A picture is worth a thousand words...
At the picture above you can see the league table at the end of the 1st season in La Liga
As I said efficiency of “normal” looking formation with strikers and wingers has deteriorated even further in FM18 compare with FM17
All AI teams that use such “normal” looking formations with strikers and wingers get hit hard by that… just look at Barcelona and Real Madrid stats at the end of the season…. Barcelona got only 76 points and scored only 56 goals in the season, Real Madrid got only 87 points and scored only 64 goals in the season… when in real life these teams score 110-120 goals in a season and get 110+ points…
Of course, in theory a human manager can get more than AI mangers from “normal” looking formations but there’s always limits how much you can improve it….