vrig

Completely forgot about that. In my head it was a year ago and we'd just lost Russo..

Yes. For one thing, I'll be playing FM, and since men's and women's football will be integrated in the game, to play one will be to play the other. Also, Man United have been pretty rubbish lately, but our women's team have been on the up. I do take a slight interest in them when I can, and they lost some big players recently, so that could make for an interesting save. Edit: on second thought, probably shouldn't be blindly assuming I'll play FM this year, so "maybe" might be the better answer.

Scott McTominay. I'm not even being facetious; his traits and attributes are a devastating combination in the game. I've had him score 20 in a season, get POTY, and basically become unstoppable over a period of 3 seasons. And this was playing as a DM(s) after I spent a year trying to sell him.

I'm pretty sure that isn't the case for the console pre-orders, however. It certainly isn't for other console games - they always take payment up front.

They're removing enough features that I would expect that an FM25 and an FM25 Touch would be basically identical.

I suspect it's more a case of: they're gonna be taking preorders very soon and they'll be slaughtered if people buy the game ahead of time and then have features taken away while they wait for the actual release. Kind of got no choice but to tell players everything they won't be getting again ASAP in that scenario.

Have a go on the search function. Somebody had a fun looking Motta-inspired tactic that used a pair of liberos on support and two inverted fullbacks a couple of months ago.

Conceding down your left a fair bit? Rashford has no work rate, Eriksen has no legs, and Shaw tires pretty quick. All three players are being asked to do too much, both in terms of your team press and the roles you've given them. I notice your big defeat came against Villa away. Assuming it's Unai Emery managing them, he'll have probably gone 424 and killed that side in transitions, which I'm guessing is what prompted your post. Simplifying things based on the players at your disposal would go a long way to helping you out here, I feel. Do you really want Rashford as an inside forward staying wide? Do you benefit from asking old man Eriksen to play one of the most physically demanding roles in the game? What are you getting from asking your midfield (all of whom have traits to either try killer balls, play long-range passes, or both) to only pass as short as possible, when the front three are all speedsters who want to get in behind? So yeah, what @crusadertsar said.

No, it does what it says on the tin. I guess you could argue that defensive width has been split into defend/invite crosses and trap inside/outside, with the former orientating your defense in your own third and the trap more beyond that. But it's easier to just take the instructions at face value because as I said, they pretty much just do what they say they do. Here's a post that goes into more detail if you need it.

I must admit I get more excited when my team has a throw-in in the final third than I do when they win a penalty

Yeah when you have the ball you generally just want to make the pitch as big as possible (ie width and depth) so that the defending team has more work to do. You don't need a CB-pinner to do this although sometimes it helps. But within your own attacking structure you can then take advantage of all that lovely space by having players make runs that are difficult to deal with, like the vertical runs from deep of a midfielder, or the lateral runs infield of an inverted wingback. Attacking football is asking a series of questions that need to be answered. You ask a good variety of good questions and eventually the defending team gets one wrong.

I'm probably being pedantic about the football theory. Exploiting depth is all you have to really worry about in FM, since the game kind of broadly sorts out the creation aspect for you unless you start doing weird stuff to it. So your answer is the useful one in this context.

I'm not sure I'm in agreement with your understanding of depth. Width is stretching the pitch horizontally, while depth is stretching it vertically - together making the pitch as big as possible. So an example of a role that creates depth would be an advanced forward in this instance. The roles you've listed are - as I interpret them - ones that exploit depth. They move into the vertical spaces created by the depth of your team's shape.

Cheers. That team used inswingers to the near post I believe, but that's the extent my input really. The set piece coach handled the actual routines. I just stacked the side with big, aggressive players, and made sure every XI picked had two good set piece takers - one lefty, one righty.

In penalty shootouts the success rate has been significantly higher than penalties won during a match. And if a player has missed their last penalty, they'll probably miss the next one. All anecdotal, but that's been my experience on FM24.

The clue is kind of in the name. If you specifically want them to get past players, then you'd want them to be able to dribble, so dribbling, agility, balance, acceleration, and maybe flair would be good. Oh and you want them to cross, so crossing, technique, and probably passing and vision too. Then they'll also wanna be getting back over long distances quickly, so pace too. And as they're running up and down all game, stamina and work rate as well. You may also want them to defend, so things like positioning, marking, aggression, tackling, and maybe strength would be nice. So errm yeah.. a complete one would be good. But your tactic has two CWBs, so two complete ones would be better. Four complete ones would be excellent.

With Bordeaux folding and losing their professional status, is anyone else thinking of making their last save on FM24 a grand "what could have been" challenge at the home of greats such as Zidane, Tigana, and Lizarazu? They probably won't feature in FM25

To think I was gonna sell him! Player's player of the year

Thought I'd share a little on my own defence-first tactic since I've had a pretty good result. It's a pretty basic setup that has a bit of Mourinho to it and produces some wonderfully dull matches, especially in big games. We're 11th in the league for possession, averaging 50%, and rank 17th for opposition passes per defensive action, indicating that we absolutely are not a pressing outfit. Still, we've had our successes. Some background The save started off as a 'horses for courses' experiment, in which I basically built a new tactic from the ground up ahead of every single match. I leaned heavily on the Data Hub to do this, and got a pretty good handle on using OIs and the toggle instructions. This proved to be pretty effective, especially in cup competitions in the first season of the save. In the second season, I carried on this motif, but with more of a settled base to go back to because as interesting a challenge as it was, it was bloody exhausting after a while changing tactics every match. So come season 3, that settled tactic was what I wanted to go with, with only minor mid-match tweaks needed, rather than wholesale changes. Now, with three seasons playing as Manchester United, it goes without saying that I was able to shape a very strong squad and it's probably the strongest I've had in any version of FM in terms of sheer depth. Unfortunately, I seem to be completely allergic to playing Portuguese clubs, or we might have retained the CL and won the Club World Cup, but I digress. The tactic For the most part, this is how we approached games: Injuries and fatigue throughout the season forced a fair amount of rotation of course, but the general idea was to have hard workers in the forward line, players who would out-muscle their opponents in midfield, and a defence that would win their physical duel - most importantly in the fullback positions. That's why I signed Van de Ven and Josh Doig - two players who look more like centre backs - to play in that aggressive wing back role. I like to invite crosses in most matches (and I already had the CBs to do it), but I learnt pretty early on in this save that if your fullbacks can't defend the back stick, you will get punished. In terms of PIs, the 'set and forget' ones were increased closing down on the front four, and for the double pivot, shorter passing and less risk-taking. The idea with the former was to provide a dogged screen in front of the settled back seven, while the with latter, I wanted them to be safe in possession and not give up cheap turnovers. The number ten was also roaming and moving into channels. Additionally, when holding a lead, one (or both) of the DMs could be instructed to hold position, depending on the feel of the game. For tough away matches or finals, I'd typically up the tempo again; the idea being that I did not build this team to keep possession and control matches with the ball. The likes of City, Liverpool, Arsenal, and even Chelsea, are a lot better at doing that in my save, so it was somewhat necessary to force chances against them with what possession we did have. The only other TIs I ever really needed to tweak were time-wasting and my goalkeeper's distribution. toggling the GK to slow the pace down was my first port of call when holding onto a result. We didn't have to chase games too often, but when pushing for a goal it would be quick distribution and sometimes trading 'hold position' for 'counter.' Conclusions I don't think the tactic itself is exactly groundbreaking or particularly clever in any way. It's just a pretty basic 4-2-3-1 that morphs into a 3-2-5 kind of thing that anybody could knock together. I think the reason it's been so successful for me is the players I've picked for the roles. The AP(s) being a natural midfielder rather than a winger makes a big difference to how it plays. The fullbacks essentially both being central defenders with good physical attributes makes the tactic more solid even if one of them is getting up and crossing at the byline, Having both a left-footed and right-footed corner taker in the side, and players with high jumping reach basically everywhere accounts for the fact that we've scored over 20 goals from set pieces and conceded just two. Then again, I did get Scott McTominay to score 19 goals playing as a DM, so maybe I am a genius

Since it looks like the UI is all they really care about shaking up, it would be pretty criminal to see processing times be seriously impacted.

'Never tight mark' plus 'tackle harder' is my go-to OI combo against fast wingers and strikers. I'll occasionally add a trigger press if they still get too much time on the ball. Getting tight to a speedster isn't something you want to do on a football pitch, as it's the space they can beat you to that's the real danger. For slow playmaker types, however, tight marking can ruin their day.

Rather than setting individual man marking up all over the pitch, you might try loosely mirroring the opposition formation and using the Never Press OI on the guy you want to allow forward.

I can do a breakdown of the Liverpool and City games, along with one where we killed Bayern Munich, but I don't want to detail the thread anymore than I have.

Something seems badly wrong with the finances regarding the new investment. After turning a transfer profit of £131m and cutting the wage bill by £1m-a-week, the finances are down as 'okay' with the club bleeding money at the start of season 2. I've still got a £211m transfer budget mind you, but with the balance at about £60m and less every week, I don't feel I should be going near it!

Just had a nice little run of 3 matches against tough teams to put my tweaking to the test and I thought I'd share a bit of it here since it seems to fit. I'm playing as Man United and I've used the second summer to build a bit of a toolkit squad, so I have a lot more toys to play with than @Duracellio, but maybe it's still of interest to somebody. We're coming off a good first season where we won the Champions League through a series of comebacks, but were thwarted in the league by City and Liverpool, who were miles out in front. After an opening day visit to Stamford Bridge, we'll have the pleasure of exacting revenge on the latter in the Super Cup, and the former in the league at home. You couldn't ask for better fixtures to start the campaign... right? Apologies for not having the Data Hub report, but I can't for the life of me find it for past matches. They supposedly played a wing play style, but the analysts says that about half the teams in the game. As such, I mostly ignored their style and focused on the roles and players I was up against. Chelsea greet us with a 4231 featuring the game's most overrated player up top - Romelu Lukaku. There's nothing like a striker who's both quick and good in the air to give you a headache, especially when that player also has a tricky number 10 like Nkunku right behind them. Fortunately I've got good aerial defenders, so I can at least somewhat limit his opportunities from balls into the box. The threat of his pace can be limited with a lower defensive line, while I'm going for a good old fashioned man-marking job on Nkunku. The wingers, Sterling and Mudryk, are full of pace, so I opt to never mark them tightly and close them down whenever possible. I would have added hard tackling for them too, but I've just come off a season where we had a load of red cards and I've got a load of players new to the league who could do without that kind of start to life at Old Trafford. The thinking was that we could use the space behind Enzo Fernandez as he pushed forward as a Segundo Volante. I opted for Sancho to achieve this, and to get him into that zone, I've got Shaw pushing up behind him. Mount is picked as a BWM for two reasons: (1) to cover Shaw when he goes forward, and more importantly (2) it isn't a role affected by positional play rotations. Had I picked a mezzala or B2B or something there, Sancho would be forced wider than I would like. Because I'm really serious about him coming infield, I also opt for minimum width. Meanwhile in midfield, Mount is positioned to win the ball off Enzo while Mainoo plays as a Mezzala to try and drag BWM Caicedo out of the middle. Does it work? Defensively, yes. Big scary Lukaku ends the game without a shot, and half the attempts Chelsea end up with fall to their centre backs from corners. It's a deserved clean sheet. Offensively? Absolutely not, and it's a few errors from me that are the reason. Amad is playing as a winger with a wingback getting up the pitch behind him, which is not something I'd ever really do if I had stopped and thought about it for a second. He's also affected by the minimum width setting, so he's getting pitted directly up against Colwill far too often and losing out, since their guy is both stronger and quicker. Meanwhile Sancho is having plenty of touches in good areas but sometimes FM gets it right and a waster plays like a waster, so he's pretty much just rolling it back where it came from and offering none of that creative spark we were hoping for. Hojlund is getting no help from anybody - he has no shots, is getting crowded out in the air, and has touched the ball in just twelve instances, giving it away immediately more than half the time. It takes until the 75th minute before I realise... But this is why football has substitutes - to make careless clowns like me look clever. A plan starts to come together; hapless Hojlund and struggling Sancho are hauled off with 15 minutes to go. Evan Ferguson with his half a silver star comes onto the left flank and bullies a beleaguered Reece James, winning a header against him, playing a one-two around him, and squaring to give Mehdi a goal on his debut. You'll note that we started funneling them wide and inviting crosses too - that was in response to Lukaku coming off for Miss Jackson. The switch up on the right flank gave us more synergy and a bit more hope of controlling the middle with an IWB, as well as a crossing threat with a right-footed winger. Honestly, I probably should have come up with something better on this side, but I spent all my smart points on the Ferguson change. We had some results last season where we eviscerated teams using a tailored system, and while we comfortably won the xG battle here, this wasn't one of those, nor were the two that followed. This was a cagey away match that took an injury time winner to earn a 1-0 win, but it was one of my favourites from a tactical point of view.