Lower League Basic Tactic

[thezogsageordie]

What would your starting tactic be if you was a Lower League club? I've managed to take Stranraer into Division One of Scotland's League with back to back promotions but I've really struggled with the standard. I've not got a bad team but it's definitely not the best in the league. I've read Heath's LLM thread and while I find it a good read I'm just curious what sort of instructions and formation people would play. I used to play a 4-2-3-1 with the 3 behind my striker getting most of the goals/assists. I've even tried just standard 4-2-3-1 so what settings would you use as a starting basis with this formation?

[RedBlueEagle]

I think I am in the same boat. The obvious answer is, it depends on the players you have. Maybe this thread could develop into a "How do people feel an ideal 4-2-3-1 could be set up and how would it develop as the team climbs the leagues?"

I am currently toying with something Millie (on another forum) has used.

GK- Defend

FBs - Auto

CBs - Defend

MCr - Advanced Playmaker - Support

MCl - Ball Winning - Defend

AMR/L and AMC - Inner Forwards - Attack

FC - Deep Lying Fwd - Support

Sometimes it works wonders others not so well.

All of the team settings are set to default as I try to use shouts to change them. I am thinking I may need to tweak these a bit and I too would like some advice.

Sorry if this seems like highjacking te thread but I am interested too.

[heathxxx]

GK- Defend

FBs - Auto

CBs - Defend

MCr - Advanced Playmaker - Support

MCl - Ball Winning - Defend

AMR/L and AMC - Inner Forwards - Attack

FC - Deep Lying Fwd - Support

That's pretty much how I would set up the positions with a 4-2-3-1 in the lower leagues with limited quality players. With much better quality central midfielders, I do like to use two deep-lying playmakers though. One "defend" and one "support". Finding players really suited to play the deep-lying playmaker role really well in the lower leagues, can be difficult. They have to be good all-round players, with very good mental attributes especially.

As for team instructions, it would obviously depend on both the individual and overall quality of my players. Unless I'm confident and comfortable my team is significantly better than others in my division, I would use a balanced philosophy with a standard starting strategy.

My personal preference for passing style is to stay at default, though I may use touchline instructions during matches to switch between more direct or shorter passing, either by changing the team setting or via the appropriate shouts.

Creative freedom I would leave at default. If I have plenty of creative midfielders and forwards, then I will try to use their ability with a more expressive setting. If I haven't got many creative players, then I'll go with more disciplined, which basically suggests "keep it simple and don't try anything too fancy".

Tackling I always leave at default, but may apply the shouts "get stuck in" or "stay on feet". There's a number of factors that will influence my decisions with these shouts, not least the strictness of the referee. Weather conditions will sometimes be considered, especially on slippery surfaces, such as heavy rain or ice. In those sort of conditions, I'd rather players didn't fly in with harder tackles and risk giving away fouls or possibly even injuring themselves.

Marking, I use zonal marking more so in the lower leagues. My reasoning for this is that I would prefer my defensive players to mark zones, rather than specific players, unless they have high marking and good overall mental attributes. Even if I have players with high marking, unless they're mentally capable of man-marking well, I'd rather they didn't risk trying.

Crossing I always tend to stick with default, simply because I prefer my wide players to try both floated and drilled crosses. Full-backs, I usually find will pump the ball into the box from deep positions anyway and I actually find some of the best crosses come from my full-backs.

Roaming can be a difficult one to gauge and can be useful in creating openings and player movement. If you have plenty of players with good off the ball, anticipation, decisions, team work and work rate attributes, then more roaming can be very effective in pulling opposing defences apart. If your players don't have the best ratings in those attributes, then it might be better to go with default or stick to position. For the latter, a good positioning attribute is handy.

Playmaker, target man and target man supply team instructions, I don't use. Maybe with a more complex tactical system and specific high quality players at the very highest levels of the game, but very rarely with lower league players. That said though, even with the best teams and players, I'm usually reluctant to focus play on one particular aspect or area of my team. I feel more comfortable when offensively, my team can pose a threat from many areas. For example, if you become reliant on an individual playmaker, or targer man and they're marked out of the game in a match, other aspects of your tactics that work around them, are likely not to work as well. That said though, with exceptionally talented players, these roles can actually work extremely well.

[Bruce Drundrige]

I'm top of the league and undefeated in the 'Scottish Championship', which is basically an amalgamation of the 1st and 2nd divisions in an edited Scottish database, and I'm playing 4-2-3-1 as follows:

Rigid, mostly starting with Control

FBs - Auto

CD - one stopper and one cover, players placed to suit attributes

CM - two DLP as heathxxx mentions in his first paragraph above

AMC - att mid - attack

AML/AMR - IF support, switch to attack if required

SC - Target man - attack

Works pretty well and I'm undefeated after 15 league games, although the standard isn't high as it's mostly been against former 2nd division teams. I've show-horned a few players into it though rather than having a completely suitable first eleven...