rodrigo

Although he did get beat at home to Chelsea.

retired_nickgiardina

In the Legue Cup tho', it's not excatly the Champions League is it?

retired_nickgiardina

This pressing tactic seems be really against the bigger sides who look to dominate possession.

My results against the 'big' teams I've played, are;

Barcelona, 1-1 [away] and 6-1 [home]
Chelsea, 2-1 [away], 1-0 [home], 1-1 [home], 0-0 [away] and 1-2 loss [away]
Real Madrid 3-0 Hightslights (Liverpool v Barcelona.pkm)[home] and 2-0 [away]
Man United, 1-0 [home], 6-1 [home] and 0-2 loss [away]
Arsenal, 3-0 [away], 2-0 [home] and 1-1 [away] (using my counter tactic)

So thats...

Games played; 15
GF; 30
GA; 9
The goal difference, 26

Compare to some of my results against mid-table teams that finished 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th last season...

Middlesbrough, 4-0 [away] and 1-1 [home]
Reading, 1-1 [away]
Man City; 1-1 [away] and 0-0 [home]
West Ham; 3-0 [home] and 0-2 loss [away]

I've found when teams have come at me at - via fast tempo counter attacks are on 'high/often' closing down, I struggle to string three (forward) passes together when I have ball and when I don't have the ball my midfield is getting over run. I know the way to get rid of the problem is be keeping possession but when I try to play a short pass/slow tempo approach my defeders can keep possession but as soon as the ball goes past the half way line my midfielders/support striker find it hard to keep possession because because their players are on high/often closing down, direct passing and the team is play at a high tempo. It's really start to annoy me, it's goot to the stage I feel more comfortable and coinfident playing Barcelona/Real Madrid/Man United/Chelsea - than Middlesbrough or West Ham... and now that is weird, for me anyway.

rodrigo

I find to your last post. (this is also something IMO that gets overlooked) Action zones help immensly when evaluating a tactic! If your being over run in midfield try changing mentalties of players i.e. defenders and attackers to give your midfield support! After all midfield for me is where a game is won and lost!

How are your goals scored aginst the big sides? Are they counter attacks or shear brilliant pass and move goals?

retired_nickgiardina

Not from counter attacks - direct/long passing but from 3/4 passes in the final third ending with a through ball or a neatly picked out cross...

Never from fast counter attacks thats for sure, if anything we seems to be more orgainised OFF the ball, much more and that is proably the biggest diffence between our goals against mid table sides (Middlesbrough or West Ham) than my goals/performances against the big sides.

retired_nickgiardina

OK my season has finished, we won the Preimer league on the last day and the FA Cup a week later.

Imho my season can be broken up into three sections.

The first 20 - 25 games I was flying, the AI was finding it hard to adjust to my more attacking tactic...

In that time my best result was 6-1 thrashing of Man U, but after a while I was finding we were concedeing soft too often and as soon as our goal scoring dryed up and teams started scoring the first goal (which happen ealier on) it was plain to see to say the best.

The second section was a head-ache, looking back at last season I'm suprised we didn't lose the Preimership in this... this time turned out to be going from attacking minded tactic's to defensive/pressing tactic's in the end, it was almost as if this section was trial and error imho.

The final section - last 20 games, saw me use just my Pressing tactic most of the time and my Defend 4-4-1-1 to control/shut down when I've got that 2-3 goal lead... and plenty of clean sheets towards the end of the season

Frag

Is your target man the quick striker (ie. Torres) or the guy who plays alongside him?

Frag

retired_nickgiardina

Because I have two excellant quick strikers it deepends, if I'm playing Pazzini, I'll use Torres in the second striker role but if Voronin or my new signing Niguez is starting, I'll use them as the Target man with Torres/Pazzini playing of them, drifting out wide and getting to the by-line to get crosses in for the aother striker (target man).