Siddo

I'm currently into November of my second season as Bournemouth. Last season by some luck i managed to finish 5th and lost in the play off semi finals. I over-achieved last season as i only needed to 'Battle Bravely against Relegation'. This season the Board have asked for a respectable league finish. So far things have gone very, very wrong. I'm currently down in 20th and struggling to score. I'll go through my approach to the game and hopefully this will bring out any mistakes i'm making. So firstly...

Formation

I'm playing a standard 4-4-2 and the only changes on the positions screen would be farrows on the ML/R to the Attacking Midfield positions. The settings are for home matches first:

Global

Mentality: 13 (One notch down from Attacking)
Creative Freedom: 1
Passing: 14 (Direct)
Tempo: 14 (Quick)
Width: 13 (One notch down from Wide)
Closing Down: 14 (Often)
Time Wasting 1
Defensive Line: 8
Tackling: Normal
Focus Passing: Mixed
Marking: Zonal
Target Man: Mixed

Positions - Will only list Player Instructions if needed ie RWB, TTB etc not used by GK


Position GK
Mentality: 4
Creative Freedom: Team
Passing: Team
Closing Down: 4
Tackling: Easy

Position DR/L DC
Mentality: 8 6
Creative Freedom: Team Team
Passing: Team Team
Closing Down: 8 6
Tackling: Normal Normal
Forward Runs: Rarely Rarely
Run With Ball: Rarely Rarely
Long Shots: Rarely Rarely
Through Balls: Rarely Rarely
Cross Ball: Mixed Rarely
Cross From: Deep Deep
Marking: Team Team - Tight marking also ticked - Unticked if 451/433 formation or 1 striker

Position MR/L MC (defensive) MC (Attacking)
Mentality: 10 8 8
Creative Freedom: Team Team Team
Passing: Team Short (3rd notch) Team
Closing Down: Team Team Team
Tackling: Normal Hard Normal
Forward Runs: Mixed Rarely Often
Run With Ball: Often Rarely Often
Long Shots: Rarely Rarely Often
Through Balls: Rarely Mixed Mixed
Cross Ball: Often Rarely Mixed
Cross From: Byline Deep Mixed
Marking: Team Team Team

Position FC ST
Mentality: 10 12
Creative Freedom: Team Team
Passing: Short (3rd notch)
Closing Down: Team Team
Tackling: Normal Normal
Forward Runs: Mixed Often
Run With Ball: Mixed Often
Long Shots: Rarely Rarely
Through Balls: Mixed Rarely
Cross Ball: Rarely Mixed
Cross From: Deep Mixed
Marking: Team Team
Hold Up Ball: Yes No

I think that the instructions covered that are needed. Anymore just ask...

For the away matches the farrows are removed on the ML/R positions and global mentality is lowered to 10. The Width lowered to 6(One notch above Narrow), Closing down is set to 10, and focus passing is set to Down Both Flanks. Only other changes i make would be if playing only one striker and he's slow or both should'nt trouble the DC's i will move the DL up 1 or 2 notches. If they are defensive then i up the mentality to 14 or 15 and also if i'm not the bookies favourite the tempo and passing drop down 1 or 2.

Matchday Approach

If the Media ask me a questions regarding the upcoming match i always tend to say 'No comment' because i don't want to seem/feel cocky and also i does'nt heap pressure on the players. I may well change my style if i'm more consistent and play for seasons.

Depending on the teams i'm facing and the current situation i tend to do the following to prepare the players for the match...

Home and the Team is below me (League or position) - I expect a Win
Home and the Team is Above me - I think we can Win this
Home and the Team is on a good run/League Leaders - Wish Luck

Away and the Team is Above me - Wish Luck
Away and the Team is Below me/bad run - I think we can Win this

Hopefully this is enough for you to see what i'm doing wrong and give me some quick suggestions on making the team more consistent or effective. I do have a couple more questions?

1, When your Defenders just stand with the ball and wait for ages is this because the pass is not on? or is it a stat related problem ie Decisions, creativity thats too low.

2, The Defensivee Line. Its says in the book that the line should be within a similar range of mentalities to ensure Team Cohesiveness. Would that suggest my DL is right or too low/high?

3, Could my tactic be failing just down to morale? i keep seeing commentary that may suggest this as i'm getting 'Not playing with confidence' or 'Not playing well' mentioned recently

Thanks in advance i await your replies and hopefully i explained it enough. I think i need an online account if i'm to start posting screenshots, PKM's or the tactic itself.

Dayle Wood

Which are you having more trouble with home or away?

I think you need higher time wasting at home. 1 is very low. what is it away? Do you counter attack away?

Siddo

In trouble both home and away, seem to concede more at home though. I'm on about going more defensive, but it may be a morale issue. As for counter attacking i tend to enable that away from home if i got a goal up or playing a far better team home or away.

MorGadoShoW

PlaY NaRRoWeR...

Siddo

GeNiuS

Looking at these settings does the setup seem ok coupled with the mentalities of the players in front i assume this is setup quite solid??

thegooner

Siddo, this might help i was reading a post from beevstar he came up with an idea of chaging often settings too mixed. Thus allowing the players more options also having the target SC on rarely fwrd runs and quick SC on mixed. Have tested this with forrest against liverpool playing the game 6 times but tweaking the settings on each position and looks pretty good.

thegooner

Here mate found it

quote:
Originally posted by Beevster:
Wow took me a good few hours of reading but i've finaly cought up.

Loads of jucie bits, very good job too those who posted in the proper manner, and ,,!,, to those who didnt (hi beanfest)

I feel the need to add somthing worthy to the cause as i have been able to take a lot from it.

The only thing i can think of that might be of interest is in the rearly mixed often part of player instructions.

For front men (sc) havent you noticed they get cought off side a lot with fwd runs often? i found henry was getting cought offside way to much with fwd runs often even tho hes a fast striker with good OTB stats, setting them to mixed i found stoped the needles fwd runs and gave him the option to do so, Now this lead's me into thinking maybe we use rearly mixed often in the wrong sence.

Another point, have you ever seen your team score long shots, have you ever seen a manager in real life set out in his tactics, "you take long shots as much as possible ronaldinho." i have no proof but imo id say that if a player trys a long shot its out of pure time of the moment, So i set everyone to long shots rearly, my shots on target went up quiet a bit and instead of blasting a shot from distence much more chances where created in the right manner, of course they still did long shots but at better moments, i dont belive this is down to decision stats or anything else.

This then lead me onto run with ball and crossing, nearly in everones tactics fb are cross ball often, i watched my fullback lots of times simple passes would have been better options, but they try a cross and nothing comes of it, so i set them to mixed and i see much better use of crossing and if no cross they do a nice little pass which was a better choice, once again it wasnt down to crap players with poor dicision stats, as i tested this with arsenal.

Then came run with ball, i watched players on the wings with rwb often, time after time they started to dribble right infront of a guy then lost the ball and they get an easy counter-attack, it was frustrating to watch a guy with 20 dribble 20 first touch losing possesion maybe 3/4 times he trys to dribble, so setting this 2 mixed give him the option weather or not to attempt to dribble, once again worked wonders for build up play.

So now my basic logic on rearly/mixed/often differs on diffrent types of players.

strikers: Fast striker [FR mix] [RWB mix] [LS Rarely] [TB Mix][CB Mix]
Target Striker [FR Mix] [RWB Mix] [LS Rarely] [TB Mix] [CB Rearly] (altho the target man might want to be on FR rearly according to some posts, somthing id like to try might help my tactics, but i find that a target man with some pace can also be good with FR too )

Wingers: [FR Mix] [RWB Mix] [LS Rarely] [TB Rarely] [CB Mix] FWR to often would be ok for wingers if you like them to get high up the pitch, offside shouldnt be a problem here.
MCa [FR Often] [RWB Mix] [LS Rarely] [TB Mix] [CB Rarely] cross ball rarely should keep him central, like the target man
MCd [FR Rarely] [RWB Mix] [LS Rarely] [CB Rarely]
Fullbacks [FR Mix] [RWB Mix] [LS Rarely] [TB Rarely] [CB Mix] If you like the risk send ur fb on FR often but since defence is a pain in the ass at the moment i dont see overlapping fb as a good idea just yet.

Pritty easy to figure out, through balls down the middle and crosses on the flanks with the exception of the fast striker who could go too the wings and have a cross while the Target man should remain central and not cross.

I tested this quiet a lot with Arsenal a top end team , i liked the build up more then i did with things on often, with poor sides you might have to tell the players what to do more, in this case i adopt an approach where, if a player is balenced all round for your league, dont tell him to do loads of things often just because he can, but get him to do things that are more important for his position, van persie is a good example, he has over 16 for most things dribble, long shots, ect... i tryed him on often for everything and this is when i started to think about how where instructing our players, In my eyes telling a player to run with ball often is saying to him "you must run with ball at every chance you get" he will do this no doubt but it probably wasnt the right choice, same with crossing your telling the player no matter what his dicisions are to cross the ball at every chance he gets.

Anyway feel free to pick holes in my views, and by all means test them out and see if you can spot a diffrence.

Ill appoligise for my spelling, i should be in bed by now, i just felt i had to add somthing !

Siddo

Cheers for the ideas. Will resume my game and see what happens. Does make sense about the target/quick SC might help with pulling the defenders apart to.