Mr Hough tweak is really good. I think it's well documented already, but here's some of my success.
(It's a bit long, so if you just want a "to long can't be bothered reading just want screens" just jump to the bottom.)
Man Utd (3 seasons)
I started a game with Man Utd (probably my 30th save with them this FM, my RL favorite team). Started in January to have half a season to rebuild the squad. Sold Young, Vidic, Buttner, Fellaini, Rooney (£60M straight up from Real M), and Nani. Brought in Mangala, Balanta, Varane, Strootman, Alex Sandro, Volland, and lots some of the usual young talents (Rugani, Romero, Werner, Gauld, Tielemans, Zivkovic).
Took some time for the team to gel obviously, but we eventually stormed the league and also won the ECC losing just 1 game in the whole tournament.
Second season I didn't bring in many players, just ter Stegen and Barbosa for the first team and more youngsters. Some big sales were Hernandez, Cleverly and Valencia. We actually made a profit on transfers.
I decided to try some of the 3 DC formation that are floating around on the forums this season and it all went straight down the drain. Out of the ECC in the group stage and sitting 10th in the table by Christmas. I changed back to Mr Hough tweak and it barely saved our season getting us into 4th place.
3rd season I finally managed to lure James Rodriguez away from Monaco and I wanted to try a winger formation with him. Also brought in Julian Brandt, Kondogbia and Goretzka. Henriquez, van Persie, Kagawa, Powell, Welbeck, and Timo Werner went out. Werner for £66M to PSG. He was a wonderkid, but £66M for a player that's only started 3 games at the top level? :S
Anyways, the winger formation worked well, but not amazing, for a while, but once we started playing some decent teams it all went bad again. Lost to Atletico, then completely hammered Tottenham (FM works in mysterious ways), before losing to man City, drawing with Anderlecht and then losing 2-0 at home to Chelsea. This was the final straw for me and I went back to Mr Hough tweak again.
Once again it completely turned my season around. Of the 3 losses, 2 of them we deserved to win by 10 goals more than losing. The away game to Chelsea was just about finishing as both teams had 14 shots and played equally well.
As you can see from the results we scored for fun, lots of 4-5 and even 7 goal games. Highlight for me being absolutely destroying Napoli and Bayern in the Champions Cup (see screens).
Obviously I have a world class squad at Man utd now, even if they are very young. But the results are still amazing imo, and the tactic saved my season twice. It wasn't even fully fluid before March this last season.
SL Benfica (2 seasons)
We stormed the league both seasons, although Porto came close in the 2nd. This league really only have 2 other teams to beat though.
But what surprised me was our 2nd season in the Champions Cup. We went all the way and beat Chelsea in the final. We almost went out in the Semis against Barcelona, losing 3-1 away after getting 2 players sent off. But we hammered them 4-0 at home to reach the final. Brilliant!
Some notes
- I prefer fast strikers.
- I prefer tall (jumping reach type) center backs and the same type of player in the DMC position.
- I start with "Counter" against teams that are better than me. Which basically meant almost every game in the ECC with Benfica, but almost never with Man Utd (just kept it on Control with them.)
- For training I use 50% (all the way to the left) Balanced and Attacking Movement and resting only after matches.
- Assistant with high Motivation skill does press conferences because I hate them.
- I use no team talk at start of matches. Assertive > Not happy if we're not winning at half time, Calm > Pleased if we are winning. Same as half time after match.
- In some saves with lesser teams I've sometimes pulled the central of the 3 strikers down to MC (no other change - he'll have no instructions) and had some great success with that against bigger teams. It makes the to outer MCs score more from some really nice free flowing football. I really think this could be used as a basis for a even better tactic, but I'm no tactician.
Thanks for the tactic!! I think I might start a final Career save of some sort with this now while waiting for FM 2015. Anyone got any suggestions on teams to start as?