Tactic Help

[Igneos79]

also, a box to box role roams, and is so better suited to very fluid style. If he just needs a runner to connect offense and defense, a CMs will be better in his chosen team shape. Ap's and and dlp's and bwm's secondary duty is also running, so they can be used aswell if running isn't a primary thing for him.

you can see what they do in detail here: Central Midfielders | Football Manager 2015 Guide

 

[WJ]

I think the sticky is clear enough. You are talking about football, not programming, the sticky is about coding of the game. The sticky states that with balanced team shape fullbacks do their basic duty, defend, plus support, which is why you should give them a support duty. It's all there. Of course you can give them an attack duty, but it's against the coding, and the ME will punish you, just like it will punish you for every other mistake you make. I have no issue with your advices, or how you explain them, and tend to agree with most of it, but you may be instructing people wrong without being aware of your mistake. That's why I wouldn't suggest going against game coding, and pointed him at the sticky. The weather forecast was a joke.

Now you're just pulling "facts" from your ****. "Going against coding". That's a bullshit statement. I should know. I'm involved enough in FM.

The sticky is a guideline only. It's not a hard and fast rule, meaning nothing outside that won't work. The guide has more to do with the mentality splits than anything and again - it's a guide to one way of setting up. It isn't the only way. Nothing prevents you from setting a fullback to attack and it definitely can and will work.

The ME doesn't punish you for any mistakes. Obvious things, like dropping deep while pressing will creating massive gaps and you'll more than likely get punished, but that's not the ME deciding that you need to be punished. There are footballing reasons why you might get punished.

I'm not instructing people wrong just because I don't follow that guide. I do know my **** when it comes to FM, although, tactically I cannot compare to the likes of Cleon, THoG and Rashidi etc who I'm sure you all know.

I know quite a bit of what's coded under the hood and what's on the surface. There is no such thing as going against coding.

 

[WJ]

also, a box to box role roams, and is so better suited to very fluid style.

Explain this. Why?

And please don't say "because the guide says so".

 

[Igneos79]

Now you're just pulling "facts" from your ****. "Going against coding". That's a bullshit statement. I should know. I'm involved enough in FM.

The sticky is a guideline only. It's not a hard and fast rule, meaning nothing outside that won't work. The guide has more to do with the mentality splits than anything and again - it's a guide to one way of setting up. It isn't the only way. Nothing prevents you from setting a fullback to attack and it definitely can and will work.

The ME doesn't punish you for any mistakes. Obvious things, like dropping deep while pressing will creating massive gaps and you'll more than likely get punished, but that's not the ME deciding that you need to be punished. There are footballing reasons why you might get punished.

I'm not instructing people wrong just because I don't follow that guide. I do know my **** when it comes to FM, although, tactically I cannot compare to the likes of Cleon, THoG and Rashidi etc who I'm sure you all know.

I know quite a bit of what's coded under the hood and what's on the surface. There is no such thing as going against coding.

Explain this. Why?

And please don't say "because the guide says so".

I have no idea how well you are "involved" with fm, I spent over 10000 hours playing these games, and I know what it feels like. And it feels like punishment. If you give him an attack duty in anything other then very fluid team shape, he will get a card or get injured. Before the sticky, I simply didn't know why this was the case. I often wondered why my fullbacks are both constantly injured or were behaving on the pitch badly, and when I applied simple rules that sticky suggests, it all went away. And no, you can't play this in multiple ways. I mean you can try, but the ME will punish you. You say it wouldn't work to attack with short passing with west ham, but it could work with barca? Try it. You WILL lose against Real Madrid and Atletico at least. There is only one proper way to do things, and it requires perfection, which is why both rl clubs and ingame managers dont have perfect seasons. My aim, in the last three fm's at least, was to find out what perfection is and achieve it. I was sleeping, eating, playing, farting and ******* with this game on, and got a "feel" for the game. You can sell your stories to someone else, not me.

 

[WJ]

I have no idea how well you are "involved" with fm, I spent over 10000 hours playing these games, and I know what it feels like. And it feels like punishment. If you give him an attack duty in anything other then very fluid team shape, he will get a card or get injured. Before the sticky, I simply didn't know why this was the case. I often wondered why my fullbacks are both constantly injured or were behaving on the pitch badly, and when I applied simple rules that sticky suggests, it all went away. And no, you can't play this in multiple ways. I mean you can try, but the ME will punish you. You say it wouldn't work to attack with short passing with west ham, but it could work with barca? Try it. You WILL lose against Real Madrid and Atletico at least. There is only one proper way to do things, and it requires perfection, which is why both rl clubs and ingame managers dont have perfect seasons. My aim, in the last three fm's at least, was to find out what perfection is and achieve it. I was sleeping, eating, playing, farting and ******* with this game on, and got a "feel" for the game. You can sell your stories to someone else, not me.

10000 hours "watching" highlights on the fastest setting, sticking rigidly to one guide and randomly adding/removing TIs? No thanks.

You're making it worse. The game doesn't impose artificial punishments like players getting injured or carded because you selected an Attack duty for your fullback and didn't choose very fluid. It's laughable and frankly a stupid thing to think.

You can play multiple ways. I have a tactic right now that uses a wingback/support and a wingback/attack - get this - in a Flexible system. I'm in the top 3 least carded teams and I always have 0-2 players injured. I'm also on a 50+ unbeaten streak. The ME must have forgotten to punish me?

There's more than one way of doing pretty much anything in FM, especially tactically. You'll find everyone who knows anything will say the same.

READ what I post, not what you want to read. I said a very high tempo, very short passing game will probably not work for West Ham, as the players aren't technically and mentally skilled enough to cope. They're also up against many teams better teams than themselves. Barca have the players capable of playing that way.

You seem to only focus on results. It's quite sad. Barca can play that way. How they're set up though (formation, roles, duties) will determine whether they lose or win.

 

[WJ]

You can sell your stories to someone else, not me.

Why are you dodging my last question? You float theories around with no explanation why. I want to know why you said what you did.

 

[Igneos79]

10000 hours "watching" highlights on the fastest setting, sticking rigidly to one guide and randomly adding/removing TIs? No thanks.

You're making it worse. The game doesn't impose artificial punishments like players getting injured or carded because you selected an Attack duty for your fullback and didn't choose very fluid. It's laughable and frankly a stupid thing to think.

You can play multiple ways. I have a tactic right now that uses a wingback/support and a wingback/attack - get this - in a Flexible system. I'm in the top 3 least carded teams and I always have 0-2 players injured. I'm also on a 50+ unbeaten streak. The ME must have forgotten to punish me?

There's more than one way of doing pretty much anything in FM, especially tactically. You'll find everyone who knows anything will say the same.

READ what I post, not what you want to read. I said a very high tempo, very short passing game will probably not work for West Ham, as the players aren't technically and mentally skilled enough to cope. They're also up against many teams better teams than themselves. Barca have the players capable of playing that way.

You seem to only focus on results. It's quite sad. Barca can play that way. How they're set up though (formation, roles, duties) will determine whether they lose or win.

your wingback attack wont perform as he should, it's as simple as that. Perhaps you have an awesome player at that position, but try your your tactic in a new save with some other club and player, and you will see I was right. I have no idea about football, nor am I a football fan or fanatic, I am simply a gamer that knows his game well. When you see people playing DOTA 2, there are people that suck, people that are good, and people that play it perfectly. The latter will tell you you clicked on the wrong area of the map at the wrong time, which may sound stupid or laughable, but it's simply their perfection talking. And in every game, and football is a game, is usually that one perfectionist that is considered the best. And he is the best because he spent thousands of hours at his game, and plays it perfectly. Which is what I would really like to achieve, after so many hours spent. And yes, it bothers me to lose even a single match, so I'm trying to find perfection. I'm not looking into "all posssibilites the game offers", I want a set of rules, a set of options, which make me invicible after choosing them. So, yes, I feel like being punished because after I find a set of options that make me invincible, something or someone changes the game for reasons unknown to me. And it sucks. Big time.

 

[WJ]

your wingback attack wont perform as he should, it's as simple as that. Perhaps you have an awesome player at that position, but try your your tactic in a new save with some other club and player, and you will see I was right.

He's on par, quality-wise, with the rest of the squad. Looking at the avg ratings, he has the 3rd highest in the team. I don't want a very fluid system, because I don't want him to have that much creative freedom. He has a job to do and for the most part, he should do that. For the fancy stuff, I have playmakers.

 

[Conflictinbanno]

I have to disagree though Igneos.

In my tactic I wanted my full backs to be primarily defensive but really help going forward and attack as a team, with them on a support duty, they very rarely got close enough to the box area to throw in a decent cross, they would always cross from deep even if they had space in front of them to go into and produce a much easier and more deadly cross as it gave time for more players to get into the box. Now they are on an attack duty they will attack that space, and hit that cross but as soon as I lose possession, they will track back quickly, while my DLP is protecting my backline just in case a CB has to go to stop them. While at the same time my Attacking 3 are putting pressure on the defence to try to force them to go long, when they do, my DLP who is a very defensive midfielder normally wins the long ball and it puts us back on the attack. Everything WJ has helped me vastly as it has put it into a simpler term, I have read all of those guides but I found it never quite worked for me unless I got lucky like in my first season, but when I was watching it, I never really understood the full reasons as to why things were going wrong, unlike now where I know the full reasons of where certain things were going wrong.

I've always watched extended highlights to try to understand it but some times I just couldn't put my finger on it, while now I can and the fact since the tactic started I lost by 1 goal to Man U, Man C and Arsenal, then followed it up with 3 convincing wins and 1 not so convincing win, it shows the tactic is working and exploiting the opposition in a way I want it to.

My DLP is starting the attack from deep in his own half, looking to feed either the AP, B2B, FB's or AM's, if he gives it to my B2B he quickly passes the ball and then is on the move for space in the attacking half which is what I want him to do, my B2B player is equally adapt at playing as the AP, but I don't want to double up on roles in the middle, as a B2B he is quicker to get back and help the DLP and defence than I found he was as a CM and he is also support my attackers, putting the short passing instruction on him just made him do everything a little quicker as he was looking for a simpler pass rather than holding onto the ball longer as he tried to pick a potential direct pass, leaving that decision to my AP who is more risky with the ball.

I don't see why people always say you must have certain roles with certain playing styles, as I've seen from so many other tactics, that is not the case at all at times. Yes some people make tactics which work and others they don't, I have so many times, but when they didn't work, I didn't want to always blame my side and I think now I was right not too, you can fine tune them and fix the issues to make it work how you see it. Every highlight now my team and disciplined at the times I want them too, but they are using the ball how I hope, the only critisiscm of it now is that I find my Inside Forwards sometimes hold on to the ball a bit longer than I would wish but I need them to sometimes to get more players into my attack. But my whole side is playing a lot more how I want them to in my eyes of how I'd like football to be played. You don't have to play like Arsenal when passing the ball short and keeping the ball and playing slowly, that was just how they play with the ball, look how fast Spain played in their best games, they kept the ball but the pace was by no means slow as they used to get teams chasing them like headless chickens. Football is a sport where many tactics can work and fail, Spains tactic worked brilliantly for 6 years then at the next World Cup it failed miserably and I think more people should give Football Manager credit for how they replicate it. As I had a tactic before which caught everyone off guard, mainly because it was so gung ho, but the following season teams really saw the problems my side had and were winning if they got their tactics right. Now though I can see how to fix those issues by adjust the shape of the formation and not lose the attacking way that formation had.

 

[callamity]

I have no idea how well you are "involved" with fm, I spent over 10000 hours playing these games, and I know what it feels like. And it feels like punishment. If you give him an attack duty in anything other then very fluid team shape, he will get a card or get injured. Before the sticky, I simply didn't know why this was the case. I often wondered why my fullbacks are both constantly injured or were behaving on the pitch badly, and when I applied simple rules that sticky suggests, it all went away. And no, you can't play this in multiple ways. I mean you can try, but the ME will punish you. You say it wouldn't work to attack with short passing with west ham, but it could work with barca? Try it. You WILL lose against Real Madrid and Atletico at least. There is only one proper way to do things, and it requires perfection, which is why both rl clubs and ingame managers dont have perfect seasons. My aim, in the last three fm's at least, was to find out what perfection is and achieve it. I was sleeping, eating, playing, farting and ******* with this game on, and got a "feel" for the game. You can sell your stories to someone else, not me.

which sticky are you referring to?

Perfection is impossible rendering your post moot, You can play this game in multiple ways and be successful you just need to know how to set your team up and how to develop your squad to suit the style of play.

I think I have a pretty sound knowledge of FM and 999 times out of 1000 would provide the same advice WJ has given on multiple threads.

 

[Igneos79]

I have to disagree though Igneos.

In my tactic I wanted my full backs to be primarily defensive but really help going forward and attack as a team, with them on a support duty, they very rarely got close enough to the box area to throw in a decent cross, they would always cross from deep even if they had space in front of them to go into and produce a much easier and more deadly cross as it gave time for more players to get into the box. Now they are on an attack duty they will attack that space, and hit that cross but as soon as I lose possession, they will track back quickly, while my DLP is protecting my backline just in case a CB has to go to stop them. While at the same time my Attacking 3 are putting pressure on the defence to try to force them to go long, when they do, my DLP who is a very defensive midfielder normally wins the long ball and it puts us back on the attack. Everything WJ has helped me vastly as it has put it into a simpler term, I have read all of those guides but I found it never quite worked for me unless I got lucky like in my first season, but when I was watching it, I never really understood the full reasons as to why things were going wrong, unlike now where I know the full reasons of where certain things were going wrong.

I've always watched extended highlights to try to understand it but some times I just couldn't put my finger on it, while now I can and the fact since the tactic started I lost by 1 goal to Man U, Man C and Arsenal, then followed it up with 3 convincing wins and 1 not so convincing win, it shows the tactic is working and exploiting the opposition in a way I want it to.

My DLP is starting the attack from deep in his own half, looking to feed either the AP, B2B, FB's or AM's, if he gives it to my B2B he quickly passes the ball and then is on the move for space in the attacking half which is what I want him to do, my B2B player is equally adapt at playing as the AP, but I don't want to double up on roles in the middle, as a B2B he is quicker to get back and help the DLP and defence than I found he was as a CM and he is also support my attackers, putting the short passing instruction on him just made him do everything a little quicker as he was looking for a simpler pass rather than holding onto the ball longer as he tried to pick a potential direct pass, leaving that decision to my AP who is more risky with the ball.

I don't see why people always say you must have certain roles with certain playing styles, as I've seen from so many other tactics, that is not the case at all at times. Yes some people make tactics which work and others they don't, I have so many times, but when they didn't work, I didn't want to always blame my side and I think now I was right not too, you can fine tune them and fix the issues to make it work how you see it. Every highlight now my team and disciplined at the times I want them too, but they are using the ball how I hope, the only critisiscm of it now is that I find my Inside Forwards sometimes hold on to the ball a bit longer than I would wish but I need them to sometimes to get more players into my attack. But my whole side is playing a lot more how I want them to in my eyes of how I'd like football to be played. You don't have to play like Arsenal when passing the ball short and keeping the ball and playing slowly, that was just how they play with the ball, look how fast Spain played in their best games, they kept the ball but the pace was by no means slow as they used to get teams chasing them like headless chickens. Football is a sport where many tactics can work and fail, Spains tactic worked brilliantly for 6 years then at the next World Cup it failed miserably and I think more people should give Football Manager credit for how they replicate it. As I had a tactic before which caught everyone off guard, mainly because it was so gung ho, but the following season teams really saw the problems my side had and were winning if they got their tactics right. Now though I can see how to fix those issues by adjust the shape of the formation and not lose the attacking way that formation had.

What you just described is attacking. If this is how you wish to play, you should pick attack mentality, very fluid team shape, attacking fullbacks, ballplaying defenders, and roaming roles. With a perfect setup, which was my point in this whole argument, you should be able to win all these games, tactically speaking, but it of course depends on quality of your players, set pieces, player instructions, and a zillion other details, even press conferences before the match. The game functions in a manner it gives or deducts points to you for every single thing you do prior and during the match, so if you accumulate more points then opponent, you will win. There is no random in computers. A human can say something random, like "35", a computer, and a computer game cannot. If you wish to achieve perfection and win all your matches, you must find out what the rules of the game are, and drop any ideas you had prior to that. If you want pressing, you want fluidity and agression, it will not be perfect with a structured or balanced style, so you are losing valuable points. If you really want a box to box player and attacking fullbacks, you want a very fluid attack style.

 

[WJ]

What you just described is attacking. If this is how you wish to play, you should pick attack mentality, very fluid team shape, attacking fullbacks, ballplaying defenders, and roaming roles. With a perfect setup, which was my point in this whole argument, you should be able to win all these games, tactically speaking, but it of course depends on quality of your players, set pieces, player instructions, and a zillion other details, even press conferences before the match. The game functions in a manner it gives or deducts points to you for every single thing you do prior and during the match, so if you accumulate more points then opponent, you will win. There is no random in computers. A human can say something random, like "35", a computer, and a computer game cannot. If you wish to achieve perfection and win all your matches, you must find out what the rules of the game are, and drop any ideas you had prior to that. If you want pressing, you want fluidity and agression, it will not be perfect with a structured or balanced style, so you are losing valuable points. If you really want a box to box player and attacking fullbacks, you want a very fluid attack style.

The game doesn't deduct points! Ffs, when are you going to get that there aren't artificial limitations like this in place? It's a football sim and a **** good one because there are no artificial coding punishments or cheats. If you lose, there are footballing reasons for doing so. Not that you'd know, since you have no idea about football other than what a single guide says.

I STILL WANT AN EXPLANATION AS TO WHY YOU ARE TELLING HIM AND ME TO GO VERY FLUID. A PROPER, INTELLIGENT EXPLANATION.

 

[WJ]

which sticky are you referring to?

Perfection is impossible rendering your post moot, You can play this game in multiple ways and be successful you just need to know how to set your team up and how to develop your squad to suit the style of play.

I think I have a pretty sound knowledge of FM and 999 times out of 1000 would provide the same advice WJ has given on multiple threads.

He's referring to the Team Shape, Roles and Duties guide at the top of the page.


Oh, please post the advice then. I hate to be singled out.

 

[Igneos79]

The game doesn't deduct points! Ffs, when are you going to get that there aren't artificial limitations like this in place? It's a football sim and a **** good one because there are no artificial coding punishments or cheats. If you lose, there are footballing reasons for doing so. Not that you'd know, since you have no idea about football other than what a single guide says.

I STILL WANT AN EXPLANATION AS TO WHY YOU ARE TELLING HIM AND ME TO GO VERY FLUID. A PROPER, INTELLIGENT EXPLANATION.

Can't read the sticky, huh? Lemme quote: With very fluid, players are doing phases of play. They are supposed to be reading each other movements to shift in and out of each phase, which is why they roam. It is also the reason their mentalites are closely knit, so that forwards do defending, and gk does attacking...or better put, they all do everything. Pressing can be considered a phase, so with very fluid, all players will do pressing. If you play structured or balanced pressing, only one of your players will close down, while others, who should be assisting him in his effort to win the ball, wont do squat. So your pressing will be like a chocolatte icecream, which is actually **** flavored. In a very fluid setup, you expect all your players to do everything, meaning you dont expect defeneders just to do what their natural thing is, defending, you also expect them to support AND ATTACK. Which is why you should pick very fluid team shape if you want attacking fullbacks. With an attack duty, they will naturally overlap on a regular basis and bomb forward which means attack mentality. ****, even the ingame description states this.

 

[WJ]

Can't read the sticky, huh? Lemme quote: With very fluid, players are doing phases of play. They are supposed to be reading each other movements to shift in and out of each phase, which is why they roam. It is also the reason their mentalites are closely knit, so that forwards do defending, and gk does attacking...or better put, they all do everything. Pressing can be considered a phase, so with very fluid, all players will do pressing. If you play structured or balanced pressing, only one of your players will close down, while others, who should be assisting him in his effort to win the ball, wont do squat. So your pressing will be like a chocolatte icecream, which is actually **** flavored. In a very fluid setup, you expect all your players to do everything, meaning you dont expect defeneders just to do what their natural thing is, defending, you also expect them to support AND ATTACK. Which is why you should pick very fluid team shape if you want attacking fullbacks. With an attack duty, they will naturally overlap on a regular basis and bomb forward which means attack mentality. ****, even the ingame description states this.

Do yourself a favour. Slow the highlights down to normal speed and check if what you say is true - especially the pressing in another system vs a very fluid one. When you do that and you admit you're wrong, I'll give you a reply. Until then, I'm completely ignoring your crackpot posts and threads.

Last bit of advice - and pay attention to this: Defend duties defend, support duties keep up with play and attack duties (generally) are ahead of play. In. Any. Fluidity.

Yes, I know there are subtle mentality changes in the different fluidities, but that's what Duties are.

 

[Igneos79]

Do yourself a favour. Slow the highlights down to normal speed and check if what you say is true - especially the pressing in another system vs a very fluid one. When you do that and you admit you're wrong, I'll give you a reply. Until then, I'm completely ignoring your crackpot posts and threads.

Last bit of advice - and pay attention to this: Defend duties defend, support duties keep up with play and attack duties (generally) are ahead of play. In. Any. Fluidity.

Yes, I know there are subtle mentality changes in the different fluidities, but that's what Duties are.

What on earth are you trying to prove? That lamborghini diablo works great at 30mph? I agree it does, but its not meant to be driven that way.

 

[Igneos79]

Utilizing Pressing in Football Manager | Passion for Football Manager

here, go read please, plenty of pictures and nice explanations....

heres a quote from that article:

To maximize Pressing Play, you need to attack. By attacking, your defensive line will naturally be high, which forces your opposition trapped in their own area. When you press high up the pitch, your opponents are forced to play the ball in their defense and they much possibly make some unnecessary actions, which may become mistakes and benefit your team. By pressing your opponent in their own defense is also giving you huge opportunity to get closer to the goalkeeper, which means you got more opportunities to launch direct-fast attack to the Goalie.

If you press in one un-comprehensive unit, Pressing is no more than nonsense. It’s just like chocolate ****-flavoured. To make sure the pressing is a chocolate in real chocolate flavoured, you have to press as a unit. As a team. So, it make sense if you choose Very Fluid or Fluid Philosophy for the basic of your pressing concept. As it would allow your players to be more flexible in terms of move, to be more universal in their role, being a cohesive unit, which all sounds to be very ideal for pressing play.

 

[Conflictinbanno]

What you just described is attacking. If this is how you wish to play, you should pick attack mentality, very fluid team shape, attacking fullbacks, ballplaying defenders, and roaming roles. With a perfect setup, which was my point in this whole argument, you should be able to win all these games, tactically speaking, but it of course depends on quality of your players, set pieces, player instructions, and a zillion other details, even press conferences before the match. The game functions in a manner it gives or deducts points to you for every single thing you do prior and during the match, so if you accumulate more points then opponent, you will win. There is no random in computers. A human can say something random, like "35", a computer, and a computer game cannot. If you wish to achieve perfection and win all your matches, you must find out what the rules of the game are, and drop any ideas you had prior to that. If you want pressing, you want fluidity and agression, it will not be perfect with a structured or balanced style, so you are losing valuable points. If you really want a box to box player and attacking fullbacks, you want a very fluid attack style.

It's not completely attacking though because I want my side to attack in a specific way that means I won't be exploited, if I went too attacking, with my selection of defenders I would be doomed as they would immediately counter attack my side and exploit that weakness, which is why I want them to attack as a unit, but as soon as they lose the ball I want my defensive players to focus on getting back, while the front 3 can press, on a very fluid system I would assume from what I've learned that my full backs would press the plays high up the pitch with the rest of the side, which I explained from the start that I don't want them to do and with my set up thanks to the help of WJ, they are not doing which is perfect for me. I want pressing from my attackers, not my whole side, because then that would leave holes in my defence, which world class players like Silva and Hazard for example would exploit in an instance because they are intelligent enough to spot that hole.

I don't understand how you can claim my style I'm explaining is aggressive and attacking, yes with the ball it is more attacking than a defensive style, but I need my players disciplined to not just go forward and potentially be prone to a counter attack, hence why I am limiting certain players and my team as a whole to be Standard or defensive, my DLP and CB's should never be seen going past the halfway line unless it is a set piece, my full backs however I'm saying, if there is space go for it, but only when you are in a position to receive the ball, I don't want to see my left back bomb past my AML when the ball is sitting with my right back in his own half. Same with my box to box player, when I lose the ball I don't want to see him closing down midfielders on the edge of my opponents penalty box, I want to see him drop back with the team and leave any of that pressing for my ST, AML and AMR. That is how I want to play as a team and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. I have just never got my player roles correct to do this until what is potentially now, where it seems to be looking.

 

[Conflictinbanno]

What on earth are you trying to prove? That lamborghini diablo works great at 30mph? I agree it does, but its not meant to be driven that way.

This is actually a quote which has back fired for you. See the car as your team, West Ham are more of a VW Golf, then you have the driver which would be the player in your team, so for example you shove Lewis Hamilton in that VW Golf.

Lewis Hamilton could drive that car like anything, as he is the best, put say me and you in that car and we could probably drive it quickly, but if we drive that too quickly, we are going to make a mistake. So I would utilise my strengths, I can drive fast in a straightline, but coming to the corners, I need to slow down otherwise I'm going to crash.

If I had a team of the best then maybe I could press with my whole team and attack like no tomorrow, because I'd have the players that could do that. I don't have those players so I'm utilising the strength to attack quickly, but as soon as I lose the ball we need to defend sensibly.

 

[Igneos79]

It's not completely attacking though because I want my side to attack in a specific way that means I won't be exploited, if I went too attacking, with my selection of defenders I would be doomed as they would immediately counter attack my side and exploit that weakness, which is why I want them to attack as a unit, but as soon as they lose the ball I want my defensive players to focus on getting back, while the front 3 can press, on a very fluid system I would assume from what I've learned that my full backs would press the plays high up the pitch with the rest of the side, which I explained from the start that I don't want them to do and with my set up thanks to the help of WJ, they are not doing which is perfect for me. I want pressing from my attackers, not my whole side, because then that would leave holes in my defence, which world class players like Silva and Hazard for example would exploit in an instance because they are intelligent enough to spot that hole.

I don't understand how you can claim my style I'm explaining is aggressive and attacking, yes with the ball it is more attacking than a defensive style, but I need my players disciplined to not just go forward and potentially be prone to a counter attack, hence why I am limiting certain players and my team as a whole to be Standard or defensive, my DLP and CB's should never be seen going past the halfway line unless it is a set piece, my full backs however I'm saying, if there is space go for it, but only when you are in a position to receive the ball, I don't want to see my left back bomb past my AML when the ball is sitting with my right back in his own half. Same with my box to box player, when I lose the ball I don't want to see him closing down midfielders on the edge of my opponents penalty box, I want to see him drop back with the team and leave any of that pressing for my ST, AML and AMR. That is how I want to play as a team and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. I have just never got my player roles correct to do this until what is potentially now, where it seems to be looking.

Like I stated at the begining of the thread, you want the impossible. If you want to press and be wary of counters, you should play control, fluid football. Meaning you need to ask your fullbacks to be slightly more agressive, not attacking, but on support duty, which will scale nicely with control mentality. Read that sticky and adhere to it or you will continue to lose where you could draw or even win. Having two attack duties on the flanks is way to attacking, you need your winger to attack, and fullback to support him, you can read about those combos at guidetofootballmanager.com Also, if you check player instructions of your box to box player, hover your mouse over roaming instruction and you will notice it is already on. I would advise against roaming in any other team shape but very fluid, and you would be better of with some other role. If you already have a dlps, it would be wise to pair him with a bwmd and CMa, or CMd and APa...