Tony Pulis' Hoof & Hope v1.6 by Kyanite
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mcoaqfbtx266hdi/Tony Pulis' Hoof & Hope v1.6 by Kyanite.tac
Sign Lee Novak from Huddersfield (should be a bargain under 1mil if I remember correctly) for the CF-A (Left Striker) position, use Rhodes as the CF-S (Right striker).
This is a tactic I created but haven't released it here on the forums yet unlike some of my other tactics, but you can give it a go. I should write this up and upload it when I can be bothered in all honesty.
Note these images are in the FULL version of the game, except I use the FMC skin for the full version:
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Smashed the prem after promotion as you can see.
Trick is to have the right players if I'm honest.
Just look at Stoke and think physical etc and make sure your CF-A (left stirker) is a target man.
Novak still scored for fun (along with Andy Carroll) in the Prem. (Despite Novak's 2 stars CA).
This tactic also finished 4th with Stoke in 2012/2013, Crouch scoring for fun.
Use a standard strategy but switch to Counter when you are away from home/or against top opponents and standard aint working (arsenal, united, city, liverpool etc).
Do tactics training until you get 80% familiarity then do a week or two of defending set pieces then defensive positioning for the remainder of the season.
Make sure your right center back is the one with heading ability as he will score from corners - Shawcross/Dann etc.
I don't remember using any shouts, if I did then I most likely used "Hassle Opponents" &/or "Get Stuck In". But try it with no shouts at first and remember shouts are only minor tweaks.
Watch out for Jason Lowe, he excels in the BWM role but he will pick up red cards, so make sure you give him a blabla-ing when he does get sent off lol
Other than that have fun and remember you need the players. Without Vukcevic, Rochina etc you might have to use Pedersen on the left, even though he did really well as the box 2 box midfielder and contributed well from set pieces.
But yeah you might be forced to use Markus Olsson as your left winger and kazim richards as your right winger.
But I highly recommend Novak with Rhodes!
good luck and let me know what happens and hopefully you'll get the success I did.
(also, once you become a top team - standard will become 'counter' and counter will become 'defensive' - as teams start being more cautious to you)