Harboggles

4-4-2 Jaswarbrick

Introduction

Have you ever wanted to play really attacking football, constantly on the offensive against the opposition, keeping passing flowing and creating lots of chances, whilst keeping possession and conceding very few goals at the same time? Read on.

First thoughts when starting to create tactic

So, you have all seen Manchester United play this season, and will probably agree that the performances of the season were away to Bolton in the league, and home to Roma in the Champions League recently. Please just watch this video i am about to link you to, and watch the passing and movement of the players, and more importantly, watch the fullbacks Gary Neville and Patrice Evra in this video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A_3_rJTuXwg

As you can see, United always like to attack home or away, it's just our way. We always have our fullbacks running forward supporting the attack, home or away.

This is what i am trying to replicate in Football Mangager. United's early season performances.

Formation



As you can see, hopefully this thumbnail will appear correctly, the fullbacks have farrows forward. Now i know what you are thinking, that this is too risky, fullbacks getting forward catches you out at the back. Well the nature of this tactic is to attack, but due to the defensive solidity of this tactic, it actually seems wrong to not give farrows to the fullbacks. I will discuss why the tactic has defensive solidity even though the fullbacks and the wingers have farrows.

Team instructions

So now we are on to team instructions, with my aim being to emulate the success of Manchester United.



Mentality - Very attacking, as Manchester United play. Everyone's individual mentality's are altered, so you would think that individual mentality would override the team mentality. Well, it may or may not do, but the setting for this has worked very well for me.

Creative freedom - Normal, 11. I changed every player's creative freedom setting but am not sure as to whether team creative freedom matters when it is set individually.

Passing style - Set individually.

Tempo - First notch of normal. This isn't quite a slow tempo, taking all day to get the ball up into advanced positions, but it certainly isn't getting the ball to the front as quickly as possible just making forward passes. Instead this setting delivers flowing football, playing it forward when is neccessary, to a forward, winger, or an overlapping fullback.

Width - Wide. Manchester United play wide, getting fullbacks involved in the attack and spreading wingers wide to stretch the opposition.

Closing down - Set individually.

Time wasting - Normal, 11. Due to the tempo setting, which is the first notch of normal, you do want to time waste getting the ball to the advanced positions at time, possibly to let the fullbacks get forward before you actually play the ball to them. But at the same time you don't want to waste too much getting the ball up as this is an attacking tactic, and is designed on making chances while remaining solid at the back.

Defensive line - Push up. With fullbacks getting forward at every opportunity, the defensive line need to be pushed up, but will remain solid at the back, compressing the oppostion. Playing a deep defensive line will not be benificial to the fullbacks who are running forward all the time, but is just too defensive.

Player instructions

I am not going to give the individual instructions for each and every player, rather give a brief outline of the player's isntructions, you can see the instructions from the download anyway.

Swapping positions

You will realised when United play that they have 3 certain players interchanging positions regularly. These are Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney. Giggs may start on the left, swap with Ronaldo on the right, who may swap upfront with Rooney who will play on the left, interchanging with Giggs, who will then interchange positions with Ronaldo and play upfront.

This is fundamental to the tactic.

It confuses the opposition. Hang on a minute, where is Rooney playing now? Wait a minute, Giggs has took his position. Who do i mark? Oh wait a minute, Rooney is now on the left so i will mark him. But wait a minute, the left fullback is now overlapping Rooney and i'm totally confused!

Well hopefully you get the idea.

So how did i implement this? Well i gave a swap position instruction to the the FCR, (which is the interchangable forward, the "Rooney" type player), the ML and MR. I also gave a free role to all of these 3 positions. Now you might think, wait a minute, 3 free roles? These players will just disobey every instructions and 3 is far too many! Well not really. Giving these players a free role allows the wingers to cut infield, swap flanks, move behind the advancing fullbacks to make a pass to them, not restrict them to just crossing the ball whenever they have a chance to, but instead to sometimes cut infield. The FCR position will drop back, help the midfield, run with the ball.

I have seen a few killer balls made by the centre backs on occasions. This is probably because that the through balls option is "mixed", instead of rarely. Why not try a through ball once in a while when the option is there?

The MCR position is more defence minded than the MCL position. This is where the defensive stability comes in, the MCL position, who is supposed to be the more attacking MC, has a higher mentality, and a higher creative freedom, but forward runs are set to "mixed". This is because it gives the defence an extra level of protection, while letting the more attacking minded MC make his own decision on whether to get forward.

Remember. The fullbacks always get forward, the wingers get forward, the two FCs are forward, and most of the time but not all of the time the MCL will get forward. There day you see Paul Scholes not get forward as much as he used to in earlier days, and this will provide more defensive stability while assuring an attacking threat.

League table so far

The amazing thing is, that while i will attack attack attack all the time, i have only conceded 4 goals in 15 games in the league so far. I feel this is rather spectacular considering i have my fullbacks with farrows constantly attacking the oppostion. Also i am unbeaten in this time also.



Results are comfortable, i never even feel like conceding even with the attacking nature of the tactic.

Give this a try, see what you think.

And one more thing, do not worry if you ML can't play on the right wing, your MR can't play on the left wing etc etc. These players are on free roles, and will cut inside anyway to play a pass or to cross. Plus most of the time they will be in their favoured positions.

retired_Prodigal Child

http://fmdownloads.net/index.php?action=downloadfile&fi...y=FM%202007/Tactics&

Sounds good, here's a link to the tactic, will test and let you know of progress!

hdsegal

Interesting. I will try this out.

Harboggles

Yes thanks a lot Hot Dog. Was posting this last night and it was getting pretty late and so just forgot to give the link. Good one for finding it

Harboggles

Ok crazyrap465, keep me posted how it's faring.

retired_wimy

Ok crazyrap465, keep me posted how it's faring. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Been trying this for my Hibs team. Needs a bit of modifying for smaller non Man U teams but all in all seems pretty solid. Apart from when i'm away from home, then teams like Motherwell laugh at me, gits!

hdsegal

Played 3 games so far

Bolton (H) 2-1
VDS
Gabby Rio Brown Pique
CR7 Fletch Anderson Nani
Rooney Smith

Completly dominated the game, 13 SOT, yet scored from a free kick and a corner. I'm afraid maybe a recurring theme. Amazingly solid defensively. Ronnie had an absolute blinder.

Blackburn(A) 2-2
Shack
Gabby Rio Vida Nev
CR7 Carrick anderson Nani
Rooney Villa

They probably outplayed me. Again, scored once from a corner and converted about 1:4 clear cut chances. Defense was looking really shoddy, so I took attacking arrows off fullbacks.

Preston (A) 2-0
VDS
Gabby Rio Vida Nev
CR7 Carrick Anderson Nani
Rooney(Saha 27) Villa

Very strange match, as I had 3 players forced of f with injuries. Not shutdown defensively, but pretty assured win.

Comments on tactic overall: I think I like it. I am very take aback by how well the formation holds despite free roles and loads of creative freedom. It's always exciting to look out and see where CR7 is on the pitch and figure out how he will skin defenders next. Should mention that I took off man marking, since I am uncomfortable with it. I think it needs some tweaking going into somewhat difficult to tough away matches, perhaps limiting creative freedom.

Suggestions: I would turn up the closing down on the defenders. Nothing else yet really.

I'll be sure to keep you informed. After all, I never really appreciated my set pieces before this tactic!! Just kiddin', mate.

hdsegal

Please excuse my dyslexic lineups.

retired_markobee2002

i have tried this tatics for 8 matches, the push up defence is too leaky for me,but the attacking aspect looks good,i m trying to tweak the defence abit.with the constant swapping of position between ML with MR and MR with FR,the original ML always pop up at the FR position to score goals.

Jumpman023

I try to play with newcastle using this tactic, but i found hard to score a goal and easyly conceded...?

my line up :

Shay Given
van den borre - Taylor - Ben haim - Fathi
nani - Zapater - Sneijder - Duff
Owen - Martins

may be its not suitable for version 702 ?