How to analyze a tactic - good tips needed

[Lebo44]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to FM and struggling with the tactics :-( I've spent so far around 20 hours re-playing one single match (first league game of the season) just to experiment with various formations and team instructions.

Also I read some interesting threads by Cleon here (that were recommended on Steam) and I find them VERY helpful and full of insights regarding tactics.

But...

One thing I miss are any clues for correct tactics analysis. In Cleon's threads everything looks so easy and well described (defence is here, then the guys intercepts, he passes here then there etc..) but when I try to do similar analysis during my game I'm clueless. I believe I need to watch the full game as even comprehensive setting doesn't provide enough information. However it's more time consuming. Also Team Analysis seems to be packed with ton of information, not necessarily needed.

So the question is - do you find any particular player or team stats especially important, telling more about the game/tactics/formation?

Any help appreciated,

regards

[summatsupeer]

I tend to watch games on Comprehensive until i'm happy that I don't need to see as much. Stats can help you highlight things to keep and eye on.

The main thing to do is separate what are individual errors and what are tactic errors. Tactic errors will be recurring issues, not due to individual mistakes but due to them following your instructions.

For example your players play the ball forward quickly, your ST ends up with it but no one is near him and he just shoots from distance. Was that a individual mistake or was he put in that position because of his role, the roles around him and/or the team tactics?

Another example could be a inside forward dribbling and getting tackled multiple times, he's following his instructions but failing. Is it just a performance issue with the player or does he not have good dribbling, technique, agility and acceleration? Then again is it a tactical error? Did he choose to dribble because have didn't have any other good options such as supporting players around him to pass and move or a fullback overlapping?

I wouldn't reload and play the same game over and over, your then too focused on what works in that match. There's plenty of other factors like player form, motivation, over confidence, and nerves that could affect you in that game differently to the next. You will get a better idea of how your tactic performs over many different games. Plus you want to build familiarity with the tactic so you can judge it at its best.

[Lebo44]

Hello again,

I have decided to perform a simple role comparison between Defensive Wingers Support (DW-Su) and Defence (DW-De) by re-playing the same match (details later). Suprisingly this test revealed MUCH MORE information than expected and also significantly improved the performance of the whole team!

Quick team overview:

Sandecja - Polish 2nd league, middle table team with aspirations to top half.

For the test I used two formations A and B. Variant A has left def winger as support (right as defence) while the formation B has right def winger as support (left as defence). This is the only difference between these variants. Important: please notice that Box-2-Box midfielder (Nather) is situated on the left part of central midfield.

Team Instructions: counter, flexible, roam from positions, mixed passing.

Here are the results:

As you can see Variant A gave me 2-0 away win while Variant B embarassing loss. I believe this was not just coincidence and I was not fooled by randomness because I re-played the game with Variant A two times and won both times 2-0 while I tried Variant B and several other symmetric 3-5-2 formations with different TIs and I lost every single time! (and usually playing very badly).

Please notice numbers of shots on goal, clear cut chances, passing, crosses and tackling. Possession was also slightly better in Variant A.

Okay, I know we played much better. But how the switch of the DWs roles impacted the game? I dig deeper and compared players stats.

Players' stats:

Both Def Wingers are highlighted. Stats of right DW (Szczepanski) are not much different between variants except for crosses (in Variant A he had less crosses because of defensive role). But look at other midfielders (Baran, Kasprzak, Malkowski, Nather). In Variant A they had around 30% more passes than in Variant B! B2B midfielder (Nather) had also seven crosses in A, while only 1 in B. We had also more shots on goal from defenders and attackers in Variant A.

I decided to look even closer on Nather (BBM) because his passing improved the most between variants (by 32%). The screenshot below shows his positional heat map with passes completed/intercepted.

There are 3 changes in his play:

1) in Variant A he operates right behind attack and has many short forward passes in this area, while in Variant B he is more deeper and to the left (yellow circle);

2) in Variant B he passes more often to the right and these passes are longer (because as mentioned above he plays more to the left and back in var B and in this variant right midfielder is supporting while left is defending; big green circle)

3) In Variant A he plays more often to the left supporting midfielder and the passes are shorter (big pink circle).

My conclusion from the test:

A) (as)symmetry in formations has huge impact (I used to neglect it and go for simple symmetric formations not even considering asymmetric)

B) BBM operates much better with offensive winger as support on his side (in other case he seems to try to fill in the gap in this area and do not provide enough support in the centre close to attackers and other midfielders).

I will look even further for other positions and will keep you updated.

Also please let me know guys if this analysis is helpful for you in any way. Suggestions/insights also highly appreciated :-)

cheers

[Lebo44]

The main thing to do is separate what are individual errors and what are tactic errors. Tactic errors will be recurring issues, not due to individual mistakes but due to them following your instructions.

.

Thanks for hint! It was useful, changed my view on some problems. Now I'm not so angry when for example a defender failed to tackle an opponent (individual error due to poor tackling/strength attributes) but he was marking him closely as tactically planned.

Yes, as you mentioned it is important to distinguish between individual (non-recurring) mistakes and tactic errors (recurring).

[Lebo44]

One more analysis with Positional Heat Map including 4 midfielders: BBM, CM-Su and both defensive wingers.

As you can see the positional map looks way better in Variant A. All 4 players cover much more area in the center of the pitch. One explanation for this could be that there is much more cooperation between BBM, CM-Su and left supporting defensive winger. Giving right DW supporting role does not help with retaining posession as he would be too far from BBM that operates more on the left side of the mid.