5-2-3 - tested in the lower leagues 13.1.3

[veez]

Interesting start so far, my computer crashed so I had to play the portsmouth game again, this time winning 4-1 (Away). Drew 0-0 at home to Torquay, won 3-1 away to Cheltenham, lost 2-0 at home to Crewe and most recently lost 2-1 away to Newcastle, but deserved something as created 3 CCC to their 2 and having good possession.

No where near fluid yet and some promising signs. A bit worried about the home games so far though.

Veez, will be interesting to see what you've added to it.

the problems with games at home is that you let the opposition control the game by not pressing and sitting deep. normally at home, against similar or weaker opponents you need to take them by the neck and pressure them into making mistakes and losing the ball near their area, instead of giving them space to play and only regaining the ball down the pitch, where it is harder to counter. this is why i believe this didnt work in the top flight. players and teams are too good to be given that much space to. i'm not saying close down everyone and play push-up, but the right balance needs to be found so that the team can remain solid and cohesive at the back, while not giving that much space to the opposition, especially playing onl with 2CB's and 2 WB's. but thats just my opinion. with my changes i managed to achieve very good tackling %'s, higher than i had with other tactics.

if fearthainn agrees, i'll post my changes!

 

[Fearthainn]

Yeah go ahead and post them, no problem at all! We're all trying to do the same which is to create something that works

I agree with your post completely, but I guess that after the first couple of weeks of FM 2013 I'm too afraid to push higher up and putting the opposition under pressure - I still have nightmares about me controlling most matches only for the opposition striker to score a hat trick from through balls while my defenders stare at him. Virtually most of the goals I conceded until I came up with this tactic were like that, which is why I decided to go deeper and narrower, and drop the offside trap.

 

[veez]

thanks mate!

basically i changed the wider forwards to DLF's on support ith through balls on often. gave through balls mixed to poacher. i also changed all their passing to the first notch of direct. this created and excellent dynamic between these 3 players. in midfield i changed the midfielder ont he left to AP. he plays attack on home tactic and support on away tactic. i moved the d-line up to the first notch before push-up for the home tactic, left width as is, and changed the closing down from stand off to default. at home i also removed hard tackling. added target man - run onto ball for the poacher. this tactic plays control, attack when chasing a result.

the counter tactic, plays counter obviously, however i changed from fluid to rigid. d-line is right in the middle (normal), width is left the same. for both tactics i let the strategy change the tempo (default). here it is very important to use man-marking of wingers and lone striker. if the oponent plays 2 strikers you have 2 options: dont man mark, which can work, but if you are under too much pressure, bring the anchor man down to play as a sweeper and put both strikers on man marking. the sweeper roles is great in fm13. he cleans up any loose ends in defense and when in posession, comes up to the DMF position to distribute balls. When using the sweeper, i recommend putting both CM's as DLP on defense, so that the hole in midfield is not exploited.

hope i'm not forgetting anything. these bastards at work dont let me have my laptop open on my desk, so i'm doing this from memory. this needs much more testing before i can say it actually works, but results so far have been very promissing! i'm anxious to play those last 30 mins of the community shield to see if my sweeper and CB's can handle RVP and neymar

let me know if you have any questions. if i remember anything else i'll let you know too. hopefully tonight i can test further and tomorrow i can post some screenshots of my changes and results.

 

[veez]

Yeah go ahead and post them, no problem at all! We're all trying to do the same which is to create something that works

I agree with your post completely, but I guess that after the first couple of weeks of FM 2013 I'm too afraid to push higher up and putting the opposition under pressure - I still have nightmares about me controlling most matches only for the opposition striker to score a hat trick from through balls while my defenders stare at him. Virtually most of the goals I conceded until I came up with this tactic were like that, which is why I decided to go deeper and narrower, and drop the offside trap.

yeah, i had a lot of that going on too! but the new patch fixed most of those issues. i've found that effective marking and closing down of players, leaving one or two players to mark zonally and mop up any strays to work very well now. i also like playing a moderately high d-line, although nothing crazy, otherwise you will concede a lot of space for through balls, and playing with only 2 CB's that is very dangerous!

 

[seanhrfc]

Interesting stuff Veez, I'm going to add some stuff in, tinkering here and there, merging different tactics to see what I can come up with. I like the idea of 3 forwards, particularly in the lower leagues!

 

[veez]

Interesting stuff Veez, I'm going to add some stuff in, tinkering here and there, merging different tactics to see what I can come up with. I like the idea of 3 forwards, particularly in the lower leagues!

i've always loved to play with 3 strikers! before this last patch i found it nearly impossible, so i created a tactic with 3 AM's behind the striker that worked wonders for me. i uploaded it, still works, just not as effective in defense after the patch, although its murder up front. tried to implement the ideas i had there onto this, but with 3 strikers. works very well!

let me know what changes you decided to use and how you did, i realy want to make this work! that and i've still got 6 more hours to go at the office, so i'll definately be around

 

[seanhrfc]

I'm going to start with the tweaks you've made and go from there. Next game, home to Luton!

 

[veez]

I'm going to start with the tweaks you've made and go from there. Next game, home to Luton!

AAAH! I FORGOT! bring down through balls of WB's to mixed, change crossing from deep to mixed (still playing around with this and cross aim) and also remove long-shots for everyone in team

 

[seanhrfc]

Veez, I'd done that already as one of my tweaks will see what differences it makes, could do with a few more crosses.

Won 2-1 vs Luton at home, 7 CCC to 0. 3 Woodworks. So a good start for the 'home' tactic.

 

[veez]

Veez, I'd done that already as one of my tweaks will see what differences it makes, could do with a few more crosses.

Won 2-1 vs Luton at home, 7 CCC to 0. 3 Woodworks. So a good start for the 'home' tactic.

NICE! keep it up, and keep me posted i'll be playing through you for the nest 5 hours hehehe

 

[veez]

by the way, the conceeded goal? defensive mistake or "tactical gap" ?

 

[seanhrfc]

It was an interesting one, left wing back caught high up the pitch pressurising their throw in way in their half. Long ball down the left, centre back draws out to close down the left, ball played into the space he left on the edge of the box.

Just played another game 1-1 home to Bury, their goal came from a midfielder, not closed down, making a great through ball between my two CBs for a pacy striker to latch onto.

May make a few changes to the closing down.

 

[Fearthainn]

That win vs Luton seems promising. I think I will toy around with the sweeper idea, I would love to get a sweeper tactic to work but have always been unsuccessful.

 

[seanhrfc]

Had an absolute mare, was on a decent run of wins/draws and no losses then runtime error occured back to the luton game! I'm going to try something a little bit different, will let you know how it goes. Obviously keeping the formation and basic principles.

 

[veez]

hey! during lunch i played a bit and went on to win the community shield 5-0 against united - played counter all game and with the sweeper since the 50th minute. was fairly confident going nto my first game of the PL at home to reading but lost 3-1. didnt play well. dont know what happened but it was probably because they play a 4-2-4 that just overpowered me at the back. only stabilised defensively when i employed a sweeper, but was unable to create offensively. had to get back to work, so i was unabe to play the next game to get a sense if it was a one off result or if there is something wrong with the balance of the tactic.

this has got me thinking again, so i made some sketches on my notepad and came up with this:

3 man flat d-line (def duty) - 2 stoppers 1 cover - stoppers will cover for fullback when needed and cover will occupy space left by stopper. 3 men at the back also allows you to always man mark strikers and leave a spare man or two to cover.

1 DLP in DMF position (def duty) - his sole aim is to get the ball to the wing-backs or the AMC as fast as possible

2 wing-backs (support duty) - carry the ball up the field and link with the front men.

1 AP in AMC position (support duty) - the playmaker - sits behind the front men looking to get the ball and feed it onto runs into the area and on goal. comes deep to get the ball (no run from deep)

now here you can go two ways:

two IF's (attack duty), one on either side of the AP - these players are all rounders, they act as midfielders, wingers or forwards, looking to play through balls onto the poacher, find space in the area themselves for the finish or to latch onto a through ball or drop into channels to cross into the area - i know for a fact this works very well (you can check the thread of my 4231 with wolves for screenshots)

or

two DLF's or DF's (support duty) dropping deep or on the wings to pick up the ball and feed it to the poacher - much as the IF's, i just dont know which one will be more effective.

Poacher - set as target man - run onto ball

so you can either play with 3 strikers or with 3 men in behind the strikers.

i would probably set this to fluid or very fluid, because of the gap in midfield, so players play closer together and the IF's or DLF's help out in the middle of the park.

it all sounds very good in theory - now junt need to find out if it works!

what do you think?

 

[Adi1974]

could some1 post the tactic with the tweaks done i cant keep up with it all lol

 

[veez]

could some1 post the tactic with the tweaks done i cant keep up with it all lol

lol these are all just tests mate. the official tactic of this thread is posted in the OP. the creator also listed a few tweaks that improved his game on the first page. appart from that, nothing has really been tested or officially added to the tactic.

so the best you can do is read everything and try to use what other people say is working for them, or what you feel would work for you. its all just a bunch of theories and ideas for now, ome of them will probably work and others wont. when they are all sufficiently tested and the good ones can be separated from the bad, maybe then, a new tactic shall be born

good luck!

 

[Jono6895]

This tactic is the Ultimate away game tactic, I use this on away games with Swindon in the N-Power Championship and I need one more win the gain back to back promotions, it is absolutely awesome. At home I don't use this tactic though, as instead I use Nezza's 'Best Tactic Ever' for home games, of which also has 5 at the back, but I always get praised by the media for being a 'Tactic Tinkerer' and have only lost two games in the Championship all season, both of which were against Southampton Home and Away. Got knocked out of the FA Cup by Crystal Palace too and lost 7-2 to Arsenal in the Semi's of the Carling Cup in the first leg, but come back and won the 2nd leg 3-2. So this tactic is very solid, have to give huge credit to the creator as I greatly appreciate it, don't think I would be where I am without it in all honesty! :$

 

[seanhrfc]

Veez your idea could work, I'm tinkering with a tweaked version of this tactic away and the barca tactic at home I reckon!

 

[Fearthainn]

could some1 post the tactic with the tweaks done i cant keep up with it all lol

Yeah mate just go with the tactic in the first post plus the 2 tweaks I mentioned:

1 - moved the more central centre back up to defensive midfield with an anchor man role

2 - change the "focus passing" option from through the middle to mixed

Yet to find a tactic that works better and is more consistent away from home. As for home matches... Thinking of going with jono's idea and trying nezza's tactic lol. Until I can tweak my tactic so that it's as consistently good at home too.