Will_S

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I've been googling and searching for this, but a lot that comes up is pre-patch, so I decided to make a thread.

I've been playing FM with a 4-4-2 with Sheff United for more than 20 seasons now. Before the patch auto-installed itself (Steam) I would win almost every game in a season and concede very few goals (22 per season recently, but I got as low as 14 at one point) while scoring between 80 and 100 goals. I had one season where I lost no games at all in the league. The same tactic worked with lower league teams, taking AFC Telford from BSP to L1 in two seasons.

However since the patch installed itself, the tactic has stopped working. I've tinkered around with it and drawn the conclusion that the main problem is the midfield and creating enough chances. My defence is still extremely tight, so no problems there, but going forward there seem to be too few options for my midfielders to exploit.

Now my midfield is far from poor. The lynchpin is probably the best regen MC I've ever seen (stamina, creativity, anticipation, technique and teamwork all 20, with no attribute lower than 12 except jumping/aggression) valued at 35M. No members of my first team are worse than "leading star for a Premiership team".

The difficulty is in getting either the wingers to cut in often enough or the strikers to make enough runs. As it stands the MCs will run with or hold the ball (usually with at least one opponent shadowing them) before stopping and passing it back to a DC/CB. The alternative is that my wingers make a great run, but float in crosses which are headed over 100% of the time. The patch seems to have affected this aspect quite radically.

I'm unwilling to change from 4-4-2 because my youth policy is set up to fill in players for a 4-4-2 setup. I have considered switching to 3 at the back, but it's slightly risky and I have no DMCs. Switching player roles hasn't altered very much. I had limited success with (ironically) switching from direct to short passing play, but found it created too many 0-0s to be interesting enough. Any suggestions on how to get more out of MCs without altering the formation?

Cheers.
 
442 tactics and winger tactics in general are very hard to make work on 10.3 for some reason. Narrow formations seem to work best.

My 3 at the back tactic was a huge success so dont be put off doing it.
 
It seems the latest patch does not do any favours for wingers, you'd be better off playing a more central formation and piling up in the centre of midfield.
 
I've set the wingers to cut in instead of hugging the line, and they've scored two (edit: three) goals against Stoke so far. Not going to count my chickens though, since Stoke are relegation favourites.

Might set my formation a bit narrower, but I find that it unsettles my defence as my Full Backs then play narrower and start ******** up their marking once their wingers start cutting in.

Re 3 at the back, I do think it would be successful, but I'm torn over whether to have 3CBs or just one. Having one hasn't worked out in the past, but my Full backs are quality, and I'd hate to sell them.

Edit: I won 6-0 with the wingers cutting in. Then forgot to do the team talk because I was perusing the stats, now got a whole load of ****** off players. >_>
 
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I agree that having two traditional wingers doesnt seem to do very well in fm10 at all sometimes playing with the two as attacking midfielders wide works but the team must be good or you get hammered and out played, on fm9 i used kevvegels arsenal tactics 442 one winger and left winger cutting in ala arsenal with pires henry etc. played great football, very good possession even against teams playing 4141 451 433 we would just pass the ball around them trhough them over the top of them, chelsea man u liverpool and all the european big boys routenily got a good beating, which with the way arsenal are at the moment at least gave me some joy in football, my problem is i like two up front again in fm10 i find one striker struggles, i also like the wide playes i like the dm position as i find in this game if you dont have one you just get countered on all the time, and i have had some really good am, scoring and creating loads, so if anyone can find a way of putting 13 players on the pitch i would be happy:)
 
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