olrion Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I think I may have finally found a tactic for my Manchester City team that allows me to win games that used to be immediate defeats. I play a 4-2-3-1 tactic, rigid with a contain mentality. Using this tactic I have beaten Arsenal 2-1 (who I never beat) both of my games in Europe (the first game of which I first adopted the contain mentality and I came from 1-0 down to win 2-1 late on) and I am sitting top of the league after 8 Premier League games. Generally, all is going well. I'm scraping wins and not conceeding many goals. However, I don't really understand why this tactic works. Contain is described as a tactic to use when you have no hope of winning a game but you just want to frustrate your opponent a.k.a keep the scoreline down. In the past when I read the pre-match build up and notice I am favourite to win the match, I try control or attacking mentality, as the description reads, 'these tactics for if you are the favourite....' and I found it to throw up inconsistent results. Does anyone else use this tactic? Does it work for you? This is my favoured starting XI: GK Ochoa DR Opare DL Helan DC Lescott DC Onuhoa CM Defour CM De Jong AMR Gourcuff AML Ozil AMC F. Kroos CF Cristaldo Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
olrion Posted July 20, 2010 Author Share Posted July 20, 2010 In addition to my original post - I have found that when searching for a goal, adopting the opposite mentality to what you think you should adopt works far better. Maybe I am just naive, but when you need to find a goal I would expect that changing to attacking or overload mentality would help to have a go at your opponents - as well as leaving yourself open to a counter attack. But, I have found that changing mentality to contain works far better in finding much needed goals than attacking does! Strange! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunskelper2009 Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 Depending on how much creative freedom you give to your attacking 4 it may be that the defence and holding midfielders are playing entirely on the defensive but the others are ignoring your instructions and playing attacking football. I take it most of your goals in these games come from counter-attacks? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falahk Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 your team looks very fast, so I would picture that it works well on the conter attack, so a defencive mentalety might play into your hands to drag the opsosing team onto you and then hit them on the break Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
aderow Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 your team looks very fast, so I would picture that it works well on the conter attack, so a defencive mentalety might play into your hands to drag the opsosing team onto you and then hit them on the break I agree. Counter would be good as it is still somewhat defensive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falahk Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I agree. Counter would be good as it is still somewhat defensive. I was not really suggesting he should play on counter, more that it was a side effect of his defensive tactics, but yeah defensive or counter might work well to in this regard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
aderow Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I was not really suggesting he should play on counter, more that it was a side effect of his defensive tactics, but yeah defensive or counter might work well to in this regard My bad. Thats what happens when you read things too quickly.... Anyways he should try counter if does want to changes things up at some point. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
olrion Posted July 21, 2010 Author Share Posted July 21, 2010 Dammit! And just like that this tactic is as frail as the rest. Lost 3-1 to Sunderland and 2-1 to Manchester United. Losing to United is fair enough, but why do I lose so many games against teams I should be beating?!?! I am only a few games in and only three points behind the top team, but I have lost to Hull and Sunderland already and I have a track record of losing AT LEAST 10 games a season. The team I listed above shouldn't be losing that many games, especially to Hull and Sunderland! The only positive about my league at the moment is that Cristaldo is an absolute goal machine! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
simsejensen Posted July 21, 2010 Share Posted July 21, 2010 I think you need to think "more out of the box".. How are you handling team talks? Hows the moral on your team? Do you use OI's? Do you "counter" the OI's tactic? Do you use any tweaks during a match? - and do they actually work? /SJ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
olrion Posted July 22, 2010 Author Share Posted July 22, 2010 I think you need to think "more out of the box".. How are you handling team talks? Hows the moral on your team? Do you use OI's? Do you "counter" the OI's tactic? Do you use any tweaks during a match? - and do they actually work? /SJ It's not as straight forward as that. I do tweak tactics during a game and adopt a playing approach that I assume should make my team play better. For example, if I'm being outplayed I 'hassle' opponents and if I have stronger wingers than my oppositions wing backs I 'exploit the flanks' for instance. I have mixed success and have consistently finished the season between 4th and 6th place, but with the players I have got, I should be pushing for the title. I will go 10 games without losing but then I'll play say Chelsea, Wolves and Hull and I'll lose them all! To answer the specifics of your questions: How are you handling team talks? - I vary it. If players are on good form I tell them to pick up where they left off. I tend to use 'for the fans' and 'you can win this'. If they lose to Hull I give them what for with a 'disappointing' or 'angry' team talk as I want the players to know that defeat to teams they should be beating isn't good enough. Hows the moral on your team? 90% of the season my players are either superb or very good morale. When I go through a dire patch, where I lose a few games in a row, the morale drops to poor sometimes but most of the time my team are brimming with confidence. Do you use OI's? Sometimes. I have read on these forums that you want to lead certain players on their weak foot, not mark quick players tightly and press where you can. If I can see a player is going to be a threat I ensure that I have tacking set to hard and to lead them onto their weaker foot. It doesn't really work all that much as they just batter my side anyway. Do you "counter" the OI's tactic? Yes, I do. If my opposition are attacking I defend or counter, which works sometimes but not as often as I would like. Do you use any tweaks during a match? - and do they actually work? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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