Whats wrong with my tactic?

[FootballManager89]

My team struggles to score goals and gives up too many. Especially the striker position is doing terrible. How do I give my striker enough support without compromising my defense?

[rumpelstiltskin]

Have a look at this: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/327822-Asking-For-Help-PLEASE-READ-THIS

[Keyzer Soze]

I can spot a couple of things that stands out for me:

1) You play with a structure team shape, which stretchs the team, and then have the attack players with attacking mentality, and the defense players with defense/support mentality. This will leave your team pretty much break in the blocks with only one player, the BBM, to link those blocks.

2) You play with 2 wingers, that the main purpose is to cross the ball into the area, and then have a CF(s) that could leave the area, drift to wider areas of the field, etc

3) About the wingers, i always believe they work better for a more direct style of play, something that you cleary dont wont, judging from your TI's (retain possession, shorter passing, work ball into the box, play out of defense, etc)

4) About yout TI's. Having retain possession + work ball into the box + shorter passing + lower tempo will have your team playing sooooooooooooooooooo slow that the opponent defense can just sit back and let you play.

5) In defense, you'll have the 4 attack players staying high up, helping very little. In the midfield, you'll have one DLP(d) that will stay pretty much in the center, and one BBM(s) that will have a large area to cover. You must have more cover in the midfield from your 4 guys upfront.

6) In attack, you'll have 4 guys that will go very soon into the opponent area, one DLP(d) that will stay back, and only the BBM(s) to link the play. On top of that you have the TI to play from defense, but i believe that because half your team you go straight to the attack you dont have enough man in the midfield to help that kind of play.

[FootballManager89]

I can spot a couple of things that stands out for me:

1) You play with a structure team shape, which stretchs the team, and then have the attack players with attacking mentality, and the defense players with defense/support mentality. This will leave your team pretty much break in the blocks with only one player, the BBM, to link those blocks.

2) You play with 2 wingers, that the main purpose is to cross the ball into the area, and then have a CF(s) that could leave the area, drift to wider areas of the field, etc

3) About the wingers, i always believe they work better for a more direct style of play, something that you cleary dont wont, judging from your TI's (retain possession, shorter passing, work ball into the box, play out of defense, etc)

4) About yout TI's. Having retain possession + work ball into the box + shorter passing + lower tempo will have your team playing sooooooooooooooooooo slow that the opponent defense can just sit back and let you play.

5) In defense, you'll have the 4 attack players staying high up, helping very little. In the midfield, you'll have one DLP(d) that will stay pretty much in the center, and one BBM(s) that will have a large area to cover. You must have more cover in the midfield from your 4 guys upfront.

6) In attack, you'll have 4 guys that will go very soon into the opponent area, one DLP(d) that will stay back, and only the BBM(s) to link the play. On top of that you have the TI to play from defense, but i believe that because half your team you go straight to the attack you dont have enough man in the midfield to help that kind of play.

Very helpful thanks. I wish there was an article that directly tells you what works and what doesn't. You telling me that the wingers dont work well for a slower tempo buildup is helpful. So what formations work well with the team instructions i used? Also any suggestions as far as role changes to get more help in the midfield?

[summatsupeer]

There's no "this works and this doesn't" because there's too many possible combinations, you just have to try things for yourself. You twisted Keyzer's words a bit, he didn't say wingers don't work in slow tempo tactic, he said they work better in more direct styles. That's his opinion of course. I've used the winger role in possession style's just fine, it depends what you expect from them and how it fits in with the rest of your tactic.

You haven't told us what you want so it hard to recommend anything specific as there's lots of options that I could give.

Take a step back and look at what you've told your players to do and see if it makes sense as a strategy.

IMO you've:

- Told your team when they have lost possession to position with lots of advanced player, to press and push up to win the ball. If you manage it your pinning your opponent in, do your players have the to movement + skills to break them down? And have you given them the instructions, roles and duties to do that?

- Told the team to stick to there roles and to rarely deviate (very structured).

- Your only playmaker is on defend duty so will be less risky and deeper even if he is allowed to be more creative due to being a playmaker.

- Told your team to reduce the number of risky actions they take to retain the ball for a better chance, think a bit more more with slower tempo, look to pass it shorter and shoot from distance plus cross less.

- But then you've told your attacking midfielders to all be attacking (more risky) and to make forward runs often. The wingers will stay wider but are expected to cross less.

- Your fullbacks are quite restrained and don't offer a lot of variety with FB+W on both flanks.

[FootballManager89]

There's no "this works and this doesn't" because there's too many possible combinations, you just have to try things for yourself. You twisted Keyzer's words a bit, he didn't say wingers don't work in slow tempo tactic, he said they work better in more direct styles. That's his opinion of course. I've used the winger role in possession style's just fine, it depends what you expect from them and how it fits in with the rest of your tactic.

My opinion is your roles&duties don't really fit a "retain possession" style. All three attacking midfielders are looking to get forward and attack, get in behind and play more risky than the rest of the team. What do you expect from your striker? Here he's playing a more creative role with the AM looking to get in front of him often, but then you've constrained him to Retain Possession so will try to wait for options that have a higher chance of success. With High Structure your giving very little creative freedom so players will stick closely to the instructions they have been given, this will reduce variety and I think that increases the importance of you creating a good balanced tactic.

You haven't told us how you want your team to play so I can't really offer anything specific.

- If your looking to pin your opponent in and win the ball back quick then play patiently, I would consider changing your roles and/or duties to encourage more players to play deeper, be less risky and pick there opportunity to try to dribble past a defender, make a run forward or try a risky pass. I would look to try and add some variety from your flanks.

- If you want your midfield to make runs past your striker often then I think you need to consider your mentality, formation and instructions so you can create space for them to attack with there runs.

Well my whole goal when playing fm is trying to build the most optimal tactic for my team given my players strengths and weaknesses. The thing is this is seems pretty hard to do or atleast i dont know where to go to find information on creating a tactic for a specific set of skills. I tried guidetofootballmanager.com and thats how i came up with this tactic but it doesn't seem to be any good. So is there an article that or video that shows how to think when building a tactic? I don't know what i'm doing wrong or missing here.

[James9]

There's no "this works and this doesn't" because there's too many possible combinations, you just have to try things for yourself. You twisted Keyzer's words a bit, he didn't say wingers don't work in slow tempo tactic, he said they work better in more direct styles. That's his opinion of course. I've used the winger role in possession style's just fine, it depends what you expect from them and how it fits in with the rest of your tactic.

You haven't told us what you want so it hard to recommend anything specific as there's lots of options that I could give.

Take a step back and look at what you've told your players to do and see if it makes sense as a strategy.

IMO you've:

- Told your team when they have lost possession to position with lots of advanced player, to press and push up to win the ball. If you manage it your pinning your opponent in, do your players have the to movement + skills to break them down? And have you given them the instructions, roles and duties to do that?

- Told the team to stick to there roles and to rarely deviate (very structured).

- Your only playmaker is on defend duty so will be less risky and deeper even if he is allowed to be more creative due to being a playmaker.

- Told your team to reduce the number of risky actions they take to retain the ball for a better chance, think a bit more more with slower tempo, look to pass it shorter and shoot from distance plus cross less.

- But then you've told your attacking midfielders to all be attacking (more risky) and to make forward runs often. The wingers will stay wider but are expected to cross less.

- Your fullbacks are quite restrained and don't offer a lot of variety with FB+W on both flanks.

Have a question for you. When you play a structured or very structured team shape do you need more players on support duty. Because they are structured the team will be split in two attack players attack and defend players defend. So I guess you will need someone to link the play. I am playing a 4231 and looking at playing structured so that is why I asked the question.

[summatsupeer]

Have a question for you. When you play a structured or very structured team shape do you need more players on support duty. Because they are structured the team will be split in two attack players attack and defend players defend. So I guess you will need someone to link the play. I am playing a 4231 and looking at playing structured so that is why I asked the question.

Nope, I don't link roles/duties with team shape. Team shape doesn't have a big enough effect to cause a team "split", it would mostly be caused by the duty depending on the role and starting position.

[FootballManager89]

Perhaps it is because I don't understand soccer that well being an american but what/how do you guys look at my tactic and dissect it the way you do. I have 0 clue how to break down a tactic just by looking at its shape/formation and duties and mentality. I know what the instructions and other parts mean but I don't know how to visualize it to get an idea of what my players will do during offense and defense and most importantly transition. Whats the best way to get a good transition which i find to be hardest to do. Any help would be appreciated thanks. I've read the links in the sticky topic but haven't really fully understood them or i know what they do to make a possession tactic but have no clue how to adapt it to create my own unique tactic.

[herne79]

It pretty much comes down to experience.

So for example you ask how people can look at your tactic and dissect it - the first two things I'm looking at are your basic formation and your chosen mentality.

The 4-2-3-1 is an aggressive formation. Why? Because you have 4 players almost permanently positioned up in your opponent's half - your formation is your defensive formation. Compare that to the 4-4-2 where you only have 2 players positioned that far up, or the 4-1-4-1 where you only have one. There are exceptions to this (aren't there always ), but that's the basic concept.

You then choose the Control mentality. Mentality is all about risk. The defensive mentality is very low risk, the attacking mentality is very high risk. Each single change in mentality is just a step along that risk "ladder". So using the Control mentality is just one step down from Attacking and is thus a pretty risky mentality to use. Load up your Team Instructions screen, clear all TIs and flick through the mentalities - watch what happens to various TIs as you change mentality. Also have a quick read of the FAQs at the top of this forum to get a better understanding of "risk" as you do that.

So, now we can see that you have chosen an aggressive formation with a high risk mentality. That's not necessarily a bad thing - high risk can bring high reward - but in doing so it's important to understand the impact.

Then we start to add in all the TIs you have chosen. The majority of them will increase the risk even further.

To me, risk is an important concept to understand - identify your risks and then think about how you can either use them to your advantage and/or mitigate them.

[FootballManager89]

It pretty much comes down to experience.

So for example you ask how people can look at your tactic and dissect it - the first two things I'm looking at are your basic formation and your chosen mentality.

The 4-2-3-1 is an aggressive formation. Why? Because you have 4 players almost permanently positioned up in your opponent's half - your formation is your defensive formation. Compare that to the 4-4-2 where you only have 2 players positioned that far up, or the 4-1-4-1 where you only have one. There are exceptions to this (aren't there always ), but that's the basic concept.

You then choose the Control mentality. Mentality is all about risk. The defensive mentality is very low risk, the attacking mentality is very high risk. Each single change in mentality is just a step along that risk "ladder". So using the Control mentality is just one step down from Attacking and is thus a pretty risky mentality to use. Load up your Team Instructions screen, clear all TIs and flick through the mentalities - watch what happens to various TIs as you change mentality. Also have a quick read of the FAQs at the top of this forum to get a better understanding of "risk" as you do that.

So, now we can see that you have chosen an aggressive formation with a high risk mentality. That's not necessarily a bad thing - high risk can bring high reward - but in doing so it's important to understand the impact.

Then we start to add in all the TIs you have chosen. The majority of them will increase the risk even further.

To me, risk is an important concept to understand - identify your risks and then think about how you can either use them to your advantage and/or mitigate them.

Alright cool so what do you look for in a tactic to figure out how consistent it is? Like when I build tactics i usually choose a better side on the road and sim like 100 times to see how good my tactic is. The high risk tactics seem to be very inconsistent. The low risk ones seems to get a lot of draws or losses. So what are some shouts and other things that when you see a tactic you would say this tactic is a consistent winner?

[herne79]

What do you mean by

sim like 100 times to see how good my tactic is

?

[Rashidi]

Alright cool so what do you look for in a tactic to figure out how consistent it is? Like when I build tactics i usually choose a better side on the road and sim like 100 times to see how good my tactic is. The high risk tactics seem to be very inconsistent. The low risk ones seems to get a lot of draws or losses. So what are some shouts and other things that when you see a tactic you would say this tactic is a consistent winner?

Consistency comes from the manager not the tactic

[FootballManager89]

What do you mean by

?

I usually pick a team better than mine then i sim the game over and over to get a good idea if the tactic is good or not. Not sure if this is a good way to tell if a tactic is good but its what i do.

[herne79]

Yeh, I don't understand what "sim" means? You just holiday through matches? Or press instant result? You don't actually play the matches?

[FootballManager89]

One other question I have is how do you set up a tactic to have a specific player be the main goal scorer. Like for instance if you have a lone striker how do you get him to be the main goal scorer? Or if you wanted your right winger to be the main goal scorer what would you do to get that to happen?

[FootballManager89]

Yeh, I don't understand what "sim" means? You just holiday through matches? Or press instant result? You don't actually play the matches?

Yeah I press instant result.

[herne79]

ok, that's going to be the cause of a lot of your problems I'm afraid.

Unless you hit on a tactic that's going to give you lots of wins, you'll never understand why a tactic might fail (or lack consistency which you mention) if you're not watching what happens. At it's most basic, how will you know how you concede goals? Or score them? And if you don't know, you won't be able to tell us.

You also lose a lot of tactical control if you let the AI just sim through games, so you can't always be sure what the AI gets up to.

Don't get me wrong - many people play entire seasons like that if that's what they find fun, and good luck to them too. But it's going to be difficult to offer specific advice on a tactic where you don't know what's happening - we can only generalise.