retired_lhelferich

So after hearing about all these closing down problems i decided to quit my Newcastle game after about 3 games for a stress free game as manager of Chelsea. After buying Ronaldo from Milan for a rediculous 16million I realise he is injured for 2 months, move on and prepare for my charity shield match with Man United. Here are my tactics so far, attacking 4-3-3 with Drogba upfront acting as the target man, I have Malouda and Joe Cole in Attacking Midfield positions (left and right) Mikel, Lampard and Essien behind them. Lampard is the only player set to Attacking Midifielder in the team, Mikel and Essien are set to Midfielder, with Cole and Malouda Wingers.
Anyway, I set team mentality to attacking, creative freedom much, passing style direct (hoping for long balls to the Drog) tempo is normal, and width on the last notch of normal, closing down much. The rest is normal and I ticked the "Use Target Man" box. The problem is i seem to get completely trashed by Man U in the 4 0 and beyond region, Help much appreciated.

thud

Now I'm gonna quote the hint section of FM: "Use creative freedom sparely for full effect." Unless you have a team full of Ronaldinhos, Messis and Silvas, setting the team creativity to very high is rarely a good move. I find it best when my most technical, most constructive "samba" style player(s) are given lots of creativity

A player that is able to handle himself when given a lot of creative freedom is also a good alternative for a free role, as putting weight on the creativity basically has most of the same effects as giving them a free role.

Also, Joe Cole is the only type of player in Chelsea that I recon is able to use free roles and the creative freedom in full effect. (Except maybe Ronaldo, but he's not there IRL so I'm not counting him.)

Hope that helped a little.

retired_lhelferich

Thanks but it still isn't going well, i switched to a 4 4 2 with Drogba as the target man, Shevchenko form is as bad as real life, the fans have even moaned about it. The problem is i seem to have my tactics worked out and on paper it all comes together, but im getting outplayed aswell as beaten, for example Chelsea 0 PSV 1. Extremely frustrating.

retired_jennielynn

drop defensive line alot.

Man Utd has pacey short players they look to get in behind (rooney tevez and ronaldo)

Play a DMC or atleast have a MC drop to DMC.
Ronney and Tevez will drop off if they cant get behind, and then pull your defense apart for the other to run in through.

Make sure Ronaldo gets clobbered at every chance, Just tight mark him and tackle hard.

Ive never lost to man utd in 2008 and usualy win 2-0 and have won 3-0 without much effort really

Make sure if u want a win u have an AMC and 2 strikers, i sacrifice a RM player to have an AMC who drops to MC to help defend.