retired_venomm

I have recently been tinkering with a 3 sweeper defence tactic, with varied success. I am yet to finish any higher than 4th in the Premiership in my first season (using Man Utd) with this method and was hoping for a bit of advice.



As you can see this approach should only be used if you have the players suited to the positions. I have been trying to get this sort of first team sheet:

GK - Van Der Sar (could buy better but have been using my budget elsewhere)
SWRC - Corluka
SWC - Ferdinand
SWLC - Vidic
DMRC - Carrick (retrained - right footed)
DMLC - Cambiasso (left footed)
MC - Scholes
MRC - Ronaldo
MLC - Giggs
AMLC - Rooney
FRC - Toni

I've been trying to use the following sorts of players - I may be able to find better however eventually:
Sweepers - Tall and fast with good positioning/tackling/heading - no forward running - defensive as possible player instructions.
DMs - Hard working, strong with high stamina and team work, good tackling, average pace as they are playing with defensive settings not moving much.
MC - Basically just someone that picks up the ball and moves it and backtracks abit incase DMs are distracted.
ML/R - Creative, fast, good dribblin, basically just moving the ball forward, attacking mentality.
AMLC - Rooney role, pick the ball up off the striker, creative, good shooting/pace/creativity/strength, holding up the ball/free role
FLC - Out and out striker.

My main problem surprisingly seems to have been my midfielders under performing (DMs often getting rating of 5-6), they are covering the wide positions fine, and my defence is so deep that my box nearly always has 3 or more defensive players in it when the ball comes near.

Something about it isn't working but I can't figure out what it is and why my DMs are being rated low. Sorry I don't have a version to upload and test out as I have been constantly changing my player instructions. I'm just looking for some pointers as to what might be going wrong in my midfield.

Thanks to anyone that offers help

retired_Myoplex

1 your players will tire more because of the runs
2 its unlikely that anyone has tried this so try it and report back

good luck, hope it works out, and by the way i would have full backs as dm's i had a tactic where i put 4 players as sweepers and 4 players as defenders and they weren't all sweepers and defenders but they never got less then 7's

retired_nychic718

A well organised tactic should in theory rip that apart.

I'm currently in a game with my mate, and after my 3 seasons of domination with Man Utd he's changed his chelsea tactic to something kind of like this. Unfortunately instead of finishing 2nd 10 points behind me, he is struggling in 8th, surviving simply by having world class players.

When the 2 teams faced each other chelse were demolished 6-0.

I personally find a well balanced 442 is great at home and a defensive 4141 for away games. Also I have a theory that different tactics for home and away sorta helps avoid that reranking thing.

retired_nychic718

Also if your constantly changing player instructions it wont help as you need to let a tactic settle.

retired_venomm

I haven't been consistantly changing them as in every week, what I meant by that was that I played a whole season with the tactic, then restarted with different player instructions on my next save to try and iron out the bad points - sorry if I didn't make that clear.

I have managed to finish 4th (and recently 3rd) with tactics similar to this shape - using Man Utd admitantly. I'm not particularly sorted about the shape of it beyond the back line, I'm trying to devise a tactic that can be stable in defence while only using 3 men at the back.

I can get defenders averaging over 7.5 a season using this formation but often 2 of my midfielders are still getting 6.something. I'm still messing around with this trying to make it succesful with a big team before I try it out on smaller clubs. If I manage to come up with anything that can win titles I will upload it, but it is rather pointless for me to do so right now as there alot of holes to iron out.

About the different tactic for away games, I have been trying to be extremely strict about having 3 defenders at all times, and have just been altering my midfield shape in away games, with varied success so far. I shall keep this updated though, as I would love to find a tactic that works and allows you to fit an extra midfielder/striker into the side and still be consistently good at the back.