Kristian

So you tightmark + close down slow players and only tightmark fast players? </BLOCKQUOTE>
In real life, I'd suggest no to tight marking the fast player. Get too close and he simply spins off you.

Dave Watson in his final days at Everton used to be able to put Owen right out a game simply by defending deep and giving Owen room to run and standing him up. Defending deep meant Owen couldn't thrive on balls over the top, and not getting too close meant that Owen could pick up the ball and turn, but he then had to actually think about what to do next (i.e. shoot from range or lay it off). As he was a kid and therefore played more instincively, this lessened his danger enormously.

Kristian

By the way, how that translates into the FM world, I couldn't give you any hard and fast rules.

theivan

So you tightmark + close down slow players and only tightmark fast players? </BLOCKQUOTE>
In real life, I'd suggest no to tight marking the fast player. Get too close and he simply spins off you. </BLOCKQUOTE>

But if you have a defender ,acc 18, pace 18 would you tight mark him then?

Sinner264

Thanks for an excellent post.

Those 'In Game' problem you mentioned are those that trouble me the most. I've recently started to read these forums, and thanks to you Cleon, wwfan and crazygra, I've really learned much. Thanks once again.

I always play with Liverpool. I've developed my own 442 tactic that works pretty well, but took me really PLENTY of time to tweak it after the patch. Still, it's working good, my first season after the patch I've finished second in the League, 3 points behind Chelsea (thanks Bellamy for missed penalty that could've solved it all), but I've won CL, mostly thanks to lucky draw. Still, there are few problems, main one being:

Opposition getting too much space

That can happen quite often with Chelsea, let's say. Possesion is equal, shots and passing, but the problem is they have much more space than I would like them to have. I put pressure on two of their far wingers, I close down heavily in the middle, I tried to counter them in every single way I could try, but still I lost most of the games.

It's not that I'm complaining or asking for an instant advice... just wondering how do you solve 'Chelsea riddle'.

The problem might be in my DC settings... I've tried to play with all possible Closing Down combinations, but still haven't found a solution that's working.

Ans Gulrik

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure you got 90% of your shots on target Cleon? For the entire team, or just for some specfic players?

In my current game with 8 leagues running, not a single player can equal that (One of my midfielders has the best ratio with 74% on target, for almost a whole season), so please check if it is your season average, your best player or your entire team.

Cleon

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure you got 90% of your shots on target Cleon? For the entire team, or just for some specfic players?

In my current game with 8 leagues running, not a single player can equal that (One of my midfielders has the best ratio with 74% on target, for almost a whole season), so please check if it is your season average, your best player or your entire team. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Game by game basis I was talking about, nearly all myshots are on target yes. However you have to remember I am like 7 seasons into my game so have strong players and only players whos stats fit into my tactics. The 90% was just a figure of speech, bt at close inspections its no far off that. You will see why when i go into more bout tweaking a little further into the article.

Cleon

I touch upon this in the next part, so don't want to go into it now as it will take the edge off what im currently doing. But you will find it useful I hope what I write about

Ans Gulrik

Anything above 20% is average for crossing and normal imo.

As for more shots on target, I'm guessing you are struggling to break teams down and are limited to just long range efforts? If so, I struggled with somethign a bit simliar a while back, so I needed to up my tempo slightly and be a bit more attacking. Now I average around 3 goals a game with about 20 shots a game at least and 90% of them on target. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure you got 90% of your shots on target Cleon? For the entire team, or just for some specfic players?

In my current game with 8 leagues running, not a single player can equal that (One of my midfielders has the best ratio with 74% on target, for almost a whole season), so please check if it is your season average, your best player or your entire team. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Game by game basis I was talking about, nearly all myshots are on target yes. However you have to remember I am like 7 seasons into my game so have strong players and only players whos stats fit into my tactics. The 90% was just a figure of speech, bt at close inspections its no far off that. You will see why when i go into more bout tweaking a little further into the article. </BLOCKQUOTE>

OK - I see. I think I have managed to develope my own way of acheiving success even with weaker sides, and though I wouldn't mind other people doing better than me, 90% made me think I had to start all over.

Looking forward to getting the kind of players I imagine one might have after 7 seasons...

Beevster

I can tweek for most situtaions in a match and get some posative results from doing it, but the one situation i always struggle in is when my team goes a goal down first plus early in a match, just like in real life, it sucks the life out of my team, i normaly dont do anything and just hope that we get a goal, maybe this is where i go wrong, maybe there is somthing i should of done as soon as the goal went in?, So half time comes really quickly with my team hardly getting a shot on goal, even if we have a fair share of possesion, we just seem to have lost our bottle and cant create chances even half chances, so half time comes and i stick my team out with a more attacking approch, but the other team just kills the game and mostly scores again, anyway time goes by and nothing happens, now theres one possible mistake im making in my game, i let my assistant manager do team talks as i find them so boring, maybe this is why early goals are conceeded maybe this is why my team cant get back into a game even after half time and my attacking tactic, maybe theres a trick im missing when you go a goal down early.
It dont seem to matter who im playing when this happens, good bad or evil if i lose a goal early i nearly always suffer, so any tweeks on this topic would be greatfully recived

Eddiebaby

I may be a bit late but I would echo the comments about pace being irrelevant: I have Petkovic with 4 pace and 11 acceleration which would seem abysmal but with 20 for every key defensive stat and 17 jumping he has the best strikers in the
game in his backpocket for most of the time. Personally this delights me since in the old days physical stats were all, CM 03/04 was particularly bad, and so encouraged a Rio Ferdinand mentality as supposed to a John Terry one; a game based around physical ability with pace to cover errors in contrast to one where positioning and timing are all.