Second season syndrome, Help.

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whenray

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After winning the league in my first season with Monaco I'm somehow struggling in the second. I'm using the same tactics as the first where I dominated after a few months of inconsistency that I put down to all the new signings gelling. I've uploaded screenshots of my formation, team instructions and league table and was wondering if anybody could advise on what I could do to either make my tactics better or how to get my players playing well again whether it's tactical based or not. A lot of the goals I've conceded have been either late in the game or silly individual errors from my keeper or one of my defenders.




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Your 2 CWB's leave your defense exposed, these are roles not suited for a 433, if you want to use CWB's you will need 3 CDs. Then you have 2 IF's cutting inside to the space of both AP and AF. You need to create space, not crowded it. If you want to use an AF you need wingers; if you want to use IF's you need a Treq / F9 or a supporting DLF
 
miguelalves said:
Your 2 CWB's leave your defense exposed, these are roles not suited for a 433, if you want to use CWB's you will need 3 CDs. Then you have 2 IF's cutting inside to the space of both AP and AF. You need to create space, not crowded it. If you want to use an AF you need wingers; if you want to use IF's you need a Treq / F9 or a supporting DLF
Click to expand...

I assumed I would get away with having CWB's with having an anchor man in DM, any idea why this worked fine first season but it's gone so wrong in the second? Even if the tactics could be improved I still have the best side in the league.
 
Not a clue why it worked on a season and not working in the 2nd, after all you are the manager its supposed you watch the matches to pick clues about what might be wrong, right ? :) But you have tactic issues, that's for sure.
 
miguelalves said:
Not a clue why it worked on a season and not working in the 2nd, after all you are the manager its supposed you watch the matches to pick clues about what might be wrong, right ? :) But you have tactic issues, that's for sure.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's why I said in my original post that a lot of the goals were from individual errors from the defenders and keeper! To be honest I quite often struggle in the 2nd season on a lot of my saves so I don't know if it's something I'm doing or not doing that's stopping my team from pushing on.
 
You need more than one tactic thats working. At least two, then you can swap between them as seasons go by. I had the same problem but this worked for me. Right now im playing with dynamo kyiv in third season and third tactic..

Hopes this help
 
miguelalves said:
Your 2 CWB's leave your defense exposed, these are roles not suited for a 433, if you want to use CWB's you will need 3 CDs. Then you have 2 IF's cutting inside to the space of both AP and AF. You need to create space, not crowded it. If you want to use an AF you need wingers; if you want to use IF's you need a Treq / F9 or a supporting DLF
Click to expand...

having two tactics, as mentioned, is a good foil for this problem. However, this post by miguelalves, isnt completely correct. You can use CWBs on either side, with 4 at the back, you are just going to be horrible exposed, ha.

Personally, I use a CWB-A on the left side (luke Shaw) and a FB-S on the right side (bacary sagna).

As to the use of IFs and an AF. Again, miguelalves is not totally correct. The AF is definitely compatible with IFs, however, the support duty of the IFs coupled with the attack duty of your AP will create issues. Just think about it. The support duty causes your IFs to drift inside and play through balls, and/or shoot from deep, not attack the goal like the AF and like miguel suggets.

Personally I play with an IF-S on the left side and a winger-a on the right side, that way my striker remains the main target, but he gets crosses to his head from the right side byline, and through balls to run onto from the left side. I also play with an CAM on a AP-S duty.

If you have an AP-A coming from even deeper, your IFs and your AP will run into one another. The AP-A from the CM position isnt going to spend the whole game in front of the IFs, so he wont be available for the through balls your IFs are instructed to play.

So you have two CWBs on either side driving up the field wide, the two IFs on either side cutting in and playing narrow, and the AP-A also taking up space in the middle of the park, however, none of those three players will be far enough up the field to be available for the CWBs crossing, so thats mostly wasted.

this is a link to a tactical thread of mine that has won me be the PL with a number of teams, including not so great ones.

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2014-tactics/152070-arsenal-possession-tactic-2.html

And to be clear, miguelalves is wrong, only in that he is suggesting there are specific requirements of a tactic. The game is very open, and will allow for success with varying ideas and play-styles. dont limit yourself.

as to the tactic not working in the second year, try tweaking some individual player instructions here and there.
 
Last edited:
mwhitehorn07 said:
having two tactics, as mentioned, is a good foil for this problem. However, this post by miguelalves, isnt completely correct. You can use CWBs on either side, with 4 at the back, you are just going to be horrible exposed, ha.

Personally, I use a CWB-A on the left side (luke Shaw) and a FB-S on the right side (bacary sagna).

As to the use of IFs and an AF. Again, miguelalves is not totally correct. The AF is definitely compatible with IFs, however, the support duty of the IFs coupled with the attack duty of your AP will create issues. Just think about it. The support duty causes your IFs to drift inside and play through balls, and/or shoot from deep, not attack the goal like the AF and like miguel suggets.

Personally I play with an IF-S on the left side and a winger-a on the right side, that way my striker remains the main target, but he gets crosses to his head from the right side byline, and through balls to run onto from the left side. I also play with an CAM on a AP-S duty.

If you have an AP-A coming from even deeper, your IFs and your AP will run into one another. The AP-A from the CM position isnt going to spend the whole game in front of the IFs, so he wont be available for the through balls your IFs are instructed to play.

So you have two CWBs on either side driving up the field wide, the two IFs on either side cutting in and playing narrow, and the AP-A also taking up space in the middle of the park, however, none of those three players will be far enough up the field to be available for the CWBs crossing, so thats mostly wasted.

this is a link to a tactical thread of mine that has won me be the PL with a number of teams, including not so great ones.

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2014-tactics/152070-arsenal-possession-tactic-2.html

And to be clear, miguelalves is wrong, only in that he is suggesting there are specific requirements of a tactic. The game is very open, and will allow for success with varying ideas and play-styles. dont limit yourself.

as to the tactic not working in the second year, try tweaking some individual player instructions here and there.
Click to expand...

This makes a lot of sense, looks like it's back to the drawing board, I had the IF's on support so they'd cut in sooner to make room for the CWB's rushing on but I see what you mean about them and the CM getting in each others way, like I said earlier I assumed the DM would make up for the CWB's getting forward but that mustn't be the case whether that's because of the choice of role or simply that he's too far up the pitch, as far as the individual errors it could be a case of mistakes being caused by defenders panicking due to players being caught out of position. Cheers for the help guys any other suggestions are welcome.
 
whenray said:
This makes a lot of sense, looks like it's back to the drawing board, I had the IF's on support so they'd cut in sooner to make room for the CWB's rushing on but I see what you mean about them and the CM getting in each others way, like I said earlier I assumed the DM would make up for the CWB's getting forward but that mustn't be the case whether that's because of the choice of role or simply that he's too far up the pitch, as far as the individual errors it could be a case of mistakes being caused by defenders panicking due to players being caught out of position. Cheers for the help guys any other suggestions are welcome.
Click to expand...

just to add a bit more, with an anchor man and a DLP, you arent getting a great deal of dynamism out of your midfield triangle. You'd have one going forward often, and the other two not moving at all. A bbm (box-to-box midfielder) can help alleviate this if you trust your anchor man, or whatever role you switch him to, to stay back. The BBM wont be so far forward that he is constantly caught out of position, but he will make runs into the box, which a DLP wont do at all.
 
I think it might just be the fact that the game now adapts to your tactics (so you cannot now just create one tactic and use it for 10 seasons winning everything) and i really like that it does that because it means you have to keep on your toes and every season (or two) switch things up, majorly or minorly. I would suggest you tweak some of the roles of the instructions, hope it helps;
 
mwhitehorn07 said:
having two tactics, as mentioned, is a good foil for this problem. However, this post by miguelalves, isnt completely correct. You can use CWBs on either side, with 4 at the back, you are just going to be horrible exposed, ha.

Personally, I use a CWB-A on the left side (luke Shaw) and a FB-S on the right side (bacary sagna).

As to the use of IFs and an AF. Again, miguelalves is not totally correct. The AF is definitely compatible with IFs, however, the support duty of the IFs coupled with the attack duty of your AP will create issues. Just think about it. The support duty causes your IFs to drift inside and play through balls, and/or shoot from deep, not attack the goal like the AF and like miguel suggets.

Personally I play with an IF-S on the left side and a winger-a on the right side, that way my striker remains the main target, but he gets crosses to his head from the right side byline, and through balls to run onto from the left side. I also play with an CAM on a AP-S duty.

If you have an AP-A coming from even deeper, your IFs and your AP will run into one another. The AP-A from the CM position isnt going to spend the whole game in front of the IFs, so he wont be available for the through balls your IFs are instructed to play.

So you have two CWBs on either side driving up the field wide, the two IFs on either side cutting in and playing narrow, and the AP-A also taking up space in the middle of the park, however, none of those three players will be far enough up the field to be available for the CWBs crossing, so thats mostly wasted.

this is a link to a tactical thread of mine that has won me be the PL with a number of teams, including not so great ones.

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2014-tactics/152070-arsenal-possession-tactic-2.html

And to be clear, miguelalves is wrong, only in that he is suggesting there are specific requirements of a tactic. The game is very open, and will allow for success with varying ideas and play-styles. dont limit yourself.

as to the tactic not working in the second year, try tweaking some individual player instructions here and there.
Click to expand...

We also fail to know what PIs is he using. He would need a lot of movement in order to avoid the IF occupying the same space of the AP and the AF... although the supporting IF sits a bit deeper. It's possible because as you said the game is very open, but I think there are other better options and as you mentioned even in your tactic you are using an IF and a Winger, which is a lot better: the IF drags the opponent FB opening space to other player, and the Winger gives width to the team.
 
miguelalves said:
We also fail to know what PIs is he using. He would need a lot of movement in order to avoid the IF occupying the same space of the AP and the AF... although the supporting IF sits a bit deeper. It's possible because as you said the game is very open, but I think there are other better options and as you mentioned even in your tactic you are using an IF and a Winger, which is a lot better: the IF drags the opponent FB opening space to other player, and the Winger gives width to the team.
Click to expand...

I don't use too many PI's, had the advanced forward set to hold up the ball which offers a different option than just getting him to run onto through balls all the time, also had the keeper set to distribute to defenders to play out from the back, other than that I'm not too comfortable using them, if I play with an AMC I have my striker moving into the channels, what PI's and in what scenario's tend to work for you?
 
That depends on what ever roles and duties are defined, according to what I want from my players and the ppm training (to enhance their play). This is what your players are doing, so I still think you are crowding space when it's supposed to free space or you will just be helping the opponents to park the bus.

ab_Gn3_ROaj8.jpg


I think this would be more appropriate. The number 9 player should drop deep to free space for the IF's to cut inside, while players 6 and 8 would be the ones setting pace and rhythm of your team's football.

ab_Gos_Eqacw.jpg


You can also try this option

ab_Gos_Jdadr.jpg
 
Or even (in the last option) if using an AF, the player 8 to drop deeper instead of going further forward. If you go for wingers instead of IF's, than you need more presence in the box and the AF is required which can be set with a Treq or some other supporting role.
 
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