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I was struggling as Whitby in Conf North and noticed that my players kept losing the ball in the midfield area so I thought i'd just skip playing in the midfield alltogether and I came up with this tactic which did wonders for me.After that I thought I'd give it a go with Arsenal and it proved successful with them too.
Simple details on how to use my tactic.
1.For the right sided FC (Rolando Bianchi in the pic), get someone who is fantastic in the air (Klose,Bianchi,Caracciolo) Basically 20 Jumping and 20 Heading is all you need for this position. I usually set this guy as a Targetman but it can work without setting them as a targetman.
2.For the DM if possible get someone with good heading stats as well (He can contribute a good number of goals from corners)
Details on Tactic itself.
1.Fullbacks here almost do nothing for the attack so attacking fullbacks wont really be that useful here.
2.Balls are basically punted upfield to a midfielder or a FL/FR and then aimed at the Targetman either to head for goal or for his strike partner.
3.Might not look like it at first glance but this tactic has been superb defensively for me (Not just as Arsenal but as Whitby too).Goals against was about 0.6 per game in both my games as Whitby and Arsenal.
I encourage you guys to mess around with the tactic to see if you can make it better since i'm just a novice at building tactics.
I'd agree, the 424 is a viable tactic to use in FM2007. I mucked about with a formation with slightly different settings from yours. I was looking for defensive solidity as well, and my goal was to harrass and keep possession if needed. You could do this by using an AML and an AMR with short farrows right up.
In midfield you would need to take off the darrows, set them on a defensive mentality, and give one of them high closing down and the other low closing down. One has try through ball and the other hasn't. Essentially you'd be setting the midfield up with one wrecking ball and a distributor.
For the defensive side I'd suggest using the settings in Asmo's 4 backline thread...essentially FBs CD to around 13 and the DCs CD low...no tight marking at all. Put the FBs on direct passing, the keeper instructions to distribute could be set specifically for the AML/AMR.
Then just sit back and watch the fireworks. The DLine needs to be around 6-8. It is a very effective tactic. If you're blessed with pace and you have 2 hard men, you'll be hard to penetrate.
I made the changes as suggested, got off to a bad start =( Lost 1-3 to Newcastle, I suspect that had more to do with Martins being absolutely on fire than the tactics. Second game against Stuttgart and we whipped them nicely 6-1.
Actually Mason, I dont quite have a fixed starting 11 because many of the players in the squad are quite young and equally good that I try to give them equal opportunities.But those from the original team that frequently make it to my starting line up are
1.Fabregas
2.Eboue
3.Clichy
4.Hleb
I love the original Arsenal players but some of them just cant compete with the current players. Rosicky has to compete with Mikel/Raul Garcia and Fabregas, Reyes/Van Persie with guardardo/adu and huntelaar/aguero. Henry is now 33 and banging goals for fun for my reserves team. Djourou doing superbly in the reserves but i'm afraid im gonna have to sell him because frankly he has no chance against Piquet,Richards,Kompany. Im giving Walcott time to improve and he will definately be in the starting 11 soon (He was fantastic in my earlier 2014 game).Ok then its back to more testing for me.
Try this too to make it more defensive...set team defensive mentality to last notch of defensive. Leave all individual mentalities untouched, and put barrows on your fullbacks. Should give it even more solidity
Wow.Just tried this tactic on my Swansea team in Championship. Been winning/losing games 1-0 pretty much alternately. Tried this tactic against Derby away. 4-0 to me. 16 shots on target against 0 for them. I think this might have been because they were playing a straight 3-5-2 at me, but still looks promising.
Ok. two more games. 3-3 away at Leeds.Hammered them chance wise 2:1. And 3-2 at home to Norwich. Again hammered them chance wise. They seem to be springing the offside trap.Three goals so far where it has been mentioned that it looked offside.
But in terms of goalscoring, a very good tactic :thup:
I still havent lost using this tactic. Next 5 games.
4-4 (a) Luton
0-0 (a) Sheff Utd
0-0 (h) Colchester
2-0 (a) Barnsley
4-0 (h) Nott For.
The computer has tried 4-4-2 def to little effect. 4-1-2-1-2 caused a few more problems. If you take into account the arrows 4-1-2-1-2 and this tactic are quite similar.
Anyway 24 goals for, 9 against in 8 games. Not bad at all.
4-2-4 Long Ball Tactic 
Linear Mode
