retired_omid

Hi all. I have been a regular member of these forums for around 2 years now. The only other time that I have ever posted a tactic was in FM2006. I have spent many enjoyable hours reading through some of the wonderful threads on here, particularly wwfan's TT&F IV and lately his Tactical design and management strategy, and Cleon's great thread The Sheffield United Project. I really can't thank these two people enough for giving up hours of their own time to provide answers and possible solutions to those of us who are not as tactically aware. Although I haven't really specifically use either the RoO or ROT for my tactics the insperation to design and build my own tactic came very much from reading threads on here.

So on with my tactic. As in the title it uses a 4-3-1-2 formation. I have been using this tactic for around 3 seasons now. Well, when I say three seasons, the first season was really spent developing it, I ended up finishing 5th with Milan in Serie A. The second half of season 2 was when I really believe that I have more or less got it right.

Team Instructions

The mentality of the team is on the first notch of attacking. Foremost in my mind was that I wanted to see attacking football, but I didn't want my team to play so attacking that we were conceding goals like water.

Creative freedom and closing down are left alone as I alter these individually.

The passing style is a couple of notch's into short, but again I alter some individual player instructions.

Tempo is slow.

Width is narrow. I find that, as I don't play wingers, although a wide formation for me can work in 'bursts' if I use it all the time, I have very little protection for my full-backs and they get skinned. By staying narrow most of the time I am protecting my danger area, middle of the pitch, and really only have problems if the opposition have a great long shot specialist.

Time wasting is initially set to rarely.

Defensive line. This is something I'm really not convinced on to be honest. I have read the tactical bibles and many other peoples post and there just doesn't seem to be a common opinion. I have it set at notch 3, so it's on deep. I don't really see a difference on the pitch, but it certainly seem to concede less goals. (This is one area where I'd like you guys to see if you can find some improvement).

The playmaker is ticked, I use my AMC (Kaka in my case).


Player instructions

The GK

I have left as standard instructions. No particular reason why, just seems to work well like this.

The back-four

They are all on a more defensive mentality from the rest of the team. The center-backs are on 4 while the full-backs are on 6. They all have very low creative freedom, as I don't want them messing about with the ball. Their passing style is direct, I find if you have it on short and their isn't a short option they will 'dally' on it. Closing down is rarely for all of them, more so for the center-backs. Forward runs mixed for the full-backs, everything else rarely, center-backs are rarely on everything.

The midfield three

The center of the three is the most defensive of them. This doesn't however mean that he is the Roy Keane/Patrick Viera type 'destructive' player. I have Pirlo playing here, and have long shots ticked as often, and what I find is with 2 other center midfielders playing alongside him with higher mentality's he gets a lot of space to be able to make passes and create chances. The other two midfielders are more attacking and close down a lot more. These two are really box-to-box midfielders.

The AMC

This guy, for me, is possibly the most important member of the team. He is the one who makes things tick. Like I have already said I am lucky to have Kaka here, but have used Nani and V Persie to great effect also. He is set as the playmaker, and has loads of creative freedom and very little closing down.

The forwards

I see the forward on the right as the poacher while the one on the left as the more creative one. They are both given quite good creative freedom to get space for themselves, and the closing down on both of them is high as I want them to put pressure on the oppositions defence.

Some screen shots

I really hope these work as I usually mess these up!

]My tactical overview

]Team instructions


And now for the tactic

4-3-2-1 Milan

The link is uploaded to rapidshare, as I'm not sure how to put it on FMDownloads, and don't know where else to put it. If someone knows then I'll upload it wherever you want!


What I'd like you lot to do

Really I'd like people to download this tactic and give it a try. I have only tried it with Milan, for 2 reasons, I don't have masses of time to try it with 10 other sides, and I have no wish to at the moment anyway, as I am enjoying my current game.

I'd like some advice on how to make the tactic work better. I believe that defensively this tactic is good (conceded 25 in 43 games since settling on these instructions). It is going forward that I feel I sometimes have problems, I will create loads of chances sometimes but fail to score. Also any other areas that you guys feel could be improved, as I have already said I'm not sure about the defensive line. Please. please, don't come back on here and say the tactic is crap, that it's not working. I don't want people just to download the tactic and expect it to win their league for them. This isn't why I started this thread. I feel that the tactic is good, but can be improved, and I'd like the T&T forum to help me improve it.

Tweaks

This is sometimes where people switch off I think, but these are simple and fairly obvious.

1. Last 10-15 mins of a game that I consider that I'm getting the result I want or I can accept I raise the time wasting to maximum.

2. If I'm not getting the result I want at half time, I will move the width to wide (about 3 notch's from maximum), I will also raise the mentality to the same as the width. The passing style I will also raise to mixed (11 notch's I think, right in the middle, as it would be at default).


Thats about it I think, hopefully the screenshots etc have come out right, if not sorry. Please let me know where you think it can be improved.

Dave.

retired_omid

The FMDownloads link

I figured how to put it onto FMDownloads for those of you who can't use rapidshare.

retired_janetdevans

Hi there, I am by no means a tactics expert, but I do have a little bit of feedback to make. My tactic is very similar to yours in terms of defensive philosophy, so I'd like to comment on that.

You mentioned that you have some games where you create a lot of chances and can't convert. I know that it happens, but I definitely used to struggle against ultra-defensive teams (such as the kind you will run into once you've done well for a season or two) and I need to get the fullbacks involved.

So, when I have a home game against a poorer quality team (one that will play Def. 4-4-2 or 3-3-2-1-1), what I do is I set the Forward Runs and Crosses of my fullbacks to "Often." I may also set their mentality to match that of my team. Give it a try during a cup game, and you will see that's its easier to score against a team that "parks the bus" on you. However, I have tried farrows on the fullbacks, and it doesn't seem to work as well

retired_omid

Hi thanks for your comments.

Personally I don't like farrows or barrows on any of my players, I find it much better to adjust said players mentality. Just find it works better that way.

I don't know whether your right with the fullback issue or not. I will give it a go against a weaker opposition. I must admit I will be a little concerned giving up a bit of defensive stability. The thing is I am creating a shed load of chances, every game. 9 times out of 10 I will win, just occasionally will fail to score.

So I don't really see the advantage of having my full-backs join the attack. I could see the sense if I wasn't creating anything, they would give me width to stretch the opposition.

But like I said I'll give your idea a go soon. Thanks.

retired_janetdevans

Hi thanks for your comments.

Personally I don't like farrows or barrows on any of my players, I find it much better to adjust said players mentality. Just find it works better that way.

I don't know whether your right with the fullback issue or not. I will give it a go against a weaker opposition. I must admit I will be a little concerned giving up a bit of defensive stability. The thing is I am creating a shed load of chances, every game. 9 times out of 10 I will win, just occasionally will fail to score.

So I don't really see the advantage of having my full-backs join the attack. I could see the sense if I wasn't creating anything, they would give me width to stretch the opposition.

But like I said I'll give your idea a go soon. Thanks. </BLOCKQUOTE>

I understand your concern... I started from a little bit of a different situation, as I had a lower-league team predicted to finish 24th in the English Championship. I would play defensive tactics and have one of the best defenses and WLD records in away games, but most home games, I struggled to score because teams wouldn't play attacking, finishing games 0-0 very often. Before the change, my fullbacks averaged 6.7-6.8 over a half-season, and after that they averaged 7.1-7.3. Not to mention scoring a lot more at home!

Also, playing Tottenham in the Premiership, I would occasionally have trouble scoring at home against the very worst sides, even though I would do OK against midtable sides and even Man Utd. Making the fullbacks more attacking helped with the offensive consistency at home.

retired_thebiggestc

im using your tactic with liverpool and i will let you know. ive just got the game here in south africa and have played all the series since it started but never really been a tactic sort of guy.

i also had **** team instructions on direct and quick etc but i see all the good ones are short and slow tempo etc, i will let you know how it goes.

as it stands my liverpool team is as follows and i will let you know about the tactic after the season.

played 34, won 10, drew 12, lost 12, for 43, against 41, points 42 and sitting in 11th.

let me finish the last 4 games and i will tell you how i did???

retired_omid

How did you go? Did you finish your season?

What did you notice about the tactic?

Thanks.

retired_rjw13838

Have you tried giving your strikers side arrows?

In a tactic I recently used, I hade two strikers with sarrows and Kaká in AMC with forward runs and run with ball on often. What I regularly saw, was the strikers moving out wide a bit, dragging their markers (both centre-backs) with them. This created space down the centre through which Kaká ran, getting a one-on-one with the goalie.

retired_thebiggestc

i used the tactic for the last 4 games and won 2 lost 2 but didnt have the right players at that time...

i started a new season and so far im sitting like this...

euro - 6 games 19 for 4 against

friendlies - 3 games 9 for 1 against

PL - 5 games 10 for 8 against

in the PL i had had 3 draws and in each case i have conceded injury time goals and that irritates me...

i have found that i keep possesion longer, have more shots at ogal and on target and also score more...i have conceded a fewer than normal but at the same time conceded late goals...

i have also got my 2 outside MC with side arrows

retired_thebiggestc

do you use it the same way for both home and away or do you make changes...