[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

After 25 games, I finally lost a game to Los Angeles Galaxy, a rival to my New England Revolution side. The main reason for the loss would be a fitness issue that was the result of having to play 6 games in a row with only 2 days of rest between them, and having 3 of my starting 11 called up to the USA National team, 2 for Ghana, 1 for Qatar, and another for Morocco. So, I can honestly state that the tactics work, for me at least, but tactics can only get so far. They are merely an aid for the team, because the players themselves have to be able to perform effectively against the competition they face.

So for those that are getting results they don't care for, I would not blame the tactics, I would look toward the players ability and fitness. Fixing the situation so that your talent is equal or better than the competition they face would be good, and making sure the team work match prep is on average. Once the match prep is full and your players can compete, you should see very good results.

I went on a 34 or so game win streak with a 20 game shutout streak where I didn't allow a single goal in 20 games. I'm very happy with the tactics, and wanted to share my 25 game experience.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

What do you mean 'home tactic' and 'away tactic'?

I was praising this anyway - I just came 6th with Ipswich in my first Prem season! The only thing that is inconsistent is a) the defence and b) results against the top teams.

Oh I don't mean to take anything away from your accomplishment, I do apologize if it came off that way.

There are two tactics that Mr. H released, one is the home tactic, the other is the away tactic. You use the home tactic when at home, and the away tactic when at away games, that's what I meant.

Los Angeles is the top team in the MLS, and I got a draw against them. In all respects I should have won, because I was pretty dominate, the players just didn't perform for one reason or another. It does work well against top teams, but I think it's dependent on whether the players show up to play.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

This is really rather good. Just finished 6th with Ipswich in my first season in the Prem.

3rd highest scorers in the league; but sort of middle of the table in terms of goals conceded. I found the tactics don't really work against the top sides - don't think I beat any of the five sides above me all season. It can be a little bit leaky so I might adopt a new tactic next season to play against the big sides.

Essentially this is counter-attacking at its finest though. Its rare for me to have 45%+ possession in a game yet I create chances galore.

It could also be quality of players. I have mostly 4 to 4 1/2 star players with pretty darn good stats for my New England team (MLS). I notice during games that if I have players out there that are below 3 stars in rating, they struggle with actually playing the game.

I'm sure you are doing the normal things we all do when it comes to managing, but I make sure the morale is high, and I get rid of dead weight and head hunt for great talent that I can afford. When I off load dead weight, I'll either sell them, or transfer them gaining a player of equal quality in return. I also use a a very awesome assistant manager Graham Kavanagh, who by himself, ensures the morale is at it's top.

Also, my team isn't a top team in the MLS either. Every year we are predicted to be bottom feeders, and every year we are in either the Qtr Final or Semi Final. I'm on pace to win the MLS and on pace to win my second US Cup in a row. You have to ensure you are using away tactic when on away games, and home tactic when at home or it'll be bad results.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

Ok, my report after 10 games:

Anderlecht home game drew 4-4 in a friendly. They are a larger rep team than mine.

Atletico Mineiro home game loss 1-2 friendly. They too are a larger rep team than mine.

DC Santos Laguna Away game NACL Qtr Final Leg 1, lost 1-4. I presume this is a very good Mexican team, because they tore my team apart.

DC Santo Laguna Home game NACL Qtr Final Leg 2, Drew 1-1 lost on aggregate. Like I stated above, this is a very good team, and they even dominated me in this game. I'm happy to get to the Quarter Finals, but I feel like the quality on the team should have advanced to the Semi Final, just bad luck and the match prep had yet to be fully realized.

FC Lorient Home game, Friendly dew 1-1 Same rep team I believe, or larger rep, still a decent result.

Atlas Home game, Friendly drew 4-4. I believe they were same rep or larger. I am disappointed in this result, I feel I should have won that game.

Rayo Home game, Friendly won 3-1. This was a larger rep team and we beat them pretty handily. After the Atlas game, the Match Prep was good, nearly full, and this was the result of it.

Chivas USA, Home game MLS Reg Season, Won 7-1. Both strikers got hat tricks, was a brilliant game.

New York Home game MLS Reg Season, Won 2-0. This was a Rivalry game, we dominated the game, just unlucky on a few attempts.

Chicago Away game MLS Reg Season, Won 5-2. This was another Rivalry game and totally out matched Chicago. They got one of the two goals on a fabulous cross between 3 of my defenders. One of the strikers got a Hat Trick.

I am very pleased so far in the first 10 games with the only glaring issue coming during the NACL Qtr Final games, I feel that with the quality of the team I really should have put in a much better show of it than what I did. I lambasted the team afterwards, and they all got very motivated after that, not a single player was upset at the lambasting. So, I knew it was a player issue, they just didn't perform. It could have been the over 2k miles they had to travel for the first game, a Santos home game, and then the 2k miles back to our home stadium.

Mr. H I feel these two tactics so far work very well, with my best results coming in the regular season, with 14 goals for and only 3 conceded, I'm the best in the MLS at the moment (season is still young though). I'm hoping an English, German, or French team asks me for a contract after this season, but I will wait for that until I've won the MLS Cup at least once. I'm expecting my second US Cup this season, with an MLS Cup as well otherwise the season would be for naught. As long as the US Cup remains mine again, I'll be satisfied with how the team performed.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

Mr. Hough what kind of match prep would you recommend to your 4-1-2-2-1 and 4-1-1-2-2 tactics? Defensive positioning or Teamwork?

These two were always defensive positioning. I was running 4-1-2-2-1 for a long time, and Mr H would always recommend defensive positioning on average workload. I have the same tactic, but instead of the AML and AMR I move them back to ML and MR making it a 4-1-4-1, I only used that on away games. DC and MC's were all on zonal marking.

As for the two new tactics, I used them in my quarter final against DC Santos Lagunda (I may have misspelled the last name there) and lost 4-1 away and drew 1-1 home, losing on aggregate 5-1, so that was disappointing. The play at home was much better than the play away, Santos totally dominated me in every respect, I even conceded an own goal by Soares from a Santos corner. Very disappointing bit of play that was, he would normally never do that kind of thing, because he is nearly a 5 star DC.

However, in friendlies I drew FC Lorient 4-4 at home, drew Atlas 4-4 at home, and Anderlecht was 4-4 (sorry on mispelling) so, not much to write home about, however the team just got done with the match prep after the last friendly, and I'll reserve judgement until the 10 game mark. So, hopefully these two tactics will get me MLS glory, and hopefully a second US Cup. NACL is tough because the US plays against much better Mexican competition, so my aspirations for that is and has always been quarter finals (board always expects at least quarter finals).

The friendlies are ok, I always find that having draws are better than losses, but I like to think I ought to be doing better. Those teams I played, with the exception of Atlas, were larger rep teams, so I should be happy with the draws. The Atlas result bugs me because they are a similar rep team.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

I'll download these and try it out with my New England Revolution team (MLS). I signed a new 2 year deal to get an MLS Cup, won the US Cup and will more than likely win the NACL as well. I took over after 13 games in 2011, got to MLS Semi final and lost, the next year won the US Cup, got to Semifinal and lost and got to the Quarters (or the final I forget) in the NACL. This was with the 4-1-2-2-1 and a 4-1-4-1. The 4-1-4-1 is the 4-1-2-2-1 with the AMR and AML moved back to ML and MR, I use it for away games. Match prep was Defensive Positioning.

I can see these two new tactics being pretty good, especially for League 2 and up caliber leagues. One thing that you guys should take note of, is that Mr H usually uses Average on his Match Prep workload. I've tended to do that as well and it seems to work better than having high or very high. The players are not working so hard, which translates to me with them getting pretty tired with such a crazy work load.

For me, if these tactics get me the NACL and the MLS Cup, I'll be very happy.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

4-1-2-2-1 is really good for the big teams on the other hand Mr Hough have you a tactics which works for the small teams?

4-1-2-2-1 does work for small teams, or teams that are in a lower division. The football played will not match the larger rep teams, but they play much better than the other teams in their division. I used this tactic with Basingstoke, Havant and W, and a few other teams of that caliber and was always in the top of the table.

I am now playing with the New England Revolution, and the ball playing is so much better than I've seen with those smaller rep teams. So the ball play simply is better at the top flight teams, but your team will play better than the others around you in your table with any team. The key thing you want to look for is the right players. Make sure you have players in those positions that have the attributes that match the position you are looking for. Putting better players in will make the play look absolutely fantastic.

Also, make sure your DC's and MC's are all on zonal marking. My players when I took over were all 6.5 avg for those positions, after the first 10 or so games, my entire defense is all over 7.0, and all the MC players are over 7.0, DM is over 7.0. I thought about putting the DM at zonal as well, because I've noticed that he losses CON sort of fast, but that might be because I have a DM with not so good Stamina.

Also, make sure you check your fullbacks, because for some reason when I loaded up the tactic I noticed that one of the fullbacks marking was switched off, causing that player to lose CON extremely fast because he wasn't in the right marking. It was happening in every game and the fullback spot there I was going through the main player and his backup really fast and couldn't figure it out until I saw that. After I set the tick back on the marking and made sure it was correct marking, that position's stamina and con were equal to that of the other fullback that had the right ticks on.

I do not understand the corner bug, and I do see my team scoring more than anyone else in the league on corners, but this year I've been seeing a lot of goals from corners this season in a lot of leagues, so I'm keeping it in. Also, most of my goals are not coming from corners. My striker had 27 goals, and I can say that only 7 were from corners. I think that is reasonable based off real world stats.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

Serek, funny enough you mention the morale after a loss. I'm experiencing the exact same type of thing with the 41221 tactic, morale is always very high, and they don't seem to break down at all in that area, which really surprised me. I do have an assistant coach that I lean on from time to time for team talks, I think that might have more to do with it than the tactic.

They do play very good football with the 41221 from my experience and I'm playing with a team from the BSS (Blue Square South). I also want to give Mr. Hough my congrats as well, because his tactics have seen me through many games of FM, from 2010 to today. I'm not much of a tactician myself to be able to make these, and it is very appreciative that we have people like you Mr. H that take time to create and even perfect these tactics. Very good work.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

TBH, my style is the 41221, it just fits the way I want my players to play. Now, I will switch it up and put the AML and AMR into the ML and MR slots (I have players that can play both roles). Away games I use the ML and MR scheme, and I get good results out of it, however I switch it up on the road and will use the AML and AMR, and I also switch it up mid game as well just to trick the other team. It works.

Also, I have found that having the two DC's and the two MC's on zonal really helps the defense, at least on my Basingstoke Town side. I may switch the MC's back to man, but atm it is working pretty well. I will probably continue on this trend for the rest of my footballing. I really prefer 1 striker and in every tactic I myself tried to make, I always used a DMC simply because I'm defensive minded.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

Thank Mr. Hough. I've been using the older version of this tactic down in the BS South (England) and have had great success. Sometimes the players don't perform correctly, but that's because of the quality of the players, and my own failure in putting the right players in the positions. I use your tactics, but I also use Mr. Heath's lower league guide from 2011, although recently I have been neglecting the process.

I have found that if you do not have a real DM in the DM position (with the old tactic, not the new version) that your observation is very apparent. I had two players I was putting into that position, and the real DM was superb, but the other guy who had DM as a third position, was not up to speed for the position.

All in all though, the lower leagues can perform very well to your tactics. I just started anew, unemployed Sunday league rep. Got hired with Havant and W (forget the rest sorry!), won my first game against Lewes in the 3rd qualifying round in the FA Trophy 3-0. Was superb play by players who have only had 2 days training with the tactic.

To my question (sorry for the wall of text), the preparation you state is set to average defensive positioning. What would happen if I set it to high, or very high? Would it have adverse affects on the players fitness, say would I see more and more injuries or players needing rested and the like? I'll leave it at average for now, because the season has gone 13 games before I took over the team.

[Mr Hough FM12.2 Tactics.]

I'm going to try this out with my Boston United club, hopefully I get promoted with this. I took over last season as an interim manager, got a new contract for a year, and I'm expected to get promoted.

Thank Mr. Hough!