Football Manager 2018

[Gazz]

41 minutes ago, Meacon said:

Any suggestions?

That.

Got me 3rd and highest scorers in the league with Newcastle in the second season.

There are things to be understood regarding the match engine, the main three are:

• Crossing is shit
• Long shots are shit
• Defender passing is shit

So this tactic is based around minimising those things. Wingers are played as IFs so they come inside rather than going outside to cross into the stands, team instructions are based around keeping the ball and working it into the box, everyone is on 'Shoot less often' PI and all defenders  and keeper are on shorter passing, less risky passing etc.

The main crux of the tactic is third man runs, player one plays the ball into player two, who holds it up for a pass off to player three, who is running in at pace into space. The general method of build up is player one is one of the IFs, who plays it into the CF (who was originally a DLF-S when I had more limited players), who holds it up as the shadow striker and/or the Segundo Volante join in the attack with late runs. The Volante is a fucking awesome role, on defence, he will just sit as a DMC and mop up with the BWM, on attack and especially in transistion, he'll burst forward and play as a second AMC. It's a very specialised role and whoever plays it will need bags of stamina or two players who can play it. I have Mikel Merino and a guy called Dragos Nedelcu, a 20 year old Romanian who is an absolute beast, lead the league in average rating. Bought him for £2.5m, one season and he's vice captain and worth £25m.

Tactic isn't completely defensively sound yet, conceded 45 in the league, which was only 9th best. I had a lot of 3-2's, a 4-3 against Liverpool like the good old days and a 5-3 at West Ham. Goals tend to be over the top in behind or low crosses into the near post so I'm trying a deeper line and might experiment with deeper full backs as they don't contribute massively offensively anyway.

[Meacon Keaton]

You rock. I'm going to try setting that up for my next match. Thank you. 

[Gazz]

It might not work, there's no 'plug and play' tactics anymore as the engine has become more sophisticated. Player traits are big difference makers too now.

You'll be happy to know I broke the American transfer record for sign Ethan Horvath as my first choice keeper. £11.5m from Brugge.

[Liam]

21 minutes ago, Gazz said:

That.

Got me 3rd and highest scorers in the league with Newcastle in the second season.

There are things to be understood regarding the match engine, the main three are:

• Crossing is shit
• Long shots are shit
• Defender passing is shit

So this tactic is based around minimising those things. Wingers are played as IFs so they come inside rather than going outside to cross into the stands, team instructions are based around keeping the ball and working it into the box, everyone is on 'Shoot less often' PI and all defenders  and keeper are on shorter passing, less risky passing etc.

The main crux of the tactic is third man runs, player one plays the ball into player two, who holds it up for a pass off to player three, who is running in at pace into space. The general method of build up is player one is one of the IFs, who plays it into the CF (who was originally a DLF-S when I had more limited players), who holds it up as the shadow striker and/or the Segundo Volante join in the attack with late runs. The Volante is a fucking awesome role, on defence, he will just sit as a DMC and mop up with the BWM, on attack and especially in transistion, he'll burst forward and play as a second AMC. It's a very specialised role and whoever plays it will need bags of stamina or two players who can play it. I have Mikel Merino and a guy called Dragos Nedelcu, a 20 year old Romanian who is an absolute beast, lead the league in average rating. Bought him for £2.5m, one season and he's vice captain and worth £25m.

Tactic isn't completely defensively sound yet, conceded 45 in the league, which was only 9th best. I had a lot of 3-2's, a 4-3 against Liverpool like the good old days and a 5-3 at West Ham. Goals tend to be over the top in behind or low crosses into the near post so I'm trying a deeper line and might experiment with deeper full backs as they don't contribute massively offensively anyway.

How important does the players' suitability for the roles matter this year? Could I get by playing players in those positions who aren't necessarily perfectly suited?

[Gazz]

I don't think they have to be perfect. I think it helps, but I've had players like Mitrovic, Perez and Atsu overperforming in roles they're not suited to perfectly

[Meacon Keaton]

@Gazz scored in the 4th minute in the first game with your tactics.

Gave up a goal a few minutes later though it had nothing to do with your tactics. A free kick from about 18 yards out sailed just past my T-Rex-armed keeper.  

Another late goal see’s us lose, this time 2-1. If we had just a draw for every match we lost in the last ten minutes, we’d be upper half of the table instead of bottom. Frustrating as shit.

[Liam]

I played three games with the tactic.

Lost 1-0 to a team with 10 men.

Beat a team two divisions below me 5-0 with a hattrick from my DM.

Lost 2-1 to another team.

[Meacon Keaton]

I’m in game two now. Gave up an early goal when a tackle caused my right fullback to get injured allowing an easy pass across the front of goal that they put in. Since then it’s been us shooting our little hearts out with two going in. May as well wait until the end of the match to post...

Offense is much improved but the decent-to-good defense we were playing has definitely taken a backseat to us shooting (and scoring) more. A penalty kick puts us up 3-1 in the 78th. My striker just sent a shot within four feet (not a huge exaggeration) about 35 rows above the net.

3-1 final. We’ve fluctuated between 11-13th the last few weeks and this team is in the 15-17th range, so I’m quite happy with that result. We’ve now scored as many in two game with el tactico de Gazz than we had in the previous eight games with mine.

[Gazz]

Champions League group, I've drawn the defending champions in Atletico and the runners up in Monaco.

[Benji]

5 hours ago, Meacon said:

What do you guys do to get out of scoring ruts? It’s not just one player. I’ve gone five games now without scoring a damn goal. We’ve lost two games 1-0 where each goal was a late minute penalty. We’ve drawn 0-0 in two games. And got slaughtered by the best team in the league 3-0 where we had possession maaaaaaybe 30% of the time.

Ive tried having my guys shoot on sight. I’ve tried having them pump the ball in the box. I’ve tried high crosses. I’ve tried low crosses. I’ve tried everything that I’ve done in the past when we’ve been on a terrible run, but absolutely nothing I do is working.

Any suggestions?

Play strikerless.

Seriously.

[Meacon Keaton]

We just buried Bury on the road 3-1. Bury was sitting in 2nd coming in to the match, just one point behind first. We dominated almost from start to finish.

Its gotta be the tactics because even when we were scoring before, it wasn’t like this.

[Adam]

Who are you playing as?

[Lineker]

Yeah if you've got a good player to fill the Shadow Striker AMC role then this works.

Also @Meacon see if watching either of these videos help at all: 

 

 

[Gazz]

When I'm against a lone striker, setting one centre back to man mark the striker, the other being set to cover and having the Volante man mark the AMC seems to be shutting down the opposition, especially with those balls over the top, man marker stays with the striker and the cover mops up if needed.

[Gazz]

I think I've cracked it. Next batch of games will tell.

City game was kids and Atleti was Griezmann tearing Mbemba a new arsehole. He was on 4.9 before I subbed him off.

[Meacon Keaton]

I’ve got a douche nozzle on my squad that struggles to connect on normal fucking passes seven yards away, yet he still insists on trying stupid backward heel passes three or four times a game.

[Lineker]

There's got to be a PPM available to iron that shit out.

[Meacon Keaton]

And just like that, a switch is flipped and we can’t score again. We’re getting 6-9 shots on target consistently. They’re just weak ass attempts hit directly to the keeper or constantly hitting the woodwork. 

Two goals in the last six games. The six games before that we had scored fifteen. 

[Gazz]

13 hours ago, Meacon said:

I’ve got a douche nozzle on my squad that struggles to connect on normal fucking passes seven yards away, yet he still insists on trying stupid backward heel passes three or four times a game.

That's your own fault for signing Jonjo Shelvey.

[Gazz]

When 'Fergietime' backfires...