As a newly promoted team you wouldn't have been the favourite for most of your games and the AI would be more open against you. You've done really well so the match odds will be more in your favour and teams will play more defensive against you.
Babacar. You can usually get him for under 10 mill and he'll accept back up or rotation.
He scored consistently for me off the bench and when Cavani broke his leg he was hammering them in and finshed top goal scorer.
You should try a control mentality and set it deeper and more narrow. The counter mentality is actually better suited to poession football. It's slow and cautious and you'll see lots of sideways and backwards passes.
Despite its description control is very direct and will transition quickly.
Portugal is good. You have 3 good squads in Porto, Benfica and Sporting. Benfica and Porto in particular have loads of quality young players to develop. Also no restrictions on non eu players.
Work Ball into Box only affects long shots. With the old sliders it lowered them to rarely. Nothing to do with through balls.
Pass into space is the shout that increases through balls.
Attacking is a very direct mentailty so if you want to see shorter passing and team goals choose a lower...
My favorite set up of Fergies was when he had Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez with Giggs or Nani interchanging positions and just causing wreck.
Fantastic to watch.
Season review 07/08 - 27.10.2007 Man United 4-1 Middlesbrough - YouTube