panomaniac

Has anybody else noticed that short passing and slow tempo invariably leads to many 0-0 draws or tight 1-0 encounters, much more so than in previous incarnations of Football Manager?

Is there a need to be more direct on FM08?

My Arsenal side had high possession statistics but only a few chances per game and this was resulting in a lot of 1-0 wins. Then I decided to play direct and quick, my possession was much lower but the goals starting flowing and many more chances were created.

You'd think that if anybody could pull off a slow/short game, it would be Arsenal, but even a team of this quality struggled with such a system - in my experience at least - so is the direct/quick approach the best way to go if you are the better team wanting to attack the opposition?

In my experience direct/quick seems to be the best way to attack people and score goals.

crazy gra

All depends on how the opposition will play against you. As Arsenal you should have most teams (especially when you're at home) playing very defensively. A quick tempo will result in lots of shots, but against too much of a defensive opponent, their tightness at the back will mean you'll struggle to make many decent efforts on goal.

For me, this is the same as in 07. If the AI is playing 10 men behind the ball, then I use a control tactic with very short passing and very slow tempo - both 4. This will mean I keep the ball most of the time whilst building up the attack to make, albeit less chances, better chances. If the opposition is going to come at you then that's when you can raise tempo as there's going to be more gaps in their defence to exploit.

When playing defensively, I also use a slow-ish tempo to enable me to keep the ball better, but tick the counter attack box and have mixed/high passing (around 12, I don't want to "HOOF" unless I'm in LLM) with the keeper, defence and sometimes the centre midfielders on 'try through balls' often. This, along with a defensive mentality, means I keep the ball quite a bit, but allow the team to get the ball forward quickly despite not using a quick tempo by direct passes. This is an approach I use, even when playing as relatively good teams, when I'm a goal ahead in an away match and it works well.

Back to the main point: I'd only use a quick tempo if I felt the teams were quite matched in terms of quality but I felt I could get a goal as they were pushing forward too. Either that or when I'm in desperate need of a goal near the end of the game when you need to just get the ball in the box.

Aussie_Man_Utd

Yeah. Slow Tempo you get more close encounters- this is due to slow tempo making less chances but better ones. YOu don't score as much. However you don't lose as much as well. Quick tempo, make more chances but the opportunities are rushed. Higher scores but also more pron to a flogging.