JohnSWA

I am a little busy today untill evening. I will try to answer your questions then. I could also upload tactics, but they are made with Liverpool instructions outside the framework might be changed dependant on players.

Also bear in mind that the settings for individual mentality and closing down mentioned at the beginning of the post, was ment to be a counter attacking style. Everybody should use their preferred framework tactic and change it into different versions. One version a little more possession orientated to use against weaker teams, one counter-attacking version to use when protecting a lead/playing against better teams, one attacking version to use when goals are needed.

Further on you might consider a low risk, possession, timewaisting version. Also an desperate gung-ho version to use when the **** has hit the fen and you have to score, might be handy to have available.

JohnSWA

I wholeheartedly agree. I've been preaching this line since FM07 and now in FM08. Fundamentally the game is really once you understand these relationships, allowing you to build tactics easily quickly and efficiently,. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah you have been adding a lot to this forum, feel free to answer questions and add to this topic. I am thinking a little of making a tactical/training guidelin/manual to put up for download. It should cover most aspects of the subjects.

More detailed information about the tactical/training instructions, also giving advice on a few of the popular real life tactics currently in use. I would need help from seasoned tacticans though. Everybody who are interested in contributing let me know, should we could start organizing it.

Paulo1975

Thanks for your advice rashidi1. i do believe in split mentalities over global anyway. i have now gone for split mentalities and it's working a treat at the moment to be honest. I've finally got the message. The secret to any decent tactic is to understand dl, mentality and closing down. Once get them to work you might be on to a winner. I'm i right rashidi1.

retired_jenna22

Ok thank you. Would appreciate if you can touch abit more on the CD in relation to mentality and Defensive Line. There seems to be some conflicting points, seemingly you found something new.

retired_vsoukup

just a quick observation i have noticed, i think your DL of 14 shown above maybe too low? i think 14 is higher than dat by looking at a match in full i noticed closing down happening alot sooner in the opposition's half wen set above 10. i actually think that 10 is the halfway line. Again of course players aggression and stats may have me fooled but i think i might be right lol

retired_vsoukup

see i dont think that the DL tells the defender where to line up. if you watch a match you will notice that even if your DL is set to 6 defenders will still position themselves close to the halfway line when your players have moved that far up the pitch. DL 14 just tells the defender he can start to pressure there if it comes his way (of course assuming his closing down and mentality are 14)

JohnSWA

afeckingline: The DL doesn`t tell your defenders where to line up. As for the rest of the team it is an major instruction/guideline which tells where to start defending. It`s main purpose is to choose which action to take when defending/trying to regain possession of the ball. It affects all players not only defenders.

Example 1: If your midfielders and attackers are deep into the oppostion half during an attack. And the oppositon regains the ball and starts an quick attack by passing the ball towards your half. A DL set to start defending at own half will lead to your defenders starting to defend from this area designated by the DL. Because no other players are in position to do so, the defenders will have to start defending from the DL.

If your team have a better defensive balance with midfielders beeing able to do the inital defending from the DL, they will start to defend from the area set by the DL.

Should you set your DL to own area in example 1, your defenders would fall back to start initial defending from this area. This is how the DL works.

Also note that DL set to own area might be as good as the rest of the pitch. As long as you get the setting for CD and IM right this will also has it benefits.

I believe the game is very flexible, there is no huge benefits from either setting of the DL. As long as all your instrcutions are set correctly according to eachother, your tactic will work.

retired_hope

Defensive Line
The Defensive Line slider positions your deepest line of defence on the pitch.

It affects the position the players take up both with and without possession.

The slider is set from Deep to Push Up, and the further right the bar is set, the closer to the halfway line the defensive unit will advance when in possession.

If your team is using a defensive mentality, a defensive setting on the slider will ensure they stay deep when the rest of the team attacks.

If your team uses an attcking philosophy, the effect of the slider is lessened and players will advance - although a deeper line will see them err on the side of caution a little more.

When your team is not in possesion the same applie, but in terms of nullifying the opposition.

As soon as your team loses the ball, the defensive line will adopt the approach you have told them and either drop deeper or push up.

You may want to take the qualities of the opposition's attackers into consideration before each match before deciding on your defensive line approach, as quicker players can get in behind an advanced line, and deeper lines can be exposed by direct play and a big target man up front.

retired_SASSY STARLA

Early results are promising, as i said i'm using a 4-5-1 whilst impementing your idea and i'm getting fan comments on each game saying how happy they are with the restricting of the opposition.

On average no more than 5 shots against per game thus far with most of those off target.

I'm playing with Norwich so hardly the best team around and yet it still seems to work.

Will play some more and post up results later but things are certainly pointing towards this theory being correct.

retired_hope

Interesting new approach, you may find this useful