retired_cherylvano

You didn't mention what your d-line is, which could be quite important.
Maybe you could align your tempo and passing a bit closer either passing longer or slowing down your tempo.
I'm also a believer in keeping mentalities across the team closer together than you have yours, do your strikers get isolated?

retired_elpata

Warned, in future either post contructively and sensibly or I will ban you. You are the sort of person we do not wnat on these forums. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Cleon, i'm new to this forum. I've been registered a few weeks now. I've saw many comments such as the above that have overshadowed an actual thread and thus, turned into a full slagging match. It is for this reason that i tend to refrain from posting. I spend hours on this forum reading and absorbing other folks comments. There are many comments that have given me a greater knowledge of Football Manager and indeed have made me a better virtual manager. I have nothing but gratitute to those people that have posted constructive comments that have helped and encouraged me. My point is, people who post comments such as "Get a life", without any just cause to do so, should they not be banned straight away for their total lack of respect? Indeed the original post was another forum member and fan of FM requiring that extra piece of info to push them in the right direction. A perfectly honest and innocent post started by someone requiring assistance and another forum member without justification responds with "get a life". Totally unjustified response and i feel personally that banning folk that make such comments would make other folk think twice about posting such ignorant responses. Anyway....apologies for taking this post slightly off topic......... </BLOCKQUOTE>

Ignore them, don't let the minority put you off posting

Do you find you get a lot of offsides given against you? As your attackers are quite offensive, and when I play with them on high mentality I get caught off side maybe 15-20 times in 1 game. Which could explain the problem of lack of goals

retired_jermiron2

And on that note i have joined the discussion, now then please bare with me but i am not the greates tactician ever so there may be mistakes, as for scoring goals, firstly i always find what strenghts your team have upfront to start with wheather that being strong in the air or good on the deck, this determines how i deliver balls to my strikers, so strikers good on the deck would prefer a more compact and through ball tactic to get them one on one with goal, or if your strikers are good in the air you may want wingers to cross the ball in often, or if you both my may want a variety, anyway after sorting which formation to suit the squad and the team instructions for each player, mentality comes into the frame, now as said in one of the above posts each position shouldnt be any more than 2 notches appart for each line, now i tend to do this for each position(personal preference) this is so that every player has an acceptable passing option, after setting the mentality the next is passing style and tempo these should be set around the same as eachother, being newcastle and using the seperate mentalitys of 2, passing should be more direct than short and therefore have a tempo of more than 10.

Finally i will discuss creative freedom(CF) which is a main key to creating chances, for your front 2 strikers a high creative freedom should be used so that they exploit the space behind and around the defence, this will have them come out to the wings and creating space in the middle for your amc or your other striker, as for your wingers and attacking mids they should also have a above normal amount of CF so that they play a ball if they think it will come off or not, now for your 5 defensive players(cb,cb,rb,lb,dm(cm)) they should be on a low amount of creative freedom so that they dont play risky balls when in there own half as losing possesion can be costly, anyway i hope this helps your scoring problems

retired_adam2k7

thanks for all the good advices

so in order to ultilise the qualities possessed by my players, I should be playing a higher tempo, more direct passing game?

If so, should i drop back the defensive line slider to invite my opponents to attack so i can play counter attack? Wouldn't it be too risky for a team like newcastle - vulnerable at teh back - to invite the opponents? How about my team mentality (more offensive or defensive)?

btw, what is the difference in team closing down n individual closing down?

cheers