daniel.camponovo

hey @knap , since Attacking mentality seems to be working again after Balanced was best in FM23, do you recommend keeping Attacking for difficult or away matches or switching down to something like Balanced or Cautious?

118 goal differential

Hey @knap, took a few months off but back at it -- could you post your best Possession to dictate the match?

Cheers @knap, I've always been a fan of the shape of the Oxford tactics (good width in midfield, funnels attack toward center, etc), excited to see how this plays in my test!

@Sibbo I believe that's how it works, and I've been relying on the top HUB test tactics as well, so excited to see a non-424 look pretty dominant (I know it looks like 424 is the meta for this match engine now I just like a classic 4231 more!)

@knap any chance of running this through the HUB test? just ran a quick season sim and it seems extremely good (and obviously very similar to the leading 424 with VOLs just moved up the pitch, but wondering if that's the tweak that puts it over the top)

@knap any chance of running this through the HUB test? I'm liking the shape of it but wondering how it stacks up to what looks like the unbeatable 424s

I don't know why I never thought of using a Top 160 Home and Top 120 Away approach (even when playing as a top team) -- I like to keep the same formation in all tactics to make recruiting easier, and looks like there are 4-2-0-2-2s in both Top 160 and Top 120, so I'll try that out for a bit and see how things go!

happy new year @knap and friends! love this weird little community

^^ I second the HGF 451 P106, using it now and it looks to be the most consistent 451 by far. Also had success with the 41212 ND in an earlier save! The 424 DM from a few days ago is also a very strong tactic but I like the 451 shape a bit more.

I ran a vacation season or two and it seems to be a bit better (though obviously very similar) to the 424 with segundo volantes, which was the previous best.

Always liked the Oxford christmas tree tactics, will give it a go since like everybody else I've been having trouble finding some consistency in this ME.

Looks like this is the new leader according to the score in column N (which is what I usually use as a tie-breaker when comparing similar tactics) -- @knap, always been curious to hear how you decided on the weights of each input in the score formula, like how Points get a 0.64 weight while Goal Difference gets 0.3, less than half!

hey @knap with some of the apparent changes to the effects of mentality in this year's game, do you think the OG mentality matters guide is still a good flowchart to follow when managing in-game?

Hey @knap, know it might not play into the current double-pivot meta, but could you refresh one of your older 4141 or 4411 formations? Curious to see how they'd perform.

It looks like team reputation is still very important in this year's game (and slow to build up) -- I'm doing a VNS to Prem League save with Buxton and am currently in League One, last season (first after promotion from League Two) was a slog and even the top-rated Beowulf 424 tactic was inconsistent and barely kept me up, finished 18th. But after surviving relegation, club gained some stature and reputation, and after my usual off-season business of marginally upgrading my team, I'm off to smashing people to start this new season, first place after 8 played, 7-1-0. So I expect the entire process will repeat itself as I get promoted to the Championship and then the Prem league, but it seems like stature/reputation are still pretty slow to increase and lag behind actual player upgrades you make to your squad (and can make Knap's tactics look worse than they are). I assume I eventually will be as high-reputation and dominant as Liverpool using these tactics, it'll just take a while

Like the look of this one, going to try dropping the mentality to Cautious and using it as my Away tactic. Using Beowulf 424 IF VOL P104 as Home tactic so basically dropping an AF into the CM A spot and dropping mentality, because I agree with @burnum above, away games seem to be especially tricky this year.

@knap hey knap, know you've answered this before but can you explain how the HUB test works? starting to see some results populate in that column and know it's a great way to compare tactics against each other but what does the score of 243 for HGF 451 IF P103 actually refer to?

Looking forward to this! I think I generally prefer the positive tactics also makes the change to Balanced or Cautious for tough matches less of a jump from the standard Home Positive tactic

Want to just re-emphasize how important mentality appears to be in this ME, and how viable lower mentalities are to still win -- I'm in my first season in the Bundesliga after winning promotion from B2, so pretty clearly a bottom ~3 team in terms of roster talent, and I've been having decent success playing home games as Cautious and away games as Defensive (default Positive mentality on Knap's HGF 451 was giving up too many goals). I'm not gonna win the league, but I'm gonna avoid relegation and get stronger next year -- definitely seems like "defense" is still a bit bugged and the key to winning is scoring a ton of goals, but lower mentalities can absolutely let you hang on in tough games!

I think I personally just don't like them, feels like outdated football lol Did 442s become less good as the ME updated last year?

I don't typically go for 442s but I'm having great success with this so far, excited to test it out when the full game drops in my long-term save

If I'm looking for a tactic to win right away, I'll just pick the highest points/goal differential. If I'm picking a tactic for a long-term save, I'll pick anything I want (even down to aesthetics, or if I prefer one role to another) and just gradually get guys to fill those roles. Your team might start out with no suitable SS players, but if you sign one in your first transfer window, a whole bunch of 4231s open up for you!

Curious to see @knap's response, but I've started taking this approach in my longer term saves -- I used to always be chasing the "best" formation that could find immediate success and like win the EPL with Brentford, but I think basically all of Knap's tactics can be basically unbeatable if you build up your team to be one of the best in the world (which is usually the goal in my long-term saves). So I've started just kind of picking formations I like, with player roles I like, knowing that as long as I keep signing better players to fill those positions and developing my youth players and rising up the ranks, the tactic will work even better for me!

@knap I remembered you saying the FM22 ME didn't seem to favor ML and MR (and preferred AML and AMR), but it looks like some of these early tests like the 442s are seeing pretty strong play from the ML and MR positions, would you agree?