Time to attempt to learn FM13, with your help (I hope)!

[Lee182]

Like a lot of people, I've been struggling with FM13. I've been putting a lot of hours into the game, and a lot of hours into attempting to get good at it. I've been using these forums, the great website "guidetofootballmanager.com" and have even resorted to buying myself a load of real-life football tactics books, such as "Inverting the Pyramid". The problem is, even with all that, I'm still having as many problems as ever - I just can't seem to do anything but struggle.

So I've decided to actually directly ask for help. I've seen all the great advice and help that's regularly provided on these boards and I'm hoping I can receive some of that, and to finally enjoy FM again!

I've started a new game from scratch (must be like the 20th by now!). I decided to go with Everton. I know the Premier League best and I'm thinking, for now, the more familiarity the better. I chose Everton because, in my eyes, they're a pretty balanced club. They should be a team without too much pressure at either end of the table - no one expects them to qualify for the Champions League, but at the same time it's unlikely they're going to get relegated (I hope!). Again, I'm thinking the less pressure the better, for now. I also know they don't have much finances to offer you at the start - for me a good thing, at least to begin with. I'm usually too tempted to go on spending sprees almost certainly upsetting the balance and cohesion of the team. So, for now, I'm not buying anyone.

I've been reading a few times that the best approach to take when struggling is to keep things simple, and to use the TC and shouts. I intend on doing exactly that. I've gone for literally the most basic and default tactics possible. I've chosen a 4-4-2 with literally everything left untouched. Perhaps this will cause me problems, but I'm hoping this way I can at least start with a solid foundation and not be playing around with things I don't properly understand.

So it didn't take me long to encounter my first problem - one of the many situations I've had with this game - a problem that I don't understand. I'm playing my very first friendly, against our reserves and we are seemingly dominating the game. Problem is we are missing basically every single shot we have, and we are having a LOT of them! Most of them are long range too. I've told my team to work the ball into the box but this doesn't seem to have had any effect. I've also told them to exploit the flanks, since my assisstant suggested we get more crosses into the box. I've also told them to get the ball forward since my assisstant has told me that, even though our passes are connecting well, we should play more direct. So, what should I do?

[kazm]

Can you show a picture of the tactic? The tactic itself isnt big enough to see player roles.

A lot of players have that problem where they have only 2 good chances and over 9000 longshots.

The reason your players do this: when they get close to the box, they don't have good enough passing opportunities. Being idiots they just shoot and at most hit the bar.

How to stop this from happening: using a 'direct' approach in trying to fix this won't work. I mean setting team/individual setting to longshots: never and using 'play into box' shout. These things will only help against legit longshot opportunities in which case you actually might WANT your player to take the shot, they will not help against these ******** longshots. edit: what i meant is this: you have to balance your tactic in a way that its attacking, but that players still have enough options to pass to. If your MC gets the ball 5 meters from the box and your strikers, wingers and other MC are all making runs into the box they will all be surrounded by enemies, making passes very hard. Instead there should be options horizontally or diagonally, for example to a striker falling back, fullbacks moving up, an MC playing more carefully etc.

This thread explains it better and it includes PICTURES YAY w000T.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/342124-FM-13.2.1-Reducing-long-shots-and-increasing-through-balls

I dont use a flat 4-4-2 myself, but this thread, one of the best ever written, nominated for the nobelprize for literature, you can learn to understand building a tactic better.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/334248-Understanding-Your-Tactic-The-Discussion

This dude has made a thread about building a 442. Its not the linked thread but still very informative and he probably linked it somewhere.

Anyhow I hope this was usefull, post more info and people will help. GL!

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/325850-Tactical-Systems-Stafford-Rangers-goes-on-a-trip

This might seem disheartening, but if you want to learn you have to read . And try and fail and try again

[Lee182]

Wow, thank you for the awesome response, I will read those links and put the information into action, I will then reply with the results.

Here's the picture you asked for:

[kazm]

One thing I would do if i were you:

Go to last match, open it. Click analyse -> performance, choose overal positions and make sure you have 'all' selected not an individual. This will show you the average positions from your players during the match. Ignore the subs.

There will probably be a HUGE hole between the MCL and the AF: the MCL has defensive setting and thus plays from a bit deeper and doesnt make runs a lot, the AF is one of the most attacking types of strikers so he will be high up the feel miles away from the MCL, basically by using these roles you increase the distance between them. On the right side both roles make the distance smaller, the striker drops deep, the midfielder plays a bit more forward.

This might mean that the striker-left will almost only get passes from the other striker (not much) + some crosses and other passes. If he didnt take part in the game (look at individual passes in the same menu) that might explain it. (can you check whats the difference between the number of passes both wingers made?)

I am not sure how big of a problem this will be because your main attacking strength comes from the wings, not the MCs, but I would play like this in the centre:

AF-left, DLF-right

MCL-s, MCR-d

This creates a bit of a triangle on the field, which helps linking midfield and the strikers.

Disclaimer: me no use 442, me only use 4222 without wingers in which this is probably even more important. Most important part here is probably the wingers.

[Lee182]

Thanks for the help. Here's the screens you asked for. You advice makes perfect sense, it's a shame the TC decided to set it up this way by default.

[kazm]

I'd make some small changes now and then just play some matches.

If you do bad, just reload to the start of the season use 442 again and use what you've learned.

Right now your team won't be completely used to the tactic yet, so stuff won't go exactly the way you want it to go yet even with the right settings. You can still win though.

Btw I'd just put the MC on support instead of automatic.

In the next match check if Osman has low number of passing again. Both your wingers are far away from your FBs but Pienaar has more passes. (does he have cut inside ppm?)

[Lee182]

Pienaar doesn't have the cuts inside PPM, but he does have the "plays one-twos" PPM - perhaps this is causing him to generally play more passes?

[kazm]

No its Baines being a beast and Neville being a Neville

[Lee182]

Well I won the match 2-0. The changes I made certainly seemed to help, but I also noticed certain things happening many times.

Many times players received the ball and didn't have many options open to them, so they chose to either shoot or hoof the ball down the field - always ending in loss of possession. The problem is I'm not sure why they have so few options, the players around them seem to be incredibly dumb - never making any moves or even seeming to be paying attention to the match. They all just sort of stand around and wander about behind several opposition players. Is there anything I can do to get my players to help each other out more and give each other more options?

[Blair McCabe]

You could alter the passing style, play a bit more direct then they will look for the pass. You could increase the creative freedom or use more roaming. That should help you players at least try to get the ball but obviously you don't want to lose your shape so maybe try each thing seperately and see if they help.

[Lee182]

Thanks, good ideas. I will give them a go.

I won the next match against Preston only just. We scored in the 23rd minute and then did barely anything except retain possession for almost the entire match. Then in the 89th minute, one of my CBs made a mistake and allowed them to play a free through ball directly into my box, which they scored. I thought it was going to end 1-1 - but coleman whipped in a killer cross from deep and Naismith volleyed it from a tight angle, it was a great goal. I'm happy with the possession and I guess I should be happy with less long shots, but I'm now worried with the lack of any real chances during the match, especially against weaker opponents. I'm also still having the same issues with players choosing to meander around and not look for space or even attempt to give their team-mates any kind of support.

[Lee182]

My next friendly is against Dukla Prague - a team I've never even heard of and clearly a team far below the quality of mine. We are leading 1-0 at half time and I'm playing direct passing and using the changes to the player roles that were suggested. These changes I think have made an improvement, players are moving around more and making more quality passes. But I'm still having the same issues. Mostly relating to players, high quality professional players against weak opposition just not using any kind of common sense or intelligence to offer their team mates help and support. But now I've also got a new problem - now that my players have started to lend some kind of support, not great but better than before - there are situations were for me a player has an obvious option to pass to a team-mate but instead chooses to shoot from insane distances and angles and of course the shots are always embarrasingly high and wide. Why would they be doing this? What can I change to improve it?

My latest example was my winger running down the right with the ball, there was lots of space in front of him to run into and also Anichebe standing in space waiting for the pass - let alone the options he could have used behind him - but instead he decided to take one of the most pathetic attempts at a shot I've ever seen from a crazy angle and distance. I just can't fathom why he took that option over anything, ANYTHING else. Even if he'd picked up the ball and attempted to eat it whole, it would have made more sense!

[RTHerringbone]

I think kazm's advice has all been good and sound - don't try to change too much at once or you'll lose sight of what you're trying to achieve.

Everton in real life have been personified by your setup - it is functional and you have a number of options available to make things a bit more effective and easy on the eye.

With limited Team Instructions, you have an opportunity to test out roles and duties and see how they affect the shape and dynamic of your team.

A key bit of advice from me would be to only assign players to roles that they can do, better still if they are familiar with the duty you give them.

Like kazm, I don't play 4-4-2. I suspect the MC duo will be the critical area to nail in terms of combination play (one sits, one holds, the interplay between them etc.), and then you can work around them.

[Lee182]

Thanks. I'm like you guys in that I basically never use a 4-4-2. I've had loads of success in past FMs with all sorts of tactics, may favourite probably being the 4-3-3 / 4-5-1. But as I said, the reason I chose the 4-4-2 was due to it being the most basic and well understood tactic, perhaps the most versatile and easy to grasp. It also fits Everton pretty well, which helps. I will follow your advice when I sign players, but for now I won't be signing anyone - partly because of a lack of funds, mostly because I want to keep things simple and not mess up the team chemistry and cohesion.

I finished that last friendly 3-0, which sounds okay but other than a few other issues my main problem was a remarkable resurgence of the long shots problem - the strange thing is that seemingly the problem has worsened even though now my players have slightly more options. So many times, to my eye, a player could have passes easily to a team mate, among many other things, but took unbelievable shots from all sorts of wild angles and distances. Most of the time it didn't make any sense, it literally was like watching a bunch of people who had never played football before or who had been specifically told to shoot whenever they had the chance. I chose this time to not use the shout of "work ball into box" since there seems to be a strong idea that all it does is cut out the decent long shot opportunities and doesn't effect the panicked long shots from brain-dead players. Perhaps this has caused my problem?

It truly was unbelievable some of the shots they took and how appaling the efforts were. Something is seriously not right here. I'm going to go with a stance of never blaming the game, whether rightly and wrongly and see where that gets me - so in that case, what the hell am I doing wrong, because something catastrophic is going wrong with my team!

[RTHerringbone]

Long shots are an issue which can be partially offset by using "Work Ball Into Box", or by manually setting Individual Long Shot Sliders to the minimum (I prefer not to touch Individual Sliders as there's a chance you'll forget what you did!) I always, always use the shout.

The other things affecting Long Shots are options and PPMs. Once you that those out of the equation, the remaining factors are a combination of the ME currently being tuned in a less than perfect way, plus a dose of human nature.

I don't think the current ME build allows you to fully reduce the crazy shots, but if you do your best to do so, the theory is that your tactic should "stick" in the next update, and so you should pretty much eradicate them in a "better" build.

[Lee182]

I won my next match 2-0. We are winning, which is nice - but I'm getting the strong feeling that if we play like we are now against Premier League opposition - we're going to get trounced!

I think for the next match I'm going to use the "work ball into box" shout from the offset and see what happens, I may also attempt to use "more roaming" now that "more direct" passing seems to be working well.

I haven't looked at my players PPMs, but even if they have the long shot PPM, there isn't too much I can do about that right now. I can train them out of it and hope it works, but it's not something I can have a major influence over right now. I will try "work ball into box" as I said and hopefully it helps. But from what I can tell the main thing I can influence and the thing that will have the best effect is giving my attacking players more options and so slowly, this is what I'm working on. So any advice on this particular issue would be very helpful.

Thanks for the all the advice so far guys, it's really great and is helping.

[RTHerringbone]

Personally, I wouldn't train any long shot PPMs out of your players. The current long shot issue should only relate to this build, so if the next 1 or 2 builds rectify the issue, you'll have to get guys to relearn a skill they already had.

To avoid the glaring issues with the ME, once you are happy with your tactic and understanding of the game, just switch to more concise highlights; saves a lot of anguish!

[Lee182]

I always played the game on key highlights and on a pretty quick speed - it's always worked for me. It allows me to enjoy the highlights of the match and have a pretty good idea of what's going on - but at the same time it allowed me to get through seasons pretty quickly. It would still take me several days a season, but it was a nice balance. There's lots of things I like to play with which you can only really experience several seasons in - regens and developing youth ect.

But for now, while I'm struggling, I'm playing it on comprehensive highlights and normal speed - this way I should have a much clearer picture of what's going on. But it is often taking me over an hour per much at the moment, and there's no way that's sustainable.

If I start to get comfortable with the game again, then I will slowly speed things up.

[Lee182]

After winning all but one of my pre-season friendlies (which I drew), I finally got around to the first match of the Premier League season. The match was away to Southampton, so we were the favourites, but not by much.

So, like practically all of the friendlies, I won, but by a low score and by playing a very poor level of football. Lots of pointless long shots, bad possession, slow lethargic play in general. No real zip or energy in anything they're doing. Most of the goals I've scored so far seem like flukes or random events, rather than the result of any decent football. We gave the opposition lots of chances too, although most of theirs were from long range also, but we got lucky with some of their chances.

I'm at a point now where I've been seriously trying to learn this game for several days now, and have in fact spent most of each day doing so. I've been reading lots of material and have been trying to put it all into action - but for whatever reason nothing seems to be really having any effect. I thought, near the start, that things were working, but I was so focused on the little details I didn't notice how little had really changed or improved. I still spend 99% of matches utterly lost and confused, I still have almost no idea of what to do or where to go in most situations. But worst of all, my team is still playing awful, awful football. The sort of football that shouldn't even be possible from a Premier League team. Some of the decisions my players make border on rediculous.

It would all make some sort of sense if this was my first time playing an FM game and/or I'd only recently got into football. But I've been into football for nearly half my life - most of that time in a more academic sense than most football fans, so: an interest in tactics and statistics and such. I've also been playing FM since around FM 2005 or perhaps earlier and got pretty good in last years game. I was never amazing, but I could always be successful with big teams, and relatively easily took Swansea to the Champions League in the first season and one point away from winning the league in the next season before moving on to FM13.

I paid good money for this game and I love the series so I'm never going to give up, but I just don't know where to go anymore, or what to do. I'm stuck and lost and it's really bothering me. I'm not going to go back to FM12 and I don't want to just sim the matches. But pretty much all of the enjoyment I used to get from Football Manager has been lost. I desperately don't want to blame the game or SI, I'm happy to accept it's me that's the problem whether that's true or not. But to be in the position I'm in, and having tried and tried to improve with very little, if anything, to show for it is a very bad place for a huge FM fan like myself to be in.

Can someone, somewhere, somehow help me? Please?!

Here's the .pkm of my last match, if it will help: http://www.sendspace.com/file/nhttuh

[RTHerringbone]

Stick with it, you can improve things!

How did your formation, roles, duties and Team Instructions end up after applying all that you have read?

[kazm]

Stick with it, you can improve things!

How did your formation, roles, duties and Team Instructions end up after applying all that you have read?

Agree with this. Next patch I hope will change a lot.

Right now parts of the IRL game are either not in the game (real throughballs) or aren't functioning perfectly yet (for me that seems to be passing/first touches/decisionmaking/players not seeing enemy players etc) So what you see now only reflects how good your tactic is in this ME, not how good it would be in the 'full' game that will be closest to real life and thus closest to being based on logic.

Keep taking it slow, keep posting pictures so we can help you.

Also keep in mind your team will not be completely gelled the first few matches and it will not be fully adapted to the tactic probably.

[Lee182]

Is it possible to see this from the .pkm I linked? If not I'll happily load the game up and post screenshots. I haven't changed much admittedly, because I was encouraged to make small adjustments rather than continually making sweeping changes to my tactics. I sorted all the roles out so that the players should all be in a reachable distance from each other, the midfield I usually chose roles based on the players I pick while always keeping one more defensive and the other support or attack. So if Fellaini plays for example he'll be a ball winning midfielder as according to the game that's what he plays best. The tactics are all still default except direct passing and more roaming. I usually choose "work ball into box" at the beginning of each match and apply different shouts based on what my assisstant tells me, or other things I notice happening myself. I sometimes switch to control or counter depending on assistant advice or my own perceptions too. I watch every match on normal speed and comprehensive highlights.

So all of this is fine, and it all makes sense in a logical way. I'm starting to understand why I'm making the changes, although a lot of them seem like far too detailed micro-management - the sort of thing a real-life football manager would never need to do. The problem is that most of the time nothing really seems to have much effect. But the biggest problem is the overall seeming lack of intelligence or energy in my whole team, and unless it's my imagination - all the other teams too. I remember in FM12 you could make tactical mistakes and you would be punished for them, rightly so, but even if you did your players had the intelligence or creativity that you would expect from top-class professionals to still make things happen and play relatively good football.

Maybe I'm wrong, but surely if you were managing a top team in real life and set say your midfielder to sit slightly too far from the striker in front of him it wouldn't cause him to suddenly lose his mind and not know what to do, and then just lose the ball through inaction or just hoof the ball up field or shoot from an impossible angle and distance? Surely a player, even at low levels, would take it upon himself to move slightly closer or even just use different passes and such to find the player, and surely the striker would aslo do his best to try and find space and make himself available to pass to?

I always remember that in FM12 and previously it seemed this way. I was never a tactical genious, but I had a good idea of what I was doing. So even if things weren't set up perfectly, as long it made some form of basic sense the players would play football with each other. I've always used the TC when it became available, so just by virtue of that - the tactics should have some form of cohesion. But now it feels like if you make one slight, tiny tactical error your whole team will sulk and just refuse to play any form of decent football and will boot the ball away in rebellion. Like: "No way, Jelavic is five yards further in front of me than he should be, you're an awful manager, I'm not playing for you!" and then he promptly shoots from 45 yards out and misses by a mile!

There seems to be a huge conflict on the forum of what's actually going on, no one seems to actually know for sure. Is it actually the game or is it not? It would be nice to know. Sometimes it feels like we're all just battling the ME, rather than trying to make real tactics based on real football and our own wants and needs for our clubs.

I'm sorry for the rant, but I just want some answers, I just REALLY want to enjoy this game again.

Oh, also, thanks again for the help guys. If it wasn't for people like you on these forums, I probably WOULD have given up by now!

[Cleon]

Is it possible to see this from the .pkm I linked? If not I'll happily load the game up and post screenshots. I haven't changed much admittedly, because I was encouraged to make small adjustments rather than continually making sweeping changes to my tactics. I sorted all the roles out so that the players should all be in a reachable distance from each other, the midfield I usually chose roles based on the players I pick while always keeping one more defensive and the other support or attack. So if Fellaini plays for example he'll be a ball winning midfielder as according to the game that's what he plays best

As an isolated bit of info this is correct however in the context of tactic building it isn't always best to give a player the role that he is best at. If you did that for the whole team then you wouldn't have a balanced formation. You should pich a role for him based on what you are trying to get out of the formation you've chosen. Rather than giving 11 players license to play their best role because in reality its very rare this would work unless you fell really lucky.

Sometimes you need players to break away from their role to create space and movement, if everyone is bunched up all the time then this is harder to achieve. You need players breaking the lines and to be flexible and not to restricting in what they do.

I usually choose "work ball into box" at the beginning of each match and apply different shouts based on what my assisstant tells me, or other things I notice happening myself. I sometimes switch to control or counter depending on assistant advice or my own perceptions too. I watch every match on normal speed and comprehensive highlights.

You should take the assistant's advice with a pinch of salt imo. He might say stuff like your 'shots aren't hitting the target today' yet you've only had 1 shot. Or you might have had 8 with 6 on target and sometimes he will still say this.

There are plenty more examples I could give to for other areas where his advice isn't always accurate. What I tend to do is see what he has to say but 99.9% of the time dismiss it aslong as you feel things are working and that the team are sticking to the game plan you've set.

So all of this is fine, and it all makes sense in a logical way. I'm starting to understand why I'm making the changes, although a lot of them seem like far too detailed micro-management - the sort of thing a real-life football manager would never need to do

If you feel like you are micro-managing then you are probably attempting to do far to much. People assume/think that I actually micro-manage but I really don't. All I do is create a logical tactic and then if something is going wrong 90% of the time I'll just change strategy and that's all. The other 10% would be when I used shouts but I find a simple change of strategy to be the most viable for how I play. Unless I am trying to create somthing more specific in terms of style of play.

I know people will think I'm lying with the next bit but I find I have to do far less on FM13 compared to what I had to do on FM12. The game is just easier for me this year.

The problem is that most of the time nothing really seems to have much effect. But the biggest problem is the overall seeming lack of intelligence or energy in my whole team, and unless it's my imagination - all the other teams too. I remember in FM12 you could make tactical mistakes and you would be punished for them, rightly so, but even if you did your players had the intelligence or creativity that you would expect from top-class professionals to still make things happen and play relatively good football.

I've not encountered this issue at all.

Maybe I'm wrong, but surely if you were managing a top team in real life and set say your midfielder to sit slightly too far from the striker in front of him it wouldn't cause him to suddenly lose his mind and not know what to do, and then just lose the ball through inaction or just hoof the ball up field or shoot from an impossible angle and distance? Surely a player, even at low levels, would take it upon himself to move slightly closer or even just use different passes and such to find the player, and surely the striker would aslo do his best to try and find space and make himself available to pass to?

The long shots could possibly be bug related like as been mentioned before.

However it could also be a lack of movement and options so the player as no choice but to shoot or attempt the impossible?

A player does do all those things you mention but for it to work he needs the correct sort of attribute. Firstly he'd need high creativity attribute to see all his available options. He'd then need good decisions to pick the correct one. He's need good technique so he was comfy with the ball at his feet. Depending on what the situation was he would need the required attribute to pass, shoot or work with a team mate. So he'd need passing, shooting and teamwork depending on the scenario.

The striker shouldn't be static, if he is its either a case of low teamwork, workrate, off the ball and the role you've given him or its an issue with lack of support so he doesn't drop off and find space because he has no options or help to pull this off.

There seems to be a huge conflict on the forum of what's actually going on, no one seems to actually know for sure. Is it actually the game or is it not? It would be nice to know. Sometimes it feels like we're all just battling the ME, rather than trying to make real tactics based on real football and our own wants and needs for our clubs.

Unless its throughball related or long shots then I can safely say its a tactical issue and not a gaming issue. I think the majority of people who understand how the game works would agree with that.

I base my tactics on real life principles and don't have any real issues, I've done this for many teams in different leagues so far on FM13. Sure the few bugs that currently do exist will have some bearing on how it all pans out but majority of things should still work perfectly fine.

Have you read the whole of my Understanding Your Tactic thread? If not I suggest you do even the replies from other people and you'll see how many people its helped to make their game enjoyable again. There is a wealth of knowledge in it that I've posted about and others. I'm sure there is plenty you could take and adapt into your own game with your own system.

I'm not saying a 442 can't work but its a really hard formation to use in FM at the top levels, especially if you face teams who out number the midfield. The same can be said for real life too, there is a reason why majoirty of teams don't play a standard 442 anymore and those that try see it change shape several times during a game. It can become a 4231/4411/451/433 and so on. You can do this on FM but its a lot of tweaking and adjusting thing.

IMHO you'd be much better going for something else instead of the 442 as that will just get you frustrated as it takes a lot of looking after to be consistent.

[kazm]

In my opinion it's like this: FM13 really wants you to make your own tactic, lots of abusable stuff has been fixxed, it will be a lot more 'perfect' than any FM before, BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTT, we just aren't there yet with this patch so:

FM13 rewards logical thinking to an extent but because of it's flaws also has some stuff that work against this. Stuff sometimes just won't work even though there is no logical reason it won't.

Example: i play short passing, I see it happen so often, passes being too soft over and over again, players that have options to pass the ball to passing it to a player close by that actually has 1 or 2 enemy players standing between the passer and the receiver, strikers receiving the ball inside the box and controlling it when they have a good chance waiting for a tackle, strikers that can shoot passing it outside of the box to the winger, complete ignorance of the objectively speaking best attacking option and never giving throughballs regardless of shouts/tactic, with throwins: thrower throws, receiver passes it back 3 meters wide, Goalkeepers throwing it 3 meters from a non-moving player with years of time to think and aim, wingers dribbling into the box getting close to the backline either not crossing it acting all indecisive until they get tackled and lose the ball, strikers in the same situation NEVER passing it in front of the goal always try and shoot it and hitting the post, wingers play the ball a meter past the back then the back stops thinking the winger has the ball and instead of picking up the ball he runs back to the centre leaving a free gap for the winger, especially with counters: players making runs 'through' teammates that have the ball actually bumping into them causing them to lose the ball/waste time.

This is all stuff that happens in my game and to me most of it has nothing to do with my tactics or at least should not have anything to do with my tactics.

Add to that: the overpoweredness tackling, and the difference in the way defending players move to tackle, sliding across the field, acting like homing missiles, the higher importance of composure (penalties anyone? missing CCCs that are 99% unmissable etc and some superrandom stuff) and imo you should just use this period as a time to learn and try to make a tactic that functions decently now but keep in mind that the ME in the future should be completely different.

This is my opinion based from my experience. If someone does not agree that may be because it seems like some people are in a completely different game but I am still interested to hear their opinions because ofcourse improving my own tactic is always worth it.

[Lee182]

Thanks for the great reply Cleon. I understand everything you're saying and it all makes sense. I get the feeling that I'm going down the wrong path with this and getting lost and frustrated as a result. I think I need to take a step back, see things from a new perspective. Probably the sensible thing to do would be to have a break from the game, perhaps wait until the new patch comes out - problem is I'm completely addicted at the moment. The fact that I'm struggling seems to have made the game even more addictive than normal, just not as fun at the moment.

I agree and understand what you said about the roles, and I have been careful with this. Like I said, I only ever really changed the central midfieler's roles, and still made sure that one was more defensive and the other was either support or attack. For a long time I didn't even change that for fear of messing things up, but I did change it as nothing else was working - I thought - what harm could I do?

I have started noticing over time about the assisstant's advice. What I tend to do now is look at his advice, and then look at the analysis to see if I agree, or to see if the issue is even a problem. Only when I agree or am worried about something will I attempt to change it. I've also noticed that lots of things happen during a match, lots of things can be going wrong and he won't say a word about it. But it can still be helpful to me, especially when sometimes I have no clue what's going wrong, if anything at all. I think perhaps I've been a little spoiled by the assisstant's advice and have relied on it too much in the past. So now I'm at a point where I can actually struggle to know what's going wrong and what's going well with my team during a match because I lack the skill to find out for myself without a virtual assisstant telling me. It's probably a large part of my problems.

I like that you say FM13 is actually easier for you. It's how it should be with the changes to the training and such. It gives me hope that if I do work out where I'm going wrong I can actually get pretty far with this game.

It's funny what you say about the 4-4-2. The only reason I went for it was because I thought it would make things easier for myself, when in fact I've just made them harder! I would never have chosen a 4-4-2 otherwise.

I think what I'm going to do Cleon is follow your "Understanding Your Tactic" thread in it's entirety and kind of follow along with a new game. I don't think it would make sense now to completely change the tactics at Everton, unless you disagree?

[Cleon]

Thanks for the great reply Cleon. I understand everything you're saying and it all makes sense. I get the feeling that I'm going down the wrong path with this and getting lost and frustrated as a result. I think I need to take a step back, see things from a new perspective. Probably the sensible thing to do would be to have a break from the game, perhaps wait until the new patch comes out - problem is I'm completely addicted at the moment. The fact that I'm struggling seems to have made the game even more addictive than normal, just not as fun at the moment.

I agree and understand what you said about the roles, and I have been careful with this. Like I said, I only ever really changed the central midfieler's roles, and still made sure that one was more defensive and the other was either support or attack. For a long time I didn't even change that for fear of messing things up, but I did change it as nothing else was working - I thought - what harm could I do?

I have started noticing over time about the assisstant's advice. What I tend to do now is look at his advice, and then look at the analysis to see if I agree, or to see if the issue is even a problem. Only when I agree or am worried about something will I attempt to change it. I've also noticed that lots of things happen during a match, lots of things can be going wrong and he won't say a word about it. But it can still be helpful to me, especially when sometimes I have no clue what's going wrong, if anything at all. I think perhaps I've been a little spoiled by the assisstant's advice and have relied on it too much in the past. So now I'm at a point where I can actually struggle to know what's going wrong and what's going well with my team during a match because I lack the skill to find out for myself without a virtual assisstant telling me. It's probably a large part of my problems.

I like that you say FM13 is actually easier for you. It's how it should be with the changes to the training and such. It gives me hope that if I do work out where I'm going wrong I can actually get pretty far with this game.

It's funny what you say about the 4-4-2. The only reason I went for it was because I thought it would make things easier for myself, when in fact I've just made them harder! I would never have chosen a 4-4-2 otherwise.

I think what I'm going to do Cleon is follow your "Understanding Your Tactic" thread in it's entirety and kind of follow along with a new game. I don't think it would make sense now to completely change the tactics at Everton, unless you disagree?

What I'd do is carry on with your game but use it as an experiment until the next patch maybe? Just try and familiarise yourself with something other than a 442 for now, essentially stripping back and going back to basics. You might not get as frustrated if you use a 451/433/41221 or something.

But in the mean time read the thread I mention because even if you don't use the shape I do you'll gain an understand (I hope) of what the version I created is about and maybe understand the roles a bit better. A lot of people have read it then adapated bits of it to their own shapes like a 4231 or something other. Lots of positive feedback inside it from people like yourself who couldn't get their head round soemthing or was just getting frustrated, but 99% of them seem to be having some kind of success and consistency now.

People think I'm a big defender of the game but in all honesty I'm not and I'm quite critical at times. But what I do is focus on what actually works and try and dismiss the bugs best I can and not focus on them at all. The games becomes a lot less stressful then because you don't keep looking for bugs, instead by focusing on the stuff that does work I'm trying my best to play the game rather than playing the ME.

I honestly wish I had more time to help you though but my time is kind of limited in the next few days. I'll gladly try and answer any questions though in either thread should you have any

[Lee182]

Thanks Cleon and everyone for all your help and support.

I went away and read large chunks of your "Understanding Your Tactic" thread and it has helped marvelously. I'm probably never going to read the entire thing as it's a beast, I'll probably be there for days!

So, I really liked your tactics in the thread and the logic behind it. I've applied basically the same tactics to my Everton side as I think it could work okay for me too. I don't have the perfect players for it right now, but certainly players that should be able to perform it functionally. I plan on slowly adapting these tactics as things change, and as I learn more. One thing I did change was to switch the central midfielder's and central defender's roles around based on someone else's comment on your thread. The idea is to protect the more attacking left side more. You told him that the reason you didn't play it that way was because your left side was clearly your strongest side and so it made sense to attack mostly from that angle. I'd say my left side is also my strongest with Baines and Pienaar, but not as strong as yours. So I've given it a little more protection and hopefully overall more balance.

My first match after changing the tactics was at home against Tottenham which I guess is kind of ironic! Also quite a tough fixture.

The difference in my team was clear and obvious right away. Just by altering the tactics they are instantly playing better football and almost all of my previous problems have gone. They don't look dumn and lethargic anymore. We won the game too, 2-1!

We had less possession but had better pass completion and more shots on target.

In the process my team scored one of the best goals I've ever scored on FM. It was clearly a fluke, but it won me the match. Here are the goals:

[video=youtube;bEX51SWuhNk]

Also, look at our shots. Much, much better than before:

So, thanks again everyone. I don't want to speak too soon, but I think it's finally working. I'll be sure to ask back here if or should I say "when" things start going wrong.

[Lee182]

In my last match we won 1-0 against Swindon in the Carling Cup. I noticed about half way through that our tackling percentage was low so I switched to the "winning possession" group of shouts that Cleon suggests in his "Understanding Your Tactic" thread. These are "Push Higher Up", "Get Stuck In" and "Hassle Opponents". Two problems arose when I did this. Firstly Heitinga got himself rightly sent off for a nasty challenge. Secondly it actually caused the tackling percentage to get even worse. So I changed it to the "Retain Possession" group of shouts which includes the shout: "Stay On Feet" - this caused the tackle percentage to go up.

So, two questions:

1. If I do need to use the "Winning Possession" group of shouts or more specifically "Get Stuck In" - how do I make sure my players don't commit risky fouls? By using these shouts am I naturaly going to see more cards? I guess I'm just generally looking for advice with these shouts. There must be a proper way to use it, otherwise they may as well rename the shout: "Get Red Card"

2. When I notice my tackle percentage is low how do I know what the problem is and therefore which shouts to use? Sometimes I've had this problem and telling my players to "Get Stuck In" helps, sometimes telling them to "Stay On Feet" helps, and sometimes the opposite is true. How do I know which ones to use and when?

[kazm]

1 you don't. Get stuck in means: make more tackles, not tackle 'harder' if you use stand off it means they make less tackles and thus tackle at better opportunities, increasing the %. Still with lots of yellow cards and or nervous players using hard tackling is dangerous.

2 i am not sure tbh, but have a look at your team. Are they good tacklers and good decisionmakers?

I remember Lam making a great post where he compared Benoit Assou Ekotto to Walker and he explained why he made the first tackle often and the 2nd stand off more.

I believe its in Cleons tactics thread.

Btw against a weak team like that using more pressing might be good anyway because they will have low decisions, low composure, low passing, low first touch, low strength, low determination relative to your team. Well if you have a big enough selection and the players playing arent tired already, as its a cupmatch.

If you do use hassle i would advise setting every individuals marking settings to zonal before the game, if you don't this shouts will make your team manmark. This is up to your preference though.

[Lee182]

Look guys, look what you've done:

Thanks!

I just need to keep it up now...

Edit: I'm up to five wins out of five now!

[Lee182]

Okay, so I've finally lost my first match. The final result was 4-3 to Man City. Overall a very good match, and I knew we'd have to lose eventually - if you're going to lose to anyone it may as well be Man City away.

The match was a funny one though because there was a complete duality to my team. All of the attack worked absolute wonders and came away with great ratings, in fact Pienaar had a sitter in the last few minutes which would have given us an amazing draw but he somehow missed it. Whereas my entire defense played appallingly, all of them getting terrible ratings and I'm not entirely sure why this is.

Of course a team like Everton is going to find it hard against the likes of Dzeko, Aguero, Tevez, Silva and co. ALL AT ONCE! But even so, they seemed to have still performed way worse than would be expected. I have noticed a potential flaw in my tactics defensively and this may be the problem. We seem to concede too many goals in general and a lot of them from crosses into the box. I know when reading how Cleon planned his tactics that mine are based on he said because the WBs are set to attack it can leave that area exposed and that's why he has the GK set as a sweeper keeper. The problem is it seems to be causing my team a few problems and I'm wondering if I should change it.

The problem is, the attacking wing backs are a large part of what makes the tactics work, is there any other way I can make my team less vulnerable from the wings?

[BluMoonII]

The problem is, the attacking wing backs are a large part of what makes the tactics work, is there any other way I can make my team less vulnerable from the wings?

This is probably the cause of your 'duality' - the successful attacking and poor defending. If your WBs get forward frequently, they help create chances, but they leave space behind themselves for Aguero, Tevez, Silva, etc to exploit.

It's a possibility in your tactic that, on occasion, you might only have 3 players back; 2xDC and a DMC. Against Man City's attackers, that could easily lead to you conceding those four goals, and your defenders all getting poor ratings.

At the same time, as you've only got those 3 players back, the rest of your players could be way up field; the 2 WBs, the 2 AMs, the AP and the ST, with the DLP sitting in support. Again, having so many players every time your side gets the ball forward they have options, create chances, and the attackers rate highly.

While the wing backs are likely of use for your attacking, you need to balance your tactics to your opponent to still be dangerous, without putting your own goal at such risk. You can change them from WB(a)s to WB(s)s or FB(s)s, and they will still offer some support in attack, without being quite so gung ho. Even while set to Attack, an FB crosses from 'mixed' rather than always at the byline, which a WB on Attack does. More to the defensive extreme, even as a WB(d), the player will still have 'mixed' forward runs and crossing frequency.

So, while WB(a) is obviously the most attacking role you can give them, other roles can still offer your attack support, without leaving your defence so exposed. It's up to you to find out exactly which role is best at the time to nullify the opposition, while still offering sufficient attacking threat.

One other, small possibility is to share the workload a bit more amongst your wide players. When I'm up against particularly dangerous wingers, I might set my wide-men to specific man-mark the opponents'. This instruction will encourage your wingers to track back to the opponent's goal-side when they attack, meaning they have an extra man to get past, rather than just your FB. However, I normally only do this against ML/Rs (rather than AML/Rs), as it can pull your wide men too deep to carry any threat.

though I'm normally only willing to do this when the opponent is using regular ML/Rs, rather than AML/Rs.

[Lee182]

Thanks, that information really helps. I think in future I'll alter the roles and duties of my players based on the opposition and how each match pans out. If I find myself struggling defensively then I'll change the WBs to a more supporting or defensive role, and then also change some of the other players, such as the midfielers to more supportive roles also. Whereas if I'm struggling to create chances I'll probably try the opposite. I'm guessing this is kind of what you're supposed to do, and it is something I used to do to a degree - I guess I shouldn't be so concerned of "messing up the tactics" by changing a few roles - as long as there's logic to it all!