I'd go along with those who believe tempo should always match style of play i.e direct requires quick tempo.
I set team mentality to closing down apart from DCs as I want them stood in the right places. Don't mind my fullbacks getting pulled forward because they are rarely badly beaten and most time they are winning tackles.
To make a tactic work you have to check that people are doing what would be required in order for that tatic to work so i'm afraid you do have to check stats. i'm now even getting into the habit of checking player stats at half time to see if i/the opposition have a particular weakeness in that particular match.
If you are using a target man with balls to head make sure he's a good jumper and at least a decent header and that he goes up against the crapiest jumper out of the 2 opposition DCs. Then check at half-time that your target man is winning his headers.
Stuff like that really.
P.S maybe an idea to keep this in the xbox 360 thread if you are gonna put 360 in the title/make it 360 specific as most chaps in this section who are posting are PCers