I have usually struggled with the tactical side of things with FM. I was expecting another year searching for the right tactic after failing to build one that I liked and that suited me.
I have liked playng as Everton in te past due t the squad being reletively strong, but not all conquering and also the squad does have a few weaknesses (depth
IMO). This is where I have decided to start once again.
After reading another thread in these forums about Everton and after having a bit of a hink about players in the squad I decided to go for a 4-1-2-2-1 formation.
I read a lot (or at least tried to) about the closing down bug so with this in mind I started to try and develop a defence on this. The fatback 4 I hve implemented seem to stop most attacks - although I think that too many do get into the box before being stopped.
The midfield I have a DM and 2 MC's. I tried to get the right MC to act as an attacking player, but one who could defend when required and the left one as a box-to-box style player. My thinking was that Tim Cahill could be the attacker but he starts thegame injured so Leon Osman has been playing here with success. The left MC I have Graveson but once he leaves the club I think Phil Jagielka will slot in quite well.
Up front: 2 AM's (AMR, Arteta, AML, McFadden) and Andy Johnson. I wa expecting te 2 wingers to score some goals but as of yet the only goals they have are from set pieces. Not a huge issue as Johnson is harrassing every golkeeper put in front of him.
As I said earlir I am not sure why this tactic has been successful bu it has. no losses up until 24th Oct, and only 8 goals conceded in 17 games (including pre-season frieldlies.)
Up until the 1st loss the record read as follows (Not including friendlies):
Played 12
Scored 20
Conceded 6
I haven't tweaked my tactic at all up until the loss but I thin know is the time I need to play around with it. Also the possibility of buying players at the January window is vital to cover up for Evertons lack of quality backup players. I started the game by not allowing players to be signed before January.
well, with all that reading I guess you will want to try this tactic out. I was planning to release it after I had played up until half way thru November (when I was expecting the game engine to start to counter the tactic's effectivness) but now with the loss I feel that there will be no great loss in releasing it now:
Nick's Everton Tactic
Also, I havea few screenies you may be interested in:
Manager Overview Fixtures/Results
A few thank you's have to go out to a few people as well:
Cleon -
And his Sheff Utd Project
Rashidi -
With his Hints and Tips thread and also his Closing down temporary fix thread
Tug -
I am using his training schedule.
Feel free to comment and/or critisize.