Just beat Man U 6-1 in the second season with this using Liverpool so figured it was about time I posted saying how great it was! I'm unbeaten in all competitions going into November 2017 and have beaten City and Chelsea by 3 or 4 goals already. It's brilliant to watch.
To be fair the squad is massively improved as it is ridiculously easy to make huge profits in the transfer market in this patch (seriously crazy money offered for average players if you do it right, a good trick is to offer transfer listed players out on loan first with an agreed mandatory fee after 5 games, clubs will agree to stupid fees that way). So I do have an outrageous front three now of Hazard (unhappy after Chelsea finished outside of the European places, still had to pay a world record fee mind - worth every penny so far!), Firminho and Griezmann. Hazard has 12 goals and 7 assists from 11 games as the AMCL; Firminho has 10 goals and 5 assists from 8 games; Griezmann has 12 goals and 5 assists from 11. Pretty fun to watch those three at work it would be fair to say!
It was great in the first season too though, I won the league reasonably comfortably in the end although to be fair I was using other tactics at various points as I was messing around testing loads of tactics out in the early part especially, so it wasn't *all* down to this one. Firminho finished top scorer with 29 goals and 12 assists (again, not all games used this tactic, I'm not sure what the break down of goals was for all of these players). Coutinho had a fantastic return of 24 goals although "only" 6 assists. Mane had 11 goals and 6 assists although he barely scored any after going away for the ACoN, his ratios were loads better in the first half of the season. I signed Oxlade-Chamberlain (overpaid massively for him but I wanted an English player in case I get a hard Brexit!) to compete for that role, he got 11 goals and 8 assists from 23 appearances (only 14 of which were starts). The tactic was and is brilliant to watch, I was struggling to get into FM2017 until I started using this now I am very much addicted!
In the second season I rotate between three different versions of this tactic. The original, which I use for quite a few away games and all games against top teams. I have a version with a control mentality for when against opposition who park the bus (which is mostly everyone in the second season!). Sometimes I select "retain possession" on that version too and I almost always remove the instructions for the AMCR and AMCL to man-mark. The latter seems to help them as attacking threats, I'm not entirely convinced about the effects of the former, I need to test it a bit more. I also use a version I tweaked into a conventional 4-2-3-1 (AML as an Advanced Playmaker (Attack); AMR as an Inside Forward (Attack); the Shadow Striker pushed forward and given a False 9 role; one of the BWM(s) moved into the AM strata as an Advanced Playmaker (Support). All of the moved players have the same PI's as they do in the original tactic, plus any additional ones that come with their new roles. TI are all unchanged from the original except I use the control mentality for this one too. I'm not overly convinced about it, it's definitely not as good as the first two tactics but it's nice to mix it up a bit to confuse the opposition and it does still work well enough, certainly scores plenty although that might just be down to the outrageous quality I have up top. I don't use it that often really as the two strikerless versions are performing amazingly and are sublime to watch.
All-in-all this is by far my favourite tactic on the new FM, it's not plug and play in the traditional sense as you note which may put off some but for anyone who sticks with it I think they will not regret the decision! Thanks a lot for sharing this tactic, it's great, keep up the good work!