Flohrinho

Pre game briefing. 5th or 6th time a player that is injured is being angry, troubled or confused about being left out? Really. You wanna play injured? smh.

That's what I thought first but my IF-SU actually hold the width really well, they often come inside to receive the ball pulling their defender along with them, which opens up space on the flanks that they then either dribble into directly or pass it to the IFB-DE and make the run after that opening an easy pass for the IFB-DE down the line.

I'm actually playing a very similar tactic to OPs with IF(s) on both wings, it works pretty well. I use different rest defenses though based on how my opponent lines up. I made a post about it here:

I added the three tactics to my original post with some info on what adjustments I tend to make, they aren't strictly plug and play tactics but so far they are carrying me very well through most of my saves, be it with a small underdog side like Sant Andreu or my Manchester United super team.

I think what triggered a defense first approach for me was a video from Rashidi about rest defenses. I first started out with building my defensive setup the way Guardiola does these days with Manchester City. Essentially this tactic morphes into a WM formation in attack, maintaining a great 5-5 split. My DM-DE and L-DE are doing an amazing job of recycling the possession if we lose the ball and the opposition striker and wingers are never left without a defender on them. The setup works great with one exception. When I was playing against teams employing a 442 system I was leaking goals due to my CD being alone against 2 strikers. The strength of this setup against teams who play 4231 or 433 with the wide defenders becomes a disadvantage against teams who have two narrow attackers employed. That's where my second rest defense comes into play, the WW formation. This rest defense does an excellent job at defending against the 442. The WW shape allows me to defend the space in front of my defenders as well as the deeper sitting wide players of the 442 and keep their forwards both marked. Of course my old way of playing finds its uses time and time gain as well, mostly when I'm up against a 352 or a 3421 I will employ a setup that uses attacking FBs. This way close out the center of the pitch, while creating an overload against their WBs in wide areas. It also helps with the counter pressing, if my FBs are high up the pitch they can easily counterpress their WBs. Employing these 3 different rest defenses has made me extremely stable against most teams, of course having Cubarsi on loan from Barca helps as well but I have by no means the best team in LaLiga 2 and am currently in first place with by far the fewest goals conceded. After 24 games I have only conceded 8 goals, while the next best team is sitting at 27 conceded. Playing a fairly defensive style hasn't hampered me in attack either, the team plays some lovely attacking football at times and the fact that we win pretty much every second ball and long ball has helped us score loads of transition goals. Oh yeah and my little Sant Andreu team is actually playing in the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid, only conceding more than one goal once on their way to the final against Real San Sebastian. Whoops, spoke to early, I didn't know there was a second leg in the Copa del Ray semi final. The second leg went to Sevilla 2-0 after we won at home 2-1. But it was a very narrow affair. For everyone who wants to poke around in my tactics I uploaded them here. They all start on balanced, at which I leave it unless the game is getting to the final phase and I'm not in the lead or am one goal behind, in which case I switch to attacking. There are also some settings that seem counterproductive at first glance, despite using IFB-DE I keep my overlap settings active, I simply found that without it the IFB-DE would never move up but with the setting on they would actually try and use the chance if space opened up on their side which can lead to some very good goal chances, I take it off towards the end of the game when I want to protect a lead to play with less risk so to speak. When I don't have any particular requirements for my players, apart from looking for physically fit players, after all this is a counter-pressing tactic and demands high intensity football from all your players. The only one I pay some closer attention to is my libero, he should have some decent to good dribbling stats because he will go into dribblings fairly often and if he is bad at it he can lose the ball in dangerous situations. Oh yeah and a personal preference, like Guardiola I prefer players in my IFB-DE position who are either also capable of playing CB or are very good defensively because this is their main job here, they only on rare occasions get really involved in attacking actions, their main objective is win the ball back and defend the wide spaces effectively. WM-BALANCED-V1.1.fmf WW-BALANCED-V1.3.fmf FB-BALANCED-V1.1.fmf

I have noticed one absolute improvement. In FM 2023, squads seemed to grow out of proportion. In FM 2024 the squads seem to be quite small, more often than not around the 25 player mark. This means that changing teams in a long save seems to be less of a hassle if you are deep in the future. You don't inherit 40 player squads with two thirds of the players unhappy.

For years now the way NPC teams with high possession play in the game has annoyed me and nothing seems to change about it. In real life you usually see teams like City enjoy a lot of possession, while also usually being the team with the most chances during a game. On top of that they enjoy the most possession in the oppositions half but not so in FM. I just played the league leaders in terms of possession. Now clearly given the shots in the game Newcastle, on the right, was not the dominant team in this match because the majority of possession happened here. Pretty much all in their own half with the biggest hot spot being their GK. In real life the passing around the back and boring your opponent to death is pretty much extinct, thanks to pressing. Losing the ball in your final third is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to your but the NPC teams can do it without much hassle, simply due to how pressing works in this game. There seems to be an invisible area on the pitch that is almost impossible to press, unless you play a 424 it seems and even with that formation passing around the back will still happen if a team is really hell bent on turtling out the game. I really hope that this is something the ME team is looking into because it's really annoying that your full court press so to speak just turns back at a certain area in the oppositions final third and lets them pass the ball around. Apart from that I still have to say I like this ME very much and the ME team has done some crazy good work this year with all the nice new animations it is looking better than ever and I can't wait for the graphics updates next when I hope it will get even better. Keep up the good work guys.

Awesome, best skin for FM2023 going to use it again for FM2024. @Wozzie thanks for the great work, you rock.

I usually come here to complain but this time I really have to give a compliment to you guys, especially the match engine team and animations team. Superb work, it's the first time really I feel like the players play together an utilize space in a clever way instead of just running along certain areas which are determined by their role and duty. Imo this is the best ME ever, if you upgrade the graphics next season I think it will be absolutely marvellous. On top of that, the new set piece editor is great. Great concept, great usability, I love it. Very welcome change. It takes away a lot of the possibilities for unwanted errors in the setup.

I think it's a money problem, in FM the best foreign teams never seem to be able to stay competitive. I don't think I have seen Bayern in more than one semi final in the 8 seasons my save game is running, Barca and Real usually go out early as well. Itlian clubs seem to do somewhat better but usually in the semi final it's like 2-4 English teams in recent season it seems.

Interesting, I feel like the majority of dribbles I see go straight into the defender, lose the ball and you get countered. That even seems to happen regularly to players with 18+ dribbling skills. But I totally agree that you rarely ever see a player beat another with a dribbling in a narrow space.

Is it possible that the game doesn't know offside rules? Striker is in offside position as ball is played to him but doesn't go after the ball, opposition goal keeper comes out passes the ball to his defender, the defender tries a pass to the other defender which my striker intercepts, the goal is then checked for offside. Of course, with the scene of the pass that my striker didn't even get to.

Weirdly enough it seems to mainly effect my CBs, I guess it's because I rotate them the least? But yeah I'm not even half way through the season and 2 out of three always get a fitness warning from my head physio.

4.8gb on my PC

I haven't attended a press conference in years, the only way to screw me over is make my assistant awful at press conferences. I should probably stop giving them ideas.