Intro
Due to the mass of hate thrown towards SI about people having a "great team" and losing, or having 35 shots + and not scoring, I've decided to share my wisdom. Now, by no means is this a definitive tactic, nor am I claiming it will work wonders for you, but I will describe in detail, what i do and why i do it, with screenies as proof. Before we begin, I would like to let you know, I am Knockbreda of the Northern Irish League's, In which I have won the Premier division 3 season's in a row using this tactic, with minor tweaks depending on players in and out in the close season.
The Basics.
The tactic is 4-4-2, With atacking winger's, which both have "Farrows" to FL and FR positions respectively. It's largely based on Fast winger's and forwards, with 1 attacking midfielder. The defense is exactly that, and plays very defensively to counter counter attacks (if that makes sense), and to help build the attacks up from the back.
The Tactic 
Ok. So now you've seen the basic tactic. Nothing special so far right? Right. Thats because, in reality, I have found that it's "nothing special" that creates a very very good tactic. All it took me to find this tactic, is a little bit of hard work, time and effort to make the tactic fit my players, not my players fit my tactic, and that becomes important later on in the article.
Team Instruction's 
For the most part, these aren't dramatically important, and can be modified without it completely destroying the tactic. (Tried and tested). It's not one of those.. "If I have the Attacking bar at 16 ticks, i win 5-0 every game, but at 15 ticks, i lose 5-0 every game". It's really not THAT important.
Before the serious stuff comes in now, I must let you know, that you REALLY need to put the tactic to the players. I cant stress this enough that, no matter how good or bad your players are, its vital that you work this around YOUR players, not around what I have done for MY players.
Player Mentality 
As you can see in the screen shot, the consensual mentality is "attacking" (from the Team Instructions), but a few players have Individual instructions.
GK - Graham has the Individual instruction set to the "middle" of the bar. This is because i don't want him to get caught out from our attacking positions on the break. I'm not entirely sure how much effect the GK Attacking Mentality has on the game, or the player, but its more of a "peace of mind" slider, than a tactical one.
DC - The center back's have the Attacking slider set to 6 points. This is just about in-between Ultra-Defensive and Defensive. The reason being that it keeps the defense sat back, so should the oppo break, the defense is usually in place to break down any advances. I do think it's important the defenders stay back in the game, as the midfield/forwards take care of the rest.
MC - I've got Ben Howard's attacking mentality just a little lower than the rest just to keep him as more of a "holding" midfielder. I'm not trying to make him play like Gilberto Silva, or Michael Essien, but just to sit a little deeper than the rest of the team, to help sustain attacks and break up oppo attacks. The player in this position makes a lot of passes in the game, so a good passing attribute for this position is vital.
AM L/R - This is where the fun is. The AML/R and the FC's are the heart of this tactic. The assists and goals that come from these 4 players is incredible, and over the last 3 years theres been massive goals and assist tallies. |along with the Farrows, the Wingers have "all out attack" mentality, pretty much because there's no need for them to be used in defense due to the defensive mentality the other players hold.
Creative Freedom - IMPORTANT.! 
This is where the tactic is made. I assure you, if you want to use my tactic, and want it to work, you MUST do the above, otherwise there's just no point downloading it.
MC - Has a little more creative freedom, firstly because he's good enough to, and secondly to add a little flair into the midfield. He keeps the oppo guessing game after game, and due to his "drop deeper" mentality, can really run games from the midfield.
FC - Again, has a little more creative freedom, just so it doesn't come robotic upfront. He's also one of my better creative players.
AMR/L IMPORTANT-.! The bar's for the wingers MUST MUST MUST be set to 0. They must have NO creative freedom. This, combined with "deep crossing", "cross to far post", and "Cross Often" means that they create the best chances for your forwards, and get anywhere between 25 and 35 assists a season. Pat Spence (My AML) got 35 Assists in 53 games last season. The first choice AMR was injured a lot last season, but still managed to get 20 assists in 42 games. This season I have a new AMR, so hopefully he will become consistent.
Passing Style 
Pretty basic here.
GK - Has "long" passing, so he clears it from danger as soon as he gets it.
DC - Similar to the GK, but not AS much, because I dont want them punting it up the field and bypassing the midfield as it would totally gazump the tactic.! I guess you could more the sliders down for shorter passing.
The general passing is short to play possesion football and build up attacks rather than going to the old heave ho. My players are not great, and dont have great passing stats, yet we still achieve 75-80% passing completion per game. I'm sure with better players this will be much higher.
Closing Down 
Team closing down is not very high, because we have a fair amount of the ball anyway, and the defense are always there if they break. Also i find that with higher closing down mentality, my players tent to tire really quickly.
DC - A little higher on the bar for the center back's, just to get into the oppo forward's steeze. It restricts the chances and time the forwards have, and really pays off for me.
Tackling 
Tackling is set to "medium" for everyone. I find if i go to the "Hard" or "Easy" extreem it has massive consequences. "Easy" tackling tends to make the players not win the ball as much, and as a result lose 50-50's and possesion a lot, and "Hard" naturally see a lot more Yellows/Red cars.
Forward Runs 
Similar to creative freedom, the more attacking of the midfilders makes forward runs, and the Wingers make forward runs. There's really no need for anyone else to do it.
Run With Ball 
This is about the only individual element that i have no idea about. I game it to the two that are on the screen shot due to the dribbling attribute. (The striker with 10 for Dri Attribute isn't my first choice forward). I don't really know how much more or less impact it would have on the game moving these sliders about, so i just stick to the obvious here.
Long Shot's 
Ok, this is another vital one for the wingers.
MC/FC - Basically they have long shots high because of the ability to shoot from far. I dont ever have more than 2 people taking long shots, otherwise you get drawn back into the "35 shots, 28 on target, 0 goals" saga.
AML/R - Its very important that this is set to 0 on the slider. As i stated before, the wingers and Forwards are the heart of this team, and this is another of those things that make the tactic. Basically, with the Long Shots at 0, the wingers will hardly ever shoot, full stop.
Now imagine it. You have 2 pacey wingers that cross the ball early, dont shoot ever and make constant attacking runs. In FM, in my experience, thats a dream, and is pretty much what helped me crack the AI. They feed balls into the area all day long, and with the "Cross to - Far Post" set for both of them, i find my forwards running across the oppo GK and scoring a lot of tap in's. Not beautiful football, but effective, and in FM08, thats all you can ask for.!
Through Ball's 
I read in another tactic's thread that if you have a lot of people threading through balls, you will misplace a lot of passes. I took heed to this advice, and agree. I ONLY have my wingers on through balls, just to help with the old corssing part of there game
Cross Ball 
The wingers have cross ball "often", for obvious reasons, and my DL also has it, because when watching games, i noticed he was around the box a lot. I'm not sure why the DL was and not the DR, so i decided to make use of it. Funnily enough, he NEVER gets involved anymore.!
Cross From 
The wingers cross from "deep", purely to make sure they get the crosses in early, and get them in. Initially i had it at "by-line", but i found they either got blocked a lot, or got tackled before they managed to pull of the cross.
Cross Aim 
As stated above, the Wingers have the cross aim to "far post". This really seems to help the forwards, leaving them plenty of scoring oppertunities in the box.
And finally
This tactic is fast paced, and based on wingers supplying strikers. I find with this tactic that, the RIGHT Hand side striker gets less chances, but scores more goals. Paul Wallace (My right striker) gets on average 5 or 6 shots a game. my left striker gets on average 10-12 shots a game. The Attacking midfileder (in my case, paul smith) also seems to have about 4 or 5 shots a game, so if you could get someone in here with good shooting ability, it would probably prove effective.
As stated before, its really important that you let the tactic fit the players, otherwise it just wont work. As you can see from my screen shots, the players dont have great attributes, but where they do have a good attribute, i utilize it in the best way i know how.
Download Tactic Here
I would love some feedback on this tactic. In the league it has served me amazingly. only 7 losses in the last 90 league games, along with 295 goals scored and only 81 conceded.
2014/15 -
Games - 30
Wins - 24
Draws - 3
Losses - 3
GS - 93
GC - 32
Points - 75
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2015/16 -
Games - 30
Wins - 25
Draws - 2
Losses - 3
GS - 103
GC - 32
Points - 77
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2016/17 -
Games - 30
Wins - 25
Draws - 4
Losses - 1
GS - 99
GC - 17
Points - 79
NepentheZ's Tactical Revoloution 
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