Southampton FC, a tactical exercise on FM15

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dakofsta

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I have decided to embark on the challenge of bringing Southampton to the upper echelons of world football and I am certainly looking forward to my journey towards there. This will be similar to last years 'Ozil + 10' thread.

Southampton lost many players over the summer and that has made the board give me a relatively simple target of finishing in the top half of the table. All players seemed to agree with those expectations, with the exceptions of James Ward-Prowse (whom I will be building my team around), Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama. As I stated, James Ward-Prowse is the player I am looking to build my team around.
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He is a fantastic player and suits my tactics very well, and is also English, homegrown players are always good to have in your team.The board have asked me to play possession football and attacking football, two things I love to do.

My tactical setup is a fairly simple 4-1-2-2-1, playing to the advantages of a strong midfield and a tall striker.
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I have also made two other tactics, one is a counter attacking tactic which will be used in away games against in form teams or teams who play possession football and the other is a defensive tactic which will be used against teams at the top of the table and when I am leading a game and I want to see it off.
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Tweaks will be made throughout the save to allow the tactics to improve, and signings will be made depending on the strength of certain positions. Recommended signings are more than welcome, as are suggestions on how to improve my tactics
 
Played a match against the under 21's team. Impressive performance against one of the top under 21s teams in england, tactic A seems to be working well.

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The number of clear cut chances wasn't great but a lot of the goals were long shots where simple through ball options were available. I will look to rectify this and advise the players to pass more and shoot less
 
Interesting thread. Will be following for sure.

Why are you playing Pelle as a DLF (s) instead of a target man (s) on your main tactic? I would have thought he'd be better suited to that
 
Maximus94 said:
Interesting thread. Will be following for sure.

Why are you playing Pelle as a DLF (s) instead of a target man (s) on your main tactic? I would have thought he'd be better suited to that
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I thought he was too good technically to be a target man. He will also be moved closer towards the midfield, helping me with possession, and will also move in to channels, allowing more goals from the players around him. I might try him as a target man in a different pre season friendly though
 
Before you read this, I would like you all to know that I had started a save with Southampton on the first day of the beta and simply scouted players to see how good they were, so please don't judge me on signing players without previously scouting them because I already know what they are like.

So looking at the team, I have identified four clear positional needs:

- A backup fullback (both sides)
- A first team CB
- A backup ST
- A well rounded CM

The backup fullback was a very easy decision. Miguel Lopes is transfer listed for 195k and is good enough to start for most premier league teams outside the top four. He will provide solid backup to Clyne and Bertrand.
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My Center back has to be pacy, due to the fact that we use a high line. He should also be good in the air because of our fantastic delivery from set pieces. The obvious player here is Eder Alvarez Balanta. He is willing to join the club and I am currently in contract negotiations. This will most likely be my first transfer with Southampton.
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Next up, centre midfield. This is also a pretty obvious transfer, Lucas Romero. He will probably end up having a few teams in for him so I will try to snap him up quickly. He is incredibly all rounded and looks like he will have a brilliant partnership with James Ward-Prowse for years to come.
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Now the tricky one - Striker. Pelle is aging at 29 years old and doesn't have any backup below him, so it would be smart to sign a wonderkid between the ages of 17 and 21 so that he will provide competition for Pelle until he is good enough to start outright. I have decided that the player should be English due to one of my philosophies, but picking the player will be the hard part. Here are some that I am considering

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I will make my decision based upon price and how well they will fit into my team. I would be over the moon if I signed Wilson, Patrick Roberts would also be an incredible signing. I will look to sell certain players, including Osvaldo, Ramirez and Fonte, as I am looking to increase my 14m transfer budget
 
Transfer update: I ended up signing Balanta, Roberts and Miguel Lopes. After a long hard think, I decided Lucas Romero wasn't really needed and I would be better off saving the cash for later. I also signed Savitsky on a free and Humam Tariq for 300k, both for the future. I have about 10 million left and I am thinking of signing a really young player, somebody who is around 17 or 18, but will be world class one day. The positions I would sign this player for is either wing, defensive mid, centre back or left back. Please reply with any suggestions
 
dakofsta said:
Transfer update: I ended up signing Balanta, Roberts and Miguel Lopes. After a long hard think, I decided Lucas Romero wasn't really needed and I would be better off saving the cash for later. I also signed Savitsky on a free and Humam Tariq for 300k, both for the future. I have about 10 million left and I am thinking of signing a really young player, somebody who is around 17 or 18, but will be world class one day. The positions I would sign this player for is either wing, defensive mid, centre back or left back. Please reply with any suggestions
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Depay joins Southampton and becomes the best winger in the game. Left inside forward attack.
 
Tactical tweaks

My goals were usually being shared around the team, something I liked a lot, but the team conceded annoying goals. Most were on the counter attack and were due to the pace of my centre backs because I started Fonte and Yoshida together for some friendlies, others were due to silly individual errors of my players. I thought that Wanyama was caught out of position a few times and I needed to allow the full backs to take part in attacking, so I have adapted the tactics
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I have instructed the left inside forward to sit narrower to allow my left wingback to bomb forward and put in crosses for the striker with his 'stay wider' and 'run wide with ball' player instructions. The inside forward has also been told to shoot less and make more direct passes. He is pretty much an advanced playmaker. My centre mid is now a roaming playmaker. I thought it was better to use Ward-Prowse there due to his strength in attack. This now means we have three playmakers, two of which can also score, and two goalscorers. I haven't given player instructions to my right wing back because I don't want him bombing forward as much, otherwise we will be light defensively. Wanyama is now an anchor man. I told him to make shorter passes due to his woeful passing rating of 10. Hopefully the team will be a more cohesive unit now
 
damola3 said:
Depay joins Southampton and becomes the best winger in the game. Left inside forward attack.
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Hmm, considering this, might be a little too pricey though. Also have Jay Rodriguez coming back later on in the season
 
Guys I am just trying to see if theres any point in continuing the thread so please like this if you genuinely want me to carry on with it
 
I think it would be helpful to the members so I have decided to continue
 
dakofsta said:
I have about 10 million left and I am thinking of signing a really young player, somebody who is around 17 or 18, but will be world class one day. The positions I would sign this player for is either wing, defensive mid, centre back or left back. Please reply with any suggestions
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Hachim Mastour, Youri Tielemans, Bilal Ould-Chikh and Kristoffer Ajer are all great talents. Take a look!
 
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Pre-season went very well. I had a bit of a scare when Clyne demanded to leave the club but I eventually convinced him to stay. He is a very important player for us.A lot of goals were scored during the pre season friendlies and I had some very good performances. The 3-3 against Frankfurt was one that I was actually quite happy with. A surprise in tactics by the opposition left me being dominated and 2-0 down at half time. I changed to my counter attack tactic and was up 3-2 in the 80th minute. Unfortunately a mistake by Alderweireld led us to a draw, but I was happy with the spirit shown by my team.

The first match of the season against Sunderland is in two days time. Here is the opposition report.
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They play possession football, play with three centre mids and no natural wingers, are relatively slow and all have bad workrates. This tactic screams for me to counter attack them. I will probably man mark their most creative central midfielder and try to have overloads on the flanks to allow for me to dominate them. Hopefully we can get our season off to a good start! :)

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A very good game against sunderland. Five or six clear cut chances created and held them to one shot on target. The wide players were incredibly effective and helped us to counter their possession football. Next match is Liverpool. I will post in about 3 or 4 games to show how the season is going so far, and to talk about anything that has happened too. Transfer deadline day isn't very far, I have 6.5 million left. Any suggestions?
 
I'm doing a save with MK Dons, got to January first season, and Dele Ali is starting to get really really good. He's already good enough for the prem. Doubt you would need another CM with Saints, but if you want a another English Wonderkid, then defo get him.
 
Hitman1991 said:
I'm doing a save with MK Dons, got to January first season, and Dele Ali is starting to get really really good. He's already good enough for the prem. Doubt you would need another CM with Saints, but if you want a another English Wonderkid, then defo get him.
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Good idea, strongly considering this. However I would like to sign a few regens later on in the season :p and it would also be nice to get some free transfers in January. I will probably save my budget for January and act accordingly depending on where I feel the team is lacking
 
Yeh fair do's. I'm gunna make a thread on Ali later actually, he really is a beast! I'm enjoying this thread though. I think you've got it spot on with the tactics. It seems to me they're the ingredients to success. Keep it simple, observe the opposition, play to your teams strengths. It really is very simple but it's amazing how many people balls it up!
 
First month of the league is nearly over, and it is going pretty well. Brilliant performances so far this season apart from a very annoying loss to West Brom. Clear cut chances seem to be my downfall as we missed 5 of them in this match. Tactical flexibility seems to be working for me right now. City were playing a 4-4-2 so I decided to go defensive and play through the middle of the park. We played very well but unfortunately a Dzeko shot from 25 yards lost us the game in the 88th minute. The capital one cup match against Swansea is a very good example of how good our tactics are.

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Garry Monk is said to close down a lot. This meant that if we drew his players towards us, we would exploit gaps in the midfield and defence of his team. I used the popular 4-2-3-1 wide formation to exploit this, and it worked very well. We dominated the first half but they unfortunately scored with their first shot. My players fatigued very quickly due to playing three days earlier and not having a rest period, and we went to extra time with Swansea having players on +75 fitness and all of mine (not including subs) on less than 70. I changed to defensive and lower tempo and told them to take a breather, we luckily won on penalties.

Something I have noticed is almost every formation has a weakness. A 4-4-2 will be beaten by a three man midfield and a 4-1-2-2-1 will allow you to dictate tempo from deep. If you stick to exploiting the weaknesses of the opposition, you should do very well :)
 
Now into November and we're still going strong. Fifth in the league in front of a few stronger sides and I'm getting brilliant performances from Sadio Mane, Balanta and Shane Long. Ward Prowse has also been a star
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The 1-0 win against arsenal was another example of tactical flexibility.

Arsenal were top of the league and were scoring many goals whilst keeping tight at the back, but Koscielny and Debuchy were both suspended for the match, and Gibbs was injured. This meant Dragovic and Mertesacker were playing at centre back. Both of them are incredibly slow, Chambers isn't exactly rapid either, and Monreal was even slower. They were also playing a 4-4-2. Straight away I knew a 4-1-4-1 would be best due to their two central mids, and a counter attack mentality due to our pace and their lack of it. I also decided to make my striker mark Mertesacker to force their goalkeeper to kick it long, and with Wanyama in midfield, we would win most of the headers. My assistant manager had the same idea.

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The match went very well. We restricted arsenal from creating chances and had many counter attacks. The scoreline should've been 2 or 3 nil to us but I was more than happy to beat the league leaders.
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Overall, the team is doing well at the moment. I think I may pursue a new striker because Pelle has not scored since joining the club, although his hold up play and passing is very good and he tends to get ratings in the high 6's and low 7's. I have adapted my possession tactic because I think it had too many playmakers and not enough goalscorers

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On with the Saints!
 
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