Protera

I have questions for the scouting report.

1.when a team play direct football then it's a good idea to play short and low tempo and have the possession. Ok but most of the teams in the premier league play "a low tempo 4-4-2 and often look to draw the opposition onto them before atempting a counter attack".so what can you do about that?

2.when the pitch is " narrow wide players will struggle to make an impact", you have to adjust the width to narrow?

3.X player "has to be watched carefully as he has the ability to be a match winner". At the opposition instructions screen you use tight marking - always and perhaps hard tackling??

4."they benefit from a strong and organised defence and this could prove difficult to break down".so you use your best strikers and thats it?

5.when the opposition striker has good aerial ability do use a tall player and tight marking
or no.?
6.If you give each player personal instructions then i believe that some of the team instructions don't do anything, like Tackling,tight marking because players have individual instructions for them so they don't follow team's instructions.

If someone knows please help.
It's a good idea someone post a comlete scouting report "guide".thanks

SWaRFeGa

1. Play direct? Or whatever you want really. You don't always have to play to stop the opposition, just play however you like and give them something to worry about instead.

2. Depends what your style is. You can still play the same way on a narrow pitch as you would on a wide pitch, but if you play wingers then they will have less space to get outside the opposition full backs.

3. I wouldn't use tight marking if my defender had pace of 10, and the opposition striker had pace of 20. Depends on the players involved really.

4. I think this just means you'll have to be patient and hope for the best.

5. Good aerial ability? I would try and stop cross being made - ie. close down the wingers. Other than that, make sure your matching defender has good heading jumping/ability

6. Individual player instructions override team instructions.

Imperius

1.Fastish, direct to very direct/long with spell of hard tacking thrown in for a laugh. Unless you’re at least as good as they are, then I wouldn’t fret too much.

2.In the real world, width is how much you move the ball across the field and exploit the flanks, ie, instead of getting the ball straight down the field, switch the play from right to left or vice versa, and pass sideways if nothing is on until the opposition is drawn out of shape. How it works in FM remains a mystery to the “guru’s” as they can’t agree. It seems to me you team shape is also affected on FM. In the game, if there’s a narrow pitch I’d just avoid any tactic you might have that relies on wingers and crosses into the box.

3.A better way to scout the opposition is to go into their team screen where you can do three things: First, select their stats screen and have a look at who has the most assists, goals, dribbles etc; second, view the mentality screen to have a quick peek at who are aggressive lunatics, have low bravery etc; lastly, go into their fixture list, select a similar fixture to yours and check out the match stats. This will reveal which striker (if any) had been used as a target man (to head is particularly obvious), if any midfielder was the playmaker, if any player had provided a worrying number of killer passes etc. Opposition instruction can be thus tailored (also check this screen out at intervals during the game to see if any opposition player needs dealing with). Hard tackling is good for opponents with low bravery. If you want to wind up a highly aggressive nutter, man mark, close down and hard tackle. Not necessarily the whole game, mind you.

4.I’m not sure, but I think this is a coded message (why your own scout should give coded messages is beyond me) for “they’ll have a very good offside trap worked out”.

5.Personal instructions override team instructions. I’m not too clear about opposition instructions, though. EG; you ask some MC to be closed down “always” in Op Ins – what happens when confronted by your DC who has individual closing down instructions of just under halfway across the slider?


By the way, I tried an experiment with the scout report. I added myself as the manager of my next opponent. I played a long ball game, and my scout for the other team claimed I “got the ball down and played it”.

I’d do your own scouting as I described in point 3.

Imperius

Sorry, I missed point five!

Try and match your DCs to the opposition SCs. If you can’t match the “target man to head” type with a DC with equivalent or better heading and jumping stats (always paying attention to marking, concentration, anticipation, tackling and positioning) then try and cut off his supply by stifling the wide midfielders (show on to weaker foot, mark, hard tackle if they have low bravery etc). Check during the game on the match stats to see who on the opposition team is having any joy and take appropriate steps.

If your DC matches the SC, then tight mark, as you said.