Reading the match engine

[donpost2]

Hi all. I've been meaning to make this thread for a long time, and now i'm actually going to pull my finger out and do it...

A lot of people get frustrated with the tactical side of FM09, and mostly this stems from not understanding how it all works. How many of us have read all the guides out there, and still struggle? I am one of these people, but rather than whinge about it I want to try and rectify the problem at my end by learning what needs to be learned.

IMHO the frustration can be broken down into two seperate issues. Firstly, not be able to get the team to play the way you want. Secondly, not being able to recognise why a particular tactic isn't working from the information given to you by the match engine. The first problem can be solved in FM09 by downloading someone else's tactical set (I use The Better Half tactic set). OK maybe you won't be able to find the perfect set for what you want to do, but you can at least have a set of proven working tactics. Looking to the future, the excellent wizard feature being developed based on TT&F should see the problem of not being able to create your own tactics be a thing of the past.

The second problem, not being able to read the match engine to see what's going wrong is more complex. I literally have NO idea why things are going wrong when they do, and usually just end up rotating through the tactics in the set hoping something will work, and simply sub off any players with low match ratings. Sound familiar?

What tips do the pro's of the forum have for reading the ME and diagnosing what is going wrong? Personally, I wouldn't mind losing so much IF i knew roughly WHY I lost.

P.S.

My original plan with this thread was to write a long post, complete with screenshots, showing all the tactical decisions I make before and during a game, along with detailed reasoning behind each decision. I would also post the .pkm. The idea would be that we could discuss the tactical decisions made, and the match stats etc, and maybe all learn a thing or two. Seeing as a post like that would involve a LOT of effort, I'd like to know if people would be interested in this before I go ahead and do it?

[peter-evo]

Nice post mate, I'd be very interested in the 'original plan'.

[loyalskitopfc]

Nice post mate, I'd be very interested in the 'original plan'.

Be interested to hear it too. Having exactly the same problems, I just don't understand how the system works, and by changing anything, I usually make it worse!

[SFraser]

Sounds like a really great post and also a lot of effort.

I would say that the key to reading the match engine is watching the match engine. It is vital to watch the matches in full match replays, preferably 2-D in my opinion, untill you understand what is going on.

One of the key and perpetually ongoing processes is being able to see attributes in action, and then being able to see how tactical instructions influence those attributes. It is very easy to observe First Touch for example, but much harder to observe Teamwork distinctly from instructions, or indeed at all. Understanding these facets is vital to the construction of tactics.

I find that much of the match engine and tactical tinkering that makes up gameplay rather than education by trial-and-error is very subtle. It doesn't take much more than tweaking a central midfielder to be more offensive or more defensive to completely turn a game in your favour. Equally being able to understand that the defensive mentality of your centre back may provoke him to try the "safe" 70 yard through ball are other key aspects of reading the match engine.

[donpost2]

Hi all. Thanks for the encouragement and advice. I have Man U (A) as my next match, I think that would make a good candidate for a more detailed post. ETA: sometime tonight maybe.

[ikari]

Sounds really interesting. I'm trying to understand the match engine but there's just so much going on at the same time that I usually get lost in the information. I don't mind losing a game, or even multiple, but I'd love to know why I lost, and what to do about it. Knowing that would help a lot towards making your own tactics. Thanks for the effort!

[donpost2]

Ok, before I begin - two small points:

Firstly, sorry for the slow pace of the thread - I am somewhat motivationally challenged (i.e. lazy).

Secondly, let me just state again that I am the tactical newbie here, so what follows isn't going to be a lesson, it's going to be an insight into the mind of a newbie and a starting off point for discussion. Hopefully there are plenty of other people at the same level as me out there who will also benefit from this.

Right, onto the good stuff. My match is Man Utd (A). I am managing Tottenham, who are predicted to finish 5th by the media.

To begin with, we have Pre-Match, which can be split into three sections:

1. Analysis of opposition
   
2. Choosing a tactic/strategy
   
3. Team selection
   

Analysis of opposition

I am very weak in this area. Some people will look at the opposition team's players stats and make plans based on that, but personally I don't know what I'm looking for so I don't bother.

So I'll look at the scout report:

So what do I draw from this? Well lets take each bit of information step by step:

"They play defensive and like to draw us out and then play CA"

Ok, this means I shouldn't play attacking, as it will allow them to draw my players out into their half then counter-attack. Not going to play attacking away to Man Utd at the best of times tbh.

"The pitch is long, which will favour a more direct style."

As I mentioned previously, I just choose one of the 7 tactics that are in the TBH set, and run with that. I'm a little afraid to change the passing in case it breaks the tactic.

"Prefers his team to play possession football"

Right, so they will look to keep the ball, as opposed to playing risky passes. So think Barcelona, who pass it around looking for an opening as opposed to say a long ball team. Maybe I can use increased closing down to disrupt this?

"Their midfield are good on the ball and create chances"

I'm guessing this means the midfield have decent passing and creativity abilities. So again it hints at closing down being a good idea. But on the other hand, maybe this means that the midfield has good technical skills, which would make closing down bad, as they could just evade the person closing them down. :confused:

"We need to make plans for the strikers as they are fast and quick".

Not sure what I can do about this.

"A potential threat to our defense will be Cronaldo".

When I get to the match screen I'll see what I can do to stop him.

Right, that's the scout report analysed, the other bit of info we can use is the match odds. Here they are:

This tells us Man Utd are more likely to win. It hints as to how attacking/defensive you should play. Now, we all know Man Utd should be expected to beat Spurs at home, but if you were in an unknown league and you didn't know who the better teams were, this helps.

Choosing a tactic/strategy

As mentioned earlier, I use the TBH set, so I have a choice of 7 tactics. See this thread for the set. I'll also take this opportunity to thank Mr TBH for making these tactics.

Ok so I've decided I want to play defensively, so that gives me a choice of either 6. Counter or 7. Defensive. The following is taken from TBH's thread:

Counter

What it is/does: Attacks with pace, down the flanks, aggressive in own half, quick

What it isn’t/ doesn’t: Holds onto the ball, give the FC´s much support, Ultra defensive

Defensive

What it is/does: Keeps possession in own half/midfield, very cautious, no fwruns

What it isn’t/ doesn’t: Against 4-2-4, for getting goals in plural, beautiful to watch

I'm in two minds as to what one to pick. Counter provides the agressive closing down I thought might be useful, but it also doesn't "hold onto the ball" which plays into Man Utds preference of playing possession football.

Defensive keeps hold of the ball, but is it too defensive?

So I toss a coin, and defensive wins.

Right - this is going to spill into a new post now, as there is I'm limited to four images per post

[donpost2]

Team selection

A few days ago I decided to go through my first team squad, and to deduce from their attributes a set of rankings

of each position. I did this by looking at a guide as to what attributes are important for each position and then

comparing all of the players who can play in that position to decide who is best. This is slightly tedious job that

took about 30mins, but it's well worth it, and you only need to do it once a season.

I'm also going to allow my choice of tactic/match stategy to influence my team selection somewhat. I know I will

need pacey strikers and wingers, and I will need a fairly defensive centre midfield.

Here are my options for right wing:

Clearly, Lennon is the fastest. But his off the ball is PARP, so will he be in a good position to counter attack?

The other option is Saivet. Slightly slower but better off the ball. Ignore Santon as he is my right back.

Looking closer at Saivet and Lennon, Lennon is "tired" and has condition of 87%, so the spot goes to Saivet.

Congratulations son.

Here are my options for left wing:

Again looking at pace, it's a toss up between Aisatti and Torbinsky. Looking closer at the players, Aisatti has

better morale and condition. So he gets the nod.

I only have two defensively capable midfielders. So that choice is a no-brainer.

As I said earlier, I wanted two fast strikers. Here are my options (severly limited by injuries)

I've gone for Keirrison and Toivenen. Keirrison is fast, and Toivenen is the "best of the rest", by virtue of his

good morale. (The PR next to his name relates to increased morale due to just singing a new contract).

The other positions were filled by chosing the best players for those positions as per the list I mentioned earlier

in this post.

Ok, so the pre-match work is done. It's taken me over an hour to write this post, but to actually go through all

the above before a match takes 10 mins at most. Even I'm not too lazy to do that....

That's it for now. Later on I will post what I actually do during the match. (Complete with copious amounts of

screenshots of course). Hopefully what I've posted this morning will be enough to generate a bit of discussion.

P.S. - The pictures above are not available through the standard FM skin. I installed the customisations available

in this great thread.

[Surferosa]

Liking the look of where you are going with this post- should provide a really good insight into the decision making process (people have different ways of doing things- not necessarily the right / wrong way: just different). I aslo use the TBH sets- defensive would of been my choice too..

My approach on this game is a draw would be a fantastic result, so I'd be picking my players on their defensive abilities. So Ill be leaning towards Santon & Betley on the right with Torbinsky on the left. The defensive approach is all about containment with fast breaks through the middle.. so you aren;t really looking for wingers here, you are looking for hard-working midfielders that can also play in wide positions.

Up front, Id try to get someone that can put themselves about a bit- hold onto the ball and play little through balls through (otherwise my fear is it will just be wave after wave of Man U attacks). With his pace, acceleration, and dribbling Kerrison is a shoe-in for the fast man spot- but I would really be considering Pavleychenko for the target man type role (although cant see his strength- which I would consider an important attribute) his balance,off the ball and passing should mean he has a good chance of being in the right place to receive the ball, keep hold of it and then play it off / through for someone else.

Interested to see what you do with the OI- as this would be the game-winner for me (if you get the right): and any tactical adjustments you make to the variant pre-match.

Either way- nice post (and cheers for the panel plug- good to see them being used )

[donpost2]

Thanks for the feedback, Surferosa. I made a massive fail in my team selection, in that I was picking players for the counter-attack strategy, even though I decided to use defensive. D'oh. I have changed my wingers from Saivet/Aisatti to Bentley/Aisatti. I noticed you went for the Torb over Aisatti. What was your reasoning behind this?

The defensive approach is all about containment with fast breaks through the middle.. so you aren;t really looking for wingers here, you are looking for hard-working midfielders that can also play in wide positions.

Up front, Id try to get someone that can put themselves about a bit- hold onto the ball and play little through balls through (otherwise my fear is it will just be wave after wave of Man U attacks). With his pace, acceleration, and dribbling Kerrison is a shoe-in for the fast man spot- but I would really be considering Pavleychenko for the target man type role (although cant see his strength- which I would consider an important attribute) his balance,off the ball and passing should mean he has a good chance of being in the right place to receive the ball, keep hold of it and then play it off / through for someone else.

When I first read this bit, I was confused as to how someone like me is supposed to know that defensive is all about playing through the middle, and having a bigmna/fastman combo up front. But then I actually looked at the tactical instructions. The defensive strategy has "play though middle" in the team instructions, and one of the strikers has "hold up ball" ticked. So, this tactical information can be found by just taking the time to look at the way the tactic was set up.

Looking at my player list (as mentioned at the start of my previous post), I found my best available fast forward was indeed Keirrison, and my best available target man type forward was indeed Pavyluchenko. So we both agree on that. That's gotta be a good sign, right

Looking again at the central midfield, one of the midfielders has no forward runs and lower closing down/mentaility, compared to the other which has mixed forward runs and and slightly higher closing down/mentality. Because of this I set my best defensive midfielder to the no fwd runs postion, and my best jack of all trades midfielder to the other slot.

Right, now my lineup is ok - its time to goto the match! Time to start a new post as I've already used up a lot of my 4 image per post limit on smileys

[donpost2]

Teamtalk

I always let my assman do the team talks. He has motivation of 15 so I think he knows better than me!

Opposition Instructions

Again, I'm not too good with OIs but I do know a couple of things.

Show wingers onto foot:

If the strikers are fast but bad in the air, then show the wingers down the wing, forcing them to cross rather than play through balls. The crosses will be less effective than through balls as the strikers are bad in the air.

If the strikers are good in the air but slow, then show the wingers into the middle, forcing them to play through balls rather than cross. The through balls will be less effective than crosses as the strikers are slow.

If the strikers are all rounders, then set the wingers onto their weaker foot, limiting their overall effectiveness.

So with this in mind lets look at Man Utds strikers for the day, Rooney and Berbatov:

Not exactly good in the air, are they. Lets show the wingers down the wing.

The assistant gives a few tips on OI. I only pay attention to the hard tackling. Today the assman is telling me to hard tackle Nani and Rooney, so I do just that.

The TBH thread has this to say about OI on the defensive tactic:

Tight marking/ Always on advancing or normal strikers and/or all lone strikers

Close Down/ Always on AI central midfielders UNLESS they are outnumbering us by using 3 MC or 2MC + DMC/AMC.

Since Man Utd are playing 442 I close down the two MCs. I will have to observe the ME to determine what role the strikers are playing.

OK - time for kick off!

Now I'm going to watch the first 15 mins on full highlights. I will try to ascertain as much information about how Man Utd are playing as possible. Here goes...

You can see clearly here two things:

1) Man Utd are playing very wide

2) The wingers are on a high mentality (look how far forward they are!)

I also noticed that Berbatov was dropping deep and floating across the pitch, whereas Rooney is staying up front. I put Rooney on tight marking as per the OI tips from the TBH thread.

As well as this I notice the fullbacks are sometimes making forward runs, but not all the time. They must be on mixed fwd runs.

6 mins into the match, Berbatov scores. He wriggled free in the 6 yard box and poked it on.

I see Man Utd knocking the ball around fairly quickly, about the same pace as my team. I guess from this that their tempo must be high normal. I have a sudden realisation that as they are knocking the ball around at roughly the same speed as my team, that I can look at my tempo to judge theirs. My tempo is set to 3. This leaves me confused!

Here's another screenshot:

Notice how Anderson is making forward runs, whereas Hargreaves is sitting back. Again you can see how wide Man Utd are playing.

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[donpost2]

10 minutes in the commentary says Man Utd go to a defensive style. Does this mean all the match analysis I've done so far is no longer applicable. I consider moving up to the Balanced or Counter Attack tactic but don't as I've picked the team based on the defensive tactic, plus there is only 10 mins on the clock! I should mention it's been all Man Utd upto this point, they've had 67% possession!

15:00 mins in - going defensive seems to have caused Berbatov and Rooney's role to switch so I stop tight marking Rooney and start tight marking Berbatov.

Next comes a frustrating moment:

I have tight marking OI for Berbatov, but my defense doesn't want to know. Why are they giving him all that space?!?!!?!??!

I think I've analysed the ME all I can for now. I think I've drawn the correct conclusions about how Man Utd are playing, but I have no idea how to use these conclusions. I switch the extended highlights until mid way through the first half.

Now I'm halfway through the first half, it's time to look at the match stats:

Lots of interesting stuff on here. Look at Rooney! 4 key passes? He needs to be stopped, but how? I decide to close him down always on OI. Also, Anderson is putting in a lot of tackles. How do I make use of this stat? Maybe lower midfielder's run with ball instruction? It's nice to see Ronaldo isn't getting into the game much, mainly because of his condition. Although he did provide an assist The full-backs are seeing a lot of the ball.

Also OI hard tackling on Berbatov and Anderson on the reccomendation of the AssMan.

Now my stats:

Not much stands out, other than I should probably bring Huddlestone off. I do so. As you can see, i'm not seeing much of the ball.

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[donpost2]

Half-time rolls around. Keirison gets broken so I have to take him off for Toivenen, who isn't exactly great. Not going well is it?.....

Let's have another look at the match stats. First theirs:

Well at least Rooney hasn't made any more key passes. Look at Vidic's heading stats

I think I'm going to play Counter-Attack now for a couple of reasons. First, it should focus play down the flanks rather than in the middle, avoiding the Vidic headmaster, and Andersons uber tackles. Second, we are behind and should play a little more attacking to score.

At this point, could someone tell me why changing tactics resets your OI? So annoying. It's not even consistent. Sometimes it will reset all OI, sometimes most, sometimes none!

Now my stats:

Ignore Keirrison - I just took him off. I can't really see anything here to pick up on :confused: so I continue with the second half.

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[donpost2]

Midway through the second half. Man Utd still on top. Here are the stats:

I can't draw too much from this really. There haven't been any more key passes from Rooney again - I'd like to think the action I took in the first half caused this but i'm not sure. Vidic is still dominating in the air.

My stats:

Not much stands out for me. Lukovic is seeing a lot of the ball and making nice interceptions - but his passing is cack. The central defense isn't winning enough of their headers for my liking. I bring on Corluka for Taylor as he has better jumping strength and heading attributes.

80th min - still 1-0 down it's time to go for Overload tactic and maybe grab a goal - let's see what happens.

81st min - Rooney makes it 2-0

87th min - Ronaldo makes it 3-0 from the spot.

And that's how it finished - here are the final overall stats:

Considering I am the 5th best team in the league, I have to be disappointed with that. Now I don't expect to win every game but losing like this, having put in a fairly hefty amount of effort (for me!) is frustrating. Not because I lost, but because I got comprehensively outplayed and I don't know why! Were my tactics wrong? Was it morale? Was it a bad team talk?

Click here for the .pkm file

Right, let the discussion begin.

P.S. If anyone else wants to review there match like I have feel free! The more discussion the better.

[skimmerman]

Hi Don, right here goes

1 If you look at gomes he wasted alot of ball, maybe to the head of vidic.

2 kuszcak looks like he was passing to both fbs

3 To me Man Utd had too much ball and alot of time on it

I am sorry Don but thats all that i can say, i am in the same boat as you. I know whats going on but i dont know how to get my team to stop the opposition. What i would have done was this

1 Defender collects,you need to keep the ball more when you play the big teams

2 Tight marking and closing down on both fbs

3 Got the midfield to close down more

There you go, 3-0 is not that bad it would have ended 6-0 if i was doing it.

[TheBetterHalf]

When you discovered that the MU wingers were pushing forward, did you change the marking system as mentioned in the version descriptions ?

[donpost2]

Thank you both for your input.

Skimmerman - Well spotted on Gomes. I didn't even consider the goalie's distribition might be causing Vidic to win all of those headers. I really should have done more to improve my possession.

WRT to the fullbacks, I wonder who I could have used to close them down? Maybe the strikers, or the wingers (this ties in with what TBH says after your post).

As for closing down their midfield, I had set up the OI to close down always both of Man Utds midfield. Not sure what else I should have done?

TBH - Thanks for the tactics. I didn't change the marking, which was a mistake. I even noticed that my wingers were basically sitting in the laps of my fullbacks but didn't think to do anything. If you look at the first ME screenshot just after half time, you can see my left winger (11) sitting right on top of my DL.

Lesson learned no. 1 - If you are going to use someone else's tactics, pay attention to their advice on how to use them! :o

[wwfan]

The man issue for me is the OI combination. You are closing down the central midfielders against an attacking team that is playing very wide. This is dragging your wingers infield. Because of this, Man Utd's wingers are often in loads of space, which makes the OI winger instructions useless, as neither your full backs or wingers will have time to get to the the player to make either passing or crossing options difficult. The resulting 40% successful crosses is representative of this issue. Anything over 25% is a terrible statistic for the defensive team.

As you are defending away to a top quality team, you need to focus on three elements.

1: Stopping any of their front four getting the ball in lots of space

2: Getting bodies between the ball and goal

3: Trying to hit them on the counter rather than keeping possession

As you are using TBH's set, I imagine the counter-attacking element is covered. However, one and two aren't, simply because of your OIs. Focusing on the central midfielders frees up the Man Utd front four, with only one successful pass needed to split open the defence. Your whole midfield line pushes forwards and inwards, and, although the FBs are staying narrow (as they should be), the wingers will only have one man to beat to get a decent ball in. What you need to be doing is focusing on making the MCs' through balls as difficult to make as possible, which you need to do by blocking the space between the passer and the intended recipient, not by closing the passer down. The Man Utd MCs are quality and will get off passes easily no matter how much they are closed down, if, as in your screenshots, there are multiple unmarked passing options. Your closing down approach didn't work at all, as the 80% and 40% pass/cross percentages reflect.

[axehan1]

to me it seems that opting to close down a world class side would be suicidal as your attempts to close them down leaves large holes available to either make passes or for an opposition player to make use of the space you have just created.i see it as close down-your starting position is not near an opposing player.tight mark you are already with him which gives your player the ability to pinch the ball off of him depending on what closing down you have given your players.

[phnompenhandy]

So, can wwfan or anyone clarify - when do you recommend using OI 'closing down', and when OI 'tight marking'?

If your team instructions are already 'closing down - high', is there any point using the OI?

Similarly, if your team and indiv instructions are 'hard tackling', is there any point to setting the OI 'hard tackling'?

[Surferosa]

Really good post & write-up Don . Did you save the game before playing the match? Would be good if you could give it another go using the pointers that TBH gave you on man-marking the wingers, and wwfan's comments regarding closing down.

I've found when using the Defensive variant, tight marking all the offensive players (mid & att) and closing down the full backs can be effective. Again though- I wouldn't be too downbeat about the result- you kept it to 1-0 until your change to Overload (this was a bad call imo- I would of expected them to create lots of chances from this and you to hardly create anything). Overload is for only at home and much weaker teams- a better switch may have been moving to counter attack- but move the forward runs on your MCa/MR/MR to often, DR/L to mixed. I'd of moved to this around the 60/70 minute at latest (by 80, Man Utd are likely to have moved to a counter-attacking strategy themselves- so your counter-attacking strategy is a lot less likely to work). You may not of got a winner- but you wouldn't have left massive holes at the back either

As OT is a long pitch, change the target man instructions to Run Onto Ball and up the passing on your MCd a couple of notches (assuming his passing and creativity are good). You don't have to switch from one end of the variant spectrum to the other in order to get a goal (or to defend it for that matter)- very often small tweaks to key sliders and change the whole outlook of a formation.

Another little tip- if you spotted Rooney having a good game- kick him! (ie hard tackle on OI) Now this is obviously a gamble- Rooney being the player he is (strong, brave) it could result in dangerous set-pieces or penalties. However, imo, doing this when you immediately spot the danger man can help reduce his effectiveness significantly.

Either way- loving the post. Good work

[Surferosa]

So, can wwfan or anyone clarify - when do you recommend using OI 'closing down', and when OI 'tight marking'?

If your team instructions are already 'closing down - high', is there any point using the OI?

Similarly, if your team and indiv instructions are 'hard tackling', is there any point to setting the OI 'hard tackling'?

My interpretation is that some of the OI sliders sort-of override settings- some don't (helpful I know). What I mean is, tight marking and closing down are interlinked with tactical setups of your team- tackling and weaker foot override (when used).

Tight marking I use for any player that is playing a forward advanced role. Now this only comes into play if the Opp player comes into your players 'zone'. For a typical SC that will usually mean he is always in the zone: but in the case of a winger (as above) who is playing as a AML/AMR- the making instructions comes into play- a zonal marking instruction with tight marking will still only mean the DR/L will get close to him when he is advanced enough to be 'in his lap' (as TBH puts it). By changing the marking from zonal to man, we are getting the DR/DL to push up towards the player and get tight to him as soon as spossible.

Closing down I use when Im playing a pressured attacking game- its very effective against players that hold onto the ball- or players that play off strata (such as a SC that drops deep into AMC territory), or a DL/DR that holds onto it then launches long balls down the channels behind your DR/L. The danger with closing down is that people have to close down from somewhere- if one of your defenders is closing down- who has he left behind unmarked?

So for tight marking, think of it an an extension of the marking settings in your tactic. Likewise, for closing down, think of it as an extension of your overall attacking / defensive outlook and the individual player closing down settings.

Tackling and weaker foot are really good ways of adding to your tactic. I never use hard tackling in a tactical setup- but I will hard tackle in the OI the players with low bravery stats (scare them off the ball) or the danger men (risky but effective). Weaker foot usage largely depends on what you are trying to achieve. For example, you may be worried about crosses into the box, in which case showing the wingers / full-backs the inside helps to prevent this. Alternatively you may have really good headers at the back- whilst the opposition has no heading ability and low crossing. Show them onto the outside!

As a rule, you can also be very effective it you show any player on his weaker foot if his is one-footed.

[TheBetterHalf]

The man issue for me is the OI combination. You are closing down the central midfielders against an attacking team that is playing very wide. This is dragging your wingers infield.

Agree. This is something that I should have added to the OP( in my thread) that when the tight man-marking is removed on the wingers as they push forward and the central players with ease can put a direct t-ball into channels down the flanks for the advanced wingers to run on to, then the closing down/always should be removed along with the mentioned marking instruction.

But, when the wingers are given normal attacking options, staying wide or not, , I find that the closing down setting works like a charm as the MCs have few clear passing option and there is a good chance that their MCs makes passes sideways that our wingers intercepts.

In this game, I would probably have converted to 5.Balanced, removed the marking as mentioned before and used the OI tweaks against the 424.

[okeu]

hey TBH,ur thread is gone..where is it?

[isuckatfm]

Just a quick point about focusing on match stats and individual OIs. They work within context and you only really know the context from the 2D so seetting OI close down often might make no diffrence if the player in question is receiving in enough space that your players are unable to apply the OI effectively.

Also you need to not just look at the key pass moment but how it built up, i.e. how could I stop it at source either by keeping possession better or restricting the path to the point of the key pass.

Key pass 1: 00:33 Ball to Ronaldo

Ferdinand wins ball off Pav and plays it to Nani. Not the first time Pavlyuchenko will be ineffective at running with the ball

Watch your back line drop off which creates separation from the Man Utd striker allowing Berbatov to gather possession without much pressure. Maybe a higher line would help for this? But not sure as D Line isn’t as obvious as previous versions and can vary contextually in my experience. But there is a pattern of your CBs not attacking the ball when played into the strikers like this.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/798/donpost007.jpg

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9443/donpost008.jpg

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/2555/donpost009.jpg

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4913/donpost010.jpg

Here you also see context at play. Anderson had dropped back to challenge Pav and then pushed on when United regained possession. Because he is directly opposite your holding MC this created space for him to receive the ball in. Anderson’s workrate and teamwork play a role in his tracking back behaviour.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3314/donpost011.jpg

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6240/donpost012.jpg

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What you can’t account for

1. Rooney strength, holding off 3 players (evn with hard tackling OI no challenge is made) plus his vision/decision making to do what he did in turning then freeing Ronaldo

2. defensive shifting relative to the ball leaving Rooney unmarked. Maybe width or maybe FB marking might have had him tighter to Rooney but to be honest that’s a big maybe; specific most likely to get 100% man marking

Main question is what are your #11 ML settings re marking/mentality? With a reasonable mentality and Zonal Loose there is a good chance he might have dropped back and been in position to block that pass to Ronaldo. Instead he gravitates to Hargreaves #4 very early and sticks to him. His initial movement maybe suggests closing down Rooney or could just be inherent funnelling as defense retreats. Of course it could also just be a ‘player mistake’.

Key Pass 2: 20:55 through ball to Berbatov

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Pavlyuchenko loses possession in running with the ball (maybe mishit pass from keirrison but hard to tell). Note the behaviour of Ferdinand in getting stuck in as it contrasts with what happens at your end.

Ferdinand outlet to Rooney. Mentality plus forward runs contribute to defender aggressiveness in pushing out when a ball is cleared. This helped in Rooney initially being able to drop off to act as the outlet.

Secondly look at the symmetry. Rooney is the one persistently dropping off so you should probably have your MCd Huddlestone #6 on his side. As it stands Ferdinand pass takes your MCd out of the game making his role to hold back ineffective.

Look at your defensive line. From the screenshots you see how as Ferdinand’s pass goes forward, they retreat. This contributes to the spacing for Rooney to pick up unchallenged and turn to take on your defense (the different movements shown with arrows in screenshot donpost163). As Rooney runs at them they retreat even further and again you see how your MCd is unable to do anything to get to Rooney on time.

With Berbatov and marking it’s hard to say. It’s supposed to simulate football so players have to get loose sometimes. What I will say is to get actual 100% man marking specific is the most effective (but a pain in the ass to keep an eye on)

Key pass 3: 21:15 wide ball to ronaldo

This happens directly after last attack with Taylor tackling Berbatov deep to clear, Evra picking up and reinitiating the attack.

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/2414/donpost167.jpg

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Out of your control: initial movement of MR #5 contributes to Nani finding space. Assuming he is set up the same s ML #11 he should be in more or less the same lateral position.

Hargreaves coming from deep to receive pass from Nani. Numerous ways to look at this

- potentially your MC #6 man marking their #8 opened up room

- could look at having a striker track back (knock on effects though)

- #15 MC doesn’t really react (out of your control?)

FB inside marking Rooney. Hppens a lot and the only way around it is specific marking on the winger but that has it’s issues. Tight man or use of OI in my experience tends to make it more prevalent but the inherently coded funnelling of the back line often makes this type of sequence inevitable.

Ronaldo free and winger not back. In prior sequence I mentioned marking of MR #11. But here anything other than specific man marking would have seen Ronaldo free because of the context. I’ve tested it to death and believe this to be true regardless of mentalities/marking system, namely that recycled ball alongside advanced winger will always see the wingers in the defending team 442 push out. Open to correction of course.

As in previous key pass examples you just cannot account for what Rooney does, his touch, his strength in holding of players, his determination in doing so, his vision to spot the pass and his ability to execute.

Key pass 4: 23:36 ball to berbatov

The build up included in screenshots.

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Pavlyuchenko loses possession running with the ball again, but can’t account for Anderson’s work rate nor the slow dribbling effect that allows United players to get back.

Your defense again exhibit retreat behaviour when Anderson pass goes forward but Rooney/Berbatov switched and Rooney more advanced means Ignashevich is in position to challenge. But context out of your control makes this not happen

- rooney’s first touch away from the defender

- Ignashevich right footer (?) affects tackling decision

Then the nature of how Berbatov gets free in deeper position is again out of your control in this context

- quick cleared ball meant separation of FB-CB in transition from defensive width to attacking width => open channel for Berbatov to drift into

• If playing narrower less of an effect but then have to consider impact when attacking
  
• Higher mentalities on defenders maybe makes them push out more aggressively
  
• Then a higher D Line keeps the space squeezed and makes them more likely to pick up higher up the pitch (why tight marking might not happen due to D Line overriding relative to where striker is, except when attacks get deeper)
  

- Taylor #27 movement is terrible

You make a choice as closing down one avenue makes you open to others e.g. here I’m saying DL plus mentalities contributed but if they were higher that might leave you open to balls in behind. As it is without the uncontrollable factors your tactic is doing as intended, daring Man Utd to beat you from range (it might be working more here because Man Utd are not exactly playing attacking but that’s another hypothetical story)

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Second misleading stats point. Anderson tackles and run with ball. Most of Anderson’s tackles came from tracking back which is heavily influenced by his workrate. So it wasn’t what you visualise in your head of your MCs running into him but because of the defensive vs defensive set ups him getting into your winger and deeper striker who were closer to him due to Man Utd’s more conservative stance.

Same goes for his 2 key passes. You might apply the sam closing down logic s before but he would have been able to damage even with OIs because of the separation that was occurring on the pitch due to his movements and your defensive line/MCd positioning. If determined to keep MCd then you need to start looking at your drop off striker coming deeper or even switching to a 451.

--------------------------------------------------------------

FB involvement is again largely down to defensive vs defensive and the little things (striker first touches and run with ball effectiveness) which affect maintaining possession. Basically you are dropping off while their FBs aren’t advancing, thus they see lots of passes from the MCs back out to them when the middle gets constricted, they also received a number of times from their strikers sitting of your back 4 and recycling the ball.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

All the above is first half alone. Fact is after 10 minutes United went very conservative and it was defensive vs defensive with success dependent on striker’s ability to find space and keep possession. You’ll see this 2D event reflected in possession where their front two started to run with ball more often but did so into poor paths, allowing your defenders to get a tackle in and removing the gains accumulated from separation. So it swung from 66:34 ~28minutes to 57:43 ~38minutes largely influenced by individual ME moments that are in the main independent of tactics (although their back line seemed less aggressive in challenging for balls to feet of strikers, it could just be nature of the passes chosen by your players).

[kolobok]

A couple comments on screenshots and stats.

1. ManUtd play very wide, but you play way too narrow. On one screenshot your FB is marking Rooney, even though it's clearly not the FB's zone. ManUtd wide players are way too open. wwfan thinks it's a result of OI, I would also think about playing a bit wider.

2. Look at pass completion by your back 4 and wide players (after 20-25 minutes). It's terrible. Why? Are they under so much pressure that they simply hooffing ball up or they are instructed to do something they cannot do properly (at least against ManUtd).

3. Your assesment of who to mark tight sounds a bit strange, given the off the ball stats of Rooney and especially Berbatov, as well as passing abilities of most of ManUtd players. How long your defs have played together prior to this match? Are you sure that they would be able to pick up Berbatov effectively when he moves across the field or keep up with Rooney's pace? I would not even consider tight marking one of them.

4. What was the point to tackle Rooney hard? He has bravery = 15, agression = 17, strenghth = 16. The only reason I can imagine is to count on him loosing his temper.

5. Vidic attempted 15 headers in the first half. Who was supposed to win those headers on your side? I mean, competeing in the air with Vidic and Ferdinand is tough, so why draw yourself in such competition.

[donpost2]

Wow - a lot of action in here! I'll try to address the big points 1 by 1.

WWfan - Nice analysis!

Would the answer to point 1 to be to tight mark all of the front four and designate a defensive midfield player to man mark Fletcher (who was making forward runs from MC).

Regarding point 2, could this be acheived by reducing the midfield closing down so they stay in place (blocking through balls). I would have thought that giving Man Utd midfielders time on the ball would allow them to make through balls anyway, even if my players are attempting to place themselves in the way. Obviously, I'm wrong, but why?

Surferosa - Thank you. I was hard tackling Rooney (on recommendation of my AssMan). Not sure if it had a postive effect or not.

You mentioned that I could have upped the MCd's passing to slightly more direct to try to take advantage of the long pitch. Why the MCd, and why would increasing the length of his passing help? Would Keirrison otherwise be "out of range" of his passing? Or does it just make him prefer to play a longer ball (which would more likely than not be to one of the strikers as they are the farthest away from him) cause him to play balls up to Keirrison more often?

I do have a save from before the Man Utd game. I keep lots of saves because I'm paranoid that one will get corrupted (It's happened to me before ). I may replay the game, not to get a win (I'm already a few weeks ahead of that game now) but to see if I can see the effect of the recommendations made in this thread.

TBH - When you say you would have used 5. Balanced, do you mean from the start? Why would you have chosen balanced? It's interesting to read what you say about closing down the MCs. OI are clearly very important.

isuckatfm - What a post! I haven't read it properly yet, I'm hoping to do that tonight, but what I have seen is very useful. I'll have more to ask you on what you say later

PS - Can I have your username? It suits me more than it suits you

kolobok Thank for taking the time to watch the game.

1) I read somewhere else on the forum today that width only affects the width of your team when you have the ball. Probably a mistake. I played narrow to try to make it hard for Man Utd to pass through me. Could I go wide without sacraficing this crowding effect?

2) My back four were hoofing the ball forward to clear it a lot.

3) I chose tight marking because it was an essential OI according to TBHs thread (which is where I got the tactic). I didn't really think about the player stats.

4) I hard tackled Rooney on the advice of my AssMan. Looking at the match stats, by the end of the game he hadn't been fouled once, but you can also see he has won 2 of 3 tackles. Is this significant?

5) I was confused as to why he was getting so many headers. I think earlier in the thread it was suggested it was something to do with Gomes' distribution. Pav was the targetman type player, but he clearly wasn't doing a very good job. He won 2 of 5 headers.

[kolobok]

Wow - a lot of action in here! I'll try to address the big points 1 by 1.

kolobok Thank for taking the time to watch the game.

1) I read somewhere else on the forum today that width only affects the width of your team when you have the ball. Probably a mistake. I played narrow to try to make it hard for Man Utd to pass through me. Could I go wide without sacraficing this crowding effect?

2) My back four were hoofing the ball forward to clear it a lot.

3) I chose tight marking because it was an essential OI according to TBHs thread (which is where I got the tactic). I didn't really think about the player stats.

4) I hard tackled Rooney on the advice of my AssMan. Looking at the match stats, by the end of the game he hadn't been fouled once, but you can also see he has won 2 of 3 tackles. Is this significant?

5) I was confused as to why he was getting so many headers. I think earlier in the thread it was suggested it was something to do with Gomes' distribution. Pav was the targetman type player, but he clearly wasn't doing a very good job. He won 2 of 5 headers.

You are doing a good job here.

Unfortunately, I did not watch games (I mentioned in the previous post that my comments are based on screenshots) - I usualy write from work (where else I would have spare time:D). In my experience, whenever I hard tackle some strong player, one of my players would get injured. May be just a coincidence, but I usually hard tackle someone weak.

My guess would be that Vidic won most of his headers in the middle of the pitch: when defs would hoof the ball up, Vidic would intercept it But since it was not a pass it went to headers rather than interception.

[Surferosa]

..genius..

Seriously- that was one of the best bits of analysis I've read. This thread is rapidly heading towards the bible if the quality of response maintains the level its currently at. Brilliant read

Surferosa - Thank you. I was hard tackling Rooney (on recommendation of my AssMan). Not sure if it had a postive effect or not.

You mentioned that I could have upped the MCd's passing to slightly more direct to try to take advantage of the long pitch. Why the MCd, and why would increasing the length of his passing help? Would Keirrison otherwise be "out of range" of his passing? Or does it just make him prefer to play a longer ball (which would more likely than not be to one of the strikers as they are the farthest away from him) cause him to play balls up to Keirrison more often?

I do have a save from before the Man Utd game. I keep lots of saves because I'm paranoid that one will get corrupted (It's happened to me before ). I may replay the game, not to get a win (I'm already a few weeks ahead of that game now) but to see if I can see the effect of the recommendations made in this thread.

One of the issues I have with the defensive variant (when used against very strong sttacking teams) is it can turn into a seige. Which, if they are a very good team, sometimes seems like you are just waiting to the opposition to score. Given that, I would be getting your best passer / creative player (which should always be the MCd in TBH's set- its not a traditional DM role) instructions that encourage him to make the use of your fast pace up front. In effect, I want him to be bypassing the rest of the midfield- either by putting a long ball through for Kerrison to run onto- or getting the ball to Pav (who has to hold onto it better- take on board isuckatfm's comments regarding the holding player- you need to change his runs with ball setting).

TBH has hinted that Balanced may be a better approach in her variants- but I would perceiver with this: my personal belief is that a big part of the issue you has was with the marking and OI instructions employed- hence why I think it would be a really useful / experiment / learning process to see if you can improve the overall performance of the variant by 'tweaking'

I disagree slightly with kolobok's comments regarding thard tackling. The strange thing is- he describes how I use hard-tackling perfectly. I look at bravery and strength of every opp player and if they are low- Ill put on hard tackling. However- when someone is obviously playing a blinder- I will make sure I have someone that has high stats for tackling, aggression, bravery- and kick the crap out of him (hard tackle).

kolobok is absolutely correct- it increases the risk of injuries / set pieces to you. But it also increases the risk of injury to the opp player- and ultimately Id rather conceed a free kick than give him a chance to ride out a weak tackle and be in enough space to really open me up.

WIth regards to replaying the game- if you can't be bothered- can I suggest you host the save somewhere? I'd love to have a pop at seeing if I can make that specefic variant work better: although I'd be much more interested to see what some of the (infinitely) more knowledgable tacticians above make of it

[donpost2]

Hi all. Time to update the thread!

First of all, last night I made a few ingame tweaks in one of my matches.

I was playing Ajax (a) in the UEFA Cup Q/Finals. The game started with Ajax well on top (luckily I was 3-0 up from the first leg). Then I noticed this:

The two full backs (circled in red) were able to rampage up the flanks un-guarded. In the screenshot above, the right full back was just about to receive a through ball in a dangerous position. My solution - get my wingers to man mark their full backs. This was slightly hampered by the fact that my wingers were Marquinhos and Lennon, not exactly defensivly minded but whatever.

In this next screenshot you can see my changes in action:

Did I deal with them correctly? I'm not sure. Here is a screenshot of the final match stats:

Whoops! Most people would have to work very hard to play a non-silly tactic and get thumped that badly. For me, it comes naturally

[kolobok]

Man, you really played way too deep. To Allow Ajax take 39 shots - it's something. And your team is clearly not worse than them. What are you so afraid of that you chose so defensive tactic? Push them off! Don't let them come at you and do whatever they want at your half. I consider that I made a tactical, teamtalk, or squad choice mistake if opposition creates more than 2 clear cut chances per game (excluding penalty). And remember - the more they have to defend, they less chance they have to create something.

One more thing - your pass completion is too low. Even 70% is not high, but 52% is like giving ball avay every second time.

[donpost2]

Looking at what others have posted in this thread, I am obviously way off the pace. I can understand what you are saying, but I cannot draw conclusions from the match engine like that. Yet anyway.

What I plan to do, is walk before I can run. What I need is a more structured approach to tactics. At the moment I am swamped by all of the stats and options. After a bit of digging around, I found this:

http://www.fm-britain.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=4578

(You need a FM Britian forums account to view it. I don't want to cut and paste out of respect for FM Britain.)

It describes how to read the AI's basic match strategy, and the best strategy to use to counter it. All you need is a set of 5 tactics, in the same way as TT&F. So SUS, Defense(counter), Standard, Attacking, and Control. This allows me to define the following methodical approach to a match:

1) Anticipate the basic approach the AI will use, and by looking at the thread I posted above, choose a strategy to counter it.

2) Watch the game in full match and, by looking for the indicators of AI strategy outlined in the FM Britain thread, set your strategy to counter it.

3) You can now choose to simply watch extended/key highlights, until you notice the AI change strategies. This is indicated in the match commentary by "Team B have changed to a more attacking tactic" type messages. Head back to step 2.

This approach simplfies the game, and omits things such as OI and in game tweaking. But walk before you run and all that....

I'm convince ANYONE could play the game this way. Even someone who is new to FM. You just need to read that thread. What I plan to do is play this way until I am happy that I can choose the correct basic match strategy. Then I need to concunt a new method that incorporates OIs. Then when I'm confident at that, incorporate ingame tweaks etc etc.

I'm off to create a set of tactics by reading TT&F (the wizard that will hopefully be included in FM10 will make this task sooo much quicker). I'll report back with my findings on the success of this approach.

[donpost2]

Man, you really played way too deep. To Allow Ajax take 39 shots - it's something. And your team is clearly not worse than them. What are you so afraid of that you chose so defensive tactic? Push them off! Don't let them come at you and do whatever they want at your half. I consider that I made a tactical, teamtalk, or squad choice mistake if opposition creates more than 2 clear cut chances per game (excluding penalty). And remember - the more they have to defend, they less chance they have to create something.

One more thing - your pass completion is too low. Even 70% is not high, but 52% is like giving ball avay every second time.

In that match I started with a defensive tactic, but soon moved it up to normal (around 20th min). My D-line was set at around 11/12 after I noticed my line of four defenders just backing off anything coming towards them! Ajax were playing a 4-3-2-1 with 3 MCs and 2 AMCs, and I couldn't handle it at all.

And yes, that pass completion is atrocious.

[Cityull]

great thread, i shall keep an eye out for it to see what everyone has to say.

[donpost2]

First game using this method. My possession and pass completion stats were not as good as they should be, but 3 CCCs to 1 is promising. Man City were playing the same 4-3-2-1 as Ajax, so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised by the possession/pass completion. The FMBritain post I linked to above I think is geared towards countering 4-4-2s.

EDIT: Man City are my bogey team, so it's nice to beat them

[HELP ME WITH FM PLS]

this thread helped me so much.

On my lyn save I decided to finally try creating my own tactics. Until I read this I was barely winning games, despite having vastly better players. The small tweeks this thread suggests change so much though! I set my defenders with slightly defensive mentality, my holding midfielder holdup ball with slightly defensive, his midfield partner hold up runs and stopped playing a target man, but instead simply have my target man hold up ball, and set my two strikers to have closer mentalities, and it's amazing, I'm actually starting to see partnership between my midfielders and my strikers are gelling together well too, and I've been dominance ever since, I'm starting to get a hang of this now due to this thread! Thank you OP!

[dooter7th]

lets face it everyone

the last 2 years has seen them kill off this game

its simply to hard , to random and still full of flaws

2007 was the last really good one for me

2008 was just awefull and saw the departure of the clan i was in

now 2009 is just far too random ..its rediculous

i have given it my best efforts but still seem to play well then all of a sudden , boom

and some game its as if your just not supposed to win

rubbish !!! bring back the realism

[HELP ME WITH FM PLS]

lets face it everyone

the last 2 years has seen them kill off this game

its simply to hard , to random and still full of flaws

2007 was the last really good one for me

2008 was just awefull and saw the departure of the clan i was in

now 2009 is just far too random ..its rediculous

i have given it my best efforts but still seem to play well then all of a sudden , boom

and some game its as if your just not supposed to win

rubbish !!! bring back the realism

yeh they AI gives way too many epic Man Utd comebacks for my liking, I mean yes they do it alot, but when I get my tactics spot on and am beating them convincingly everytime last 20 minutes, epic fluke Wayne Rooney 40 yard shots. I make adjustments that work against every team but Man U can't be stopped seemingly. I once had to play them 5 times in 6 weeks due to Carling Cup Tie, League and FA cup replay. Tied once, but every other game-up one or two goals 20 minutes left, no matter what I do-epic comeback. I got so frusterated I just stuck 10 men behind the ball, no forwards or anything, Ultra defensive, and yet---epic 2 goal come back with 10 minutes to go, and win in extra time. Maybe it's all me getting tactics wrong, but the tactics that hold a lead vs every other team-just doesnt work vs Man U its a joke

[axehan1]

First game using this method. My possession and pass completion stats were not as good as they should be, but 3 CCCs to 1 is promising. Man City were playing the same 4-3-2-1 as Ajax, so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised by the possession/pass completion. The FMBritain post I linked to above I think is geared towards countering 4-4-2s.

EDIT: Man City are my bogey team, so it's nice to beat them

does this now mean you were able to see how man city were playing and adjust your tactics accordingly?you could tell when they were on top and you wanted to counter or they were defensive and you wanted to attack etc?i had a good read of the topic you were refering to and its very interesting stuff but could you actually see what was unfolding on the pitch?

[donpost2]

HELP ME WITH FM PLS - Glad to see you have benefitted I can't take credit though really, its the tactical wizards who have provided good advice! I think vs Man U, if Mr Ferguson is managing, he is a very good manager which makes him get more out of his players tactically and motivationally.

dooter7th - I can't agree with you saying the game is too random + flawed. I think it represents real football better than any of the FM/CMs before it.

On the matter of the game being too hard - I think the tactical AI for the computer managers has been improved season on season. This incarnation of FM is the first to have no real match engine exploits (other than the corner "cheat"). The bar has been raised, and if you are not good enough tactically (like me), then you will not get above average results (average being defined as the level the computer AI are at). I think most if not all human managers are better at the transfer market, and overall squad strategy. But in tactical ability, the AI is ahead of a lot of human players.

There are only two solutions to this: a) improve the tactical ability of the human managers, or b) decrease the tactical ability of the AI managers.

I think a) is preferable, but I'm not sure how it could be acheived.

b) could be acheived by having a "dumb tactical AI" option in the preferences, but it doesn't right. It would create a two-tier playing community. Also, personally, I would like to be able to improve my performances against human opposition, which wouldn't happen if a "dumb tactical AI" option was present.

That's my 2p anyway

axehan1

As I mentioned in my post, Man City were playing a non-4-4-2 formation, which made it harder for me to use that guide to read their strategy. However, there are certain things I could still look for that were there. For example, I determined the Man City full back's "forward runs" setting by watching how they they acted when Man City were on the ball. They were making occasional forward runs, not every time. I assumed from this that Man City were playing a balanced approach, and used the FM Britain guide to choose my tactic accordingly.

I will say that the FMBritain guide was written for FM07/FM08, so I'm not sure how relevant it is for FM09 in terms of what tactic to choose to counter the opposition, but it has relelant information on how to ascertain the AI's tactics.

It's not hard to read the basic AI strategy, the key is to concentrate on one thing at a time (and use full match highlights). For example, try to determine AI forward runs only. If you see the AI player bombing forward ahead of the other players in the team EVERY time the AI attack, then you know the player is on forward runs = always. If he only bombs forward every now and then, then he is on forward runs = mixed. If he always stays in formation and never bombs forward, he is on forward runs = never. Making these readings isn't too hard, with very little practice. Making correct tactical decisions based on these readings is the hard part, and something that is beyond my grasp.

[footynut]

I've only just stumbled over this interesting and well written thread as I missed it first time around. It's a shame it didn't carry on with more feedback from the tactical geniuses out there as there was some interesting points coming from it.

A couple comments on screenshots and stats.

1. ManUtd play very wide, but you play way too narrow. On one screenshot your FB is marking Rooney, even though it's clearly not the FB's zone. ManUtd wide players are way too open. wwfan thinks it's a result of OI, I would also think about playing a bit wider.

kolobok Thank for taking the time to watch the game.

1) I read somewhere else on the forum today that width only affects the width of your team when you have the ball. Probably a mistake. I played narrow to try to make it hard for Man Utd to pass through me. Could I go wide without sacraficing this crowding effect?

And you're spot on donpost2

When defending you want your team to stay compact (narrow) restricting the space that the opposition has to play in and as soon as you win the ball back to start an attack you want to spread out creating space (wide).

[Nickelless Cage]

Hi,

the mentioned link (FM Brit) seems to have been upgraded.. can you please tell us the name of the thread to look for ?... i'd greatly appreciate it

[SFraser]

Whoever said that football is a game of two halves was either a genius or an idiot.

Or he was Alex Ferguson.

There is some great stuff in this thread but if you want to read the Match Engine then you must pay attention to what is happening on the pitch in every game in your career. That is the end of the story.

If you do not watch full match replays then you do not play against the Match Engine. Nothing could be more simple.

Watch your god damn games. You might even get excited.

Football Management? Totally a passive sport. Bloody Hell.

[Loversleaper]

I've taken a look at donpost2's posts and I would like to explain how I would look at the Man U - Tottenham match and how you could interpret what to do.

"The opposition looks to draw their opponents on to them and counter-attacks":

Usually you won't see a team like Man U playing like this at home, so this indicates that you have a good team and they respect you so they won't be playing hard attacking football to start with. For me this means that I can actually use a tactic in the Normal area (default tactics), for me that would mean you can use a tactic that implements Mentality (10) or (11). You are quite balanced with your attacking and defending with these Mentalities, and through time and testing this ideology works quite well. If you go up a goal then you will expect Man U to go at you with more attacking football that is why it would be a good idea to have a tactic that is similar to the default tactics defensive ideology, that means using a tactic that implements defensive mentalities. My defensive tactics use mostly mentality (6).

"The pitch is long and favors a direct passing style":

In this case it is a good idea to use direct passing because you are not favorite. If I were favorites then it is not nessassary because short passing is better to out play your opponent (unless it is raining, of course). To play direct passing usually requires very fast strikers especially on these types of pitches.

"Perfers his team to play possession football" & "Their midfield are good on the ball and create chances":

You can expect a team like Man U to play this way as they usually have world class squads. I don't think closing down them more is the solution. I think you need to play Narrow Width (around 3 for me) to restict their room to pass the ball around and suggest that (since you are away from home) that you don't Close Down more than 14 (top notch of own half on slider) and you can use a Defensive line of (9). Center Backs Close Down most effectively (in my opinion) in the 6-8 range and the rest on team. I would also implement lower creative freedom to minimise the chance that I will get caught out of possition, maybe use a Creative Freedom setting of (6), which is first notch of little.

"We need to have a plan for their strikers because they are fast and quick":

I would say this would have to be long term planning. You need to get really good center backs preferably with speed and acceleration. I personally find it too pressure inviting if you bring your defensive line too deep, and your team (Tottenham) should have some pretty decent defenders so I think the defensive line of (9), which is more in the middle, sounds about right.

Against Man U away they will most likely have the possession so using a quicker (tempo) direct passing might surprise them. I would also start out by time wasting a little (14 or so) which will help giving Man U less possession time on the ball (which of course can be dangerous). I would also "wish luck" so not to put too much pressure on the squad, unless Man U were really bitter rivals then the simple "for the fans" should be good enough.

Other small hints when looking at Match Stats:

Now, this game against Man U is going to be difficult regardless of what you do and you can't expect to dominate them on their home pitch so reading the match stats will not always give you an indication of what went wrong. If you were bombed out of the pitch I would say that you probably should have used a Defensive Mentality tactic to start with, but if you take your time (especially in these top matches) and really have a good idea what is going on in the match it should be fairly easy to change and see which is doing better. Usually the ME has vital signs it is giving you indications what can be wrong (or right) and the Match Stats tell the rest of the story. For example, let's say that you have a good home tactic and it has been working for quite a while where you dominate possession, but all of a sudden against an opponent that you should be beating has more than 55%possession against you. This is telling you that the AI has changed their tactical outlook against you and looking to shut up shop, usually when this occurs (poorer opponent has possession) it is because you are not closing down enough and maybe not extreme enough in some of your other settings. This match (Man u - Spurs) is too hard to make a thorough analysis but you should be looking at stats over a periode of time to make the right adjustments because usually you will notice a match stat pattern...

[B1G_D]

^^^ Just to add to that, you should NEVER PLAY A DEEP DEFENSIVE LINE at the beginning of a match, it's a HUGE no no IRL and in FM. Against any team when they have the ball you want to "SQUEEZE THE PITCH" by pushing your line up and playing as far AWAY from your goal as possible (offside trap is useful here). Also against very good teams TIGHT MARKING STRIKERS IS POINTLESS and will just tire your centre backs out. Instead look to have your centre backs "drop off" towards your goal at all times so that they are always in position to sweep up crosses, through balls and keeper splliages etc. The rest of your team should look to GET TIGHT to prevent good opp midfielders time on the ball. Also PLAY NARROWer to stop gaps forming and allow opp players space to run into.

[footynut]

^^^ Just to add to that, you should NEVER PLAY A DEEP DEFENSIVE LINE at the beginning of a match, it's a HUGE no no IRL and in FM. Against any team when they have the ball you want to "SQUEEZE THE PITCH" by pushing your line up and playing as far AWAY from your goal as possible (offside trap is useful here). Also against very good teams TIGHT MARKING STRIKERS IS POINTLESS and will just tire your centre backs out. Instead look to have your centre backs "drop off" towards your goal at all times so that they are always in position to sweep up crosses, through balls and keeper splliages etc. The rest of your team should look to GET TIGHT to prevent good opp midfielders time on the ball. Also PLAY NARROWer to stop gaps forming and allow opp players space to run into.

I'm not sure I agree with this...

[B1G_D]

I'm not sure I agree with this...

.............?

[phnompenhandy]

I'm with footynut - you seem to be recommending a one-size-fits-all tactic. If your defenders are mentally subnormal and slower than John Terry with concrete boots against speedy opposition forwards, you must defend deep. If the oppo striker(s) are slow and lumbering, tight-marking them can be very effective, especially if their strength is long-shots or headers. Your tactics should always depend on the qualities of both your own players and the oppositions'.

[footynut]

.............?

Well, to say that no team would ever start with a deep defensive line in real life is complete nonsense. I’ve been to loads of matches at Stamford Bridge where the opposition start with a deep defensive line restricting the space in behind them.

Also, to say that tight marking against good strikers is pointless, well c’mon, you’re having a laugh aren’t you???

[B1G_D]

Your right about the defensive line, teams do start out to defend their own half and CA, but it is a negative way to approach a game and unless your team can break with pace, you will struggle to score. I maintain that tight marking strikers is a no no, your centre backs should always look to stay close to each other and maintain correct pitch position.