Philosophy
Footballers aren't Einsteins. To both prevent chaos on the pitch, and at the same time, make your carefully chosen roles matter, I suggest using very rigid philosophy. You will have great control over your tactic, your players will obey orders to the letter, and it is the best way to see if you setup something wrong. Do not let footballers think for themselves, or your tactic and your carefully chosen instructions wont matter, not to mention unpredictable results. More disciplined team instruction is always good also.
On the other hand, If you don't want to dabble into tactics, you should give your players creativity and stop reading this text. For a great team, it may be enough just to chose fluid philosophy and attack strategy and nothing else.
Strategy
Read the description of each. More attacking means you consider your team to be better, means you expect to dominate possession, means your sidebacks will regulary overlap, means your defence must be creative and your forwards skillfull or technical, means your defence will pass shorter and your attackers more direct.
The other way around goes for more defensive strategies. If you intend to adapt to match and perhaps attack when in need of goal, or defend when when you have lead, make sure you setup all your player roles and duties accordingly. For example, if you intend to attack, your sidebacks should probably be on attack duty, or if you intend to defend, on support or defend. Wingers on their flank must be adjusted accordingly, as of course your team settings and player instructions. The best method is getting an early lead and not changing your strategy throughout the match. Of course, for that to happen, your tactic must be great.
Team instructions
These should be adjusted according to your strategy. More agressive strategies mean more pressing, more attempts of tackles, players making more forward passes, players running ahead of ball, playing higher tempo, more creativity. If you intend to play a more agressive strategy, it means you want to take more risk in an attempt to score a goal, possibly equaliser. It usually means defending from higher up the pitch, playing with more width, and trying to take on opponents by surprise and great movement and unpredictability. More defensive strategies are all the opposite. How much exactly you want to risk, is up to you, but it should be done within general confines of your chosen strategy.
Player instructions
These should be adjusted according to each player prior to every match, or a better solution would be not to touch these at all. It may seem smart to give your player with low workrate and stamina an order to close down less, for example, but I advise against it, as you will probably hurt the rest of the team, because they are relying on this player to close down. For example you may tell your gk to distribute to defenders in an effort to keep possession, but a high pressing team will then put your defenders under pressure and they may make a mistake, and you can concede. Also, when you setup team instructions, they will naturally adapt. For example, when you setup look for overlap team instruction, your wingers will naturally hold up the ball, there is no need to order them that in PI, and if you change team instructions during match, you will also need to change PI. So leave PI alone.
Player roles and duties
You will get the best out of your team by using your best players in their prefered role and duty, and adjusting others to them. For that to have effect, you must know how to combine player roles and duties, and that is a bit longer process, which requires reading. For example, in centre midfield you should have 4 different roles and duties. One needs to be a creator, one needs to be agressor, one needs to be a runner, and one needs to be a holding midfielder. Of course, some roles and duties do more then just one thing, so for example, if you have a two man midfield, you can set one up as dlps, to serve as holding, creator, and runner, and the other as bwmd, to serve as agressor. Three man midfield of course gives more options, so you can, for example, chose to play with two holding midfielders (double pivot), which is becoming popular in recent times, but never forget to have all 4, or your tactic will be unbalanced. You can read what each role and duty does here :Central Midfielders | Football Manager 2014 Guide
Of course, you need to setup your striker, and your wingers and your sidebacks and your defence aswell, so go through that website to check how exactly to set it up. Don't forget to adjust your lower ability players to better ones. For example if you have a great inside forward attack, you should combine him with a full back support regardless of what role and duty is prefered for the fullback.
Setting up your attack
These actually depend on your chosen strategy and team instructions, but the general rule of scoring is stretching your opponent both vertically and horizontally, using running, player movement and roaming. Only give roaming to treq and adv. play. attack roles, as they are the only ones capable of doing it, the rest of the team should preferably be on low creativity and sticking to position. You can achieve vertical depth by using deep lying playmakers to stretch them down, and perhaps a poacher to stretch them up, giving your AMC player much room, and you can stretch them horizontally by running at defence or by using wingers. You can also use roles that drop deep from high positions combined with roles that run up. If thinking of using roles that cut inside, make sure you have someone to deal with their DM, or he will be free to deal with your cutting inside player.
Setting up your defence
There are three ways you can do this, and it should be done combined with your strategy and team instructions.
First option is suited for a high pressing style, and it involves offside trap. If you want to use high pressing, you should use two central defenders on defend duty and tick on offside trap in team instructions. Hassling is recommended, and tight marking if you are playing against a weaker team.
Second option is stopper cover combo, which you should use if you play on counter attack with a normal or deep defensive line, and if you are not using DM's. Stopper duty goes next to your more attacking fullback.
Third option is superdeep defence, which you should use if using defence strategy. It plays with two central defenders on defend duty, with a much deeper defensive line, you need a DM or two, you should stand off and stay on feet, and perhaps play narrower.
For all counter attacking styles, it is advisable to play your counters on the flanks, as they are less likely to be caught by offside trap there. And if considering a counter attacking style, you can use a sweeper keeper and ball playing defenders.
Footballers aren't Einsteins. To both prevent chaos on the pitch, and at the same time, make your carefully chosen roles matter, I suggest using very rigid philosophy. You will have great control over your tactic, your players will obey orders to the letter, and it is the best way to see if you setup something wrong. Do not let footballers think for themselves, or your tactic and your carefully chosen instructions wont matter, not to mention unpredictable results. More disciplined team instruction is always good also.
On the other hand, If you don't want to dabble into tactics, you should give your players creativity and stop reading this text. For a great team, it may be enough just to chose fluid philosophy and attack strategy and nothing else.
Strategy
Read the description of each. More attacking means you consider your team to be better, means you expect to dominate possession, means your sidebacks will regulary overlap, means your defence must be creative and your forwards skillfull or technical, means your defence will pass shorter and your attackers more direct.
The other way around goes for more defensive strategies. If you intend to adapt to match and perhaps attack when in need of goal, or defend when when you have lead, make sure you setup all your player roles and duties accordingly. For example, if you intend to attack, your sidebacks should probably be on attack duty, or if you intend to defend, on support or defend. Wingers on their flank must be adjusted accordingly, as of course your team settings and player instructions. The best method is getting an early lead and not changing your strategy throughout the match. Of course, for that to happen, your tactic must be great.
Team instructions
These should be adjusted according to your strategy. More agressive strategies mean more pressing, more attempts of tackles, players making more forward passes, players running ahead of ball, playing higher tempo, more creativity. If you intend to play a more agressive strategy, it means you want to take more risk in an attempt to score a goal, possibly equaliser. It usually means defending from higher up the pitch, playing with more width, and trying to take on opponents by surprise and great movement and unpredictability. More defensive strategies are all the opposite. How much exactly you want to risk, is up to you, but it should be done within general confines of your chosen strategy.
Player instructions
These should be adjusted according to each player prior to every match, or a better solution would be not to touch these at all. It may seem smart to give your player with low workrate and stamina an order to close down less, for example, but I advise against it, as you will probably hurt the rest of the team, because they are relying on this player to close down. For example you may tell your gk to distribute to defenders in an effort to keep possession, but a high pressing team will then put your defenders under pressure and they may make a mistake, and you can concede. Also, when you setup team instructions, they will naturally adapt. For example, when you setup look for overlap team instruction, your wingers will naturally hold up the ball, there is no need to order them that in PI, and if you change team instructions during match, you will also need to change PI. So leave PI alone.
Player roles and duties
You will get the best out of your team by using your best players in their prefered role and duty, and adjusting others to them. For that to have effect, you must know how to combine player roles and duties, and that is a bit longer process, which requires reading. For example, in centre midfield you should have 4 different roles and duties. One needs to be a creator, one needs to be agressor, one needs to be a runner, and one needs to be a holding midfielder. Of course, some roles and duties do more then just one thing, so for example, if you have a two man midfield, you can set one up as dlps, to serve as holding, creator, and runner, and the other as bwmd, to serve as agressor. Three man midfield of course gives more options, so you can, for example, chose to play with two holding midfielders (double pivot), which is becoming popular in recent times, but never forget to have all 4, or your tactic will be unbalanced. You can read what each role and duty does here :Central Midfielders | Football Manager 2014 Guide
Of course, you need to setup your striker, and your wingers and your sidebacks and your defence aswell, so go through that website to check how exactly to set it up. Don't forget to adjust your lower ability players to better ones. For example if you have a great inside forward attack, you should combine him with a full back support regardless of what role and duty is prefered for the fullback.
Setting up your attack
These actually depend on your chosen strategy and team instructions, but the general rule of scoring is stretching your opponent both vertically and horizontally, using running, player movement and roaming. Only give roaming to treq and adv. play. attack roles, as they are the only ones capable of doing it, the rest of the team should preferably be on low creativity and sticking to position. You can achieve vertical depth by using deep lying playmakers to stretch them down, and perhaps a poacher to stretch them up, giving your AMC player much room, and you can stretch them horizontally by running at defence or by using wingers. You can also use roles that drop deep from high positions combined with roles that run up. If thinking of using roles that cut inside, make sure you have someone to deal with their DM, or he will be free to deal with your cutting inside player.
Setting up your defence
There are three ways you can do this, and it should be done combined with your strategy and team instructions.
First option is suited for a high pressing style, and it involves offside trap. If you want to use high pressing, you should use two central defenders on defend duty and tick on offside trap in team instructions. Hassling is recommended, and tight marking if you are playing against a weaker team.
Second option is stopper cover combo, which you should use if you play on counter attack with a normal or deep defensive line, and if you are not using DM's. Stopper duty goes next to your more attacking fullback.
Third option is superdeep defence, which you should use if using defence strategy. It plays with two central defenders on defend duty, with a much deeper defensive line, you need a DM or two, you should stand off and stay on feet, and perhaps play narrower.
For all counter attacking styles, it is advisable to play your counters on the flanks, as they are less likely to be caught by offside trap there. And if considering a counter attacking style, you can use a sweeper keeper and ball playing defenders.
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