retired_dolly67601

Hello my fellow FM addicts :p,

So...... It's 12.30 am and I know you're all there, bleary eyed, on this great forum reading away (I don't mean the mighty Blackburn's fixture today by the way! The quick off the mark will get the joke!)

.....

Back to my original point about the forum (Thanks Cleon, you've been an inspiration :cool: . You've had your stick, but I know what you're doing is for the right reasons! and is hugley appreciated by the hard core forum members :thup

Well, It's been a while since I last started a topic on here, there's so many great contributers out there, so I just took a back seat and read some fascinating articles by these guys for the last 2 years

Cleon, Rashidi, Buxton (Old School) Asmodeus, wwfan ......... Justified (You're old school too, but where are you my friend ?????? Would be a shame to lose you off here as you are a great contributer to this forum! :thup

Before I continue, please let's hear a massive thankyou to the guys mentioned above. Without them, then this forum wouldn't be the close knit, much appreciated forum it is today :thup:

Ok, back to business........................


I originally posted this in datemyplate.com's very interesting thread about his grid theory, but then I read it back to myself and thought it was worth starting a new thread about it as quite a few users might not necessarily look there and read it, plus it sums the game up for those struggling out there.

In a nutshell it's about the basics of attacking and defending in FM as a unit. It doesn't focus on either in great detail, such as marking & closing down for defenders, creative freedom for attackers etc...

What it does though, is teach you guys out there who are struggling how to strike that balance between both and achieve the basics.

The aim of this thread is to stop all the 'I Can't Defend' and the 'I Can't Score!' threads out there!


Here we go...

Mentality,

If you play a basic 4-4-2 and have one of your central midfield players with a mentality of 14, that means he's 14 in favour of attack, but only 6 in favour of defence.

Vice Versa with the other midfielder, if you set him to mentality of 6, he's 14 in favour of defence, and only 6 in favour of attack.

So my friends, with this being the case, it's important to have a lot of players on normal mentalities.

That way, more people are attacking, and defending, although not to the extremes of the players actually set to defensive or attacking.

I'm sure most of you will agree that Cleon is phenomenal at this game, and achieves HUGE success. If you look at his tactics, the players' mentality is always balanced really well.

You don't see players with majorly contrasting mentality values.

I think this is the downfall of most of you guys on here who fail to succeed.

I bet that most of you who don't win, lose because you set all your defensive players to defensive and your attackers to attacking.

In most formations, there are 4 or 5 attacking players. So if you have all those players set to attacking mentality, that only leaves 5 or 6 outfield players defending, because the attacking players are instructed to not bother defending.

The AI has a balanced formation and mentalities, most players on normal mentality, meaning that there are a lot defending and attacking at the same time.

You get overpowered.

I bet there are about 7 or 8 outfield players attacking for the AI when they have the ball (bearing in mind they are set to normal but they're attacking because they are in possession), against your 5 or 6 defensive players. Do the maths, they outnumber you, which is why you concede.

Same when you have the ball, you only have 4 or 5 players attacking, as the others are set to defensive.

The AI playing a balanced mentality formation, have about 7 or 8 players defending. You are totally outnumbered and don't have enough options to pass to, which is why you don't score enough goals.

This my friends is the secret, no grids, or anything like that. It's about balance.

And that all makes perfect sense too! And I know Cleon does something similar to that as it's obvious when you look at his tactics. Mentalities are balanced across the team.

Now mentality isn't the only contributing factor to your success or downfall, there are lots of others. There are plenty of great discussions on here already that go in detail about other elements of the game

I think this is the most important instruction in my opinion and has a greater influence over your team than anything else.

Does anyone else agree?

Any feedback would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks,

Noel

retired_cherylvano

Great post Noel,

Definitely agree about mentality, i've found on this version of the game that it's very important to keep mentality close together for the team.
Sometimes I use global and that works very well, keeping the team together as a unit.

retired_cherylvano

Sorry for double post, no edit button.

I also wanted to mention that in most of my games I'm using a defensive mentality across the team, and it works great, the team defend as a unit but still manage to create plenty of chances.
I think that some people believe that to score goals your attackers have to have very high mentalities, but that isn't true.

kissofdeath2120

I never thought about it this way, very helpful post. I've tried it out on my struggling New York Red Bulls squad. I kept everyone on normal, but balanced the two MCs on with a mentality of 14, the other with a menality of 6.

It seemed to work well, I won the next match 4-1, but it was against lesser opposition at home. I am hopeful it will help me gain some consistency.

cheers :cool:

retired_dolly67601

I'm glad you found the post helpful, but it wasn't my intention to say you need to set up your midfielders in this way.

My example of the midfielders was to show people the difference in mentality between both and how setting a midfielder on a mentality of 6 makes him ignore being part of the attack, thus losing a player when you have the ball.

Same for when you're not in possession, you lose the player from your defensive strategy who's set to 14 because he's only 6 in favour of defence. It would be like having Tugay or Dugarry playing, just not interested in defending at all.

Do you guys understand what I'm saying?

Thanks,

Noel

retired_dolly67601

The aim of the game is to over power your opponents when in possession of the ball and when not in possession of the ball.

So contradicting mentality values are not the way to go

kissofdeath2120

Ok I guess I misunderstood.

The way I saw it was, if you had an attacking mentality on one player, it should be balanced by have another player on a more defensive mentality, thus in defense you'd have an additional player, as well as an additional attacking player. Rather than one extra attacker, but no defensive cover.

(im thinking midfield here)

I'm going to read through it again and see if I can wrap my mind around it

retired_cherylvano

I feel very comfortable with mentalities the way i'm playing now.

My only remaining problems are closing down, creative freedom, defensive line, width and opposition player instructions.
Once I've sorted those out I should be as good as Cleon.

kissofdeath2120

ok I think I see what you are saying.

We shouldn't stack the deck one way or the other.

IE, in a 4-4-2

ST ST- can be of a higher mentality as they won't be as big a part of the defensive setup.

MR ML could be higher, but not too far as they should participate in defending the winges

MC MC should be close to normal as they aim to be a part of both attack and defense (obviously a DM or AMC changes this)

DR DL close to normal if you want them as part of the attack, lower if you're looking for a flat back 4.

DC DC Defensive.

So, a breakdown like this?

ST ST= 14/15

MR ML= 11

MC MC= 10

DR DL= 11

DC DC= 6


Do I have the right idea here?

retired_rjw13838

But this means the team need time to move up and down the pitch together, right? Which to me sounds that if you want to play a direct (counter attacking) game, you'll want your forwards on attacking, your defenders on defending and your midfield somewhere in between.
With that style of play, the ball travels up the pitch much faster then your players can, so they must already be up the pitch for it to work.