LLM Tactic Advice Needed

[RSJ]

For as long as i can remember, ive relied heavily on downloaded tactics from various FM fan sites around the t'internet. Only now am i really trying to take notice to training and tactics.

Ive spent many an hour over the last few days (mainly when doing overtime ) reading up on tactics/roles/instructions etc etc.

Ive recently started a Youth Only save, which can be found here and one rule ive set is to use my own tactics. As you can see, im down in Tier 7 in England.

Am i right in thinking it due to a severe lack in quality of player, its better to have a tactic(s) as plain and as simple as possible? Are players of this quality able to play in the specialist roles?

If anyone has any advice to give to this complete tactical novice then please get in touch - it will be really, really appreciated.

 

[LATB]

More specialist roles can still work at that level, for instance your DLP may have a passing attribute of 6 but that could still be good enough for the division.

[RSJ]

New tactics...

4-4-2 and Team Instructions

Intention is to use this as my start off tactic. The 2x CMs are 2 of the 3 best players at the club so the tactic is supposed to be built around them. The FB's are the worst players on the team by far.

This is only made worse when i want to attempt to see a game out (props to @Jupjamie for the inspiration) and i adopt this

5-3-2 (Deep DM) and Team Instructions 

Last but not least, ive got a 

4-1-2-1-2 and Team Instructions

I quite like the look of this one, it means i can not worry to much about the lack of decent wide players at the club and also gives game time to Askew and Hajgato who both have nice potential.

Ive sat here for about 4 hours working on all this...time to put it to the test. Im not expecting instant results but id love to leave these 3 set until the end of the season at least.

As always, any feedback welcomed.

[Dr. Hook]

6 hours ago, LATB said:

More specialist roles can still work at that level, for instance your DLP may have a passing attribute of 6 but that could still be good enough for the division.

I agree you can use specialist roles at low level, but generally I don't because yeah, his passing of 8 might be decent for the division, but then you need the other things to be decent as well: vision, decisions, anticipation, technique. You can get those types of "complete" packages in lower leagues, but they are pretty hard to find. It is quite exciting when you do, though

[Rashidi]

12 hours ago, RSJ said:

Am i right in thinking it due to a severe lack in quality of player, its better to have a tactic(s) as plain and as simple as possible? Are players of this quality able to play in the specialist roles?

If anyone has any advice to give to this complete tactical novice then please get in touch - it will be really, really appreciated.

 

 

LLM is probably the most exciting mode to play the game on, granted its also one of the hardest. I find that a simple approach always works best and there are several steps that I always take to turn the numbers game in my favour

 

1. Do a league comparison and find out where your team stacks against the rest. 
I find that this is probably the most important aspect, you will find that there is a median level for most teams wrt defending. You may also find that your team is generally lacking in certain areas. One area which I will ensure we are tops at is the physicals. So I stamina, workrate, acceleration and pace become vital. You do expect your team to be defensively poor, but if they can get back into position all I need then is a stacked defence. (ie. DM based backline)

2. Trial, Trial and Trial the life out of the game
You will often find that in my LLM games I have around 500 trailists in my squad within the first 2 weeks, they are all on trial periods of at least 4 weeks, which gives me time to suss them out. This is where you will bag your best. I am assuming here that you are playing at the LOWEST rung of LLM. If you aren't then you need to do the same but you will need to incorporate scouting which can take longer. However you can still mass trial hundreds of players.

3. Tactically any system which exploits your strengths should work
This is where your question gets answered. You asked about specialists vs non specialist roles, which imho is one of the worst things we could have introduced into the game. Its not even in the game as a term and has only recently emerged in some of the scouting reports. What you want to do in the game is to ensure that you keep things simple, so stay on generic roles as much as possible. Specialist roles require a spread of attributes to work well, and to top it off they don't play well in isolation. So you need to consider how they fit into the overall schema of your tactic. I would follow a simple rule, if you are playing a structured system, have at least 1 playmaker. If you are playing a fluid system, ensure you have enough players with decent off the ball, stamina workrate and acceleration. The two shapes are simply systems which affect the number of players involved in a transition. Lower shape levels issue strict conditions for support players to participate in transitions. And higher shape systems have less rigid rules. This means that more players in a fluid system are going to eschew rigidity in favour of creative freedom when making decisions to move and participate in transitions. This gets complicated further with decision making, and physical attributes. This does not mean that a lower league side should never go fluid.

A fluid system for LLM sides just means that they are more compact and likely to lose shape when they have to get back to defend. So if you were to play a high line, fluid, chances are you will get stretched or you will find your centre getting ripped.  When it comes to creating any tactic with an LLM side just follow this logic, its simple and it works.

Once you have made the tactic, you should not have the need to change roles, though this can be done in the game for added benefit, but for a start just don't change them till you are comfortable.

 

a. Make one tactic with three different versions for mentality and shape

Assume you are playing a 41212 which is a narrow diamond ( actually I like this system cos it has so much potential to mess up the AI), you choose your attack and support players first. 
FB(S) DC(D) DC(A), FB(A), A(D)

This is your backline. This backline has a rigidly placed anchor, who just tackles and forms a three when the FB(A) goes attacking. This gives one flank a chance to overload, but now you need to protect that flank

CM(S), BWM(S), or BBM and CM(S) or CM(S) CM(S)

We have 3 options, the first option features a BWM who has hard tackling, the second option has a cm you can customise and the third has 2 CM you can customise. Assuming I had no midfielders who had good decision making and OTB (off the ball) I may favour the first option, and tell my CM(S) to play less risky passes if his passing is poor. I could also opt to have a BBM if he has ability to be a water carrier. Finally if I wanted to I could ask them both to be generic. Now this is where it gets more fun. You can actually tell both central midfielders to play as wide midfielders if you wanted to funnel the AIs attack. Against certain systems you may want them to go through your centre if your A is good. This depends entirely on your players

Upfront there are loads of combinations, but principally the AM needs to be a support player if there are no attacking duties in central midfield. The striker on the right flank should also be on support to support the fullback on attack. This will encourage more movement on the right flank. 

 

When creating any system you should think about player movement, hence the importance of duties. Once you have set these duties up you can make  2 more versions of the same tactic: '

Version 1: Mentality: Control/Shape Flexible

Version 2; Attacking/Fluid

While your team trains on 3 similar systems your side will become very familiar with changing shapes in games. This will allow you to change shapes. So why would you want to do that?
 

Assume you are playing against a side much better than you, and you wanted to suss them out. You can start on defensive.structured. Once the game is off, if you find that your defensive line can cope but you seem to be doing more defending than attacking. You can change to Control/Structured. This tells your team to take more chances but keeps those involved in transitions to a minimum. 

If you are playing against a side who has hunkered down and you want to score then you have two options:

1. Draw them out, this requires you hit on the break, so you need to play a lower mentality with a structured shape with no Work Ball into Box shouts. You can elect to tell your keeper to play it long, and just ping the balls tp the front men if they can first touch the ball down and have the strength to hold up before finding other players.

2. You can camp in the opponents half. This will see you go to attacking/fluid. Here you will be Work Ball into Box, because you want to carve out chances. You may also want to push up the D Line, but this is where you need to observe where the golden mean is with regards to your backline. If your backline is always retreating to get balls played over the top, its too high - reduce the D line. You can do the opposite if you find they are too comfortable.

 

Why do I advocate this style of play?

It's the easiest mode to play in and has the highest success probability. 

1. You never have to worry about keeping 2 sets of players with different tactics. Here you are optimising your team to play one system

2. Your team learns the tactics quickly

3. You are using mentality and shape as a risk barometer. IF you want goals you adjust just two shouts. 

4, The only shouts you need to track are : WBIB, Play out of Defence, Prevent Goalkeeper distribution, and defensive line. I do use other shouts but there are specific in game reasons for me to do so.

 

The game isn't hard. If you make a system with the right roles and duties, you shouldn't need to make major tactical changes unless a key player in your system is laid out and you need to adapt.

[RSJ]

10 hours ago, Rashidi said:

 

LLM is probably the most exciting mode to play the game on, granted its also one of the hardest. I find that a simple approach always works best and there are several steps that I always take to turn the numbers game in my favour

 

1. Do a league comparison and find out where your team stacks against the rest. 
I find that this is probably the most important aspect, you will find that there is a median level for most teams wrt defending. You may also find that your team is generally lacking in certain areas. One area which I will ensure we are tops at is the physicals. So I stamina, workrate, acceleration and pace become vital. You do expect your team to be defensively poor, but if they can get back into position all I need then is a stacked defence. (ie. DM based backline)

2. Trial, Trial and Trial the life out of the game
You will often find that in my LLM games I have around 500 trailists in my squad within the first 2 weeks, they are all on trial periods of at least 4 weeks, which gives me time to suss them out. This is where you will bag your best. I am assuming here that you are playing at the LOWEST rung of LLM. If you aren't then you need to do the same but you will need to incorporate scouting which can take longer. However you can still mass trial hundreds of players.

3. Tactically any system which exploits your strengths should work
This is where your question gets answered. You asked about specialists vs non specialist roles, which imho is one of the worst things we could have introduced into the game. Its not even in the game as a term and has only recently emerged in some of the scouting reports. What you want to do in the game is to ensure that you keep things simple, so stay on generic roles as much as possible. Specialist roles require a spread of attributes to work well, and to top it off they don't play well in isolation. So you need to consider how they fit into the overall schema of your tactic. I would follow a simple rule, if you are playing a structured system, have at least 1 playmaker. If you are playing a fluid system, ensure you have enough players with decent off the ball, stamina workrate and acceleration. The two shapes are simply systems which affect the number of players involved in a transition. Lower shape levels issue strict conditions for support players to participate in transitions. And higher shape systems have less rigid rules. This means that more players in a fluid system are going to eschew rigidity in favour of creative freedom when making decisions to move and participate in transitions. This gets complicated further with decision making, and physical attributes. This does not mean that a lower league side should never go fluid.

A fluid system for LLM sides just means that they are more compact and likely to lose shape when they have to get back to defend. So if you were to play a high line, fluid, chances are you will get stretched or you will find your centre getting ripped.  When it comes to creating any tactic with an LLM side just follow this logic, its simple and it works.

Once you have made the tactic, you should not have the need to change roles, though this can be done in the game for added benefit, but for a start just don't change them till you are comfortable.

 

a. Make one tactic with three different versions for mentality and shape

Assume you are playing a 41212 which is a narrow diamond ( actually I like this system cos it has so much potential to mess up the AI), you choose your attack and support players first. 
FB(S) DC(D) DC(A), FB(A), A(D)

This is your backline. This backline has a rigidly placed anchor, who just tackles and forms a three when the FB(A) goes attacking. This gives one flank a chance to overload, but now you need to protect that flank

CM(S), BWM(S), or BBM and CM(S) or CM(S) CM(S)

We have 3 options, the first option features a BWM who has hard tackling, the second option has a cm you can customise and the third has 2 CM you can customise. Assuming I had no midfielders who had good decision making and OTB (off the ball) I may favour the first option, and tell my CM(S) to play less risky passes if his passing is poor. I could also opt to have a BBM if he has ability to be a water carrier. Finally if I wanted to I could ask them both to be generic. Now this is where it gets more fun. You can actually tell both central midfielders to play as wide midfielders if you wanted to funnel the AIs attack. Against certain systems you may want them to go through your centre if your A is good. This depends entirely on your players

Upfront there are loads of combinations, but principally the AM needs to be a support player if there are no attacking duties in central midfield. The striker on the right flank should also be on support to support the fullback on attack. This will encourage more movement on the right flank. 

 

When creating any system you should think about player movement, hence the importance of duties. Once you have set these duties up you can make  2 more versions of the same tactic: '

Version 1: Mentality: Control/Shape Flexible

Version 2; Attacking/Fluid

While your team trains on 3 similar systems your side will become very familiar with changing shapes in games. This will allow you to change shapes. So why would you want to do that?
 

Assume you are playing against a side much better than you, and you wanted to suss them out. You can start on defensive.structured. Once the game is off, if you find that your defensive line can cope but you seem to be doing more defending than attacking. You can change to Control/Structured. This tells your team to take more chances but keeps those involved in transitions to a minimum. 

If you are playing against a side who has hunkered down and you want to score then you have two options:

1. Draw them out, this requires you hit on the break, so you need to play a lower mentality with a structured shape with no Work Ball into Box shouts. You can elect to tell your keeper to play it long, and just ping the balls tp the front men if they can first touch the ball down and have the strength to hold up before finding other players.

2. You can camp in the opponents half. This will see you go to attacking/fluid. Here you will be Work Ball into Box, because you want to carve out chances. You may also want to push up the D Line, but this is where you need to observe where the golden mean is with regards to your backline. If your backline is always retreating to get balls played over the top, its too high - reduce the D line. You can do the opposite if you find they are too comfortable.

 

Why do I advocate this style of play?

It's the easiest mode to play in and has the highest success probability. 

1. You never have to worry about keeping 2 sets of players with different tactics. Here you are optimising your team to play one system

2. Your team learns the tactics quickly

3. You are using mentality and shape as a risk barometer. IF you want goals you adjust just two shouts. 

4, The only shouts you need to track are : WBIB, Play out of Defence, Prevent Goalkeeper distribution, and defensive line. I do use other shouts but there are specific in game reasons for me to do so.

 

The game isn't hard. If you make a system with the right roles and duties, you shouldn't need to make major tactical changes unless a key player in your system is laid out and you need to adapt.

Thanks for this @Rashidi - going to read over it at work and attempt to digest it!

[VV Bal op de Lat]

On 21-11-2016 at 03:45, Rashidi said:

The game isn't hard. If you make a system with the right roles and duties, you shouldn't need to make major tactical changes unless a key player in your system is laid out and you need to adapt.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but disagree. I'm relatively new to the game (since fm 15) and struggling big time in getting results with almost every team that's not suppost to be top 3 in a division. And even then I struggle. 

This game ís hard. I've tried your advice about just tinkering the shape en mentality in a formation the last days, but after many tries I still can't get a grip to the concepts of tactics and how they work in game: fornation, shape, mentality, roles, player instructions, team instructions. Although you try to explain that this game is not hard to play, it actually ís hard to understand how all the parameters influence eachother and what is the cause of being outplayed by the ai sooner or later many times in the game.

I'm sorry if this all sounds a bit disappointed and negative. It's really not meant as a complaint or what so ever. But in many of your posts rashidi I jus don't understand what you are explaining, and then everytime you top it of with a "the game really is not that hard".

Well, for you as a really experienced and talented FM-player it is not and I see and admire that. But for many people the game and it's tactic mechanism is just really difficult to get a true grip on. 

I really appreciate all the efforts you put in helping many people with understanding the game, I'm sorry if I am sounding this negative. 

4-1-4-1. 4-1-2-1-2. 4-4-2. 4-1-2-2-1. In FM 17 it all works for me, max 5 or 6 games. And then it collapses. I try to analyse my players, their suited roles, the roles that suit the tactics and compliment eachother, the shape, thr mentality. But the harder I try to fully understand it, the more I fail. It is just a hard game. Please stop saying it isn't, because it is. Or am I the only fool in this world who can't be consistent through more than 1, maybe 2 seasons?

[RSJ]

@Rashidi @VV Bal op de Lat

I can see this from both sides. Ive played FM since day one, ive seen how both the training and tactics features have evolved over that time. For years, ive relied sooooo heavily on downloading other peoples tactics - the reality is, that simply doesnt work. Ive treated them as plug and play - nothing related to my squad really.

After reading Rashidi's post - i started to tinker with my tactic. I hadnt won a game in 20 games, drawing 6. I adopted a basic 4-4-2 and dropped all the TI's. I won 2 on the bounce and then lost one, this led to me missing my points target and the board sacked me.

Ive just took a new job at a Tier 9 club and hope to be alot better with my tactics.

You can follow the story here, if you wish. Im happy to continue the discussion here too.

[bigmattb28]

I've played FM since the champ man days of 00/01 and LLM is where the real players play!

 

I tend to keep it simple, 442, target man & advanced forward / poacher. Direct play, close down more high tempo. AM currently in level 9 of England with Billingham as got promoted first season with those tactics, although going to restart my LLM save.

[RSJ]

7 minutes ago, bigmattb28 said:

I've played FM since the champ man days of 00/01 and LLM is where the real players play!

 

I tend to keep it simple, 442, target man & advanced forward / poacher. Direct play, close down more high tempo. AM currently in level 9 of England with Billingham as got promoted first season with those tactics, although going to restart my LLM save.

Do you ever switch it up, especially in game?

[bigmattb28]

Oh yeah definitely. If we're winning or need to hold a 1 goal, I'll change the strikers roles to DLF and defensive forward. Only have 1 striker set to attack.