Drewstar

Hello all.
This is my first proper post and thread on the SI site, so please be kind. I just want to record my voyage through the world of FM tactics.

Note to MODs. If you deem this thread to be in the wrong place. I am very sorry. Please feel free to move it to a more appropriate place.

I have never had constant success playing FM after FM4. The change from the W/WO ball screens has still knocked me for six and after spending all the time learning and implementing things like the DDL, I found it really hard to adapt to the changes SI had made. After failing time and time again I finally bit my pride and started listening to the new breed of FM 'gurus'. The common message from all of the guys that have a grip on the game engine was keep it simple but I was still at the stage when I wasn't sure what that truly meant. One thing was for sure, I didn't understand the game anymore and I needed to get a grip on this. I also had gone about studying the tactics of real football believing that if I understood that then I would be able to play better football on FM. The one thing I hadn't done is study the game.

Stage One - Prove to myself the best team could win.
One of the main complaints of FM has been the fact that lower quality opponents regularly beat top quality sides. I had to create the ultimate test just to dispel this myth in my head. What is that test(in my head)? A Premiership style team in League 2.

Enter the Editor - For people who would say I am cheating, fine! I'm full aware that what I am doing is out of the realm of a normal manager. What I am doing is testing the game engine and the game play. If the naysayers are true, my team should be outplayed by lower league team managers. I have seen countless threads saying 'my chelsea team was beaten by "X" league two side'. I also wanted to see for myself how the best(20 rated) do it and test the things that I have read about, like team talk strategies, by using the 'ultimate' FM manager as my assistant.

More Background - I chosen Barnet for my team test but that was just personal preference. I looked at the four 'top' teams and their FM set ups. There are 14 stats but for the purpose of this test I will concentrate on the stats that I can identify, IMO.
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>Team ATT DEPTH DIR PRESS TEMPO WIDTH
<LI> Chelsea 13 7 13 18 14 15
<LI> Arsenal 18 12 12 18 17 14
<LI> Man U 18 10 3 15 14 16
<LI> Liverpool 18 10 13 13 12 17

<LI> Barnet 16 12 12 10(18) 15 12 </UL>

Using Att as the basis I believe the number relate to the 0-20 slider positions, from left to right, with 0 being ultra defensive and 20 being ultra attacking. ATT is the mentality slider, Depth is the DL slider, Direct is the passing slider, Press is the pressing slider, Tempo is the tempo slider and width is the width slider.

This stat to me states how attacking the teams basic tactic was. If the game engine is playing the game this will be the basis of the first tactic or the 'HOUSE STYLE'. Obviously it would be closer to the Management style the longer someone it in the job. I will have to compare manager stats to, what I will call, the HOUSE STYLE. The closer you get to the house style is the beginning of the game the better your team will before because this the way the players were playing before you got there. This house style is essential to the game as without it teams would be able to adapt seamlessly to new styles of play no matter how different they are. The reason I used the top teams is that these should represent the way the current squad plays, essential one of the best ways of playing or a good starting point.

Quoting the manual "Mentality is probably the most important of the tactical instructions". This, for me, answered my previous Chelsea questions to myself. I always wondered why my attacking style struggled early on against some really bad teams and slowly picked up steam as time went on. As Chelsea's starting house style is a mentality of 13, playing with a tactic of 15+ mentality puts me at an immediate disadvantage against more organised sides. Over time the team will adapt to my style but by that time I would have changed mentality so many times it would have confused the side. My Altered Barnet side had a attacking of 16 thus that was my starting mentality.

As I said there are 14 stats and there is no way that you could get all 14 spot on without looking at the editor so I picked the six above, changing the pressing from 10 to 18 just to see if if made a difference and because I like a pressing style.

I had a style, now I needed a formation. Every team has four formations settings. One primary, one secondary, one defensive and one attacking. For a team like Arsenal there are no formations set for defensive or attacking which reminds me of Wenger's 'we will play our style. Win or Lose!' style. Most teams has a defensive formation and an offensive formation, which is echoed in their primary and secondary formations.
I really like the 'rashidi' 5-3-2 formation from FM06 but it has never worked, with the teams I used so I wanted to see if this had anything to do with it. I changed the secondary formation to 5-3-2 and now I had my formation.

Fantastic Sixteen - To make this a true test of premiership skill I needed great players. With this in mind I cranked up 11 starters and 5 sub players to Premiership level. Reading the forums I know that 15 is the magic number for premiership players so I raised their stats to 15+. I also gave Barnet enough money to pay them and enough team status to keep them. I then decided to go all the way and add a few 20's along the way. Now I have 16 uber players.

Please remember the point of this test is not to win loads of matches. It is to see if I still lose, against lower league teams, using one style that is suited to my current team. I really want to see if I have a solid tactic and a better players if the Com managers can really pick holes in it or I get hit with 'unrealistic' goals.

Results so far.
fr 4-0 Arsenal (H)
fr 6-0 Luzern (A)
fr 6-0 Neuchatel Xamax (A)
fr 4-0 Aarau (A)
fr 6-1 FC Metz (A)
fr 2-0 FC Nantes (A)
fr 5-0 Linfield (A)
L2 5-0 Accrington (H)
L2 5-0 Southend (A)
L2 8-0 Wycombe (H)
L2 9-0 Brentford (A)

As you can see just as I expected. I will post the actual screenshots when I work out how! The only change I made during this run was I lowered tempo to 12. This was because the team was not passing very fluidly. The receiving player just seemed to be working to hard to control the ball. This was shown as the players taking two touches on the ball as they received the ball. The players are the best I could create, so the problem must be the speed of the ball. I found it easier to identify tactical errors when I couldn't blame the players for the mistakes. Premiership Managers take note...

Part One Conclusion - What was the point of this? What could this new manager learn? It is important to tailor your tactics to the team you are managing. This is one of the challenges on FM. We, as Managers, need to evaluate the play of our teams and alter them to bring them closer to the 'House Style' and slowly move the team towards the way you want to play.

What is the next step? Trying these theories out on an unmodified team.

Cleon

Not bad for a first proper post

kroshot

ive also looked at these stats on the editor my team birmingham have these

att-11
direct-15
pressing-11
tempo-15
width-12
depth-12

the preferred formation 1s 442 with the second being 451 the defensive formation 541 and attcking 442.am i right in thinking to start with i sholud use these settings and slowly build my own style in time

Drewstar

Yes. I thought I test my theory out before I offer a definitive suggestion and one thing I have to say from my results is this is not a FM beater system but what I can tell you from watching the matches is that I didn't lose any match because of the tactics and main problem came from player mistakes. I will going to a bit more details later on.

I checked the editor as well and I also saw that Flamboyancy and Flexibility were set at 6 so I'm guessing that one of those stats is equal to Creative Freedom, so the slider settings I used for this test were:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE> <LI>Mentality 11
<LI>Passing 15
<LI>Pressing 11
<LI>Tempo 15
<LI>Width 12
<LI>Defensive Line 12
<LI>Creative Freedom 6 </UL>

Note: When I was looking at these settings, a little voice was ringing in my ear "Of course these setting will work, they follow the advice in the manual", Isn't that really the point. The teams we face have essentially a solid tactical system that will break a poorly though out player tactic.

Back to Birmingham. I decided I would use two formations and one tactical style so I chose 4-4-2 with the ML/MR with farrows to AML/AMR and the default 4-5-1(which is basically a flat back four, two central defensive midfielders, one central midfielder, one striker and two wingers in the AML/AMR postions with farrows to FL/FR positions.


Hopefully that has worked.

Now I had my formations I needed to pick my best side. This is just an exercise in personal perspective.

POS
4-4-2 4-5-1
GK Doyle GK
DC Ridgewell DC
DC Schmitz DC
RD Kelly RD
LD Queudrue LD
MC Muamba DM
MC Nafiet(C) DM
ML Kapo MC
MR Ridder/Arshavin AMR
FC McFadden AML
FC O'Conner FC

I picked a starting line up that could easily change between the two formations.

I also couldn't resist picking up Arshavin for my right wing and I grabbed Almeyda as a free agent to backup Muamba and Nafiet.

Here are my results so far.

Not spectacular, especially my 4-2 defeat to Man United but I won the games I should have won. There were no unexpected defeats. The goals I conceded where because of the poor quality centerbacks at Birmingham.

Ridgewell's 10 decisions was torn apart by Rooney and Ronaldo late in the second half of the Man U match. I was actually up 2-0 until Queudrue picked up an injury and Rooney's exceptional talent just beat up Ridgewell. Schmitz's lack of height as exploited by Liverpool and Arsenal.

Against Wigan, away, the team parked a bus in front of the goal and if Birmingham had a CF who could hold up the ball then we would have scored.

As I have said before I didn't expect to go out and win every game but playing this way kept my team solid and when goals were scored it was due to good individual play ers like Rooney, Torres or Adebayor. Being Birmingham I can't fault a tactic when a player who is taller or faster beats a lesser player because he is better. Isn't that what we all want?

I know that if I can get two decent center backs and a tall powerful center forward, then Birmingham will win more games.

Hopefully this answers your question kroshot

Drewstar

Thank you Cleon.

I have read the forum for a very long time. I remember reading through the whole DDL threat by Dave Challoner (think that was Dave's last name). He was the DDL master.

I got really tired of people saying the game is rubbish because they couldn't get Chelsea to win the premiership in their first year.

I truly understood their pain, IRL as an Arsenal fan I lived that like many others everytime we didn't win the Premiership. The strange thing about FM is that people say it's unrealistic. I wonder if Liverpool fans are saying the Premiership is unrealistic. They got knocked out of the FA cup by who? I mean no disrespect for what is a great achievement but if that was a FM result, someone who say it's unrealistic. My Arsenal team got whipped by Man U. Bad results are a fact of life.

Now I'm not a tactical guru. I'm just a regular guy in my 30's(No, I'm not going to be more exact), who has a full time job and doesn't have a ton of time to play the game. I just get kept up by my next door neighbours new born baby. It's not there fault but it is the reason I'm posting at 5.30am in the morning.

I believe set one in understanding FM is to understand the game engine and how the computer coaches work and I hope my journey will help others too. Maybe there will be a few more gurus out there. To be the best, sometimes you have to emulate the best and they are easy to find if FM, they have a big fat 20 strapped to them.

Now back on topic.

I looked at the House Style of Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United and compared them to their respective managers.

No surprise that Arsenal and Wenger's stats were exactly the same. Ok, Wenger had a tempo stat of 17, whilst Arsenal's was 18.

For Chelsea I looked at both Grant and Mourinho to see how SI represented a team in transition. Chelsea's House Style mentality, marking, offside, flexibility and pressing reflected Mourinho where as the flamboyancy, tackling and width was Grant's. Stats like depth and directness were different from both and not in the middle where I expected them to be. Maybe this was a chink in the style of Chelsea. Maybe the Manager's they have want to play a little to high and short than the team really should?

Man U through up the most curve balls as Ferguson's style differed from the Man U house Style. I had to delve deep into my mind to remember that Ferguson has played different ways with different teams but most of the time there were common threads. Remember Ince/Keane controlling the midfield. Robson/Scholes creating in the middle. Kanchelsis(?)/Giggs/Ronaldo bombing down the wings. Cantona/Yorke/Rooney getting the ball from deep. He had to mix it up when he had no holding player or a break the mould player(Ruud).

The differences in the 'major' categories were only 1-3 points away from each other. This gives me hope because you don't need to be spot on to make the tactic effective, just solid over all.

Conclusion
There are common styles that these three 'House Styles' share. They are very attacking. 18 for Manchester and Arsenal. Very Pressing. 18 again for Arsenal and Chelsea. Fairly quick tempo. 14 for Man U and Chelsea and fairly wide. 14-16 for all three teams.

Plus as a by product of my Birmingham test, it seems the weaker the team the less attacking you want your mentality to be.

My next test is going to be with Man U or Chelsea. I want to see if these teams will lose against poor teams using this style of play.