vrig

I probably won't to be honest, as going through matches, recording clips, and putting together a detailed breakdown is a fair bit more effort than I'm personally willing to put into a post on a forum about a game I sometimes play. Aside from not knowing how to do half of that in the first place, I'm pretty lazy at the best of times! But you could maybe try some of the suggestions in the thread, such as playing about with width, focus, and role settings and hopefully finding your examples firsthand.

Pretty sure the game doesn't actually count what you might call a half-space cross as a cross. If you work a midfielder into some space and they're the type to try a killer balls or long passes, provided you have someone attacking the back post, it'll happen. Doesn't even need to be a mezzala. I get these types of passes from a DM(s) into an IF(a) fairly regularly, particularly when I'm using minimum width and focusing play down the flanks. This encourages the midfielders to go into the halfspaces and also ensures the IF is playing up against their CB as often as possible. I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to do it, but that's what's been working for me lately.

I was sure that was an IFB this morning!

Excellent read, thanks for that. So weird that this thread and that other one popped up about a week after I decided to do a 'horses for courses' save. Also that you started with a match against Uni Emery's 424, which has been the bane of my existence in this version of FM

Having a 3421 on hand can be a help. It lets you match a 4222 in midfield while giving you a spare defender to deal with the strike partnership. But if you are intent on keeping closer to your base tactic, I think your rest defence is missing a player. A 4222 naturally has 4 players left high up the pitch. You've got a 3-1 rest defence, so I wouldn't be too surprised if every turnover is leaving you facing a 4v4. As for the attacking side, what @Cloud9 said.

Space mostly. I look at their roles and try to see where space will naturally be available after a turnover. Like if they've got an IWB on one flank, I'll fancy a go at that with a touchline hugging winger, because their guy will have a lot of ground to make up to cover them. Conversely if they've got a wingback who's likely to get up the pitch and leave his CB by his lonesome, I'll want to be attacking that CB directly. Works the other way too, and if they've got a BWM somewhere, I'm keeping my playmakers away from them.

You can find comments from Klopp and Salah at the time where it's stated that his job was to play as close to the opposition CBs as possible. That tells you straight off the bat that playing him as an AF would be a good starting point. If I remember correctly, they also saw their system as more of a 442/4411 than the 433 people commonly put it down as. Personally I always thought it was a diamond, given how deep Firmino played and how narrow the 'wide' forwards always were. The point is that if you can't emulate a winger scoring 44 goals in a season, it might be because they were never really a winger in the first place.

I trust them far more than I should and have to get around to downloading a skin that removes them altogether or something. I know they're meaningless, but all those gold stars make me feel complete.

I thought they were great right at the start and now I avoid them like the plague. It just seems like a way for the game to drag you into the promise feature. I had a load of players miss their targets and then blame me for it at the end, so it just doesn't feel like a worthwhile trade off. I've never seen it have any impact on attributes either but to be honest I wouldn't really expect it to.

The first video isn't an example I see very often, but the second one obviously is. In my experience, the defending team really struggles with the second phase after the initial ball. In theory setting up zonally should somewhat limit this, but it still looks confused to me, and I basically start my commiserations the moment I see an unmarked opponent on the edge of the box for a corner. It's actually quite difficult to stick it in the top bins through a crowd of 20 players, but FM footballers are just built different I suppose. Fortunately I support Manchester United, so I'm quite used to being despondent every time the other team gets a corner. At least we can give as good as we get in FM. As to your closing question, don't give up too many set pieces. One of the numerous reasons a high press is easier to be successful with in the game is that your fouls and blocks are happening further from your goal. But more than that is just keeping the ball so that your team is the one getting fouled and blocked. Your "score more" strategy is also pretty sound.

A lot of teams have used it in the odd scenario. Funnily enough it can be a bit of a counter to possession heavy 433s that like to build through the middle. Ajax under Ten Hag used it a fair bit in the CL and I think pretty much everyone in the PL used it against Brighton after their strong start to this season. They've won something like 5 in 22 since. More teams doing positional play type things makes it a bit less appealing as a plan A though. I would say that, to my eye, Liverpool with the Salah/Mane/Firmino 3 were basically playing a diamond all the time, although I've yet to meet anyone who really agrees with me on that one!

Just keep the ball. Your old fuddy duddies ought to have the mentals to manage that if you set up narrow (so they have less running to do), passing short, and at a lower tempo. Experience often comes to the fore in wars of attrition, and if you set them up so that they're always close together, you might find you can still get away with counter pressing situationally. Have 4 or probably 5 players sitting back so that you aren't in immediate danger every time you lose the ball, but Plan A should just be not losing it. In terms of specific roles, I'd avoid too many that have roaming hard coded or that encourage positional rotations, especially deep. The RPM would be an absolute no-no as they partake in 3 tiers, and I'd avoid the IWB role like the plague if the player has poor acceleration, as every quick winger they face will have the freedom of the flank on the counter while your guy is still dawdling about in midfield. Some nice roles for older players could include the poacher, the shadow striker, or the ramdeuter, since they're all big on clever movement. Hell, bang em all around a DLF and you might have some fun. In midfield, the DLP has "old man role" written all over it - you just wanna be careful of teams siccing a ball winner or a player with high aggression and acceleration near them.

I think Pat Rice was his assistant for something like 15 years. Steve Bould followed him and that was about it. Less of a series of yes men and more of a failure to introduce any new ideas in any form.

This is a cool idea and immediately reminded me of another exchange SAF had at United. When Carlos Queiroz turned up at Carrington, he went to see what the gaffer wanted doing for training. Fergie responded "If you don't know that, then why the hell did I hire you?" Queiroz was from the same tactical school as Jose Mourinho, who had taken England by storm over the preceding couple of years, and Ferguson later said that he was as close as you could get to being the Man United manager without actually having the title. The point of this little interlude is that what you could do is take a look at some of the in-game attributes of a coach whose approach you appreciate and then filter staff with similar strengths and tactical styles. The best and worst they'll do should be around the same as the AI.

You could also try giving them fewer options. For example, if they're passing it to the wingers, make the wingers play higher up away from them, or narrower into traffic. Typically if I want to see fullbacks crossing a lot, I'll go 4-2-2-2 so they have very little alternative. It gives them more room to get their heads up, with the added benefit of having players closer to your strikers so they can contest the second ball.

Is it just me or is the only way to check these bans via the editor? It seems like starting blind at Juve would just leave you guessing when two of your best midfielders might be available.

So how are we looking after this data update then? Swimming in cash with 3 wonderkids and every defender's injury prone attribute dialled up to 20? Or broke, universally downgraded, and every defender's injury prone attribute dialled up to 20?

Can one of you full matchers keep a tally of how many throwing happen in the game? On any other highlight level, they always seem to be the start of a match altering moment, but I have long suspected that there are about 37,000 nothing throwins that even comprehensive doesn't show.

He has more shares than any one Glazer sibling as well as full control of sporting operations, so I imagine he assumes Avram's in-game role as owner. Either that or he goes down as Chairperson, with the Glazers all listed as directors. It'll be interesting to see if Ashworth and a new recruitment head can get in before the update. Might hand them the reigns if they do.

I just assumed the values set were always roughly what the club would sell them to you for, and that those values were heavily influenced by relations between the clubs. Surprise, surprise, your club happens to have fantastic relations with itself, so the ballpark figures are notably lower for your own players.

There's a bunch of stuff they'll do that has no effect on ratings whatsoever. I remember having a winger win 5 penalties in as many games terrorising fullbacks, but his average rating was something like 6.5 over that spell. The pass before the assist doesn't seem to be credited in any way either. Not does general link up play or progressive carries/passes. Basically the ratings often feel like a tally of duels won/lost with a dollop of "did they score or assist?" and a sprinkle of "did they miss a sitter?" This wouldn't matter at all if poor match ratings didn't affect player development and media interactions as they do.

The fake transfer would probably have annoyed me a lot more if not for the behaviour of the Saudi clubs. Thanks to the fees they pay in the game, you get plenty of wiggle room budget-wise, but if that wasn't there I'd have been a bit miffed at being denied the chance of getting a fee for Greenwood, especially when that is quite obviously what Man United are looking to do. If one gets altered and not the other, it could be a bit of a problem. I'm nitpicking here, but the club have not said that. But then, they don't really need to say it, because anyone properly paying attention to the situation can plainly see that he won't play for the club again without some kind of seismic shift beyond the current state of play.

Love a WM(s). It's a great place to put the guy who can just kick the ball really well. JWP in past versions was my go to, but this time round it's been Bruno Fernandes in a 4411. I've been toying with a similar role setup to this as a potential 4231-killer. The positional play rotations with that midfield should - in theory - give you a 3v2 right in front of their defence in possession. A half back wouldn't be my choice for DM though. Surely somebody's gotta maintain the illusion of staying in midfield?

As has been pointed out, you don't really hear from their owners directly at all, which would be reflected with those attributes in game. In direct relation to football matters, they aren't exactly hard-line. The other way of looking at it is that the values accurately reflect their treatment by sports outlets, without SI having to go through the faff of giving every owner an "Ability to keep the media in their pocket" attribute.

Lower tempo is pretty much the first in possession instruction I pick for any tactic in which I want a lot of the ball, especially with a top team.