. The MEZs also chips in around 8-14 in a year.

1-2s is probably my favourite PPM for possession styles and I want it in all my players except the holder and the centerbacks. I also like movement altering PPMs a lot, but not for every player and often 1 or max 2 of them. Do you use roles with roaming or do you find it better to add it into for example AP instead of going with the RPM from the begining? I have been shown your roles now but as a general point? I find it better most of the time to not add that many PIs. The correct role from the start often works better imo.

Is the narrow width something that makes this kind of style tick better? for me the feeling of it is just wrong. Cruyffs wingers, Guardiola use em too. But if it works, it works I suppose.

 

You manged to get De Jong for 80M? for me he has changed club twice but for around double that amount. He is just soo good. The best "dlp" in the game probably (attributes/PPMs). Selling Guendozi for almost 40M  more seems like some neat buissness, however I understand the bad feeling. Guendozi became a HG later on right?

 

Yeah, Robertson is being used in a way that maximises his strenghts. Although, he still is as good as he is even if he is helped by Klopps system. Nevertheless Tierny is younger and if he comes back to full fitness and form there is very possible he will reach or surpass Robertsons level.

 

They were probably the best hockey team ever (swede here), the line with Larionov, Krutov and Makarov has yet to been surpassed. Even if the Edmonton team in the eighties also was sublime. No other team really have had the same understanding as the soviets. Probably because they were enrolled in the army and trained and played together for years. Still, unparalled cohesion and understanding. Really impressive with the cross over from hockey to football with the crosses and the aim of them. To emulate the (in sweden we call it) "klapp klapp spel"  (yeah, it shall resemble something like 1-2) plays the soviets had. EDIT: The VID, insane skill and composure. + The keepers, mad times. No masks. Pucks (shots) in around 150-170khm I suppose at that era.

 

Insane players. Just mental. I could use both of them (my rightback is the weakest link in the team) and the german... there is no drool emoji but thats what Im looking like right now 

Hopefully it will be some good positions. Time to play has been sparse at the moment. Hopefully I will have more time to get some games soon 

One is something like 2-2-2-1-3 and the other is more of a back three.

God damn it, wrote a long post and lost it at the last second due to some weird editing shenanigans. Here we go again

Ahh so we're neighbours hehe, jag är finsk, so we both know our hockey haha! And yeah, klapp klapp spel exactly! Some of my all time faves are Swedes btw, like Kung Zetterberg and Lidström of course  (the all time best hockey defender (Bobby Orr has nothing on Nick), besides the Red Wings Russians (also a huge Red Wings fan since early nineties).

Love B Silva too, had him on some earlier FMs before he was at City, he's the best wide playmaker in the world at the moment and yeah he would be deadly in the centre too but his skillset outwide is hard to find so I would and always kept him there too, also for more scoring as an IF type. I have Kai Havertz, and played him only left/right wing besides one year where I used him mainly as a striker (F9). Yeah got de Jong quite cheap cause they also had Pogba and Milinkovic-Savic lol so seemed happy enough with the 80m, that season he didn't play so much. And yes he's the perfect DLP, though I used him up until this season as the RPM on my MCL slot, as that's also the role he would play at Ajax. But I got the below guy (Christian) from Barca for this season, so moved him to my DM DLP position. Though I also got de Jong's eventual DM DLP replacement in as well (Albarracin)

As for the narrow width, yeah technically it's not Pep/total football which is all about maximizing space, and previous years I would use Wide too, but feel like they could have almost named this year's game Wingball Manager, cause central attacks are so hard to create. So I go with narrow to cut out wing play and bog standard wide goals from crosses to combat the IMO a bit poor balance of the ME in that.

But I use key total football width principles still in that my RB has all the PI's to keep him wide all the time, for AMR IF to cut in and then get the underlap pass (key Pep/Barca principle before his IWB days, where they would be furious with the fullback if he would be inside/more central and play a pass on the outside to push the IF wide, instead of being wide of the Inside Forward so the full back can play the ball inside once the IF cuts in (hence my RB staying out wide, AMR is IF who of course cuts in as per the role, then I have underlap pass ticked for the right win to max these attacks). And on the left side I have my LB as IWB, but I have look for overlaps ticked on, so it makes it more unpredictable with sometimes the LB cutting in (esp when I get it deep wide, the LB will cut inside into excellent unmarked positions around the box), but also going out wide for my AML IF to either cut in or stay a bit wider first so they can play combos and with my RPM on left MC create overloads. So while my guys don't absolutely hug the line (compressed a bit inside due to the narrow width), I do utilise width quite heavily still, I would say.

Been tinkering further, changing things one by one to isolate things, and I've discovered the most consistent way at leasdt for me to create tiki taka quick passing goals from central areas is to just go with Balanced mentality. Then just making sure you have enough penetration/attacking intent with roles etc and you'll be creating some amazing plays very consistently. At least with the tactic I posted above, just changed to Balanced.

In relation to that and applying hockey principles, to further minimize crossing (since the game doesn't give you a "put in a cross and I'll shoot you. Go ahead, dare me" -option), I've put all my wideplayers and fullbacks on cross left often, which also helps. They'll still put in a cross when it's a good opportunity, but cuts way some of the stupider ones.

About the roaming stuff and how many players to have it on, I've found that since I face a lot of parked buses, the best way (and again to try to create a bit hockey-like plays and quick interchanges with players switching position) counter it is to have my front five (so F9 who also all have drop deep PPM since the F9 role in FM20 is broken), AML, AMR, MCL MCR and of course the IWB due to the role on roam from position. This creates a lot vertical and horizontal runs, coupled with the position switching, which IMO is the best way to create the openings, because you'll be dragging a lot of players a lot of the time out of position. But I didn't want absolutely everyone to do it, hence turned on with the PIs for those players I want to have it. Works fine, IMO. But I think it works either way just fine, whether it's with a role that has it already or then added with PI. For example I rarely use AP, in MC slot I always go with the RPM (and IWB at LB), exactly mainly for the roaming and moving with the play, but then my wide guys I want to cut in, be fairly aggressive in scoring and fairly direct, hence both are IF, but then as said for the parked buses and to create space and to maximize their intelligence off the ball that they have so they find the pockets of space, i add Roam. Same for the Box-to-Box on MCR and the F9. So it's a mix of having it with the Roles vs with PIs.

And this is also a page from Wenger, I would say, who would allow more creative freedom than Pep. But like Pep I'm also a control freak and want them to play exactly my way, so I don't want to increase overall creative freedom of the team so having a lot of players with the Roam PI achieves a good balance. Pep's team in FM would have Be More Disciplined instead of Expressive. Just ask Henry, who said Pep would tell him "it's my job to get you to the final third, and your job to finish it", meaning he wouldn't allow Henry to roam like his Arsenal days where he was basically a F9/Complete Forward hybrid.

Scored a perfect hockey (and Red Machine) goal just now against Leverkusen in the Champions League Semis. Left D (IWB Tierney) entering the offensive zone (final third) playing it straight vertical ahead of him to the Left Wing (IF Havertz), who plays it back down to the left D, who's now in tons of space and plays a perfect angled pass forward to the onrushing Centre (F9 Martinelli) in space in the middle to slot it past the goalie. Couldn't get any more a classic hockey goal if you tried, I think, except maybe if instead of the centre it would've been to the back post for a tap in hehe. Once again humblest of apologies for the poor vid quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWeitkGhxBo

Lastly, if you liked those guys, check out these guys. The two wide guys came both in as wide attackers and I've retrained them to play fullback and wingback. Martinez will take over from Tierney within a year or two, and Pelissier is going to be in the future the new starting RB perhaps even if he keeps developing also. They already have some sick attacking stats, and hope I can get them also a bit better defensively, though not crazy worried cause most of the matches I spend on the front foot.

Can't wait to hear about the 2-2-2-1-3 experiment, especially!

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by OJ
added player pics

[OJ]

Also scored this peach of a goal in the same match against Leverkusen

 

[zyfon5]

1 hour ago, OJ said:

Also scored this peach of a goal in the same match against Leverkusen

 

Brilliant goal. The run to the left stretch their defense so wide that the half space is left open for I assume your right winger to drop in and play a one two with your striker to score.

[OJ]

5 minutes ago, zyfon5 said:

Brilliant goal. The run to the left stretch their defense so wide that the half space is left open for I assume your right winger to drop in and play a one two with your striker to score.

Exactly. Willock, who's in a box to box role, but with roam from position and run with ball PI's ticked, plays it back to de Jong my DLP(d) who plays it to Pepe my AMR IF(a) who then plays the 1-2 with Martinelli my F9 ST.

[fumaca09]

13 hours ago, Djuicer said:

I see your point regarding players. My own favourite and the one who often makes the most good games is definetly B. Silva. What a player, simply fantastic. 20 Work rate, 15 team work, 18 vision, 15 anticipation, 17 composure, 16 decision, 17 flair. Add the magnificent technique and well rounded physique. You have a player capable of dominating and create any style you want. I have used him mostly on the flank and he scores and creates a lot. He is probably though even better in central roles but I like when he switches play to the other flank (PPM), and the effect feels bigger when he is deployed on the wing. For me the centre forwards got most goals, than probably followed by the IWFs and regular IWs. The MEZs also chips in around 8-14 in a year.

1-2s is probably my favourite PPM for possession styles and I want it in all my players except the holder and the centerbacks. I also like movement altering PPMs a lot, but not for every player and often 1 or max 2 of them. Do you use roles with roaming or do you find it better to add it into for example AP instead of going with the RPM from the begining? I have been shown your roles now but as a general point? I find it better most of the time to not add that many PIs. The correct role from the start often works better imo.

Is the narrow width something that makes this kind of style tick better? for me the feeling of it is just wrong. Cruyffs wingers, Guardiola use em too. But if it works, it works I suppose.

 

You manged to get De Jong for 80M? for me he has changed club twice but for around double that amount. He is just soo good. The best "dlp" in the game probably (attributes/PPMs). Selling Guendozi for almost 40M  more seems like some neat buissness, however I understand the bad feeling. Guendozi became a HG later on right?

 

Yeah, Robertson is being used in a way that maximises his strenghts. Although, he still is as good as he is even if he is helped by Klopps system. Nevertheless Tierny is younger and if he comes back to full fitness and form there is very possible he will reach or surpass Robertsons level.

 

They were probably the best hockey team ever (swede here), the line with Larionov, Krutov and Makarov has yet to been surpassed. Even if the Edmonton team in the eighties also was sublime. No other team really have had the same understanding as the soviets. Probably because they were enrolled in the army and trained and played together for years. Still, unparalled cohesion and understanding. Really impressive with the cross over from hockey to football with the crosses and the aim of them. To emulate the (in sweden we call it) "klapp klapp spel"  (yeah, it shall resemble something like 1-2) plays the soviets had. EDIT: The VID, insane skill and composure. + The keepers, mad times. No masks. Pucks (shots) in around 150-170khm I suppose at that era.

 

Insane players. Just mental. I could use both of them (my rightback is the weakest link in the team) and the german... there is no drool emoji but thats what Im looking like right now 

Hopefully it will be some good positions. Time to play has been sparse at the moment. Hopefully I will have more time to get some games soon 

One is something like 2-2-2-1-3 and the other is more of a back three.

Where would you play Kai Havertz in the 4-3-3 formation ?

[Djuicer]

11 hours ago, OJ said:

God damn it, wrote a long post and lost it at the last second due to some weird editing shenanigans. Here we go again

Ahh so we're neighbours hehe, jag är finsk, so we both know our hockey haha! And yeah, klapp klapp spel exactly! Some of my all time faves are Swedes btw, like Kung Zetterberg and Lidström of course  (the all time best hockey defender (Bobby Orr has nothing on Nick), besides the Red Wings Russians (also a huge Red Wings fan since early nineties).

Love B Silva too, had him on some earlier FMs before he was at City, he's the best wide playmaker in the world at the moment and yeah he would be deadly in the centre too but his skillset outwide is hard to find so I would and always kept him there too, also for more scoring as an IF type. I have Kai Havertz, and played him only left/right wing besides one year where I used him mainly as a striker (F9). Yeah got de Jong quite cheap cause they also had Pogba and Milinkovic-Savic lol so seemed happy enough with the 80m, that season he didn't play so much. And yes he's the perfect DLP, though I used him up until this season as the RPM on my MCL slot, as that's also the role he would play at Ajax. But I got the below guy (Christian) from Barca for this season, so moved him to my DM DLP position. Though I also got de Jong's eventual DM DLP replacement in as well (Albarracin)

As for the narrow width, yeah technically it's not Pep/total football which is all about maximizing space, and previous years I would use Wide too, but feel like they could have almost named this year's game Wingball Manager, cause central attacks are so hard to create. So I go with narrow to cut out wing play and bog standard wide goals from crosses to combat the IMO a bit poor balance of the ME in that.

But I use key total football width principles still in that my RB has all the PI's to keep him wide all the time, for AMR IF to cut in and then get the underlap pass (key Pep/Barca principle before his IWB days, where they would be furious with the fullback if he would be inside/more central and play a pass on the outside to push the IF wide, instead of being wide of the Inside Forward so the full back can play the ball inside once the IF cuts in (hence my RB staying out wide, AMR is IF who of course cuts in as per the role, then I have underlap pass ticked for the right win to max these attacks). And on the left side I have my LB as IWB, but I have look for overlaps ticked on, so it makes it more unpredictable with sometimes the LB cutting in (esp when I get it deep wide, the LB will cut inside into excellent unmarked positions around the box), but also going out wide for my AML IF to either cut in or stay a bit wider first so they can play combos and with my RPM on left MC create overloads. So while my guys don't absolutely hug the line (compressed a bit inside due to the narrow width), I do utilise width quite heavily still, I would say.

Been tinkering further, changing things one by one to isolate things, and I've discovered the most consistent way at leasdt for me to create tiki taka quick passing goals from central areas is to just go with Balanced mentality. Then just making sure you have enough penetration/attacking intent with roles etc and you'll be creating some amazing plays very consistently. At least with the tactic I posted above, just changed to Balanced.

In relation to that and applying hockey principles, to further minimize crossing (since the game doesn't give you a "put in a cross and I'll shoot you. Go ahead, dare me" -option), I've put all my wideplayers and fullbacks on cross left often, which also helps. They'll still put in a cross when it's a good opportunity, but cuts way some of the stupider ones.

About the roaming stuff and how many players to have it on, I've found that since I face a lot of parked buses, the best way (and again to try to create a bit hockey-like plays and quick interchanges with players switching position) counter it is to have my front five (so F9 who also all have drop deep PPM since the F9 role in FM20 is broken), AML, AMR, MCL MCR and of course the IWB due to the role on roam from position. This creates a lot vertical and horizontal runs, coupled with the position switching, which IMO is the best way to create the openings, because you'll be dragging a lot of players a lot of the time out of position. But I didn't want absolutely everyone to do it, hence turned on with the PIs for those players I want to have it. Works fine, IMO. But I think it works either way just fine, whether it's with a role that has it already or then added with PI. For example I rarely use AP, in MC slot I always go with the RPM (and IWB at LB), exactly mainly for the roaming and moving with the play, but then my wide guys I want to cut in, be fairly aggressive in scoring and fairly direct, hence both are IF, but then as said for the parked buses and to create space and to maximize their intelligence off the ball that they have so they find the pockets of space, i add Roam. Same for the Box-to-Box on MCR and the F9. So it's a mix of having it with the Roles vs with PIs.

And this is also a page from Wenger, I would say, who would allow more creative freedom than Pep. But like Pep I'm also a control freak and want them to play exactly my way, so I don't want to increase overall creative freedom of the team so having a lot of players with the Roam PI achieves a good balance. Pep's team in FM would have Be More Disciplined instead of Expressive. Just ask Henry, who said Pep would tell him "it's my job to get you to the final third, and your job to finish it", meaning he wouldn't allow Henry to roam like his Arsenal days where he was basically a F9/Complete Forward hybrid.

Scored a perfect hockey (and Red Machine) goal just now against Leverkusen in the Champions League Semis. Left D (IWB Tierney) entering the offensive zone (final third) playing it straight vertical ahead of him to the Left Wing (IF Havertz), who plays it back down to the left D, who's now in tons of space and plays a perfect angled pass forward to the onrushing Centre (F9 Martinelli) in space in the middle to slot it past the goalie. Couldn't get any more a classic hockey goal if you tried, I think, except maybe if instead of the centre it would've been to the back post for a tap in hehe. Once again humblest of apologies for the poor vid quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWeitkGhxBo

Lastly, if you liked those guys, check out these guys. The two wide guys came both in as wide attackers and I've retrained them to play fullback and wingback. Martinez will take over from Tierney within a year or two, and Pelissier is going to be in the future the new starting RB perhaps even if he keeps developing also. They already have some sick attacking stats, and hope I can get them also a bit better defensively, though not crazy worried cause most of the matches I spend on the front foot.

Can't wait to hear about the 2-2-2-1-3 experiment, especially!

 

 

 

De Jong is ofc an excellent central midfield playmaker too. All around mezmerising player. Good at setting rythm and dictating tempo. Also a great libero. Paired with model citizen he is a must buy if the possibility comes by. YOUR SCOUTS, ALL THEM FANTASTIC PLAYMAKERS. The rest you consider for replacement and movin positions is good too. A lot of players might be better at diffrent pos. in the game. Dwight Mcneil for example is a good winger. But IMO he is a world class left back. 

 

Thats fair, the crosses are common. I dont really mind though even if more trough balls always is nice(r). For me it still feels hard to go narrower than standard anyways. Even though it (as you say) will mitigate some crossing and increase killer balls.

 

The roamin PI and roles seems logical, even if I at times feels the (added) roaming make them less inclined to do the actual role description (to some degree). Yeah, like F9 you need the drop deep PPM for it to work, atleast for as how I want it to work.

 

Interesting, I agree. Pep is much more structured than Wenger. Even if Wenger probably was more structured from the beggining. Although if it was actually him or someone like T Adams who was the reason for that. He never was so positionaly strict as someone like Guardiola. To emulate pep truly we would need more fields, like def, midfield, and att, or to be able to adjust positions and roles for all current stages the game has. Defence, transitions and possession. As it is now I agree with the disciplined but honestly it is just as Henry states for the two first thirds of the pitch. Henry at Arsenal was probably the role model for most of the inside forwards we see today wouldnt you say?

 

Great goal, great players. Nice movement.

Spoiler

Bra klapp klapp spel där  (även om tempot kanske är lite lågt för att jämföras med hockey)

Inverted wing back is really neat in the game. One of my fav. roles in this years edition, even if it probably was an even stronger  role in 19.

 

Yeah, at times the 4-2-3-1 turning into 2-2-2-1-3 have worked great. At times we still struggle with the famous busses.

1 hour ago, fumaca09 said:

Where would you play Kai Havertz in the 4-3-3 formation ?

I would use him at three possible positions I think, as centre forward (F9, DLF, CFs) or as AMR then maybe AP/IW or IF. Or in the central midfield as a runner or playmaker style of player (AP/RPM or CMa/BBM/MEZ). Possibly as an inverted wing back too. If he can manage the defensive aspects. Hence either get the attributs up or if you don't defend that much anyway.

Edited May 16, 2020 by Djuicer

[fumaca09]

15 minutes ago, Djuicer said:

De Jong is ofc an excellent central midfield playmaker too. All around mezmerising player. Good at setting rythm and dictating tempo. Also a great libero. Paired with model citizen he is a must buy if the possibility comes by. YOUR SCOUTS, ALL THEM FANTASTIC PLAYMAKERS. The rest you consider for replacement and movin positions is good too. A lot of players might be better at diffrent pos. in the game. Dwight Mcneil for example is a good winger. But IMO he is a world class left back. 

 

Thats fair, the crosses are common. I dont really mind though even if more trough balls always is nice(r). For me it still feels hard to go narrower than standard anyways. Even though it (as you say) will mitigate some crossing and increase killer balls.

 

The roamin PI and roles seems logical, even if I at times feels the (added) roaming make them less inclined to do the actual role description (to some degree). Yeah, like F9 you need the drop deep PPM for it to work, atleast for as how I want it to work.

 

Interesting, I agree. Pep is much more structured than Wenger. Even if Wenger probably was more structured from the beggining. Although if it was actually him or someone like T Adams who was the reason for that. He never was so positionaly strict as someone like Guardiola. To emulate pep truly we would need more fields, like def, midfield, and att, or to be able to adjust positions and roles for all current stages the game has. Defence, transitions and possession. As it is now I agree with the disciplined but honestly it is just as Henry states for the two first thirds of the pitch. Henry at Arsenal was probably the role model for most of the inside forwards we see today wouldnt you say?

 

Great goal, great players. Nice movement. Inverted wing back is really neat in the game. One of my fav. roles in this years edition, even if ot probably was even stronger in 19.

I would use him at three possible positions I think, as centre forward (F9, DLF, CFs) or as AMR then maybe AP/IW or IF. Or in the central midfield as a runner or playmaker style of player (AP/RPM or CMa/BBM/MEZ). Possibly as an inverted wing back too. If he can manage the defensive aspects. Hence either get the attributs up or if you don't defend that much anyway.

Thank you

[OJ]

I have havertz at Arsenal and over the years he's been played as F9 striker, Inverted Winger on both wings, playmaker in the centre of midfield, and also as IF on both wings. And he's great where-ever you play him, gotta love his positions now hehe, natural everywhere

[Djuicer]

Here we will see S. Dest combine with M. Diop and then he releases Neymar who has a 1-on-1 with the defender on the left side of the pitch. Great switch of the play. Neymar is also supported by an maruding A. Davies.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Djuicer
fixed broken gif

[Djuicer]

Well. The TI’s did not really work. And it's back to the chalkboard. These are changes that help balance out mentality and also are supposed to help versus parked busses, some teams even use concrete to build walls at this stage. There will be no deeper dwelling into them at this point. I will just add that I change tempo up and down during games, also I change the width too at times (wider or more narrow).

 

First out there is the keeper. Me having Ederson there won’t be much to talk about which role he will have (sweeper keeper). The team using play out of defence as a cornerstone will further increase the demand on Ederson, to control and handle the ball with composure to invite pressure. Paired with ball playing defenders this behaviour will be great to lure opposition deep into our own half. The idea is to get Ederson to really use the incredible distribution he possesses as often as possible.

Role: Sweeper keeper - support (SKs)
PI: None
Mentality: Positive

A key to having the ball under control is to have a lot of bodies centrally, this can be done in a lot of different ways. One is to use the full-back to move infields when the team has the ball, taking up the position of a defensive midfielder. Therefore both my fullbacks will be deployed as inverted wing backs. With this I will increase the possibilities to overcrowd the opposition's central players largely. The inverted wing back can with the right player excell at dictating the play from deep. Taking up a role almost like a deep playmaker. What is great about having players that deep dictating play is that they often tend to get more time on the ball before they are put under pressure. On occasion the IWB altso tends to end up in the opponent's penalty area to try killer balls or finish off attacks themselves. The most utulzied players are Alphonso Davies and Emilo Olivera.

Role: Inverted wing back - support (IWBs)
PI:None
Mentality: Positive

(This is Olivera)

 
And also the outstanding one (Davies):

For my central defenders I have stuck with the same paring as in my last tactic. This due to my CBs being blessed with fine technical skills. Vision, composure and in some cases great PPMs. At the same time as being very capable defenders. 

Using ball playing defenders for both my central defenders will give the goalkeeper a lot of support if he decides to distribute short. The BPDs will be able to launch long diagonals looking for more advanced players, or just play it short to the IWBs or the SKs. All together this will help us play out of defence. Dias and De Ligt hold down starting positions. Shadowed by John Stones.

Role: Ball playing defender - defend (BPDd)
PI: None for the right one, dribble more for the left one.
Mentality: Cautious

(Dias)

(De Ligt)

 

Lurking in the shadows at this point, Stones.

I currently have three amazing BPDs in the roster. But that's ok cause I can rotate as I please. 

 

This is how the defence look like: (pre CL group game)

 

And mentality spread so far:

POS-CAU-CAU-POS
POS

 

Additonally I will show some back up players too.

Recee James (IWBs):

 

R Fournier versatility defender, was shown earlier, developing nicely:

 

And another newgen who starts at times, is the fourth CD option at this time. Mouhamet Diop:

 

Lastly I will show some clips and imagery from some satisfying build up play.

Here we will see S. Dest combine with M. Diop et al and then he releases Neymar who has a 1-on-1 with the defender on the left side of the pitch. Great switch of the play.

 

This image shows Rodri collecting the ball from Ederson (SKs).  He has a lot of options to choose between. I count it to 6 players who are more or less free to receive a pass. This is a strong build up structure.

Rodri passes to Stones, he acesses his alternatives and moves the ball on to Neymar down the left flank.

Neymar finds Szolosbai who just quickly moves it further to the right and Antonio Carlos who has loads of space and time to either pick out a pass or run at the defender.

This is how the move ends:

 

The game you ask? That said CL group game ended quite great for us.

Next time we will jump right on to the holding midfield duo.

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Djuicer

[FMSacchi]

What would you say are your key attributes you look for across the board for all positions?

[Djuicer]

On 18/05/2020 at 11:21, FMSacchi said:

What would you say are your key attributes you look for across the board for all positions?

For this possession style.

Those are the ones I use in my regular squad wiev. First touch, passing, technique, decisons, vision, composure, agility.

 

Mental: Decisions, Anticipation, Vision, off the ball, composure and workrate are some I value highly. Those of these I dont top I sit in second mostly (behind Liverpool)

 

Technical: First touch, passing and technique. Those are the three I value highest.

 

Physical: Stamina and agility. We sit second in agility and fourth in acc too.

Spoiler

 

This is from an upcoming piece im working on. Some sweet tiki'n and taki'n on show.

(Note: Gyazo only lets me browse the last ten, so I post them at times to not loose them in the abyss. Even though they are intended for a later post, they still show some nice gameplay [AT TIMES ])

 

 

 

This is my hidden stash now, this is another one.

 

 an other one bites the dust.

 

Hello again my secret stash! Sterling getting a goal.

 

Cook (REG) dictating play. Mbappe being Mbappe.

 

CAM scoring

 

LAM to STRIKER, no goal though.

 

Mbappe again

 

HB and other POTB, vs liverpool

 

more build-up

 

Kylian and Seb.

 

Kylian to AC

 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Djuicer

[FMSacchi]

Thanks very much, brilliant thread by the way 👍

[Djuicer]

This is the part covering the holding duo of my 4-2-3-1.

A lot of the roles left will be based on real life examples.

First out of my holding duo will be the player sitting slightly to the right of the two. I will use a role that also is named after a player that was so good at doing it, they simply started calling the role by his name. The player was Carlos Volante and the role is obviously Segundo Volante. Carlos Volante was a player that was deployed in the defensive midfield but he often acted as an attacking outlet. In the game the SV works as an swiss army knife, he will offer a bit of everything (defend, cover, create, and hopefully score). A player of today who resembles this is probably Emre Can, before him a maybe even better example was Bastian Schweinsteiger. A player seen as a defensive midfielder, but they will often be found in attacking positions at any given time during a game. The game lets you decide if you want the segundo volante to be on a supportive or an attacking duty. The differences are:

*With a support duty, the Segundo Volante will look to support the attack whilst picking and choosing his opportunities to arrive late in the opposition’s penalty area.
*With an attack duty, the Segundo Volante will get further forward and frequently look to arrive late in the opposition’s penalty area as well as attempting more shots on goal.

I have used the attacking one as I like him to bomb forward a lot. At times he is still just sitting deep and recycling possession, staying alert to win the ball back if it's lost. Although on an attacking duty you find him around or even in the opponent's box. The SV on attack has one PI, get further forward. Warning though, I use the support one too, but against stronger teams. Then he does a bit of everything and most imporantly values every time he will go for a surge towards the penalty area. He takes more responsibility and consider risk vs reward more 
throughly.
 
Role: Segundo Volante - SVa (attacking) at times support though.
PI: Get further forward (Not all the time)
Mentality: Very Attacking (or positive)

If I played a big game today, the starting name here would be Rodrigo Betancour. Speaking of swiss army knives, here you have a true jack of all trades. What a player he has become. He could simply put play in any role, in any position and still be great at it. Amazing.

Side to side with the Segundo Volante the game recommends you to have a player firstly focused on defending such as a defensive midfielder or an anchor man, but that won’t do it for me. We face a lot of stubborn defences and parked busses. Thus we crave creativity to break this down - I will keep one of Guardiola's cornerstones to always have a main conductor in the team, in this case we have three options in the defensive midfield strata. Deep lying playmaker on defend duty is definitely to risk aversive and static. Support starts to get closer but still a bit too static. Roaming playmaker would be a good pick but I used that role in the “4-1-2-3” version. This time a very special role will be used, the mythologized and if used correctly spectacular Regista. The term being italian and in swedish it means regissör, an english term (maybe a little off though) is director. Anyhow the cohesive meaning is that this guy, he is in charge. He decides what to do and when. The role descending from Italy its not strange that maybe the most famous regista of them all was Andrea Pirlo, other more recent examples is Jorginho (now in Chelsea) and Juventus Miralem Pjanic. According to FM this is the spiritual essence of a regista:
“The Regista is a more aggressive version of the deep-lying playmaker suitable for possession-orientated systems that press high up the pitch. Given complete freedom to dictate play from deep positions, the Regista offers a dynamic and unpredictable creative outlet from behind the attack who seeks who seeks to maintain intense pressure by constantly looking for new chances as his more advanced teammates get into goal scoring positions.”

So he will act like a deep lying playmaker but with more creative freedom, movement and also supposed to be more involved in pressing rather than sitting deep, blocking passing lanes and covering for others. Regista comes with two locked in tendencies, roam from position and take more risks. I added one more to get further forward, but only at times of need.

Role: Regista - Support (REG).
PI:Get further forward. (not often, but at imes)
Mentality: Positive.

I use some different players here but the best is the sublime Sebastian Savoldi. Alternatives are more flair players or the even more defensively solid Rodri.

 

The Segundo Volante and Regista pairing:

As I mentioned Rodri is an alternative. Defensivly solid, good at keeping possession.

So is also Dominik Szoboszlai, mostly as SV though. Quick, and good at progressing play. Vision has increased to 17 now.

I will show one last. Hello my name Lewis Cook and I'm an addict. I can't stop using PPMs. Really good player.

So the deep duo consists of SVs and REG. In theory they shall offer outlets, help with building from the back and also assist in attacking phases. Due to them both being deployed in the DM strata the IWBs wont cut in very much but they might still do it from time to time.

This concept is also something that @Rashidi speaks of in his book of roles

“-If used with two defensive midfielders, the role defaults to playing like a wingback because the defensive midfield strata is already occupied

-If only one defensive midfielder is used but he is not centrally placed the IWB closest to the DM will default to playing as a wingback”

 

Some SV gameplay.
Firstly we will see Rodri busting the net as a SV.

 

Here is another play including the SV. This time Cook plays the role.

 

This is a longer clip including a lot of players, the one starting the move is Savoldi as a regista. Honestly it's two clips due to the length of it. (The second starts at the moment the first one ends)

The second one takes on at the same moment.

 

Mentalitys are :

POS-POS

POS-CAU-CAU-POS

POS

Which so far seems balanced enough for a JDP style.

 

 

Results are good, but I can't really feel it. This is not what I want. The Defensive duo and the full backs will be changed. I will go through all of the changes in a new post. This I will leave here anyway. Concepts and thoughts might still work to some degree.

One of the regista or segundo volante will be kept too. At this time it dwells towards the regista. I will show the changes later. This is mainly due to the IWBs not cutting inside with two deep midfielders.
 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer

[ferrarinseb]

From what i read back in FM 18 IWB's act like normal FB's if we have more than 1 DM player in DM strata. Guess its the same in this version as well. 

[Djuicer]

6 minutes ago, ferrarinseb said:

From what i read back in FM 18 IWB's act like normal FB's if we have more than 1 DM player in DM strata. Guess its the same in this version as well. 

Yes, and no. If you offset a dm the opposite iwb will cut inside. But it just wasn’t for me.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer

[Djuicer]

After some changes and also accepting that Mbappe is not Kaka and I moved him to the wing. He doubled his tally against United. (from 2 to 4)

 

This was his first in that game. Fantastic passes. Brilliant by Mbappe.

 

The second was also acceptable. 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer

[daveb653]

@Djuicer I recently started using a 4-2-3-1 again, after getting a little frustrated with the 3-4-3/ 5-2-3 set-up.

Couple of questions, do you not find yourself a little to open in midfield with an SV and Reg? There probably my 2 favourite roles in fm20, but chose SV/DM(S) (with hold position PI) to provide a bit more cover when my SV goes into the box?

Looking forward to your front 4 as I've tinkered around a bit with mine, its not performing too badly ut i feel they should be contributing more.

[Djuicer]

13 minutes ago, daveb653 said:

@Djuicer I recently started using a 4-2-3-1 again, after getting a little frustrated with the 3-4-3/ 5-2-3 set-up.

Couple of questions, do you not find yourself a little to open in midfield with an SV and Reg? There probably my 2 favourite roles in fm20, but chose SV/DM(S) (with hold position PI) to provide a bit more cover when my SV goes into the box?

Looking forward to your front 4 as I've tinkered around a bit with mine, its not performing too badly ut i feel they should be contributing more.

At times yes, so I changed it. 
 

I tried a lot of combinations, I used SVa and SVs. I tried DMs and SVs/a. I went to this, which is my current setup. I like the balance now. 

 

The reasoning will be covered in my next post in this series.

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer

[Djuicer]

United sacked Allegri. Felt that now is the time. (Wanted to go POST-current season)

 

The United board appears to have doubts about my loyality.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer
POST, not PRE

[zyfon5]

14 minutes ago, Djuicer said:

United sacked Allegri. Felt that now is the time. (Wanted to go pre-current season)

 

The United board appears to have doubts about my loyality.

Good luck going from city to united. I'm sure the fans will give u a WARM welcome.

[ashlfcowen]

51 minutes ago, Djuicer said:

At times yes, so I changed it. 
 

I tried a lot of combinations, I used SVa and SVs. I tried DMs and SVs/a. I went to this, which is my current setup. I like the balance now. 

 

The reasoning will be covered in my next post in this series.

 

I'm sat here unable to progress with my current save because you're teasing us with droplets of your current tactic   

[daveb653]

@Djuicer looking forward to the next installment then, shame REG/SV didnt work. I love the regista role, but people in discord seem to dismiss it as dlp(s) with roams from position. But its much more in my opinion. The passes are far more expansive and you have the struggle of balancing the team as he has to be in a DM slot  

But its a role that would most certainly fit your playstyle and you have fantastic players for the role.

Very interested to see why you chose tha combo over a dm(s)/sv combo as thats what im currently using to some success, though I do have to make changes.

[Djuicer]

28 minutes ago, zyfon5 said:

Good luck going from city to united. I'm sure the fans will give u a WARM welcome.

Well, my heart is RED. They must see that!  But yeah, the United board was not interested.

20 minutes ago, ashlfcowen said:

I'm sat here unable to progress with my current save because you're teasing us with droplets of your current tactic   

Haha Im sorry mate 

13 minutes ago, daveb653 said:

@Djuicer looking forward to the next installment then, shame REG/SV didnt work. I love the regista role, but people in discord seem to dismiss it as dlp(s) with roams from position. But its much more in my opinion. The passes are far more expansive and you have the struggle of balancing the team as he has to be in a DM slot  

But its a role that would most certainly fit your playstyle and you have fantastic players for the role.

Very interested to see why you chose tha combo over a dm(s)/sv combo as thats what im currently using to some success, though I do have to make changes.

Yeah, I was sad too. Wanted it to work so badly.
Regista is diffrent than the DLP I think. First if it just has the roam, it will be much more involved than the holding dlp. +the creativity. Lastly the pressing is much more aggressive. The Regista much have more creative freedom under the hood. Look at this for example (Cook nr6 as Regista):

EDIT: THEY HAVE 9 PLAYERS (inc GK) IN THE BOX WHEN MBAPPE FINISHES. Third time charm with Jose? (OP=Chelsea)

 

The half-back is to finally give the Salida Lavolpiana concept a try 

As you can see the HB sits between the central defenders, splitting them a bit wider and the wing backs have ventured away. The left WBa is a bit more advanced than the right on support. In the buildup its also visible that the rWBs takes a selfless run down the flank to give more options for the REG.

 

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer

[daveb653]

@Djuicer indeed its far more creative and aggressive in my opinion. I may have to give the REG/HB a try, though I will wait to read your posts first   Maybe the best of both worlds with the HB, as its another role I like and maybe the movement of a HB is what I'm trying to get with PI with my DM, just a little further forward. 

[Djuicer]

18 minutes ago, daveb653 said:

@Djuicer indeed its far more creative and aggressive in my opinion. I may have to give the REG/HB a try, though I will wait to read your posts first   Maybe the best of both worlds with the HB, as its another role I like and maybe the movement of a HB is what I'm trying to get with PI with my DM, just a little further forward. 

thats very possible!

 

So, the last role I changed was the segundo volante which became the half-back.

This acts as a real life example.

One of the reasons this was tempting was that it would be able to finally implement Salida Lavolpiana - A variation in which the central defenders fan out wide and a central midfielder drops into the resulting space. This briefly creates a back 3 in addition to having the goalkeeper as a base for the progression of the ball. -Adin Osmanbasic.

 

And the FM implementation.

If we return to the piece by @llama3 the half-back will act like this in the game:
The Half Back is an inversion of how a Sweeper plays. The Half Back sits in front of the defence whilst in possession, being a passing outlet to keep recycling the ball. When the team loses possession, he drops between the centre back pairing,
and splits the centre backs wider, creating a back three. The Half Back is also only suited in front of a centre back pair because a third defender would cause problems with his defensive behaviour, getting in the way of his natural tendency to drop deep. This can allow you to play more aggressive full backs, with the half back providing additional cover against the counter.

 

This is the base for me choosing the HB. Cut out from the piece Im working on.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Djuicer

[Djuicer]

Antonio Carlos keeps getting better. This is how I train him right now, and how he have developed lately.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Djuicer

[yonko]

Every time I try to make a 4231 tactic work, I quit and go back to my favorite 433 DM Wide aka 4141 DM Wide aka 4123 wide, etc. 

But I'm intrigued by the Regista role. I haven't used it much in any FM since introduced. Something about its behavior tells me it might be a good way to represent the Xavi role in a way, even though the role is more associated with Pirlo. 

I'm tempted by another 4231 to try a F9 + SS combo. Flanked by 2 IWs, with Regista and HB behind them. 

[Djuicer]

1 hour ago, yonko said:

Every time I try to make a 4231 tactic work, I quit and go back to my favorite 433 DM Wide aka 4141 DM Wide aka 4123 wide, etc. 

But I'm intrigued by the Regista role. I haven't used it much in any FM since introduced. Something about its behavior tells me it might be a good way to represent the Xavi role in a way, even though the role is more associated with Pirlo. 

I'm tempted by another 4231 to try a F9 + SS combo. Flanked by 2 IWs, with Regista and HB behind them. 

Me too, or now Im forcing me to see this through.

I really like the Regista in the current setup. Dictates play, but also venture forwards every now and then. 

That was the exact central combo I wanted to use. I could not make it work, why I do not know. Wrong players? wrong PPMs? wrong setup around them? 

[Djuicer]

NEW FULLBACK + HOLDING DUO.

Let's start with a picture of the system as it is right now.

 

As I said earlier the IWBs and REG/SV(s/a) did not work as intended. So with this new system I hope we will have more alternatives breaking down stubborn teams. Together with me accepting that Mbappe won’t be able to become Kaka-2.0 it has changed a lot in how the team plays. Not that the results were bad before but the latest game does also include some entertaining football. As Van Gaal stated in the opening post, I too take pride in entertaining the fans.

 

Let's get going shall we, on the right side the IWBs was replaced with a wing back on support and on the other side it was the same role but now with an attacking duty.  The wing back is supposed to “Usually playing out wide with no wing support, the Wing-back must fulfil all the attacking and defensive duties of wingers and full-backs. In attack he must be prepared to run at his man and put in aggressive crosses, in midfield to help win the possession battle and in defence to close down opponents, block crosses and win back the ball when possible.”

The right wing-back with a supporting duty will aim to provide angled through balls for out wide, although still cross when the opportunity arises.

The left sided one with the attack duty is expected to overlap down the flank to provide wide support for the attacks, run at his man and get crosses in from the byline. The biggest difference between a regular full-back and the wing-back are the attacking intentions. It positions itself higher up the pitch. Is more decisive to take on opponents and join the attack. Crossing and passing completion rate is usually lower for the WB than the regular FB. This is probably due to the WB taking more risk than the FB.

Again from @Rashidis book of roles

·     More aggressive than the fullback
·     Good role for sides opting to play an aggressive possession game in midfield and the opponent’s third

 

Excellent, it really feels that this combination will be good for the style I want to use. If you looked closely at the new picture of the back four and the holding duo. You saw that I also changed a BPD to a regular CD. Reasoning for this was mainly to increase possession and get a better balance in the buildup. The regular CD is described to act like this according to @llama3 in the Pairs and Combinations guide. A tip is for everyone to read this. It can be really helpful with foundations for tactics and pairings. "The Central Defender will distribute the ball to nearby teammates, helping you keep possession in the backline, and to calmly distribute the ball to the midfield. There is the risk of getting caught in possession at the backline, however it can alleviate pressure on your backline by keeping the ball, and building attacks and distributing the ball to players in the midfield capable of influencing the game in the middle and final thirds". Additionally the central defender is more focused on the pure defending than the ball playing defender, he will work to keep a good line, marking opposition forwards and trying to stop them from getting into our box. He does not take as much responsibility for the build up.

 

So, the last role I changed was the segundo volante which became the half-back.
One of the reasons this was tempting was that it would be able to finally implement Salida Lavolpiana - A variation in which the central defenders fan out wide and a central midfielder drops into the resulting space. This briefly creates a back 3 in addition to having the goalkeeper as a base for the progression of the ball. -Adin Osmanbasic for https://spielverlagerung.com/   

 

If we return to the piece by @llama3 the half-back will act like this in the game:
The Half Back is an inversion of how a Sweeper plays. The Half Back sits in front of the defence whilst in possession, being a passing outlet to keep recycling the ball. When the team loses possession, he drops between the centre back pairing, and splits the centre backs wider, creating a back three. The Half Back is also only suited in front of a centre back pair because a third defender would cause problems with his defensive behaviour, getting in the way of his natural tendency to drop deep. This can allow you to play more aggressive full backs, with the half back providing additional cover against the counter.

 

This time I will show the right and the left side and break down them side by side.

On the right side we have a WBs, a regular CDd and the Regista.

 

“Positional Play consists of generating superiorities out of the defensive line against those who are pressing you. Everything is much easier when the first progression of the ball is clean”.  Juanma Lillo.

In theory the CDd and the WBs will look for the regista who then is supposed to move the ball, either horizontally or preferably vertically. In a regista I would look for some of the following PPM’s:
· Dictates tempo.
· Brings ball out of defense.
· Tries to play out of trouble.
· Comes deep to collect the ball.
· A couple of pass alternating traits (1-2).

 

The regista has two hard coded behaviours, Take more risks, roam from position and I have added more direct passes. Mentality is positive.

Role: Regista (REG).
PI: More direct passes.
Mentality: Positive. 

Oh well as I in the last post wrote this: 
 

Spoiler

I will keep one of Guardiola's cornerstones to always have a main conductor in the team, in this case we have three options in the defensive midfield strata. Deep lying playmaker on defend duty is definitely to risk aversive and static. Support starts to get closer but still a bit too static. Roaming playmaker would be a good pick but I used that role in the “4-1-2-3” version. This time a very special role will be used, the mythologized and if used correctly spectacular Regista. The term being italian and in swedish it means regissör, an english term (maybe a little off though) is director. Anyhow the cohesive meaning is that this guy, he is in charge. He decides what to do and when. The role descending from Italy its not strange that maybe the most famous regista of them all was Andrea Pirlo, other more recent examples is Jorginho (now in Chelsea) and Juventus Miralem Pjanic. According to FM this is the spiritual essence of a regista:
“The Regista is a more aggressive version of the deep-lying playmaker suitable for possession-orientated systems that press high up the pitch. Given complete freedom to dictate play from deep positions, the Regista offers a dynamic and unpredictable creative outlet from behind the attack who seeks who seeks to maintain intense pressure by constantly looking for new chances as his more advanced teammates get into goal scoring positions.”

So he will act like a deep lying playmaker but with more creative freedom, movement and also supposed to be more involved in pressing rather than sitting deep, blocking passing lanes and covering for others. Regista comes with two locked in tendencies, roam from position and take more risks. I added one more to get further forward, but only at times of need.

Role: Regista - Support (REG).
PI: Get further forward. (not often, but at times)
Mentality: Positive.

I use some different players here but the best is the sublime Sebastian Savoldi. Alternatives are more flair players or the even more defensively solid Rodri.

 

For the central defender I will look for  a leader and a bit more stability. That's something that clearly can give an advantage, this player will therefore aviate a bit from the majority of the team. Given he is capable enough in keeping possession and controlling the ball.

Role: Central defender defend (CDd).
PI: None.
Mentality: Cautious.

 Good PPMs for this would be:
· Gets crowd going.
· Argues with the officials.
· Marks opponents tightly.

This happens to be Ruben Dias PPMs.

The CDd will have the same mentality as the BPDd did. On a cautious mentality he won't take much risk on the ball, but he will not hoof it constantly either.

 

Last on the right side we have the wing-back on support. He is supposed to offer width, help out where he is needed and also be relatively stable defensively. Honestly nothing fancy really. 

Role: Wing-back support (WBs).
PI: Shoot less often.
Mentality: Positive.

PPMs that are desirable are
· Runs with the ball down right.
· Plays 1-2.
· Get further forward.

And some that might work with the right player:
· Gets into the opposition area.
· Knock ball past opponents.
· Likes to switch the ball to the other flank.
· Cross early.
· Runs with ball often.

I have three players I use here:
James who has.
· Knock ball past opponents.
· Cross early.

Dest who has.
· Runs with the ball down right.
· Get further forward.

And Olivera.
· Gets into the opposition area.
· Runs with ball often.

 

Okay, the left side has another structure with other thought processes behind. It looks like this:

 

Here I do want a bit of a different structure in the build up. The ball playing defender is supposed to work quite similar to the right sides Regista. Offering an outlet, helping the sweeper keeper to start play from deep. If the opportunity comes by I want the player to have the capacity for a well executed direct pass or a diagonal one. Or as Juanma Lillo stated,  its essential for defenders to “Pass to the next lines of play”.

Role: Ball playing defender defend (BPDd).
PI: Dribble more.
Mentality: Cautious.

For this role the prefered players are de Ligt and Stones.
Valuable PPMs are:
· Brings ball out of defense.
· Tries to play out of trouble.
· Likes to switch the ball to the other flank.
· Tries long range passes.

John Stones has three of those, but de Ligt (who has none) is just a little bit better overall.

 

Regarding my left back I previously talked about what I want from my full-backs.  “The WBs is a good role for what I want, but I think the complete wing-back is better for JDP. Adding more players who are roaming is something useful trying to play possession football. The CWBs can and will also cover much of the wing by himself, allowing the IWFs and IWs to focus more on scoring and creating chances”.

Paired with this regarding JDP:  According to JDP two players ideally shall always remain in all 5 (wing x2, half space x2, centre) vertical zones.

 

Keep this in mind then add that the CWB quite often ends up in the opposition's penalty area.  Which means I will use the regular wingback who is better at keeping width. On an attacking duty the WB is expected to: overlap down the flank to provide wide support for the attacks, run at his man and get crosses in from the byline. 

Role: Wing-Back attack (WBa).
PI: Shoot less.
Mentality: Attacking.

The player preferred in this role is Alphonso Davies, honestly more of a traditional winger than a defender. He has the following PPMs:
· Runs with the ball down left.
· Get further forward.
· Tries tricks.

 

The other one getting time on the pitch as a WBa is Romuald Fournier and he is a less attacking option. Often dominating his man with pure physical strength and quickness. He has one PPM that helps him with that.
· Marks opponents tightly.

 

Last one out on the left side, the key for splitting the central defenders and creating the Salida Lavolpiana, The Half-back which according to the game looks to serve a role somewhere between that of an aggressive sweeper and a defensive midfielder. The half-back drops deeper than a standard defensive midfielder in possession and looks to offer an outlet for quickly recycling possession and to offer protection against the counter attack. The half-back is only available with a defend duty.

Role: Half-back (HB).
PI: None.
Mentality: Cautious.

A role model for this is Sergio Busquets, whom has those PPMs:
· Stays back at all times.
· Runs with ball rarely.
· Plays short simple passes.
· Winds up opponents.

Another more direct or vertically weighted if you will was Xabi Alonso, and a more recent example might be Sandro Tonali. Well you can argue both of those are more of a regista than a HB I suppose.

 

The HB in action, here vs Liverpool, a top top team. Rodri dropping deep, the wing-backs are pushing forward. Yes I know B. Silva later missplace his pass but that's not relevant after all this is about the HB:

Spoiler

No wonder they are hard to beat, look at the weather at Anfield.

 

The current mentality spread is this:

CAU-POS
ATT-CAU-CAU-POS
POS
 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Djuicer

[AceCream]

Does the HB also come deep and split the defensive duo while in possession as well as when the keeper has a goal kick? According to the GIF he does that but his description says: The Half Back sits in front of the defence whilst in possession, being a passing outlet to keep recycling the ball. When the team loses possession, he drops between the centre back pairing, and splits the centre backs wider, creating a back three.

 

Both of your threads have been great and a joy to follow. Keep it up  

Edited May 20, 2020 by AceCream

[Djuicer]

10 hours ago, AceCream said:

Does the HB also come deep and split the defensive duo while in possession as well as when the keeper has a goal kick? According to the GIF he does that but his description says: The Half Back sits in front of the defence whilst in possession, being a passing outlet to keep recycling the ball. When the team loses possession, he drops between the centre back pairing, and splits the centre backs wider, creating a back three.

 

Both of your threads have been great and a joy to follow. Keep it up  

The half-back drops deeper than a standard defensive midfielder in possession and looks to offer an outlet for quickly recycling possession. 
 

This is from the game, and I fel like he does that. It might be due to PPMs such as drops deep to collect ball or brings ball out of defence too ofc. Further in an attack he moves up a notch. I can take a look into it in a smaller post.

 

Great that you like them 

[Djuicer]

Starts to feel as if the 4-2-3-1 is coming along nicely.

 

Decent op. too.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Djuicer

[OJ]

Everything you wrote about the Registra made me want to try it again! I used it for a while, but then went back to DLPd cause I wanted more for the DM to be a quarterback and be more often a bit deeper and central to help the defense. Been playing with it for about 6-6 matches now and looking very good, so my setup is the Registra and above him a BBM and RPM.

[Zemahh]

On 21/05/2020 at 00:00, AceCream said:

Does the HB also come deep and split the defensive duo while in possession as well as when the keeper has a goal kick? According to the GIF he does that but his description says: The Half Back sits in front of the defence whilst in possession, being a passing outlet to keep recycling the ball. When the team loses possession, he drops between the centre back pairing, and splits the centre backs wider, creating a back three.

In-game description of HB is correct, but there is a slight mistake in the Pairs & Combinations guide, as noted here.

To summarize, he drops between central defenders when in possession and acts like a classic DM when out of possession.

Edited May 22, 2020 by Zemahh

[ashlfcowen]

19 hours ago, Djuicer said:

Starts to feel as if the 4-2-3-1 is coming along nicely.

 

Decent op. too.

I can't wait to see how the rest of your roles play out. 

[Djuicer]

5 hours ago, ashlfcowen said:

I can't wait to see how the rest of your roles play out. 

Aiming to get them ready by monday, latest 

 

 

[johnstonpickle]

This topic has really helped me piece together a decent tactic for my Kettering side. Last season we finished 20th in League 1 (2025/26) and I couldn’t get anything working consistently. Unbelievably I just avoided the sack! After reading this thread it made me want to try and make this type of system work with a weaker team.

I have a really average team and my wage budget is only £31k p/w (Twice as low as the 23rd lowest wage budget in the league!) so I’ve had to build a squad of quality rather than quantity and from frees/loans/youth. 
 

The thing I’ve found that makes this work is retraining strong CMs into BPDs. The way I see it, if the team dominates possession then they won’t need to do that much defending. Seems to work pretty well. Also for the full backs I’m retraining players from Wingers to CWBs, and they are offering way more going forward. My CM pairing lack any defensive quality, the DM is probably the best defensive player in the team.

My main striker is formerly an AMC with playmaking ability and the IWs are the biggest goal threats - I’ve found retraining advanced forwards as IWs has been really effective.

Only 15 games into the new season with my squad of only 18 first team players (which is making rotation and keeping players healthy pretty difficult!) but we are at the top of the league, also knocked Premier League Norwich out of the league cup and took Bournemouth to penalties (should have won in 90min!).

Against teams that press us high ive found reducing both LOEs to standard helps. 
When in the lead I’ve also found that bringing the LOEs down a notch, playing narrower and removing offside trap works well to restrict the opposition.

Thanks for the thread!!  

[Djuicer]

Just now, johnstonpickle said:

This topic has really helped me piece together a decent tactic for my Kettering side. Last season we finished 20th in League 1 (2025/26) and I couldn’t get anything working consistently. Unbelievably I just avoided the sack! After reading this thread it made me want to try and make this type of system work with a weaker team.

I have a really average team and my wage budget is only £31k p/w (Twice as low as the 23rd lowest wage budget in the league!) so I’ve had to build a squad of quality rather than quantity and from frees/loans/youth. 
 

The thing I’ve found that makes this work is retraining strong CMs into BPDs. The way I see it, if the team dominates possession then they won’t need to do that much defending. Seems to work pretty well. Also for the full backs I’m retraining players from Wingers to CWBs, and they are offering way more going forward. My CM pairing lack any defensive quality, the DM is probably the best defensive player in the team.

My main striker is formerly an AMC with playmaking ability and the IWs are the biggest goal threats - I’ve found retraining advanced forwards as IWs has been really effective.

Only 15 games into the new season with my squad of only 18 first team players (which is making rotation and keeping players healthy pretty difficult!) but we are at the top of the league, also knocked Premier League Norwich out of the league cup and took Bournemouth to penalties (should have won in 90min!).

Against teams that press us high ive found reducing both LOEs to standard helps. 
When in the lead I’ve also found that bringing the LOEs down a notch, playing narrower and removing offside trap works well to restrict the opposition.

Thanks for the thread!!  

Really nice to see someone trying this in with a weaker team.

Im really liking how you mould players and force them to play where you see fit. That is important and clever, even more so with worse players I suppose (I guess someone like Stones would be your playmaker with his ball playing abilitys). Quite often that is the case in this kind of system, scorers goes wide. Creators central and the DM is so so important.

 

Thats some results! 

 

No one outside top4 and like quarters in CL ever presses me high, so I cant almost never try that. I have though at times tried to use standard loe and high dline (the setting that is "+1"). But mostly they just pass a merry go round with cd and gk then. If I win "everything" again with the 4-2-3-1 I probably will leave City and try to get Arsenal who sits in 19th place atm. Trying to keep the JDP influences but a back three and two strikers. 

[johnstonpickle]

1 hour ago, Djuicer said:

Really nice to see someone trying this in with a weaker team.

Im really liking how you mould players and force them to play where you see fit. That is important and clever, even more so with worse players I suppose (I guess someone like Stones would be your playmaker with his ball playing abilitys). Quite often that is the case in this kind of system, scorers goes wide. Creators central and the DM is so so important.

 

Thats some results! 

 

No one outside top4 and like quarters in CL ever presses me high, so I cant almost never try that. I have though at times tried to use standard loe and high dline (the setting that is "+1"). But mostly they just pass a merry go round with cd and gk then. If I win "everything" again with the 4-2-3-1 I probably will leave City and try to get Arsenal who sits in 19th place atm. Trying to keep the JDP influences but a back three and two strikers. 

Yeah it’s certainly opened my eyes! When looking for players to sign I really just pay attention to their attributes and their preferred foot and just make my mind up about the position i will be playing them in. Forcing players to become proficient in other areas also gives them good versatility so one game my RPM could be playing as a F9 if he’s needed and my IWs are then filling in for him. It’s definitely needed with a small squad! 

The aim of this save is to get from the Vanarama North to the Premier League whilst spending no more than £1m in total. In 6/7 seasons I’ve currently just spent £240k but I’m sure that will get harder if I go up this season!

I think with City you will always be the favourite which is probably why you’ll struggle to get teams to come out they park the bus. At 0-0 that is a pretty good scoreline for the majority of your opponents I would imagine!

Maybe you could try and do it with a smaller team? 😉

[Djuicer]

1 hour ago, johnstonpickle said:

Yeah it’s certainly opened my eyes! When looking for players to sign I really just pay attention to their attributes and their preferred foot and just make my mind up about the position i will be playing them in. Forcing players to become proficient in other areas also gives them good versatility so one game my RPM could be playing as a F9 if he’s needed and my IWs are then filling in for him. It’s definitely needed with a small squad! 

The aim of this save is to get from the Vanarama North to the Premier League whilst spending no more than £1m in total. In 6/7 seasons I’ve currently just spent £240k but I’m sure that will get harder if I go up this season!

I think with City you will always be the favourite which is probably why you’ll struggle to get teams to come out they park the bus. At 0-0 that is a pretty good scoreline for the majority of your opponents I would imagine!

Maybe you could try and do it with a smaller team? 😉

Thats great, a healthy view on players and attributes  I like to have payers capable of playing in a lot of positions and roles.

Yeah, I gues you will  need some higher quality players? To be able to keep the same style in a better division.

That is probably true. Not many teams attack us, but many try to catch us on the break.

Arsenal is small?  they are on 0.96ppg. Gained some positions and sit in 15 now.

Im also drawn to go abroad. Germany, Italy or Spain. Not sure I dare to take a small side again, I did it with Fulham (small is relative right?) and worked hard for the shot at a top club! 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Djuicer

[Djuicer]

Last year, I came to this number when the streak crashed and burned. Lets see this time around.