New patch 4.1.4. Now what?

[klemme]

Hi,

after many long hours playing FM14 with Real Madrid and getting a tactic to be consistent and fluid and even getting Ronaldo to score on a regular basis which have been extremely hard in this version of Football Manager, the 4.1.4 patch completely broke my tactic. The opposition almost always score against me no matte how much better my team is and I can buy a win to save my life.

I understand that at the moment Poachers as lone strikers are useless and the formation 4-1-2-2-1 (4 at the back, one DM, 2 central midfielders, 2 wingers and 1 lone striker) also all of a sudden doesn't work.

Have any of you experienced the same and can any of toy tactical geniuses out there explain what have changed tactically in the new patch and how we can counter it?

Thanks,
Klemme

 

[Hector89]

Can you post the screenshots of the formation and the instructions used?

 

[klemme]

Of course, I will do that when I get home from work.

 

[AayushCFC]

That formation you're using leaves a big gap in Middle b/w Striker and CMs, unless you're playing one of them as AP (attack), it'll cause trouble. A Poacher remains on the shoulder of last defender and beats with his pace, I prefer DLF/F9 or even a Target Man.
DLF and F9 come deep to help build up play, means you have one extra player contributing in build up which is very helpful. Target Man is specialist role and not many striker can play that. Benteke and Lukaku are good example of Target man, Giroud too. A target man is better than poacher as he can turn a game around on his own and does no depend on through balls as much as a Poacher do. Poacher is also not helpful in possession football where you want to control the game in opposition's half, high line as opposition will set deeper and mark your striker and phase him out of the game completely.

I use the same 4-3-3 formation but it seems to work for me, even in this patch.