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Since football manager came along, I've found the difficulty to have gone up ten fold. Gone were the days when I could just create a simple 4-4-2 tactic in 15 minutes and then never really need to alter it at all, as I go on to win the league. I really loved the fm games too and all their new features but I found myself increasingly frustrated at all the difficulty and 'AI cheating'. Until a month ago, I was still playing 03/04 - a game with great balance.. however when my computer crashed midway through saving, I didn't really feel like starting again, so I picked up FM07 and gave it one final shot.
After some messing around, I created a tactic which has pretty much won me every competition in the three seasons I've been playing. Admittedly, I chose Arsenal so I have technically gifted players, but also no money and no squad. I only got £2m to spend at the end of the first summer but my success gave me a budget of £83m in the second!
Now I'm not claiming this to be a Diablo-style super tactic, but I definitely think that it's worth checking out if, like me, you are on the brink of giving up hope on this game. Obviously, I have only tested it with England and Arsenal, and from what I see, it will work well with any of the good sides with great technical attributes. I don't know how well it would work with lower leagues.
Anyway, I don't wanna go on too much, but here's a few things to note:
- You don't need to change this tactic depending on if you play at home or away. In fact, you won't need to change anything at all. Unless you're losing really badly (have to be honest, if I lose, it's only four or five times a season and usually only by one goal).
- The ONLY other thing you might wanna change is if you're playing against a side with a great AMC or striker. If they are playing really well, then get the DM to man mark that specific player. It works well.
- I leave my teamtalks to the ass man. Quite frankly, in the short time I used them for (handful of games at the start of the first season) I found them to be ridiculous. They swayed the result far too much, and usually not in my favour. Setting it to the ass man leaves it all as neutral so there is no stupid factors that will change the outcome of the game. If like me, you were ready to give up with this game, I recommend you try this.
Anyway, here's the link for my tactic. Please feel free to (ab)use it: Phoenix Tactic
I think the key is to have a strong DM who can tackle well, has good anticipation so he can cut out the passes. Can't really think of any special instructions that aren't obvious. ie. Strong CBs, attacking full backs and strikers/ML/MR with good dribbling and pace. The CM can be either an attacking or defense minded player. I guess the best way is just to list the team that does best for me:
GK: Benoit Castil (dunno if he's a regen or what but I picked him up for peanuts and in 2008 he's pretty good)
RB: Alves/Eboue
LB: Clichy
CBs: Gallas/Toure
DM: Gilberto
LM: Van Persie
RM: Hleb
CM: Arteta
CFs: Henry/Vela
As you can see, I pretty much just kept with the original Arsenal squad.
After a recent job change to Ajax (a good technical side in an OK to poor league), I put together my best ever string of wins in a row-usually with clean sheets.
My side adjusted to it immediately (see other post for details) and proceeded to take just about every opponent apart.
Played 10 games, won 9-lost 1, scored 29 conceeded 5. The defeat was to AZ away in the first leg of the Euro play off (I beat them over the 2 legs)
The tactic doesn't need changing home/away-but remember Ajax are a very good team and even better after I blew £16M on players.
Saying that I have made tweaks to shorten the passing and I do have slight reservations about its defensive soundness.
I am sorry, my tactic appears to have disappeared. I think fmdownloads is undergoing maintenance. I temporarily uploaded it Here
dioufy_is_god : Those results aren't too bad to start with. Wait until you play at home and you should start winning. Once your morale is up to very good or superb you should start to see wins by bigger margins..
follow the blind : you need to put the tactic in your my documents/sports interative/fm07/tactics folder.
Zipflashy/bnek : Good to see it working well with another top team. Would love to know how it gets on down in league 2. Thanks for kind words
For those finding fm07 too hard... 
Linear Mode
