I took over Arsenal in 2010 and used this tactic, I won the league and FA Cup double. I bizarelly got knocked out of the Champions League in the semi-finals by the team I moved to Arsenal from - Celtic. Guess I did a pretty good job of building their team up...
The season went like this:
1) An inital 5 or 6 game period of tweaking the tactic to suit my squad (3 wins, 3 draws) - always dominating shots but not finishing the chances
2) A 21 game winning streak in all competitions where I almost never touched a setting during the game - scoring lots and dominating stats (always gettign that could and maybe should have been a bigger margin post-match comment)
3) A period of fixture congestion where I was dominating stats but it seemed like the opposite team was putting away every chance they got. My first couple of defeats of the season in the League Cup and the League.
4) A real low patch where I was no longer dominating games and instead grinding out results where possible, especially in the league where I was even being defeated at home by the likes of Sheffield United and Reading. Still managed to knock out Real Madrid and Lyon from the Champions League
5) A spell where every game required me to tweak the passing style and tempo based on how the first ten minutes went.. and then based on the current score/time. I was playing 3 games every 7 days or so at this point. I managed to win 9 out of my last 10 games but often I was very lucky.
Based on this I'd say:
1) Fitness control is key for the tactic to work at its best - slow it down once you're ahead to keep your players sharp. Not just for the game but for the whole season because it's so effective you'll end up progressing very far in every competition with no time off for your squad.
2) Bad weather really damages the effectiveness of this tactic, make sure you look at the weather and keep a big target man handy if you need to start going long.
3) Teams who play wide and cross the ball into the box are this tactics' kryptonite. I have scored some wonderful goals but I have conceded so many goals coming from crosses into my box.
4) The Wingers will score almost as many as the striker.. they are probably the most important individual positions to tweak and get right. If you have highlight mode set to Key then a lot of the shots they hit unless you tweak them are so ridiculous they don't even get shown as a highlight.. but they affect the stats and your perception of how dominating you were.
Overall it's a good, fun tactic. But it's also really frustrating with the amount of chances you miss and it's also a victim of its own success. It tires players out because of the high tempo, so when they're fresh at the start of the season you'll be getting results in every competition. Then towards the end when your moved league games start to catch up with you, hey presto the tactic isn't so useful because your best players start games at 80%.
I'm Liverpool and they only first team player I have signed Joe Cole and Ageuro for the first team.
Linear Mode
