I believe there's been quite a number of people wanted to implement Man Utd style including me. I have seen a lot of people creating succesful tactics but, the flexibility of the movement of the players is restricted. e.g wingers will stay out wide, forwards score most of the goals etc. The style of play from MU and Arsenal this season inspired me to create a kinda "Free" flowing or movement of attacking football that everybody on the pitch can score except the goalie. I was actually making the Arsenal "ground" style football but failed to do that, but somehow during the tweaks and changes I implemented the MU style movement and attacking. I will first write about the theory and details of how the tactics could be made and I'll come up with pics in the 2nd post. Please bear in mind that due to the inspiring post from Cleon about Sheff Utd, you need to make some changes accordingly each game in order to stay success just like real life.
The main concept of this post is not about how to make a balance tactics, mainly because I have enough fire power up front so I do not care how many goals I conceded as long as I score enough and score some beautiful goals.
So here we go, MU looks liked to play 4-4-2, with Rooney and Saha up front, Giggs and Ron out wide, Carrick and Scholes as the mid playmaker. The full backs like Erva and Nev sprints up and down to help the width of the pitch. Althought it seems to be a 4-4-2 in the lineup, actually loads of plundits say they play like 4-3-3, I'll say they sometimes play like 4-2-4 or 2-4-4 too. You just need to look at the movement of the front 4 I mention here: Rooney, Saha, Ron, Giggs. They actually play like "free role" in the game. They move around, Ron and Giggs swap position all the time, Rooney always drop back, Saha does too. They interchange position so much in the game so its hard for the opposition to defend. MU can play short to long passes that's why its a beautiful to watch them play.
So the assumption is you have already had a group of top players around that you can use, and the flexibility of the theory of this tactic is you do not need to care if you have tall striker of not, you can play with 2 rooney style, you can play with rooney + saha(tall striker) etc... and you have so called wingers like ronaldo, giggs, or maybe messi or even kaka or iniesta(in my game) could stay out wide. Anyway, good players are easy to have so I will not waste time here to say who is suitable in which position, use your sense to judge.
Now its time to actually tell you how to implement the tactics in FM(bera in mind that nothing has to be exactly the same, you can tweak to change accordingly, if you are not understanding why, please read Cleon's Sheff Utd project):
first you will use a traditional flat 4-4-2 formation.
Team instructions:
Mentality NORMAL to Attacking
Creative freedom slightly above NORMAL
Passing style SHORT
tempo SLOW
width slight above NARROW
closing down OFTEN
time wasting MIXED
defensive line slightly above DEEP
tackling NORMAL
focuz passing MIXED
marking ZONE
TM supply MIXED
only ticked USE PLAYMAKER
and the first trick is to use global passing style on 9 outfield players, which 9? except 2 MCs, simply because they are to dictate tempo and to choose where to play the ball, the rest of the team should play simple but effective football. and use global Creative freedom on only midfielders and forwards. use global closing downs on midfielders and forwrads.
So here are the individual instructions:
GK(its up to you if you want to to play short or mixed)
DCs( defensive, closing down always, rare on everything)
Full backs( defensive-normal, clsoing down always, f-run always, cross mixed, the rest on rare)
MC #1(playmaker)(slightly defensive, f-run rare, run-w-ball mixed, long shots rare, through pass always, cross rare)
MC #2(all rounder)(slightly att, f-run always, cross rare, the rest on mixed)
Wingers(slightly attacking, f-run, run-w-ball, cross on mixed, the rest on rare)
forward(normal mentality, both on same settings with wings)
FINAL TRICK, free role doesnt work to make them have FREE movement, simple use side arrows on FW, inward-forward arrows on wings.
Here you go, please give me some comments on this as this is the first version on this MU style tactics. Btw, I'm with MU on 2010 with the followings attacking players:
MCs: Fabregas(wasted me 130m!), Carrick, Obi mikel, Kaka, Richie Jones, Corrie evans, iniesta
Wings: Ronaldo, Lennon, Adu, Messi
Forwards: Rooney, Villa, Rossi, Bojan
Would someone please help me to post images and tactics later? Thanks
Man Utd style free flowing attacking football 
Linear Mode
