crusadertsar

I totally understand where you are coming from. I think toggle on off for positional play features would be a fair request for those who like the way old roles behaved. But I can't agree with your second paragraph. You have to be careful when making assertions like that. I don't know how many games you watched to conclude that about BBM but that's not exactly how it behaves. When i was using 433 for the longest part of FM24, I noted my BBM players as still arriving late in area. Sure they will be more likely to get into the AMC strata during FINAL part of buildup but their movement is very different from CM(a) or Mez for example. You can still rely on them to linger longer in CM strata and make late runs into AMC strata when safe to as dictated by your team mentality.

Oh Yeah! It's perfect for it especially because of all the positional play changes.

He hasn't scored any goals unfortunately 😕 I don't know what's happening with my tactic. I feel like I need to go back to the drawing board. It's definitely not performing as well as it did at AC Milan. That's to be expected but I just thought we would be doing a bit better than 6th or 7th in December.

Those are great suggestions! I just thought that I already had a holding midfielder in my DM double pivot. With new positional play in FM24, Regista is actually a much safer option than RPM. My previous DLP made us more stagnant in going forward (hence all of those draws) And my DM has "hold position". I just prefer Support role with it's higher individual mentality especially on a lower Balanced team mentality. But I'll try to implement your suggestions in 2nd half of season

Agreed 100% Of course I don't want to get sacked (again haha) but it's all about the journey and not the end result to me. I love developing the academy and gaining incremental improvements in our club standing. If this were to become some kind of superhero save where I won everything every season, I think I would lose interest real fast. It's one of the reasons I could never really get into managing "big" clubs. And besides my biggest "trophy" every season is seeing this particular message:

Hey bud! I agree we didn't have the best start but I didn't think the results were that bad haha, considering the matches we had. Out of the three losses, two were not surprising to me. I haven't been able to do much against Barcelona and Real Madrid for a while now. I feel lucky usually if we can convert one of those matches into a draw. The only loss that felt like we got cheated was the Cadiz one. That should have been a win and 3 more points for us. We outshoot them and dominated for most of the match but it was just not meant to be. Personally, I think the quality of the players makes a big difference in FM24. Hence why with AC Milan the tactic was overperforming. That team was just really good, even if young. My Real Sociedad is not on the same level. But that's what happens when you only try to sign players from one specific region, for the most part. A lot of my young players are very highly valued (with big buyout clauses because I want to keep them in the team and not get poached) but they are not fully developed yet. Quite a few with only 2, 2.5 ability (but 4-4.5 potential stars) who are playing top minutes. My problem I that I'm avoiding to buy players who are not Basque but would probably be better in the roles. Yet I am not too worried because with this save my objectives are not really trophies. Not right now. It's too continue building from within, via my academy. And trying to keep Champions League football every year. For that I need min 5th place finish, which is where we are basically projected, if we get few more wins and less draws. I'm not really trying to compete with Barca and Real Madrid for the title don't think that would be realistic. But if you have any suggestions to improve my tactic then I'm always open to hearing them. Just keep in mind that I am not looking to play any of the current overpowered META tactics (but you already knew that ). I still prefer to keep more clean sheets than score a ton of goals. Just play sensible realistic football.

Mini Update I just wanted to give a little update on the progress of the latest tactic. Since switching back to Real Sociedad, the tactic has been performing as expected. We are not destroying opponents left and right. That's not the point since its not one of those "win-all" tactics. It will perform according to the strength of the team. I would say that from watching the result we are performing as expected, likely to finish 4-5th in the League, as long as we win against the teams that we expect to win again and not draw too many games. One of the highlights so far has been the victory over rival Bilbao. Ended up beating them 3-0. But what I found rather neat was our positional heat map in possession (in top right of the screenshot). I really like that shape that the players form here. It is something I see in most games where I use the before-mentioned 4-2-3-1 DM Asymmetric shape (offset AMC and Striker). It is just real nice to see how the two fullbacks and defenders line up. Then the the double pivot which maintains discipline in the middle. The four forwards (W, AMC, ST and IF) spread across the front end of the formation is exactly what I like to see. The only tweak that I am thinking of implementing right now is maybe increasing the duty of the right Wingback from Support to Attack. I would love to see him operate higher than the left fullback. Especially since the DM(S) next to him to told to hold position. On Balanced Team mentality it should be a relatively safe combo. Tying Manchester United (3-3 AWAY at Old Trafford) had also turned out to be pleasant surprises and further testaments to the defensive strength of the set up. I believe that attacking a bit more attacking "OUMPH" via the Wingback(A) and maybe a few strategic transfers in January would help us to turn many future draws into victories. Unfortunately we had to contest with quite a few injuries and player departures so far this season which made it into less of a positive start than I was hoping for. Especially loosing our 2nd choice left winger Iker Bakero to Aston Villa. But hopefully the 70 million we got back for him will go far in reinvestment in the attack at the upcoming transfer period. I already have a few ideas on how the money can be reinvested in the team: Xabier is another young Basque winger, who could potentially develop to be much better than Iker (who I believe despite his relatively young age already hit his ability ceiling while with us). And Barcelona are willing to part with him for around 50 million. Or perhaps (if I hopefully have enough money left over) - a versatile Greek international who could help us to fill in the under-supported left Fullback position (especially given how Pacheko is aging). Despite not being Basque, Akis nevertheless fits the mold of the Defence-First player very well. TO BE CONTINUED ...

Couldn't have said it better myself

I'll second that! Would also love to read more detail about this

Holy crap 😳 those are very good young footballers indeed! Lucky you Did you change your Head of Youth Development? I think I still have the original one. Forget the name. I just remember he has a high determination ahd good personality so I kept him. But his favourite formation is 433, and not 4231 unfortunately.

Those are amazing results! 👏 Thank you for sharing the feedback and earlier advice mate. Have you made any big adjustments to the tactic by the way? And are you mostly playing on Balanced team mentality?

It's a tactic he found on FM Arena. What is there more to say? That site is known for basically running endless simulations with each and every tactical instruction to see if it makes it more likely for you to beat the AI. Testing by numbers, min-maxing munchkin method, whatever you want to call it. And then just put those instructions into the tactic just because they are the "most optimal" according to their tests that is. Not because those instructions make sense to the team and players you choose from or from perspective of choosing them to recreate a specific style and then tweaking the tactic naturally by watching the results.

If you were not looking for "cheat" tactics then why even look at FM Arena, a site which is basically known for that? Just make your own tactics and be happy with the results mate.

Totally agree👍 LaLiga is like no other. But another thing I forgot to mention in my last update is the salary cap in 2nd Division. I love it actually! I think it's something like 165 000 euros for the whole registered squad. Which doesn't seem that much and it really isn't. Except u19 and youth contract players don't count. So every year it becomes almost like a puzzle trying to fit in the youngsters I want to get more experience at a high enough level (it's about 31st or 32nd in pyramid in my save so about as good as Bundesliga 2 or 2nd Dutch division). Its a great way to develop young players before they can crack the 1st team. But once their salaries get big, then have to look for loans. And you are also trying to keep the quality of the squad good enough because it is afterall Spanish 2nd Division and you are competing against Barca's and Real Madrid's reserve squads. Competition is surprisingly stiff and last year Real Sociedad's reserve team was only one point away from relegation. It was so exciting to watch the race come down to the wire. And you really don't want your B team to get relegated because then next season your youths won't develop as well. Aside from Portugal and Holland I can't think of any other leagues like this (in Germany farm teams can only stay in 3rd division unfortunately).

Sure some are logical but then you see the ones that make no sense together like "shorter passing" and "pass into space". Might as well just turn them off and select "be more expressive" or just select a higher team mentality and you will get the same effect. Just unnecessary. But plug and play tactics select every single option just because.