Help!: Scunthorpe woes

[donpost2]

Hi all - I'm looking for some guidance in my tactics for Scunthorpe Utd in league 1. Hopefully this is the right place

Just a bit of background about me - I have played CM/FM since 95/96, and I've read almost every guide to tactics out there and I've never got the hang of them. So please feel free to dumb down any advice you might give.

Here are the three basic shapes I want to use:

Also there is a 4-1-4-1 but I can't put enough images in one post.

I am willing to change the team settings and player roles - but I like these shapes because they use mostly the same players and hopefully by moving that middle midfielder back and forth I can find space against different formations.

So far I am struggling - here is an example match where I lost 3-1 to Huddersfield:

Not being that experience I really struggle to read the match engine - beyond reading if the AI is playing attacking, defensively, or a balanced approach. So I took a look at the stats, more specifically the possession and pass completion. Huddersfield had a lot more possesion and that seems because I had a much poorer pass completion rate. Apparently I had better pass completion than them in midfield and attack - but look at defense, it's appalling. This is a common pattern in all of my matches.

So I need to do something about that, and that means making it easier for my defenders to pass. So I need to give them either more time/space or provide easier passing options right?

I've tried playing a deeper D-line to give them more time/space but that didn't help. So instead I tried giving one of my midfield players the role "deep lying playmaker" so that he would drop deep and offer the defenders another passing option. This has helped a bit but I'm still getting a low pass completion rate in defence.

Any ideas as to what else I can do? Am I barking up the wrong tree by singling out defensive pass completion?

[lam]

Just a few questions before people start offering advice.

1. Do you watch the games? If so, in full or highlghts? (If you don't, then start!!!)

2. What have you been doing in relation to player roles with the tactics above?

3. In your opinion, why are your defenders seeing a lot of the ball? is it failed shots from the opposition, poor passsing from them, good interceptions from your defenders, passes back from your own midfield or lots of passes from your keeper?

4. Switch the info to show headers. Generally speaking, if you look at defence passes and then tally it with headers. Most of the dots that stay in the same position are likely to be defensive headers from the opposition goal kick or opposition long balls. There isn't to much you can do about these apart from get better headers of the ball or better positioning so that they are able to have time to head well.

5. Do you have an intention of switching tactics (not formations) depending on your opposition? If so, do you read the scout reports? If so, do you understand them?

6. What is it about hte match engine you don't understand?

To me, and I could be completely wrong here, it screams that you do not watch the games in full.......

Now, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I am a strong supporter of watching the games in full, or a bare bare minimum, on extended highlights. If you do not watch the games, how do you expect to see what is going on? Stats will NOT tell you. Stats AND watching the game definitely will!!!

If you do watch the games in full, what do you see happening? Are your players being closed down quickly? Are your defenders actually making passes or as I alluded to above, are they clearance headers (hoofs upfield)? Are your midfielders under pressure and are they passing backwards? Doy ou have enough midfielders moving forwards to allow for deeper players to pass to them? Is your FC to far up the pitch? can you actualy pass to him?

I have always supported a very simple approach to playing this game if you are starting out trying to understand the engine. In my opinion, you should look at the team you have and play the formaiton that suits them OR change the team and play the formation that suits you. If you try to play a formation that you like with a team that you have that wont be very good at it, you will struggle.

Have you got two/three good wingers with pace? can they cross? do you have a good header of the ball that plays as a striker? or that cna attack from deep (fellani - Everyon esque) If so, you want to play with wingers! If you have none of these things, then you really might want to consider playing with wingbacks and tightening up the midfield.

Just look to the strengths of your team. Are they pacey? If so, play deeper, keep your shape (low closing down) and then get the ball forward to the onrushing midfield and attackers.

If you have a decent assistant manager or member of the coaching staff, they should, at the beginning of the season, tell you what the best formation for your team is.

Play around with formation and then the roles within them. Look to the highlighted areas of require player skills to see if your player has them. If they dont, try a different role. Just because you have an ML/R formation it doesnt mean you have to have massively attacking players. You could have a defensive winger and get the wingback to overlap.

Do you have a great passer with creativity in the midfield? Does he have good or bad composure? if its bad, play him deeper so that he has time to pick his passes. If he has good composure, and technical abilities, then you might be able to play him higher up the pitch.

All of these possibilities come from 'looking' at your players before you even thing about playing a game.

It's good that you have preferred formations, but do you have the players to play it? if not, you need to make a choice.... new players or new formation?

One last thing on the passing screen..... whats your FC doing? see how few passes have come from him? Where is he playing? is he to high so no one can pass to him or is he to deep and has to much to do? You can clearly see your wingers are getting lots of passes to them.... do they hve the ability to play out where they are? where are you asking them to cross from? Do they have the ability to get to that point? No sense in asking a slow winger with poor dribbling, poor control, poor acceleration and poor off the ball to cross from the byline..... he just wont ever get there.... so ask him to cross from deep.

I used to play Lennon and switch him with Bentley a few versions back and despite both being 'wingers' they had completely different instructions..... but most importantly, the could handle and execute those instructions..... so neithe was better than the other, i just used them differently.

Anyhows........... this was supposed to be a short reply.................

Regards

LAM

[furiousuk]

I won't say anymore about what is and isn't happening as LAM has written a superb post above!!

Don't worry about double posting for images, the more info relating to any problem then the greater the chance someone will have gone through the same and can offer good advice so image away!

[donpost2]

Hi Lam - first of all thanks for taking the time to reply.

To answer your questions:

1) I usually watch extended highlights at one notch above realtime. I sometimes watch the first 30 mins or so in full but because I can't interpret very well I usual just stick to extended.

2) I have been playing around with player roles. I've actually been dishonest to myself already and switched to the regular 4-1-2-2-1 with the pushed up wingers and DMC. For example - I tried setting the DMC to anchorman in an attempt to help the defenders.

3) I think most of the misplaced passes from defenders are actually clearances where I am under extended period of pressure, so not really the fault of the defenders.

4) I'll keep an eye on the defensive headers - from what I've seen they are usually good clearances into midfield but then I don't make the second ball.

5) I would be happy to change tactics if I knew what alterations to make.

6) About the match engine - I just don't read the information is gives you very well. My approach if something is going wrong is to make a change based on what I think might be wrong, and then see if I start winning. So for example if I see my team just passing the ball around in small triangles in the opposition half, only to be tackled - I might change the passing style to more direct, but then just wait to see if I am "playing better" which is indicated to me by the possesion bar and if I'm making chances, rather than by seeing an actual tactical improvement in the match engine.

With respect to analysing the strengths of the squad, I will say look at pace and see that half of my team has half hasn't and get confused. Although saying that there is a team comparion tab in the game that might help me with that. Then I might come up with a plausable plan (in my mind anyway), but then I can't assess how and why it is/isn't working.

[furiousuk]

My approach if something is going wrong is to make a change based on what I think might be wrong, and then see if I start winning.

This is all any of us can do and if you're doing it then you're already on the right track.

I wouldn't worry too much about winning though, that is normally a by-product of playing well. If you're focussed solely on winning then you might miss what you have to do to get there, if you're focussed on the little bits and pieces then winning will occur naturally as those bits and pieces fall into place. Look after the pennies and all that...

[Romanista1994]

3) I think most of the misplaced passes from defenders are actually clearances where I am under extended period of pressure, so not really the fault of the defenders.

There's people who are a lot better at using tactics than me here, but I noticed this bit. If you're under sustained pressure it might be worth shouting to your players to 'hassle opponents' and 'get stuck in', so that they don't allow the opposition too much time on the ball and try to win it back from the front while leaving your defenders to cover. This can backfire and leave gaps in your system, but it's worth a try at least.

[donpost2]

Right I've restarted and this time I'm going to do this thoroughly from the start. I've got all my staff in already (that's one area of the game I can do lol). I'm going to look at my best players and say what I think their attributes mean:

This guy seems to be a bit of an all rounder. Passing and creativity are good, but he doesn't have the decisions to make the right pass. He has decent off the ball, teamwork and first touch so should be able to get into space and receive a ball. Good jumping and strength so should be able to win those big headers in midfield.

This defender is your classic big man defender. He has many good defensive attributes, his weaknesses are somewhat in the air, and he has no pace or acceleration to recover from a mistake. His is very composed but cannot play a pass. Hopefully he won't aimlessly clear every ball but will need someone easy to pass to.

Grant is fast and has some skill dribbling. His finishing is just as good as his crossing, but his passing lets him down. I think maybe he would be suited to running onto though balls either as an inside forward or as a winger, but I'm not sure if his low anticipation will hinder him.

I'll add a few more players tomorrow. I won't start my season until I have got an idea where I'm going tactically. Maybe if I step through what I'm doing people might be able to spot where I'm weak.

EDIT: Just saw all your replies while I was typing that up. Thanks for the tips!

[furiousuk]

2 of your guys are the same!

That aside:

The low anticipation should severely hamper him in running onto through balls but my guy who does exactly this has low anticipation but does it very well!

I'd always suggest cracking on and making changes as you go based on what you see. If I try and make too many plans then I normally have to throw them out as soon as the season starts and rethink anyway. Without feedback it's hard impossible to know whether your plans will be successful, experience helps reduce this worry but even the most experienced can be surprised. It's as much about rolling with the punches as it is about sticking to gameplan.

[donpost2]

Ok maybe I shouldn't be charging into this. How about if I choose a formation, then try to decide how it's going to work by looking at the good players I already have?

[Shakes]

Ok maybe I shouldn't be charging into this. How about if I choose a formation, then try to decide how it's going to work by looking at the good players I already have?

Are you going to hit the transfer market (free or paid) to bring in players? That's what picking a formation first implies to me. If you're planning on working with what you have, then I'd suggest you want to identify your strongest players and what roles they're best suited for, then build a formation that fits that. If you're struggling to interpret attributes and what they mean, the assistant manager suggested role is a reasonable starting point.

As far as reading the match, if you're struggling with it you can always be a less reactive manager. Let a few games play out without changing your tactics to give you a bit more to go on. One of the problems with trying to fix things on the fly is you start throwing in all sorts of shouts which change things up and it becomes hard to look back and work out what settings the team was playing with at any given time. Sometimes you just have to be brave, say "they're losing but I don't know why, I'm just going to let this play out and get more data" and allow things to continue. Play half a dozen games with the same settings and you'll probably have a fair idea of where the opposition is creating chances against you, and where your chances are coming from.

Of course ideally pre-season friendlies are the place to get your losing for science done!

[Romanista1994]

If you're going to choose a formation and only then stick the players in this thread by SFraser is a great read. You don't necessarily have to use the same formation for the tips he gives there to be very useful for setting up your players in your system.

[ZdlR]

Personally, I think the best advice I can give is to reiterate something I read from another thread: start with the simplest thing possible and go from there.

The simplest thing you can set up is a default 442, with absolutely no bells and whistles.

GK- Just a normal goalkeeper, not a sweeper keeper or anything fancy.

DR/DL - Full backs on automatic.

DC - Two normal central defenders on normal defensive roles.

MR/ML - Either wide midfielders or wingers, or one of each, depending on the stats of your wide men. Initially, set these guys to attack, but be prepared to drop them back to support.

MC - one central midfielder on a defensive role, one on a supporting role.

ST - either: one deep-lying forward on support and one advanced forward on attack. Or, one target man support and one poacher. Depends on what strikers you have available.

Depending on your media prediction and general team quality, you might want to start most home games on control and most away games on standard or counter. Leave all of the settings on default to get a feel for how your team is playing. If you are playing against a team with three men in central midfield, set marking to zonal instead of default, otherwise you increase the likelihood of being overrun in that area. If you feel that your wingers aren't getting on the ball enough, try to find out why - with an attacking duty, they are prone to being too far ahead of the play and your midfielders might not be able to find them with passes.

If you can't set up a decent 442 and understand where it is going wrong, I think you will find it difficult to diagnose problems with more specialized roles.

During the game, pay attention to what is happening. `Ball is humped forward by keeper, deep-lying striker misses header, opposition DMC in possession in space, pings ball forward behind your full back, opposition winger first to the ball and crosses from byline to onrushing midfielder who is in space in the box. He scores a simple tap-in.'

Something as simple as this has a number of action points:

- Check goalkeeper distribution and deep-lying forward's heading, bravery, jumping and strength. If a long kick is not viable, try playing the ball out. It could be that the opposition merely have a beastly centreback that is aerially dominant in this game.

- Check fullback's positioning and consider lowing his duty to defend. This is often important when the opposition have advanced AMR/L wingers/inside forwards.

- Check overall defending mentality. If I notice that my defenders are dropping off too far and yielding space in the hole, then this usually indicates that I'm being too defensive and I can increase from counter to standard/standard to control/control to attack. Conversely, if I notice that the opposition defenders are always first to throughballs in to the box, I need to increase my forward line to a more attacking mentality.

Of course, don't feel that you have to change everything all at once or every time you see something bad. A would say that a goal is about 90% a sign that something is wrong (there are some goals scored that don't require changes at all - the opposition just got lucky). A clear-cut-chance is a warning that something needs changing, a half-chance hints that you're not quite as secure as you could be and `other chances` merely indicate patterns that could turn nasty in future. Bear in mind, though, that it is often not possible to eradicate all opposition chances and maintain a goal threat yourself. You may need to open up a bit and admit that you will concede half chances in order to score. However, I would avoid allowing clear-cut-chances in order to try to score, unless you really, really need a goal.

Another common scenario:

`Goalkeeper passes to fullback, fullback turns and passes inside to midfielder. Winger makes forward run toward his fullback, midfielder dwells on the ball, opposition midfielder closes down, midfielder passes back to fullback, fullback turns on the ball and opposition winger closes down, fullback passes inside to midfielder...` This continues until either the opposition makes a tackle on either midfielder or fullback, the fullback infuriatingly walks the ball out of play, the midfielder passes inaccurately to the fullback and the ball goes out of play or one of the pair smack a totally aimless ball forward which is dealt with trivially. The problem here is that the two of them don't have enough viable passing options. When building up play from the back, you need at least two, preferably three, passing options at all times - not including recycling the ball backwards to a central defender or goalkeeper. From the mc, this should be the winger, the full back, his midfield partner and probably even the deep-lying forward. If the winger has made a forward run and the midfielder isn't trying to pass through the defence for the winger to run on to the ball, then the winger is most likely being too aggressive and you can try knocking him back to a supportive winger.

There are loads of scenarios like this that have fairly trivial answers throughout a game, the trick is spotting what is going wrong and then putting it right.

[donpost2]

*snip*

Ok that makes sense - learn to walk before you run and all that. I've removed my previous post and I'll go down this route instead. My personal view is that the most important thing about preseason is getting your player's fit so I don't think I can do much testing there. I will assemble the best squad I can by the first game of the season, and then start watching full matches and see what I see.

[ZdlR]

Ok that makes sense - learn to walk before you run and all that. I've removed my previous post and I'll go down this route instead. My personal view is that the most important thing about preseason is getting your player's fit so I don't think I can do much testing there. I will assemble the best squad I can by the first game of the season, and then start watching full matches and see what I see.

You're right that pre-season is largely about fitness - I tell my players that for almost every pre-season game - but you can still see patterns of play and learn things in a pressure-free environment. It's a decent place to learn the problem-reaction-solution pattern. You can't put too much emphasis on the results though - beating a higher division team 3v0 away does not mean you will walk your own league. Equally, being trounced at home to lower-league opposition does not mean you are destined for relegation. If you can meet triumph and disaster, etc... I also like taking charge of my reserves if they aren't utterly pap. This is another pressure-free environment that aids learning and has the added benefit of giving you greater control of maintaining squad fitness and learning how certain players play.

One other point. When you're learning this game, try to make sure that's the only thing you are doing. I speak from experience when I say that trying to soothe a baby, watch Newcastle get their ass handed to them by Chelsea on tv and answer your wife's questions at the same time as trying to beat Olympic Lyonnais away to stay in the Europa League will only ever end in tears / broken laptop... Would you select a player that had 1 for concentration?!

[Cleon]

I'd plan all your pre season fixtures against lesser sides who you'll score loads against. This is a great way to build morale and can set you up for the season. It's one of the reasons I do so well imo.

[Smac]

I'm often baffled by the match engine and tactics myself, so I'm probably not a good person to offer advice but that has never stopped me before! Actually, if I were losing all the time I would have ended up posting a thread just like this one really. When things go pear shaped and you cannot figure out why, it is really difficult to improve things in FM. When we get a new match engine I just try everything I can think of with a top team and see how things go, eventually settling on a tactic I hate until at some point I can extract why it is working and then apply that to a tactic that I might think is acceptable.

I've slowly realized a method to make playing with a top team a shortcut to success with a smaller team, or at least I think I have. The benefit is that you can see how a tactic is supposed to work with strong players. This is mostly about their hidden mental abilities + overt mental abilities than about their general attributes. The problem is that you can create tactics that are only suited to top teams which defeats the purpose. Distinguishing which tactics only suit top teams and which might work for lower level players is no small task.

The problem I have when creating tactics with a lower level club is that I can never seem to find confidence in establishing why something isn't working. Are my players daft? Are they incapable of handling this mix of instructions? Are their decisions not high enough to profit from the openings created by the tactic? Is their technique too low to try this? Etc.. An even bigger problem is consistency. There are plenty of players at lower levels with decent stats but shoddy hidden stats like consistency. If everyone is inconsistent then a tactic is just a raffle ticket. How can you buy a good raffle ticket? You cannot.

Therefore, my general way out of this conundrum is to:

1. Play a tactic I know should work, based on previous success.

2. Try my darnedest to find players with good mental stats, especially avoiding players who show "inconsistent" in their scout reports, if I can even get scouts I trust.

3. Gently tweak the tactic to suit the players I have, focusing on simplicity.

4. Remember to take advantage of everything else to give your team an advantage:

-- Match prep, including cycling it 2 days before a match.

-- Chatting up the other team's players and manager (when I can stand this).

-- Like Cleon says, play friendlies against noobs to improve morale.

-- Getting team talks right for your players.

-- Adapting tactics to suit the weather and opposition players/formation, if advisable.

5. Try to judge my tactic only when I have the stars aligned as above: When I have decent players playing with good morale and motivation in a simple system against a team I should do alright against. At this point I usually do some serious cheating and replay a game or series of games over and over making slight alterations and watching large portions in full (If you do that remember to save the game some 36 hours before the match so that match prep, morale, and media effects have time to impact the players). When I have tweaked the tactic to something I think will work I reload one last time and apply the changes and just go for it. This is a painfully dull process at times, but I find it takes less time to do it this way then to scratch my head season after season uncertain of what is wrong with things. That is too much like real life for me .

[donpost2]

Funnily enough I have been successful before with Spurs, but that was on FM11. I played a 4-2-3-1 but I don't want to try that with Scunthorpe as they don't have the players who can physically play in that position, and nor can I attract players of sufficient technical ability to play that way. I'm glad you said that you will replay matches and study how things go differently with different approaches as that is what I intend to do with the first game of the season.

What is the significance of cycling match prep two days before the match may I ask?

[Smac]

Usually I'll keep match preparation on "average" or "low" Teamwork during a season. This keeps the team well knit together. The other Match Prep settings only have an effect on the match itself and don't need to be kept "on" during the week. So you can put Match Prep to "Very High: Attacking Movement" a day before a game, play the game, then immediately turn it back down to "average" or "low". That maximizes time spent training skills / positions, etc..

The significance of the gap of 24-36 hours is that it seems that morale effects, and probably match prep effects, only are applied to a game-day if you've played through to that day, in-game. If you reload a game right before kickoff you are essentially going into the game without any additional modifiers like morale and match prep benefits.

Along those lines you might consider which matches to use for a "Reload and Test" sequence. If you test a tactic before the team has gelled completely then it might not give as accurate a picture of how it'll perform ideally. And again, the reason to test with ideal conditions is to get a clear picture of how various tactical instructions are supposed to look as they play out, rather than how they might look if lucky/unlucky on the day. Granted, you want to have a tactic ready from day 1 of competitive football, but this is one of those awkward things about managing: You may not be able to design a tactic conclusively at that point in the season, but you have to have something! And this again points to creating a stable simple tactic to begin the season with. Easier to modify a standard tactic towards extremes later than take an extreme tactic and try to mend it on the fly.

[donpost2]

Right - first of all I won my first game 4-1 this time :S I made no tactical changes ingame - I simply watched the whole game in full. This would normally be enough for me to slip back into an attidude of ignorance is bliss, i.e. I still don't know how the magic box of tactics works, but I'm winning so I don't care. But not this time - I actually made a page of notes just from watching the match in full.

Analysis

Before I talk about the actual action here I can spot a couple of things already. Leyton Orient (LO) are playing quite wide. Their two wingers (yellow) are very wide and level with their striker, looking to stretch my defensive line laterally and/or get around behind my full backs

Leyton Orient (LO) have the ball in midfield with their two DMCs. Both of my midfielders (red) go to close them down resulting in a huge space appearing behind them and in front of my two defenders, which Smith (Green) has exploited. The ball moves along the blue arrows. I was fortunate here that Smith dallied on the ball and Togwell got in to clear the ball out for a throw in. This confused me somewhat as Togwell is set as a central midfielder - defend, so I really expected/wanted him to sit back and take up a good defensive position rather than close down high up the pitch like that.

Here is a situation that came up quite often. Togwell has stayed back due to his defensive role(?) and has received a ball from my right flank (he recycled possesion very well actually all through the match). However all of my attackers have placed themselves centrally including the winger on the left flank (despite being given the winger role), combined with the four defenders of LO they are all in a line in a space no wider than 1/3rd of the pitch. The other midfielder is being well shackled by the defensive triangle in LO's midfield. Togwell has no options. In this situation he passes it back out to the wing, who then passes to my other midfielder shackled by LO's triangle of doom who is closed down and tackled quickly. I'm short of ideas how I could have fixed this. Maybe if I played wider my attackers would spread across the width of the pitch, but the attack still doesn't have much depth, and even if an attacker dropped back deeper he would also have been picked up by the triangle of doom.

Here we see Togwell being drawn out of position again and Smith being left completely free in front of my penalty area!

In the second half LO changed to 4-4-2. The two strikers are circled in red here. What happened often was one of them would roam and find space as above. Not sure what I'd do there, obviously man marking is out of the question - ok it would deny the strikers space but it would also lead to my DCs getting pulled all over the place (right?)

Can only fit in 4 images per post so those were the main things I spotted. Am I looking for the right things? Am I interpreting what's happening correctly? How could I have solved the problems I faced?

PS - I tried scouting next opponent, but rather than giving me a little tactical snippet like in previous games it's changed completely (I only got FM12 very recently). What should I be looking at on the new reports?

[furiousuk]

In the 2nd shot (where 4 of your guys have pushed up high) what are the roles you've given to your 442? Quickly, what are your team instructions?

One last quick question, was the build up fairly slow?

[donpost2]

Here is a still from my next match showing the same issue. Here Faye is playing the Togwell position from the last match:

Here is a pic of my tactic - all team instructions are standard.

Yes in both cases there had been time for the opposition to get back. The screenshot above was from just after a throw in actually. Before you give any tips, what I would try is to change the wingers to support so they sit deeper. But would that really work? The opposition wide midfielders are in position to pick them up if they play there. Perhaps it would be better if they were in the same position up the pitch, but playing much further out wide giving the full backs the choice of marking them and stretching the back line, or leaving them and having the players in space. But surely if they are playing the winger role they should be out wide anyway unless the ball is on the other flank?

What actually happened was Faye ran at the defence and hit a long shot into the top corner - but that won't be something that happens regularly it was definitely somewhat fortunate.

[Cleon]

Did you read my threads by any chance? They kind of cover what you are asking/looking for. If you have then ignore the below, but if not give them a read

The Full 90 Minutes - What I Do

Going Behind In A Game - Turning It Around (The Discussion)

The SI Sports Centre - All You Need To Know About FM

[donpost2]

Thanks Cleon,

I've probably written every thread you, Sfraser, or wwfan ever wrote it just never sinks in. However saying that I re-read furiousuk's thread on "Creating a Potent Tactical System" today and found myself actually nodding along and predicting the tactical settings he was going to use given how he was attempting to play. So maybe I'll give your threads another read. Maybe forcing myself to type up my thoughts on a full match has opened my mind a little.

Without getting cross threaded here - the first two posts of you 90 minutes thread are interesting. Unfortunately apart from the final picture where you decide to move your striker more central, everything was going fine in the examples you posted so I can't see what you would change to fix things that are wrong. And when you do move your striker more central you say it's because you think he'll be more useful there, but I'd love to know WHY you think that.

Wait that last paragraph sounds critical! I should make it clear that my lack of understanding is due to my own deficiencies rather than any problem with your posting - I'm very appreciative of people who take the time to help other players understand the game.

[Cleon]

Thanks Cleon,

I've probably written every thread you, Sfraser, or wwfan ever wrote it just never sinks in. However saying that I re-read furiousuk's thread on "Creating a Potent Tactical System" today and found myself actually nodding along and predicting the tactical settings he was going to use given how he was attempting to play. So maybe I'll give your threads another read. Maybe forcing myself to type up my thoughts on a full match has opened my mind a little.

Without getting cross threaded here - the first two posts of you 90 minutes thread are interesting. Unfortunately apart from the final picture where you decide to move your striker more central, everything was going fine in the examples you posted so I can't see what you would change to fix things that are wrong. And when you do move your striker more central you say it's because you think he'll be more useful there, but I'd love to know WHY you think that.

Wait that last paragraph sounds critical! I should make it clear that my lack of understanding is due to my own deficiencies rather than any problem with your posting - I'm very appreciative of people who take the time to help other players understand the game.

In this picture?

My striker is circled here over on the right wing. Normally I’d be happy that he is dragging out wide but for this game I think he’d be more effective staying central and playing in the areas where the yellow circle is. So what I do is go into the tactic and change his settings. I change the wide play individual instruction for him from moves into channels to just normal. This way he’ll become the outlet up top and allow players to play off him.

Eight minutes into the game and its clear I’m dominating early on. I am seeing a lot of possession and just probing around the Villa defence looking for any gaps to appear and then possibly try to exploit them. I’ve only had 1 shot up to now but I don’t mind as the tactic is playing exactly how I want it to.

If so...

The reasons why I thought he would be better was, well look at the screenshot and the yellow circle. Now my striker who is circled would have a lot of space to play in judging by the screenshot (and actually seeing it a few times in game, simliar situations). Now if you also look at the players around the box, if the striker is more central then he has more option and could pass the ball or hold it up. This can be good for creating space and runners. No matter which player he plays in it would make one of the oppositions central DC's commit and have to mark him or attempt a tackle. But if the oppositions DC doesn't attempt to mark him then the player who you played in would be unmarked in the box. And if the opposition did pick the player up then your striker would be free in the box and under no real pressure.

You can learn a lot whether you have the ball or don't. You should look at what your team does with the ball when you are attacking and have a look around at the players and see if they can offer support. Or just to check exactly how they line up and does it make you vulnerable for quick counter attacks if you were to lose the ball.

I just look at my players positions and the opposition and see how the 2 different shapes can cause each other problems. If you play a different formation to the opposition then your players wont be man for man. So you need to make sure you make the most of your free players and at the same time that you try and mark their free player if they have one.

That's the kind of things I look for.

[donpost2]

That's great insight. It sounds obvious but it's worrying how many of these things I just didn't consider.

Just to test if I'm thinking along the right lines, what would you do to solve my perceived problem with the attacking players being crowded and well marked - as in pic 2 of post #19 and pic 1 of post #1. I've checked and both wingers are told to hug the touchline.

I come up with:

• Set the wingers to support so they drop back a little and create a little space?
  
• Change the role of the target man striker to deep lying so he drops back a little maybe drawing out the defenders with him and creating space behind for the poacher.
  
• Play wider (but I'd worry that this would make me needlessly easy to play though
  

[Cleon]

That's great insight. It sounds obvious but it's worrying how many of these things I just didn't consider.

Just to test if I'm thinking along the right lines, what would you do to solve my perceived problem with the attacking players being crowded and well marked - as in pic 2 of post #19 and pic 1 of post #1. I've checked and both wingers are told to hug the touchline.

I come up with:

• Set the wingers to support so they drop back a little and create a little space?
  
• Change the role of the target man striker to deep lying so he drops back a little maybe drawing out the defenders with him and creating space behind for the poacher.
  
• Play wider (but I'd worry that this would make me needlessly easy to play though
  

With pic 2 in post 19 its obvious that you have no midfield support and you have far too many players in advanced positions. This means its hard to create space and you basically have 4 players out of the game until the ball finds them, rather than them finding the ball. I don't know if this was regular throughout the game or was just a one off. But I'll go with the notion of its regular. So I'd look at making the wingers drop back for deffo and use a deep lying forward on support.

As for playing wider it already looks like you are quite wide. You look really vulnerable to counter attacks imo due to how your players are positioned. Look how much space the opposition has to play in if they win the ball back. They could break really fast and outnumber you, especially in the centre of the pitch. This for me would be a real problem and no doubt this will have cost you goals/points at some stage of the same.

I know you are looking for feedback on the attacking side but they both come hand in hand for me. If you sort out the defensive side of things for when you are in possession then I honesty believe you wouldn't have the issue you posted about. By that I mean, you wouldn't have players crowded out and marked out of the game like in the 2nd picture you asked me to look at.

In the centre of the pitch I'd have a DLP defend, so he sat back and ran things while at the same time he'd offer a lot more defensivley and provide protection against quick counter attacks. I'm not a fan of BWM's because they have to high closing down, so when you don't have the ball they go searching for it, which can leave a big gap. Especially if you don't have a DMC (in the actual DMC position) in the team.

Infact if you look at the very first picture in post 19 you can see what I mean about the use of a DLP. You have no-one in the middle which you acknowledged already. But you got away with it this game. Remember in the post above when I mention see how the formations line up against each other from a positions perspective so you can see who the spare man is. Well against someone who uses a AMC they would rip you apart and he'd be allowed to dictate the game due to the sheer amount of space you have in the middle that isn't covered. So if one of your players do go to cover it (which will be hard to do) then you'll have a massive gap elsewhere.

Whats your tactic familiarity like?

Have you looked at the players attributes and are they able to play the role you have given them?

I know this probably isn't the answer you was looking for and I've strayed from your original question, but I find that building from defence first will help the attacking side of play naturally and will slide into place with the odd change like your wingers helping out more etc.

[furiousuk]

It supposed to sound obvious! Normally the best tacticians employ the simplest methods! Being simple is not easy!!

Nothing wrong with your roles and duties (as a basis) and I'm just going to assume you've picked the right players for those roles. What is their tactical familiarity like? If it's poor (i.e. you've just set it as a tactic) then you can't expect your guys to follow your instructions 100% of the time (it's probably not too bad as most players in England are comfortable with a 442 anyway).

The formation you are playing against (vs LO) is a really tough one to break down, particularly for a 442, and you've highlighted exactly why. The only real space is Togwell and the referee so you could consider having both your midfielders play a little deeper, particularly as LO are very deep themselves (this might be in response to your movement though). When facing a tough situation like this it's often important to create some movement, particularly movement up and down the pitch to drag players around and create dog-legs in the defensive lines.

I don't have loads of experience with the TM but from what I've seen it can be somewhat 'naughty' i.e. it doesn't always elicit the type of play you might expect, particularly if the player isn't a bog-standard TM type. There are views that let you see the mentality of all your players and the Runs From Deep (have a look for them, it sounds like you aren't nearly as 'clueless' as you are portraying yourself, give yourself some credit ).

As you've read my 'Potent Attack' thread you'll know that I faced a kind-of similar situation. Mentality and Runs From Deep can really help you out.

Very very briefly, in this context mentality and RFD combine to roughly set the height of the player (there are other considerations but it makes life easy just to ignore them for now). A high mentality positions players higher (as you'd expect) and players will generally be higher with or without the ball. RFD is subtlely different in that players with RFD often will make forward runs when your team have possession. So, a player could sit quite low in the formation normally (i.e. with a support duty) but move forward aggressively when you regain the ball. It is surprisingly easy to set up this situation in your attack players and means that they will all bomb forward when you regain possession (this is affected by decision making and, certainly, sometimes it is desirable).

A combination of roles that mix up the mentality and RFD can really change where your players will sit and how they will move as you transition into attack.

Setting the RFD will not make your player 'plunge' deeper than they normally sit but it will discourage them from moving forward so much which means that, given space, other players can move beyond the player and thus give the appearance that the player is deeper in the formation. This difference is subtle but can be important if you play very high.

I'm sorry I haven't said 'do this' or 'do that' but I don't think you're really after that sort of answer anyway (I certainly don't think you need it).

Another thing to consider is that if your players are poor mentally or are poor decision makers they might well miss opportunities and end up in 'stupid' positions, so long as they don't do it too often it's fine but unintelligent players can be a real struggle for a manager as they won't work much out for themselves, which is bad.

[Cleon]

I also agree with Furious

[ZdlR]

• Set the wingers to support so they drop back a little and create a little space?
  
• Change the role of the target man striker to deep lying so he drops back a little maybe drawing out the defenders with him and creating space behind for the poacher.
  
• Play wider (but I'd worry that this would make me needlessly easy to play though
  

They are all viable and your worry about playing wider is justified.

Even a winger that is told to hug the touchline will find his way into the box if they are told to attack. The thing you are trying to attack is the goal, after all, so it makes sense that they would try to move closer to it. I would be tempted to try dropping them to support first of all. Maybe even couple it with the `Look for the overlap` touchline shout, so that your fullbacks get forward to offer width, too. This will mean that the wingers get back and do some more defensive work, too, because the screenshot where Togwell leaves his man unmarked in the centre is because he feels that someone should go and close down the opposition fullback. Look where your left winger is at this point - pretty much just hanging around waiting for a counter attack that might never come.

Looks like you've picked up some good results there. Against a 3-man midfield like Orient played, it's no surprise that you were pulled out of position somewhat. What was your marking setting for that game? If it was `Default`, then this sets your central midfielders to `man marking` which means they will be more inclined to pick up an opposition player to stand near. Considering that the opposition played with two DMCs, it makes sense that one of your MCs occasionally found himself too high up the pitch.

Oh, and Togwell stays deep primarily because of his defensive role, yes, which will likely include the setting `run from deep` set to `rare`.

[Smac]

PS - I tried scouting next opponent, but rather than giving me a little tactical snippet like in previous games it's changed completely (I only got FM12 very recently). What should I be looking at on the new reports?

The depth of the tactical report has to do with the quality of the scout you use. But nevermind that. You're on the path of reading the match engine yourself, which will always be superior to what you can get from that report!

Regarding this:

It looks like its a problem between all 3 of your players on the bottom of the picture, especially that winger who's in the fullback position? What is he doing over there?

For a short solution, I'd try either man marking that wandering AMC-type (the one who drew Togwell out) with one of your central mids and/or play more narrowly. Your defensive shape seem really odd in that shot. The "Hole" in FM12 is often shattered like this a bit unrealistically often. Thankfully most teams don't make the most of it, but it can be difficult to shore up if it does lead CCCs.

[donpost2]

Wow lots of detailed replies! Thanks a lot guys. I actually didn't realise there was a button that allowed you to change player instructions even when using the tactic creator. That's so useful just in itself! What I have tried is to give the poacher the instruction to roam. I actually don't think he's playing like a poacher at all but with the roam button my players seem to be able to craft CCCs. You can really tell when you're players are in space and have options, rather than stuttering and turning on the ball they play it on quicker and with more "flow"

SMAC - I think the reason that winger is all the way down there is because off the bottom of the screen their full back is pushing up.

I think I'm going to just keep watching matches in full until I get the hang of this.