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About me - Right, I'm not an authority on Football Manager. In fact, nearly
everything I've learned about the game I have taken from other theory threads then
experimented in the game with the ideas these have generated in my head. On FM06 I won a few
leagues, a few cups but never anything of note. On FM07, even less. However, I never really
play with large teams so this is to be expected. What I can say is that whenever anything
goes wrong I tend to blame myself, which is one of the reasons why I experiment so much with
the sliders. After reading through the Sheffield United Project, a few more pieces in my
rather sketchy jigsaw puzzle fell into place and, through fiddling on "full match" mode over
most of a 38 game season with Aston Villa (amongst all my other hours and hours of playing)
I think I'm finally in a position to explain exactly what each slider does.
This is not definitive - it's what I observe playing the game with the players I have in the
style I play, though most ideas are pretty universal. What I really want is to generate more
discussion. Even if we work out what each slider does, we still need to know how to use it,
right?
1.0 Mentality
We should first kill one myth that is perhaps one of the last that I managed to shake off -
team mentality does not completely override individual mentality. Here, we're
looking at what the team instructions sliders do so we can move away from the finer points
of how each individual setting can make a difference.
We are given three basic clues to what mentality asks of our players. We can attack,
we can defend or we can play somewhere in between (with all-out attack and defend as
our last ditch options). What exactly is "defend" and what is "attack". The answer probably
seems very obvious, but if you don't properly understand the difference then you could be
using the other sliders ineffectuallly.
1.1: A defensive team looks to primarily keep the ball out of their own net.
They will not look to take many risks in their own half, will hang back a little deeper in
normal play, try to put their men behind the ball and generally do what is necessary to
avoid shots on goal. There are implications for this in the way your team will play.
Obviously, the aim is to concede as few goals as possible. But how will this make your
players behave? From my observations, we can expect a team playing defensive mentality to do
the following:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Be more prone to hoofing the ball out of defence than look for the passing option
<LI>Look more for sideways and backwards passes when trying to hold possession than go for
penetrative ball forward
<LI>Attempt to get more men behind the ball...
<LI>... And therefore play a little deeper
<LI>Will be more likely to sit in their positions and not close down those on the ball so as
not to be dragged out of shape
</UL>
Is is also clear, then, that some of our other tools will counteract these effects. Some may
be desirable, others counter productive. Which ones will cause what?
Passing will help us counteract the "hoofing" which may lead to a loss of possession.
Shorter passing may encourage the player to use the options around him, perhaps encouraging
a pass sideways. Or, on the other hand, longer passing may give the player more options,
particularly on the wings where a pass may be less dangerous than to a central player.
Passing will also help to counteract the sideways and backwards balls. Shorter passing may
re-enforce this style of play, perfect for a side in the lead or a quality side looking to
hold possession and tire out the opposition (a la the Manchester United sides of the
mid-1990s). Longer passing on the other hand may encourage more forward balls to help get
attacks moving yet still retain the defensive "shape" required. Linked to this we have the
"try through balls", "run with ball" and "cross ball" options in the individual
instructions, where rarely on each will re-enforce the possession play, wheras often will
encourage more penetration.
Tempo is another important tool. This was another slider that I thought had no
defensive implications, yet I've found it invaluable in holding leads and breaking down
teams playing possession football. A higher tempo encourages the players to find the ball
and do something with it. Therefore the players are likely to close down the opposition more
and perhaps sacrifice a little of their shape, but hopefully rush them into a mistake. A
lower tempo can make it more clear to your players that you want them to hold firm. This
should most obviously be used in conjunction with Closing Down. Then we have the more
evident use of a quicker tempo. Those sideways and backwards balls we talked about can be
encouraged by a slower tempo, or a more cavalier attitude can be sought with a quicker
tempo. Be aware though that a quick tempo is likely to leave a player with fewer options and
less time to play the ball.
Creative freedom - as I will point out later, creative freedom is one I still haven't
got my head fully around, and I usually leave this a little above normal and then set
individuals to either creative or uncreative roles. With a defensive line up, I would say
that creativity isn't a big deal - how creative is throwing your body in front of the
opposition? I think this is up to the individual manager, though maybe having a few forward
players on a higher setting will allow some good counter-attacking football.
Width will be covered in more detail further down the page, but a quick note is
useful. Narrower widths are obviously going to be more beneficial to a defending team as
they can hold a tight middle to stop the team being penetrated - but too narrow and you
leave the wings exposed. You won't need overly much width as you don't need to exploit the
space - the opposition do. If you're playing on the counter, however, you may need to expand
a little to make up for the natural tendency to play narrower in defensive situations.
Defensive line is again something to be covered later in relation to the whole team.
We can safely say a lower defensive line seems to go well with a team sitting back. A higher
one will counteract the natural tendency to fall back when defending.
Timewasting can be covered in far less detail as its uses are primarily an aesthetic
one - do you want to kill a game off or do you desperately need a goal? Defensive
mentalities lend themselves to higher timewasting as the team will be further encouraged to
keep the ball, knock it into the corners and hold it. When the counter-attack ensues, your
players should already be in position. However, I find it is equally likely to encourage the
"hoof" from defence. Like I say, I think this is a matter of choice.
1.2: Now, attacking teams are, in many cases the opposite. The point of an
attacking team is to outscore the opposition. Therefore we need to be as creative as
possible, give ourselves room to play and generally get stuck into the opposition. Our team,
when playing on an attacking setting is therefore likely to:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Look for more penetrative balls in an attempt to break down the opposition
<LI>Attempt to run into space to give a passing option, maybe at the expense of positioning
<LI>Move further up the pitch
</UL>
So, how will our other sliders help us?
Passing works pretty much opposite to how it works for defensive teams. Longer
passing will encourage even more balls forward, again re-enforcing this instruction.
However, better quality teams may need to reduce their passing to encourage possession play
and therefore reducing the "killer balls" to those which have a high percentage of working.
Longer passing should give you more chances, though these are likely to be rushed and
therefore off target. It's also more likely that you'll give the opposition the ball.
Shorter passing will allow the team to systematically break down the opposition.
Tempo is linked similarly. Slower tempos will help tone down the desire to move
forward at all possible times, whereas a quicker one will encourage a more open game. A
slower tempo and shorter passing will be more defensively sound, but will create fewer (but
better quality) shots on goal.
Creative freedom should be used pretty much the opposite to when in defence. Not too
much (you'll end up with no shape at all), but creativity shouldn't be stifled either. We
need to break them down, and we won't do that with monotonous balls over the top.
Width is on the same lines. The team are playing with more natural width, so reduce
it to tighten the defence, widen to utilise even more space.
Defensive line - you get the picture. The team are naturally playing further up the
pitch. Force them back by reducing this, encourage them forward by increasing it.
There really is nothing more to say about timewasting.
A mixed team will obviously need to use elements of both attacking and defensive slider
settings and common sense should dictate what you choose to use. We've covered the links
between each of the sliders above in good detail, so now we really only need to decide what
the other sliders do and what their effects are on their brothers. Common sense should now
prevail, and I can save my keyboard from the hammering it's getting!
2.0 Passing
We have short a bit of a mixed bag, direct and long. Each is
pretty self explanitory. Short will knock the ball around to nearby teammates, direct will
look for players further up the field, and long will send speculative balls towards the
rough direction of John Fashanu. All this is explained in the manual - but what about the
affects on the team?
2.1: Short
A mentality of 1 is, as some of the gurus have noted here, one touch passing. The other
"short" options give us a progressively longer time on the ball and progressively longer
passing options available. Short passing has its advantages - play is usually quick and
played around to people close by, encouraging the team to keep possession and stretching the
opposition who have to chase the ball all over the place. However, if players are too far
apart or all the closeby players are tightly marked then the player has no option but to
risk running with it or hoofing it away. Therefore short passing needs to make sure it
always has options available as well as the obvious skills of reasonable ball control and
passing accuracy. Then there's the problem of the soggy pitch. Short passing will:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Encourage the team to keep possession
<LI>Keep the ball on the deck
<LI>Prerserve the condition of your players
</UL>
Now, clearly passing and tempo are linked. A quicker tempo will move the ball around
faster, but also make the players rush. Chances are that with a short passing game players
will panic and kick the ball away. A bit counter productive. Slower tempo will get the
players to take their time and pick the right pass. A higher defensive line may be
required to keep the team closer together, and ditto with the width, but be aware
that if you're trying to break down the opposition this could be counter productive and you
may be better off giving the passing a couple more clicks to the right if things aren't
going well. Creative freedom will allow the team to break from monotonous triangles
and break down the opposition, but could equally lead to "hollywood balls" to nowhere.
Finally timewasting may emphasise to the team that you just want to keep possession
and couldn't care less if you broke out of your own half providing the opposition don't get
the ball. Or, conversely, you may decide you want to quickly pass the ball around the
opposition and get on goal as quickly as possible.
2.2 Direct and Long
This system is by its very nature quick, penetrative and attacking. Very potent when used on
the counter attack, it hits the opposition before they have chance to fully assemble their
defence. More Bolton Wanderers than Bologna. However, it also reduces the time the team have
on the ball, and a possession rating of 45% may actually be quite good. We all know, of
course, that this doesn't matter if you can score 4 while the opposition plays pretty
on-the-deck stuff but can't get into the final third. Direct football gives your team more
options, but they will almost always choose to go to the forward players, i.e. wingers,
attacking midfielders and strikers, and if the opposition can adequately mark them or are
strong and good in the air then this system could just be giving the ball away. There is
debate as to whether this system is better for lower league sides because it at least makes
sure the team give the ball away in the opposition's half or whether short is better because
it requires less skill to pass a ball over 5 yards than over 50. Personally, having watched
League 2 a few times this year I'd go for direct or long, but this is personal preference
based solely on my footballing background. Teams in England who aren't very skillful tend to
go for this approach. Direct football then. It will:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Look for attacking players at every available opportunity
<LI>Have a high amount of balls in the air
<LI>Quickly move from the defence to the attack, good for counter attacking football
<LI>Reduce possession, but increase the likely hood of getting shots on goal
</UL>
Again, tempo is linked. A quick tempo is implicit by the nature of the longer ball.
Can you really hit a 40 yard pass slowly? I suppose you could try it to keep the ball on the
deck and at the back and wait for the killer opportunity to arise, but then why not use
short passing and counter attack with more "try through balls" selected? Creative
freedom isn't as necessary in this system as the short game, but if you have a player
who plays most of the forward balls he could do with a bit of freedom to choose his passes.
A deep defensive line would encourage the opposition on to you to make the direct or
long ball game more effective as the other team will be more out of position. Also good if
used in conjunction with the counter attack. However, a higher line may help to negate some
of the adverse affects of the direct system by encouraging at least a few build up passes
first as the play will be squeezed more. Width is something you can choose. Wider
witdth to give more attacking options, particularly on the wings? Narrower to deal with the
inevitable counter attack from the opposition and encourage more balls over the top to a
target man striker? This would, I feel, depend on the situation and your style of play.
For the long ball, pretty much the same as direct, only emphasise everything.
3.0 Tempo
Tempo serves two functions as far as I can tell. Primarily I believe it affects the pace of
passing and how quickly the team should get from one end of the pitch to the other and how
vital it is to shoot at every available opportunity. However, it also can serve as a
defensive aid, making your players more concerned with regaining possession. Obviously the
advantages and disadvantages stick out like a soree thumb - high tempo leaves the team more
out of shape and creates rushed attacks; low tempo keeps the team tight and patient, only
attacking when there is a good chance of success.
The uses of tempo have been discussed above, though it's probably most heavily linked to
passing. As a personal preference, I try to never have more than a three-notch gap between
my passing and tempo as I see a quick-short passing game or a slow-long passing game
completely contradictary. If you want to play a game like Arsenal (slow build up, but
explosive counter attacking), check the counter-attack box. This would be far more
advisable than trying to play short passing with a fast tempo as this would make the players
dive in for challenges all over the place and leave your men out of position. Best to soak
up the pressure then explode. As for creative freedom and defensive line I
would base this more on your mentality and passing style. The rest should fall into
place. However, it's safe to say that as a slow tempo implies short passing you're better
off playing a style which keeps players closer together than spredding them far apart. See
passing and mentality.
4.0 Creative Freedom
Now I tend to keep creative freedom reasonably central and then change it for each
individual, which isn't really the discussion here. However, as a rule of thumb I would keep
this pretty neutral. Cleon has mentioned that he finds his players get stilted and confused
with too low creative freedom, whilst it's plainly obvious that too much will result in a
free-for-all and not much quality team play. There's plenty in other threads about the
merits of low CF on centre backs, high CF on playmakers etc. Again, base this on individual
players and personal preference. I would go further, but as we're only discussing
team instructions, I would check back over the passing and mentality
sections for a few ideas.
5.0 Width
Three choices here - wide, narrow and normal. Wider play exploits the
space of the wings, spreads out your players and therefore should leave more of your players
in space to receive the ball and do something with it. Conversely, narrower play will keep
the team tight and make sure that the opposition are forced wide from where it is virtually
impossible to score (directly, obviously, but then they might be able to cross the ball and
cause no end of damage). As a rule of thumb, find a "natural" width for your team. A width
that allows some attacking room but will also be defensively tight. Then widen it to attack
and get at a weaker opposition, tighten it to hold the defence together.
Width can have an effect on passing as very short passing requires players to be
quite close together. To play a wider width you may need to increase passing by a couple of
notches just to make sure players have enough options. And, as we've discussed, because this
is related to passing you may need to check tempo as well. A quick wide game against
a better team may lead the team to be contracted on the defence then burst wide on the
attack meaning players will get very tired very quickly. Width is also linked to
defensive line, the "height" of the team if we are to look at the pitch as a tactical
oblong (which it is). Narrow width and deep defensive line is fine to keep the box filled
with men, but if playing an attacking mentality there will be lots of space inbetween
the midfield and the defence. Wide width, low defensive line and attacking mentality may be
useful to draw out a team who refuses to attack, but it leaves massive holes. Think about
this when setting the width - what is the tradeoff between space for attacking and leaving a
vacuum for the opposition to exploit?
6.0 Defensive Line
As I say, the y axis to width's x. Defensive line can be used as a spacing
tool like width, or as a defensive tool. Deep defensive lines are good for
counter-attacking football as they draw the opposition in. They're also great for stopping
the opposition's pacy forwards getting in behind you. However, if player and team
mentalities are not closely spaced together it can leave the team with massive gaps between
its midfield line and defensive line. High defensive lines can squeeze the play and
give the opposition little room to move (particulalry if utilised with a narrow
width) but leave the team vulnerable to the direct/long ball over the top. Tactical
Theorums and Frameworks usually advises the defensive line to be on a "natural" setting of
the same mentality as the most attacking midfielder so as to keep the gaps as narrow as
possible while allowing the team space to breath. From this position you can go up or down
based on the demands of the game, but stray too far and expect problems. Needless to say, if
you wish to move quickly from a deep defense to the attack you'll need longer passing
than usual, while a high line may allow you to play a shorter game as players should be
available for one another.
7.0 Timewasting
Timewasting is a funny old game, and I would never set off with this in mind. Even if I were
playing Chelsea with Chester I would not go for a high timewasting setting from the off. Nor
would I go for a low one if the roles were reversed. A neutral setting seems to work for me.
With the slider dead on the centre, the team will play quicker when behind and be more prone
to hold up the ball when ahead. They seem to do this naturally to what my natural preference
would have been anyway. So I never change it.
If you were to change it, then I think it's fairly logical. Quick tempo does not lend
itself to more timewasting, unless you wish to negate some of its effects by artificially
forcing it down by using timewasting. Switch this round for slow tempo games. Slow tempo,
low timewasting. Rush, but don't rush? Quite contradictary. I steer well clear of this
debate usually.
8.0 Conclusions
We can see, then, how the sliders are inter-related. We can either emphasise certain effects
by using the sliders in harmony, or try and tame some of their deficiencies by using
complimentary instructions. For example: attacking, slow tempo - "I want you to go for goal,
but don't rush things and make a mess of it". Or how about slow tempo, defensive - "I
definitely don't want you to rush forward. Take your time. Just don't concede!"
I will, perhaps later, draw up some sample instructions which would show some obviously
contradictary instructions and some that perhaps work more in harmony. However, from this
rough guide it should be fairly obvious how one affects the other.
My starting point is always mentality, as shown by the emphasis on it in this guide.
Then as we go through the list, passing is next important for me in deciding my style
of play. This goes hand in hand with tempo, so there's two birds with one stone. Then
I set my shape with width and defensive line. These decisions can be based on
my opposition (do I need to counter-attack this team, or can I just go for it), the weather
(I can't play along the ground on a bog), my team (my tall striker is injured, need to play
to feet) or a combination of all of them. Cleon's thread will show how once this has been
acheived, very few changes are needed game-to-game.
It's long, I know, but I hope it helps some people. I feel that sometimes the settings seem
obvious, but it's not until it's written down that you really understand the relationship
between each slider. Writing this made it clearer in my head, and I hope you get the same
from reading it. More importantly, I hope this can be practically applied to your games.
As we live in the MTV generation (or have we moved on to the Google generation?) I'm currently thinking of drawing up a quick reference list of "symptoms" and "remedies" involving the sliders. Like "I want to play attacking, but my players are dragged out of position", etc.
Perhaps a grid-like structure on how each slider affects the other. I realise it could be quite easy to get bogged down in that post (though I think once you've read the first section the rest follows on logically from there).
Sorry to double post, but forgot to add. I would really like, as a follow on to this great post to hear your thoughts on how the player intructions then interact and contradict with the team instructions, Millie.
What the sliders do - a comparative guide 
Linear Mode
