Be my assistant manager for a day, mine is useless :D

[Pendraz]

First of all, a resume of the current situation.

After a good season overall (mid table expectation at the beginning of the season), I managed to get promoted in premier league through playoffs (finished 3rd meh). The season just finished, so I have a lot of time to prepare for the new one.

We had started really well, and we had been in first position for most of the championship, but ultimately due to injuries and a drastic drop of the finishing quality in the last matches, we ended up losing a lot of points along the way. Unfortunately the competition was very tight, lots of teams fought until the end to get first place.

This is the system I used as a main tactic, making adjustments depending on the opponent:

The two TIs are: work ball into box, pass into space.

Now a few stats of the season:

As expected, we suffered the most against 4-4-2 and their wing play, leaking a lot of goals from corner.

However, for what concerns the rest, many goals were actually shots from outside the area or the result of pinball in the box following the dreaded corner kicks.

My forwards were quite prolific, however, one of them despite being 19, has already reached his full potential, and his attributes already started to drop to be replaced by others, a huge disappointment, I was sure I had snatched a wonderkid, but unfortunately he's nothing more than championship material. The second is a veteran at the end of his career, 34 years old and decaying (spent the last 3 months of the season in the infirmary).

If I take them away, the rest of the team is subpar at best, with many veterans that were ok in second division because of their mental attributes, but that just can't be relied upon in premier.

So I need some advice.

Do you think that with the right players and a bit of tweaking, it is possible to achieve a more solid defence, or would you switch formation to avoid being so weak on the flanks?

From a chance creation point of view, I was very satisfied, both for the quality of the chances and for the variety (through balls, quick counter attacks, cross from the wings), but defensively we were disappointing, and I can see us suffering a lot against the pacey wingers of the premier.

Suggestions?

[aderow]

Well with the right players can probably succeed at any level in this game tbf.

You said that you were conceding a lot of goals that from long shots. Imo, that could down to you playing fairly deep (since you are using counter) or could be down to your players not being in the right position/or not being quick enough or aggressive enough to stop your opponent from getting his shot off uninterrupted. So it could be down to your players simply not being good enough.

Also you'll always have trouble out wide if your WBs are subpar.

When you are playing against a wide formation, try the the play wider TI. It might push your CMs to be a bit more helpful out wide. If you are having trouble with shots from outside the box, you might want to try increasing your mentality or your defensive line; I feel like whenever my opponent is getting a lot of chances like that, it's because my team is sitting too deep. Also you might want to try and consolidate possession/play to your strengths. Focus down the middle of the part because that's where you outnumber your opponent.

Hope that helps. Unless I am mad and everything I've said is actually bad then I apologise lol

[Overmars]

If a 4-4-2 opponent concerns you then you can set up an alternate tactic to use under those circumstances. For instance, a narrow 4-1-3-2 plays a bit wider than your narrow diamond but requires very little deviation from your base tactic. A 4-1-2-2-1 is wider yet, and it still only requires two position changes.

You can also play around with your DM. Sliding him back to a third DC makes you a bit wider at the back. So does using a half back.

[Pendraz]

Thank you both for the input guys.

I would have loved to build a better team, but it's kind of hard because I have no budget and I have just been promoted, so my scouts still haven't found anything worthwhile, and the AI asks crazy amounts for anything.

Only good thing is that at least the board set the expectations to "just try to don't get humiliated too often", which kind of reflect the quality of our team I guess.

The 4-1-3-2 is definitely a good idea Overmars, in fact that's what I had called "triangle" in my alternate tactics slot It's just that we do lose a bit in the transition phase, so I am still trying to tweak it, but I'll work on it, thanks. Using a half back is also a pretty good idea especially to deal with crosses since my DM is actually quite tall and good in the air. Only problem is losing the screen in front of the defense, so it's sort of a trade off, I deal with crosses better but I am more exposed to long range shots (what happens normally is that the opponent on the wing pass back in the middle after my CM and WB closed down on him, and their CM/AM is given a lot of time to shoot freely from range. Which shouldn't be that big of a problem since scoring from range is supposed to be hard, but apparently in FM15 it works really well, even from average players).

[Draakon]

First of all - corners. If you struggle with those in Championships, then bigger teams in Premiership do get a lot more corners against you and you'll suffer even more. Put some work into defensive set piece instructions. Also, what are your GK attributes? Command of area and decisions should be high enough to catch some crosses that go too near to goal.

Secondly, diamond tactics is always bound to struggle against wide play, in real life as well. It gives you very compact midfield and allows you to overwhelm opponent midfielders, but leaves space on the wings. For that to work IRL your central midfielders should have very high work rate, positioning and anticipation to move wide when needed and back into diamond when threat from wing is over (not sure how FM ME handles it).

So, as said before - you probably need different tactic against good teams that attack from wings.

[Pendraz]

Well set pieces have always been a mystery for me. I have tried different setups, including leaving it to default, I have had entire seasons with the match preparation focus set to attack or defend set pieces, but to no avail. I keep conceding on corners, and I hardly ever score on them no matter what I do, which is a shame since I would have definitely won the championship by far with a balance between set pieces scored and allowed.

I'll try my best to avoid relagation with what I have this season, hoping that I can get some better players in the next, thanks for taking the time to answer.

[Overmars]

Sounds like you'll need your scouts finding potential loans. There should be plenty of young future stars available toward the end of the transfer window from Italy, Germany, and especially Spain. They may reject you earlier in the transfer window, but by the end of August they will be more desperate.

[Pendraz]

I must admit that I usually aim for buying more than loaning. That is because I hate making a youngster bloom under my guidance only to see him going back to his team at the end of the season. If only the buyback option worked properly... every time I try to include that, they expect the buy out to be like 50-60 mln if not more... and even if I add a buy back clause in their favour, it still ends up being 50 for me, and maybe 60 for them. Which ends up being a huge gamble as you don't know if they are gonna use it, and you risk spending more than you can chew... if only they would accept to just pay some sort of "formation" fee like it is so common in football nowadays with low future fee clause and a higher buy back one for the owner club...

[Pendraz]

Quick resume: I insisted with the 4-4-2 diamond, and no matter what I did, like dropping the AM to CM position, tweaking duties and roles, I ended up suffering a humiliating relegation. Fun fact? I was a capital one cup finalist, so now I am playing in the championship AND the Europe league if that makes any sense at all.

So, I was mad enough at my weakness against wide formations, which every single AI seemed to use, that I decided to start from scratch. I choose to go for what I consider the most dynamic and balanced attacking formation, the 4-1-2-2-1.

TIs: work ball into box, pass into space. I have strikers that are fast and good at moving off the ball, so that's something I want to exploit as much as possible. The strategy is counter because I don't want to expose myself too much, my CDs are strong and towering, good anticipation and mental, but lacking in the speed department (otherwise they wouldn't be playing in second division I guess).

I don't feel like I have any player good enough to act as a playmaker, and I don't want to restrict my players from attempting 1vs1 too much, since they are mostly also quite proficient at dribbling their way through.

Obviously depending on the opponent and how much aggressive they are, I will make some tweaking, especially the forwards' roles/duties.

So how it is going? It's hard to say.

I was eliminated in capital one cup for 4-0 against a lower division side

Unfortunately I probably didn't press the hotkey strong enough, and the screenshot for the detailed stats didn't come out, so you'll have to believe me on this.

As you can see, they scored 4 goals with 3 shots on target, since one of the goals was an own goal. The other three were goals on a cross. Did I tell you that they were using a 4-4-2 diamond formation? And that they were a lower division side? That their fullbacks were ridiculously bad? That I had my very high marking-tackling/anticipation wingbacks+my AMLs not being able to prevent them from crossing?

Why is it that when the AI receives the ball out wide, they immediately cross the ball without wasting time, and mostly making good crosses, while in my case, no matter if I give the PIs of cross more often, cross from deep, dribble less or more, etc, they always wait standing there until they are closed down and lose ball/get a throw in-corner?

Seriously I know it sounds like I am complaining, but I am genuinely asking this because I don't understand what I am doing wrong. It was a match we should have dominated with ease. They were using possibly the most fragile formation you could use against mine. They had horrible players. And yet we failed every single chance, and believe me, I watched the full match, they were not half chances from extremely wide positions. Many of them were really easy chances you would expect my pretty good strikers (one of them has 18 finishing, 18 composure, 16 anticipation, 14 technique) to score. Easily.

The problem is that you will now ask me: "you watched the match, so what did you see that was causing such problems?" Well the answer is, nothing. I mean, nothing tactical, just horrible, horrible, horrible player mistakes. Their goals came from crosses with my defense in perfect shape... their full back was being harassed by two players, their striker was closely marked by my DC and my HB. And yet their fullback made a perfect delivery after another, with their striker getting to each of them before my defense.

Our build up was always well done, we would always manage to create clear chances, but we failed every single one of them, sometimes so badly that as you can see, our off target ratio was absolutely horrible despite not having that many long shots (they didn't happen because they couldn't find a pass or the space for something else. It's a player with very high long shots/technical attribute that I have a PPM to attempt them more).

In the middle of matches like that, I qualified as first in my europe league group, against the likes of Napoli, Olympique M. and Gent. When I saw my group I almost couldn't hide a laugh because I thought it was over before it even started, but in the end I qualify as first with a 1-5 against Napoli as the last match.

Take a look also at matches like this:

They happen a lot. But the problem is that I can't really seem to understand why. I don't see anything wrong in the way we cover the field or we attack. It's like the opponent hardly manages to create something but will always make it count, while we create a lot, concede very few, and still can't manage to win the easiest matches.

Thoughts? If you need more info just ask...

[Pendraz]

Just wanted to add this screenshot. The previous matches were about the same stat wise... It has to be the fifth consecutive draw or so.

[Pendraz]

So despite the bad luck and an horrible run of many consecutive draws, I persisted with the same tactics, more or less, and things started to click.

Considering our mentality, I felt the HB was too conservative as a choice. The rest of the team was keeping a fairly solid shape, but I still didn't like to leave too much initiative to the opponent, despite the fact that they would mostly rely on deep crosses and long shots.

I wanted a high pressing BWM, but not in midfield, he would have pressed way too high for comfort. In the DM role he still provides cover, interceptions, but he presses mainly when they get close to the box, double teaming or covering for a fast flank switch, as well as providing chances to go on a break.

As a last resort, he can also be quite successful at joining the attack if given a S duty.

I changed one of the M s to BBM because especially against defensive teams we would struggle to create enough movement.

In fact during the whole season, the matches we struggled the most proved to be against those who parked the bus, especially the 4-4-2 and 4-5-1 that kept both full backs and some midfielders on D duty.

This is how it ended:

In the end we suffered a lot from the unbelievably busy schedule, the last two months we played basically a match every other day, it was crazy to be honest. No matter how much rotation I did, it was impossible to have players in top shape, and we suffered from a lot of light injuries and unlucky coincidences because of the damn rules about the homegrown status and the players I chose for the Europe league when I thought we didn't have a chance anyways.

We ended up losing 3-1 on aggregate, but it was quite close, a shame but they definitely were the better team.

What left me incredibly bitter in the end, was the final of the FA cup. Probably one of the best matches we played through the whole season, and they scored on a corner and a direct free kick, they hardly had any other attempts at goal worth mentioning.

On the other side their keeper was on that kind of magic day, so it wasn't meant to be. It would have been an historical double.

Now I am unsure about what to do, so far every time something has worked for me in the previous season, ended up being disastrous in the following one no matter what kind of adjustments I made.

Building a good side for the premier is going to be hard since I am afraid I'll hardly receive any budget and I am not really stuffed with players I could make a profit with, aside from the very few ones I need to keep if I want to even hope to avoid relegation.

Besides I can't even ask for more scouts to the board, only more coaches, of whom I have plenty already. Bah.