retired_e_fores

Look at these three videos of perhaps the best goals this season:

Henry vs Blackburn

Rooney and Ronaldo vs Bolton

Benayoun vs Wigan

I'm afraid thefootage of the third one could be better - I want to focus on the second goal shown (Benayoun).

All three involved running wth the ball for most of the pitch. Running with the ball is one of three ways of getting the ball near the opposition goal, the other two being passing on the ground and passing in the air. (Basic stuff, but often the basics are forgotten).

Now back in December I had just picked up some extra cash for Xmas and thus embarked down to my local Blockbuster to pick up a copy of FM07. I didn't care that I was paying £5-£10 more than if I'd walked in to town, but it was the day after boxing day, so the shops may have been closed, and anyway, that would have been an hour more to wait before I started playing.

I'd never played FM before, but I had a good idea of what I wanted to do with my beloved B'burn Rovers (so ruthlessly massacred by Henry above). Put bluntly I wanted to play like Arsenal. I bet other newcomers to FM wanted to play like Arsenal - think back. You did didn't you.

I had a fantastic idea of playing short passes and getting to the opposition area quickly, getting the ball out wide too, with lots of killer through balls. I would play in the opposition half, but also counter attack in a deadly fashion.

Thus my team instructions may have looked like this:
Ment: Attacking
Creative Freedom: Mixed/Much
Passing: Short
Tempo: Quick
Width: Wide
Closing down: Often
Time Wasting: Rarely
Defensive Line: High
Tackling: Mixed

Counter Attack: On

And thus I started and restarted, each time finding myself just above relegation. In fustration and desperation (and trying to find out what work permits were) I found these forums. My first topic posted went somewhere along the lines of "help".

Slowly reading through the various articles and ideas it is only recently that I have really got a grip on the mechanics of the game. My idea of getting B'burn to play like Arsenal however was thrown into disarray. It isn't really that possible. In my current B'burn game I do not play like Arsenal. I don't try to pass the ball into the net. Instead I try to run with the ball up the pitch.

Put simply, running with the ball towards the goal is a lot more easy than passing. Passing requires more than one player, all positioned correctly and with good intelligence. Running requires one man. It's a lot easier to set up from a managers point of view, especially if your not a very good one like myself.

Obviously one would have his wingers running with the ball - that is their job. I also have my strikers (unless I use a target man) and at least one central mid running with the ball often. Full backs running with the ball can also be useful.

Dribbling stats are obviously useful, but I've found that they don't have to be exceptional for this to be effective, particularly with strikers. A stiker who perhaps picks up a relatively long pass or clearance is likely to be quicker and more agile than the defender, and often may only have to beat one defender before he gets in on goal. I even had success with Fernando Morientes running with the ball often, someone who is neither quick, nor agile, nor a good dribbler. At 33 he still scores loads for me at Valencia.

Look at Cleon's Sheff Utd project and he has a lot of players running with the ball. I think it's an understated part of his achievements. I just seem to have noticed that a lot of my goals have been similar to the three in the videos above.

I have not analysed the average FM players tactics, so I don't know how well the idea of running with ball has worked or indeed been used by other people, but perhaps for those struggling with the game, as I once did, it's a good example of just how thinking very simply is the best way to obtain results.