Dr Naysay

Always a positive mentality, I will very rarely change it, even if the opposition are decidedly better than me.

I will do some analysis over the next few games to show you what I expect before a game, how I actually react to the what I am seeing defensively and how things play out with the changes I make defensively. One of the biggest changes I will make to games are changes to close a game out when the opposition eventually decide to throw the kitchen sink at me as the game is ticking away.

WTCS GOLD skin using the analysis Tab which I believe uses the Mustermann attributeless pie chart.

I was the exact same tbh, it used to infuriate me that I couldn't see it and then one of the ex-mods(Cleon) on here and one of the finest minds with regards to FM taught me to watch games and freeze frame during attacking and defensive transitions and see what's going on. Where are your players during transitions and how is that impacting your tactic. So for my new save I create a new tactic, the very first attacking transition I see this. The number 14 my DM and the 21 my central midfielder are on top of each other, I want 21 where the red circle is ready to attack that space. I make a note and let the game continue. The same thing happens multiple times and every time I see it I say to myself I want that player where the red dot is ready to attack that space. Now on to the oppositions first goal. It would very easy to look at their first goal and blame the defence but I want to rewind to the point we lost the ball that led to their goal. And wouldn't you believe it, it's Moyas positioning that is at fault for the turnover that leads to their goal. If Moya(whose my best passer) receives the pass where that red dot is he is drawing their number 14 towards him he then has Carbonell, Guti and Azon in a 3 vs 2 with a lot of space for those three to operate in. Instead, because of where he is positioned in reality he is closed down and stripped of the ball so we take what could be a great opportunity for us and turn it in to an opportunity for them. At the point of turning over I am now looking at how we are positioned defensively and I am pretty happy with what I see here. My Libero is level with the DM forming a bank of two and my two IFBs have formed a back three that will prevent any immediate counter attacks, what i see here is what I want to see. We conceded the goal because a player gave away a brain dead penalty but that goal started with that turnover because of how I set the team up. We drew that game 3-3, one of their goals originated from Moyas positioning and two of them started with my goalkeeper kicking the ball long which is not what I want to achieve with a possession based team. I then make changes according to what I was seeing, how do I make Moya play where I want him to play? Often it's trial and error, in this case it was as simple as changing him from a support to an attacking duty. Another element I noticed was my striker dribbling in to blind alleys and turning the ball over, so again, what can I do to change that? He's terrible at dribbling and will never be good at it so If I am wanting him to play any other role than a PF or a TM I will teach him the PPM "runs with ball rarely" or I will edit his instructions to dribble less. What I then get is a striker who turns the ball over the least in the league. These are things I look for, but personally I am a firm believer that if you have the right defensive personnel the place to look at for goals conceded is where you turn the ball over. It might be an issue with the roles you have set or another tactical failure, it might be something like the mental attributes of a player you like but he just doesn't do what you want him to do but freeze framing and seeing where your players are at key moments are vital imo.

I am glad the changes you made helped him assist more. Unfortunately those number 10(like Riquelme) days are mostly gone. In FM so many teams are using one or two man DM formations that a creative number ten rarely has the the time/space to thrive so you end up having to use a role that essentially acts like a number two striker to get something out of them. I personally don't use playmakers anywhere on the pitch now because they act as a magnet for the ball, I prefer to use generic roles and let my most creative player have some some more freedom on the pitch.

The issue is that a lot of them are people that were booted off these forums. Many of them on there are down a conspiracy rabbit hole about FM games being scripted etc and you can't convince them otherwise and if you attempt to you are some sort of SI bootlicker.

In the game analysis section after the game has finished, click on the cross or pass that led to the goal and hit the "show linked event" So I played Betis again in the same fixture but moved the playmaker out wide and then instructed the team to create an overload that side in order to give him some help, the AM is now an Attacking Midfielder duty. This shows that there is no need to change formation, but changing the positioning of the playmaker can be crucial This is exactly what you want to see if the opposition is trying to block the middle, yoyr AP in plenty of space, even if it's out wide. This was the first goal but you can see if you put a playmaker with attributes like yours in to space and with a overload he can do some pretty great things. Anyway, sorry to harp on about this.

I start every match with my default tactic and then react to what I am seeing. The two biggest changes earlier on will be width and tempo first. After that it's substitutions and then eventually it's giving the opposition defence more to worry about by having more runners from deep. I might change my DM to a RPM, I might change the inverted fullback to a proper attacking fullback. Essentially I will want to change from a 3-2-5 rest defence to a 2-2-6 against stubborn inferior teams. I very very rarely change mentality. Defensively the best thing I can do is to see where my attacking transitions are breaking down and try and stop those, because having a riskier tactic means turning the ball over in inopportune areas is the biggest threat. Against teams that present a legitimate threat defensively I might drop the defensive line, I might put an OI on a dangerous player or I might change a players role but I always start out the same against every team and react to what I am seeing. One area that I don't neglect is if I am able to change the dimensions of my pitch I will do so to suit my tactic. If I am playing a very high line, high pressing tactic I will lower the vertical dimensions because 10 meters less between my CBs and the goalie is really useful. I will do the converse if I am wanting to be a counter attacking team. You play 50% of your games at home so it makes sense to set your pitch out to help you as much as possible. Right now I am playing a possession based system with a very high line so I have set the pitch to 100 by 64 meters. This helps negates teams playing over the top against me but also allows me to play wider and stretch the field against stubborn defensive teams if I so desire.

So I set up a tactic similar to yours with some changes to roles in La Liga and we played Betis(We are Zaragoza) they played a 4231 with two deep midfielders and it was palpable watching the game how their two DM's were robbing the space from our AP(Lopez). He however was instrumental in the first goal which harks back to my last point in my previous point. I was a bit annoyed to be honest that he missed Aguados run(whose a DM role I changed) because Aguado got beyond his marker and was clean through if Lopez had passed through that seam but he passed out to the Fullback Nieto who was in acres of free space and Nieto put a cross in to the striker that scored. Adding the roam from position PI allowed Lopez to drop in to pockets of space through that first 70 minutes. As time was ticking away Betis did something that played right in to our hands which was changing to a flat 442. This suddenly gave Lopez acres of space to work in. Within two minutes of that change from Betis Lopez received the ball sucked in the Betis centre-back and played in our poacher to seal the game. This is why I think making your own XG chain is important to understand what your AP is doing.

A playmaker needs space, how you are setting up is limiting some of that space but I'll wager because you're doing so well teams are defending narrow, deep and packing the deep midfield which will rob of space to work in. When using a playmaker I like to see where the space is. When facing a 442 the AP has space in that AM spot, against a lot of other formations the space would be out wide so I'll train him as a winger and play him out there but a key is to surround him with complimentary roles that help to create overloads and free up players for the AP to pass to. You can also achieve this by keeping him in the AM slot and using roles and instructions that help create overloads on either flank Changing some of your other roles to help him would be important here because you're also not providing him with a lot of players to play off here. The first thing I would do is to analyze what he's doing by both stats and watching and freeze framing your other players when he makes passes or turns the ball over. You want to see what options he has around him. Another thing to do is to make up your own XG chain of all your goals. Being the primary assister is all well and good but if he is heavily involved in the build up play and pinging balls to the wide players to cross in to the box that would be good enough for me too.

If I am playing a team I am expected to and am dominating in most metrics but am doing nothing shots/xg wise I'll wait till the 20th minute mark and then incrementally change things. Width, creativity, tempo, changing player roles and substitutes are all part of the process for me and for the most part those changes will change the game for me. Defensive transitions is a whole different kettle of fish for me and where I will focus most of my energy but attacking wise it's all "do we look like we are going to win this game early or do I need to make changes now."

I don't use a formation that uses a SS but I have seen plenty of FM playthroughs on here and YouTube that use a Shadow Striker and the SS thrives. The key that lot of the whingers on Reddit can't grasp is that if your want to prioritize a certain position what you set-up around that position is vital. There's a guy on YouTube called The Deep Lying Playmaker who covered the Shadow Striker and covers why it's not broken.

For me too it's not formation specific, you can rip apart a 352 with a narrow defensive width while having a narrow possesion setting yourself or you might struggle so it's read and react to what I am seeing.

He does, as well as being stronger and more brave which is why I say he's more well rounded and possibly one of the reasons why OPs striker is not as prolific as he would like him to be.

Adding to the great advice @warlock has given @GIMN has an excellent YouTube video on this released yesterday on possesion width on his "Mustermann" YouTube channel. I highly recommend his channel but this vid was a very interesting watch for me.

I am not going to critique your tactic since you are top of the league. Your striker has scored 13 goals in 26 league games which isn't too shabby at all albeit he has underperforming his XG by two goals which is something I would look at by taking a deeper dive in to what he's doing attacking wise but it must be noted that his poor heading, average bravery and below average strength means he's not very well rounded. Another one of the one things I would look at in the context of analyzing a match is that PPM "Comes deep to get ball". If you want your striker to spearhead your attack, how is that PPM affecting what is happening in your match. Just to emphasize my point about Parrott and the fact he won't use that height he has: This is my well rounded striker who is one inch shorter than Parrott in the Spanish 2nd Division This is Troy Parrott in his 2024/2025 season on my save

Why don't you pop up what you have done so far and what the issues are. I personally have a 3 2 5 in build up play and 235 shouldn't be too hard to make but it's asking a heck of a lot of your two defenders if you turn the ball over and get countered quickly. Personally I would only attempt to use that against weak teams that I'm struggling to break down but I am quite risk averse.

I've watched all his training videos, I have seen his evidence and I don't agree with your assertion that you made that it's the ultimate guide on training. I have seen a ton of videos and posts covering training with in depth testing achieve phenomenal results with training sessions that look very different to what was posted. Just because this is the most thoroughly tested training you have seen doesn't make it the most definitive and suggesting that people are close minded to this because they are old timers who refuse to believe the game is flawed or expand their minds to new ideas is also wrong(especially on the tactics forum) and not helpful to a respectful discourse.

The problem for me is he said "this is the only answer" and then followed with "90% of training sessions are just window dressing" One must assume that this inference is drawn from the Youtuber in question and it's not correct in my opinion. There have been dozens of training vids made, some by mods on this forum who are more aware of what goes on under the hood that directly contradict the statements made here and also from my experience personally, so I would suggest that the incorrect point of the video is that other players who use those 90% window dressing sessions and are having amazing results developing players must be doing something right. I would also think that a YouTuber who calls himself "Evidence Based Research" and has already been debunked once is not a good look for him credibility wise but I can appreciate that there are more than one way to skin a cat in this game with regards to training because I have seen a variety of methods work.

A system I learned from @SteinkelssonFM excellent "Monch Masterclass" is that once I have a player identified they go on my Shortlist. They then get watched for 3 games by the scout closest to him. After that if they are still good I will put them on to my "further scouting" shortlist and get my best scout to watch them for three games. If they are still of interest my DOF(who has the best scouting attributes) will watch them for three games. They then go on to my bingo list where if it gets close to me wanting to buy them I will watch them play myself. That way we have watched the player multiple times through multiple scouts and through various games both home and away and vs stronger/weaker opponents. I play without attributes masked on Musterman Iconic skin so for me the deciding factor is stats. When I play with attributes mentals for most positions are the most important factor for me even for defenders.

Like in actual Angola? If so hello from south of the border.

Completely anecdotal from my point of view but I think an actual out and out winger with the cuts inside PPM means he won't do it every-time. It tends to let the player, especially if he's got great mentals pick whether he's going inside or outside much like some of the more modern wingers.

Not sure if you mean the Ben White role here but the IFB will still on occasion make that run anyway but if they have that PPM they really add a lot to a tactic when you have your foot on the neck of the opposition and want to give them something extra to think about. Really good point tbh

Most striker roles can work in a 433 within reason. My current striker with Zaragoza is Ivan Azon and he is set up as a PFA. What you do around the striker and how you set the tactic up is massively important to how successful the role is, as is reading and reacting to what's happening in game. I will say that when it comes to 433 and playing as a primary goal scorer who doesnt drop deep I prefer a well rounded lone striker whose at least 6 foot, he can be 5ft 10 or higher if he excels in the air, I also will want to limit his weaknesses, for instance Ivan Azon can't dribble at a La Liga level so I will find a way to limit his chances to dribble which in this case was by changing his trait to running with the ball rarely. You need to take an overall approach to the set-up rather than just fixating on just the striker.

So it should be around 12 to 15 every 10 games as per the average PL crosses per game. Something you would hope gets improved in later versions.