Tactics The Black Hawk (... or a quest to make IFs to work) [4123]

[Black Hawk]

On 18/01/2023 at 13:21, Pavell said:

Bro, this is an interesting tactic, but since you use it for Sporting, and they took away trophies from my Casa pia 3 times, I am very not pleased!(a joke, the tactics are really very good, but it was enough for one season )

Ah, a fellow portuguese and a fan of Casa Pia! Well, you guys are giving Sporting a really hard time in real life, so they deserved it on FM muahah 😁

[Kavver]

I just have to say thank for sharing. I have only played a couple of games, but it has been brilliant. Beautiful football! 
 

I just wonder how you train your players? I train all to their positions besides from the forward. He I train as complete forward. 

[Black Hawk]

2 hours ago, Kavver said:

I just have to say thank for sharing. I have only played a couple of games, but it has been brilliant. Beautiful football! 
 

I just wonder how you train your players? I train all to their positions besides from the forward. He I train as complete forward. 

Glad you liked it

I've only done one season tests until now, so I train them all in the roles I use them. But when I start a save with the intention of lasting several seasons I will train them to develop another type of characteristics.

For example, having two equal Box-to-Box is a waste, one of them can train as an Advanced Playmaker to develop another type of characteristics.

An Inside Forward who has better finishing skills will even be able to train with other types of functions more similar to that of a Striker. It's something I still have to try out in the future.

[Black Hawk]

So I did the one season save test in the Premier League that I mentioned earlier. I had already posted the standings halfway through the season, I continued from there but decided to start again because... there's no other way to say it, I was afraid you guys wouldn't believe the results and think I was cheating. I was on my way to the title, but I was being helped by the fact that the other teams in the top5/6 were all having a bad year, the best were Man City and Arsenal and they were on the way to maybe scoring only 70/75 points.

So I started a new season with the same Wolves and that's what I'm going to talk about.

One look at the Wolves squad and we immediately notice two problems:

- the centre backs, and I don't want to seem unfair but the things are what they are, they are bad for a high defensive line and possession tactic. They are slow and insecure with the ball, and for my idea I need centrre backs who are quick to react in time to recover the ball and then deliver it safely to their teammates;

- the midfield only has four players (Rúben Neves, João Moutinho, Matheus Nunes and Connor Ronan) and of these only the first three are reliable.

The rest of the squad is OK. José Sá is unreliable with his feet, but is a fantastic shot stopper. Nélson Semedo is a goodish Wing Back and Jonny and Rayan Aît-Nouri are enough for a midtable team. Pedro Neto and Gonçalo Guedes are not world class IFs, but are good players, and Daniel Podence (who I know well from Sporting CP) and Adama Traoré are not bad players. Raúl Jiménez is a good all-rounder striker and Diego Costa, while ageing, is still a good physical player.

To solve both problems, starting with the defense, I spent the initial transfer budget on two centre backs: Jean-Clair Todibo and Jerry St. Juste.

None of them are world-class, but they are good with the ball and fast, and they were one of the few within my wallet. St. Juste was not even a starter for Sporting CP in my tests. But they are solid enough for a midtable team.

As I ran out of money to bring in at least one midfielder, I had to get creative: I brought back the japanese Hayao Kawabe from his loan and loaned a young Barcelona talent named Pablo Torre.

None of these mediums are at the level of the three main ones that I already had, but they gave me some security to be alternatives in case of need.

This was my main starting eleven whenever possible to use them together and below is what happened in my second try with Wolves.

And again, I really was afraid to post this, but this really was how things went!

The team was flying until January. We won most games and I rarely had to change the tactic, this was almost plug and play. The small changes I had to do were mainly in the roles of my Wing Backs (Wing Back to Full Back) and in the defensive line (High to Balanced) in late stages of games where the results were tight (almost always in those 0-1 away wins).

The second half was waaaay more hard beggining with the three consecutive Premier League draws in January and February.

It was a time where we played a lot in a short time. My alternatives to the starters weren't famous to start with and it got worse when I lost Rúben Neves (three months) and Nélson Semedo (one month and then another month) to injuries. Whenever I had to rotate the team or start replacing people who were already tired during the games, the team's performance suffered a lot.

Late season it was survival, mostly. Most of the starting eleven was already exhausted (I had to use them many times due to lack of alternatives), even when we returned to playing only once a week they were never at 100% (they recovered to 97, 98 or 99% and the medical department was always warning me of the high risk of injury). On the field, the game became much less fluid and each game was a battle.

That's why I like to have two good players to every position (4 Wing Backs, 4 Centre Backs, 2 Roaming Playmakers, 4 Box-to-Box, 4 IFs and at least 2 strikers). If not, no tactic will perform miracles...

Well, we won the Carabao and the Premier League nevertheless and lost at FA Cup on the penalty shootout at Anfield (only three days after the Carabao Cup final with my team really tired, and then poor guys had to play 120 minutes LOL). I'm very happy with this test!

(First print is the main choices in their picked position, second print is the second choices, third print the third ones)

This time I have to do a disclaimer: the numbers really do not make justice to what I saw during the games. Pedro Neto and Gonçalo Guedes scored some goals but missed A LOT. Really, really a lot of clear cut chances. At some time I was really screaming out of frustration. They should have had at least the double of the goals, and maybe I'm being modest...

Anyway, my six IFs (Pedro Neto, Gonçalo Guedes, Daniel Podence, Adama Traoré, Chiquinho and Hwang Hee-Chan) made 24 goals and 34 assists out of the 90 goals we scored in all competitions, which is 60% of direct contributions to team goals, give or take. Which is good, I think, specially considering how none of them are world class and still missed a lot of goals.

Oh! I scored only six times from corners I believe, so most of their assists are really from open play chances.

Collectively, we scored less than other tests. I do not find it worrying, after all it is Wolves, most times I see someone playing Premier League they are nowhere to be seen. Also, this is a control tactic as I've always said, so I do not expect to score a lot everytime. I do expect do control the ball and concede only a few goals, and that was what happened.

Most goals I suffered where from counterattacks after lose possession of ball (oddly enough, Rúben Neves was the one who cost most goals, followed by José Sá with his poor delivery). But that was to be expected after all playing with Wolves.

One last thing I noticed, it took me only 10 minutes on the Carabao Cup final to understand how the Chelsea formation was to be a problem to this tactic (I was already loosing 1-0 and they missed two more scoring chances at that time). They play with 3 centre midfielders, 1 SS on the attacking midfield line, and 2 strikers. Often they had 4 to 5 players ahead of my defense and my centre backs went crazy. I changed the Roaming Playmaker to Anchor and it somewhat worked (I won 3-1). I played them again after that and made the same change, but that time it didn't work, so beware of formations who put a lot of adversary players close to your centre backs.

I'm happy with this test, as I was expecting to be somewhere between 5th to 7th (and dreaming with 4th because Champions League) and ended up winning it.

As I've said, I always used the same tactic but small changes along the way depending on my opponent (mainly the role of wing backs, the defensive line and time wasting). If I went plug and play, maybe it had ended with the same outcome or close to it.

Anyway, it was one more test where the team overperformed. Don't know if I'm doing more tests at this point as I think the tactic is already able to always give the players a lot of ways to reach the box and the IFs are performing well enough. The rest is up to manager decisions and players choices (signing the right ones and managing their fitness).

The ultimate test of this would be Man City, I believe, because they are the perfect team to use a tactic who relies on possession. Maybe I will test it with them.

[Pavell]

20.01.2023 в 18:04 Черный Ястреб сказал:

А, собрат-португалец и поклонник Casa Pia! Что ж, вы, ребята, доставляете "Спортингу" очень неприятности в реальной жизни, так что они заслужили это на FM muahah 😁

it is worth remembering that Sporting is one of the best teams in Portugal today, I would like to see them again in the Europa League final, caa in 2005, don't you think to send this tactic to Rúben? (sorry for my English, I still can't learn it)

[Kavver]

 I have to say that this is the best and most enjoyable tactic, I have used in years.

I started to use it in the middle of a season. I would have won the league without doubt.

I have noticed that a good striker with strong header makes it deadly. 
 

I can’t understand why this haven’t got more attention. It’s perfect.. especially for us who has children and don’t have the time to create tactics.

 

 

[Schwantz34]

Not got around to a full test on this yet but I will do.

Really like the way it's set up.

[Black Hawk]

6 hours ago, Pavell said:

it is worth remembering that Sporting is one of the best teams in Portugal today, I would like to see them again in the Europa League final, caa in 2005, don't you think to send this tactic to Rúben? (sorry for my English, I still can't learn it)

It would be a waste of time, Rúben Amorim is so stubborn that he would never change anything ahah!

5 hours ago, Kavver said:

 I have to say that this is the best and most enjoyable tactic, I have used in years.

I started to use it in the middle of a season. I would have won the league without doubt.

I have noticed that a good striker with strong header makes it deadly. 
 

I can’t understand why this haven’t got more attention. It’s perfect.. especially for us who has children and don’t have the time to create tactics.

 

 

Nice!

You are right, in every test I made and posted here my strikers were at least decent in Aerial (Paulinho/Sporting, Osimhen/Napoli, Butzke/Paços de Ferreira and Jiménez/Wolves; only Rodrigues/Amora wasn't) and they scored some from headers. Mainly from crosses of my Wing Backs, when the team wasn't able to create a gap through the middle they would at least atract everyone there and that left my Wing Backs alone at the flanks.

3 hours ago, Schwantz34 said:

Not got around to a full test on this yet but I will do.

Really like the way it's set up.

I'd really be glad. All my tactics in FM 22 Mobile started from the base of your ideas with the Amorim one. Then I start changing some things (advanced one of the center backs to be a defensive midfielder, I moved the Wing Backs back, some instructions to be more like I wanted my team to perform), but I started from your tactic.

So, having you test this would be a honour

[Schwantz34]

4 minutes ago, Black Hawk said:

It would be a waste of time, Rúben Amorim is so stubborn that he would never change anything ahah!

Nice!

You are right, in every test I made and posted here my strikers were at least decent in Aerial (Paulinho/Sporting, Osimhen/Napoli, Butzke/Paços de Ferreira and Jiménez/Wolves; only Rodrigues/Amora wasn't) and they scored some from headers. Mainly from crosses of my Wing Backs, when the team wasn't able to create a gap through the middle they would at least atract everyone there and that left my Wing Backs alone at the flanks.

I'd really be glad. All my tactics in FM 22 Mobile started from the base of your ideas with the Amorim one. Then I start changing some things (advanced one of the center backs to be a defensive midfielder, I moved the Wing Backs back, some instructions to be more like I wanted my team to perform), but I started from your tactic.

So, having you test this would be a honour

Ha ha thanks mate! I just love how Amorim plays the game and the way he evolves.

I'm thinking of trying it lower down the league's. Maybe at Scarborough where I just lost in the Vanarama North playoff semifinals.

Amorim hasn't been quite as successful since winning the league but he's evolved his tactics from the ones I tried to mirror, and his Sporting team are still good to watch. He's a very interesting coach. Hope to see him in the Premier League in the near future. It's my dream to see him at Leeds but I don't think it will happen.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Schwantz34

[Black Hawk]

On 22/01/2023 at 22:25, Schwantz34 said:

Ha ha thanks mate! I just love how Amorim plays the game and the way he evolves.

I'm thinking of trying it lower down the league's. Maybe at Scarborough where I just lost in the Vanarama North playoff semifinals.

Amorim hasn't been quite as successful since winning the league but he's evolved his tactics from the ones I tried to mirror, and his Sporting team are still good to watch. He's a very interesting coach. Hope to see him in the Premier League in the near future. It's my dream to see him at Leeds but I don't think it will happen.

Amorim is stubborn as a mule. On the one hand is good, but it's also terrible when things start to go wrong. He is insisting on a formula that our opponents have already learned how to play against, and do not change even when the results do not appear.

He believes in his ideas, nothing wrong with that, but this season he doesn't have the ideal players to play his way, so we are struggling.

[Legend288]

For underdogs this is ideal tactic )

 

[TehSpaceGiraffe]

This is a really nice tactic, good job. I tried making a few tweaks to counter some of the defensive issues i found earlier in the season, such as changing defensive line to balanced, WB's to FB's and the RP to a DM or DLP, but actually i thought they didmynactually make any significant improvement so i reverted to the original tactic and thought it was much better especially towards the end of the season where everything clicked

Quite a lot of these losses and draws were simply caused by player mistakes, WB's and RP giving the ball away in dangerous areas leading to goals, particularly first half of the season. Last part pf the season they seemed to get their act together but it meant only one of my 4 WB's finished the season with an average rating higher than 7. Other results are simply because my players weren't good enough or we were outplayed by better quality.

Had to sign 2 players Bastoni and Januzaj simply to have enough numbers in the team. They probably arent my first choice for this tactic but i just needed more players. 

FA Cup final was a surprise to get there but a disappointing performance along with West Ham scoring a 92nd minute winner 

Gonna overhauo the squad and do another seaspn see if we can get an improvement 

[heguero]

[panjalakuruchi]

Hi is this tactic for the latest update or the initial game release update?

[Black Hawk]

On 24/01/2023 at 03:48, Legend288 said:

For underdogs this is ideal tactic )

 

Yeah, on my tests I've played a lot of underdogs and I've noticed they perform well. That's a surprise, as I didn't intended that, this tactic relies on possession and players that are reliable with the ball and don't lose it.

You did a pretty similar season as my with Wolves, you just conceded more. I believe you played with it plug and play? That may be the difference, as sometimes with Wolves I needed to change some things here and there when stronger opponents started charging.

10 hours ago, heguero said:

Dear God... You won two Premier Leagues and Champions League with this? Look at the numbers of Scamacca, insane!

Plug and Play or did you change anything along the way?

9 hours ago, panjalakuruchi said:

Hi is this tactic for the latest update or the initial game release update?

I use it with the latest update.

I've been trying this with Man City to see how it performs in a truly top team of a top tier League.

I'll post the results later, but I've to say that @Kavver is right, this becomes deadly with a striker with good aerial. I didn't even knew what playing with a good striker is until I had Haaland with me. Jesus...

[heguero]

12 hours ago, heguero said:

Simply great Scamacca, he just doesn't get tired of scoring, he's impressive.
I've used it plug and play since the first season without any changes.

[Black Hawk]

Did the test with Man City. I did the test with them because they are undoubtedly the ideal team for a ball possession tactic and I wanted to see this tactic in a top team after several one season save tests with more modest teams (Amora, Paços de Ferreira and Wolves) after the first test with Sporting CP (which was very successful).

I have to say that playing Man City is not even a challenge. The game should have a Tutorial Mode that consisted of making a full season with them. The squad doesn't need to be changed, just keep the players' morale high and they'll do the rest. It's insane.

The only thing I struggled with was some early injuries that limited the roster rotation.

I lost Bernardo three times during the season and as I was using him as an alternative to De Bruyne, I had to change that logic afterwards. I started using Palmer as rotation to De Bruyne, Bobbs to Mahrez as right IF and Grealish with Foden as left IF. Later in the season, by the end of February or March, I don't recall exactly when, Bernardo came back and I started using him as right IF and boy, oh boy, what a beast he is there. He was assisting Haaland for fun by the end of season. Bernardo really is an amazing player.

In defense, the only constant was Rúben Dias (which is funny because he's not a fast centre-back, but this time it didn't cause any problems). The rest varied, sometimes I used Laporte alongside Rúben Dias, other times Akanji. On the left I almost always used Ake or Rico. Walker was rotating with Cancelo.

And that was it. The first two games were against Liverpool. Decided not to play friendly games and immediately regretted it because the team wasn't used to the tactic and I lost those two games. A bit unfair, they had 7 or 8 shots between the two games and scored 5 goals, but as I didn't score any I can't complain.

Those two defeats turned out to be the only ones in the entire season.

It was a walk in the park.

In the Premier League, we only lost the first game (at the time when the team was still adjusting to the tactic). Since then, we've only drawn 4 games, all of them games against more modest teams in which we created enough occasions to win but the ball didn't want to go in. We won every game against stronger opponents, including thrashings against Man Utd, Chelsea and Tottenham (the latter more than once).

In the Champions League it was easy too. 11W 2D 0L, one of those draws in the second leg after we thrashed Porto in the first leg. In the Round of 16 we dispatched Bayern by 5-1, in the Quarter-Finals Porto by 4-0, in the Semifinals Salzburg by 6-1 and in the final PSG by 3-1 in a game that we dominated (as shown in the print) .

The biggest difficulty was the FA Cup, Liverpool scored at 89' and I thought I would lose, but Bernardo scored at 90'+4 and we were stronger in the penalty shootout.

I never had to change anything. At some point I didn't even care who played, I just choose the ones who were closer to 100% fitness. There was one game where I even used Akanji as left Wing Back thinking he was Ake, just noticed it when I was doing subs in the second half and saw him with a red square in the field on tactics. We where already winning 3-0 and he did one assist nevertheless. At some point I was just playing with fast forward in the match engine and laughing any time Haaland scored again.

At the end of this post I will do some considerations about what I saw, but first I want to talk about the individual numbers.

So, I didn't choose anyone as set piece takers. The match engine choose who take the corners and the free kicks and I've seen that a lot of my players did it: De Bruyne, Gundogan, Foden, Bernardo, Mahrez, Grealish, Alvarez, I believe I even saw Cancelo at some point. This is to say that the assists are not heavily influenced by corner and direct or indirect free kick goals, they are evenly distributed.

I will talk about Haaland later.

We scored 154 goals in 66 games during this season (2,33 goals per game). My IFs (Bernardo, Foden, Mahrez, Grealish and Bobb) scored only 29 of those, but assisted 45 times, which is close to 48% of direct contributions to goal (very similar to every other tests I did previously).

The goal scoring of my IFs was clearly hampered by having two monsters on the team, Haaland and De Bruyne, so they often assisted them instead of trying to score.

De Bruyne did what I talked about on the other tests. Remember when I said that midfielders should have had at least double of the goals scored? Well, here is the proof. De Bruyne had so many chances to score, both clear cut chances when running through the box or shooting opportunities just outside of it, that ended up with 18 goals while still assisting 11 times. Rodri shines as Roaming Playmaker, scored and assisted a lot appearing just outside of the box. Kalvin Phillips as his substitute did just the same.

So, Haaland.

This guy is insane.

I was so focused in trying to find a way to break through the box that I didn't saw how a strong aerial striker would be a killer. I should have noticed that after seeing Paulinho (Sporting CP), Butzke (Paços de Ferreira) and Jiménez (Wolves) score some headers. It took @Kavver to point it out for me to noticed it and I'm ashamed I didn't saw it myself.

The thing is, this tactic pushes our opponents to their own box while we pass the ball around. At some point, if the team is doing what is intended of them, everyone should be in the box or close to it, leaving both flanks very open.

When our team cannot rush into the box (usually for lack of creativity, decisions or simply because we have a weaker team), they could pass to our Wing Backs who will be alone at the flank and cross to our striker. Because the opponent was pushed to their box, should the striker win the aerial challenge it will be a close range header.

Haaland excelled at this.

Looking at my Wing Backs numbers, they provided 33 assists (including one from Akanji who I mistakenly used one time as Wing Back, as I said previously ahah). Almost all of them by early crosses (as I didn't tick the overlap option so they don't go that deep often). It was not a thing I thought of when designing this tactic, but is a consequence of the way we play. A good one!

So, to wrap this up, some global considerations.

1) Man City isn't a proper challenge. They are so overpowered that it isn't even fun to play with.

2) In a strong team as Man City, I didn't had to change anything. We had 27 clean sheets in Premier League and conceded only 13 goals and scored 95 goals, all this despite the fact at some point I changed the 10 field players regularly between games. There were 4 draws that could have been clear victories.

3) Again, with Man City I didn't need fast centre backs. Rúben Dias and Laporte were enough as the team rarely lose possession. Most of goals I suffered in previous tests were becausey players lost possession and left my centre back exposed to counters (as I played with weaker teams in those tests). With Man City it wasn't an issue... that often, I still conceded a few from those, but nothing to worry about.

4) A good aerial striker with good movement should help a lot. A box-to-box as De Bruyne is overkill (it doesn't have to be as good as De Bruyne, must be enough to have good shooting and movement). Crossing for Wing Backs should help too, but I've seen Wing Backs with poor crossing doing assists too. A Roaming Playmaker like Rodri (or anyone with good technique, passing and shooting) is fantastic because he will have a lot of chances to shoot outside the box too.

5) All players must be reliable with the ball. This tactic suffers a lot with players who lose possession easily, it's his main weakness and that's the reason I recommend fast defenders (precisely to be ready for that kind of events).

6) I'm a control freak and this is a control tactic. My goal was never to score 154 goals in a single season. I'm happy to win 2-0 every game as long as our opponents don't create scoring chances. We could even not have more possession than them, but almost all shots and plays on match engine must be ours.

7) Man City scored 154 goals without ever playing with attacking mentality, as it was always set to control. This was mindboggling to me, never achieved this in FM 22 Mobile (but then again, I rarely play with top teams, usually I like to bring small teams to success).

😎 Again, this tactic could take a few games to start to kick in. In this test, as I haven't play friendlies and jumped right into Community Shield that cost me the only two defeats we had all season. Some teams may take more time than others, I remember Amora took several games even with friendlies.

I'm fairly happy with the results, but not entirely convinced as Man City is cheats and Haaland is a god in this game. I will give this a go with Man Utd to compare with what happened with Man City.

They strike me as the weakest of top teams in England on the tests I did with Wolves and Man City, should be a good challenge.

Edited January 26, 2023 by Black Hawk

[Kavver]

Thanks for the mention. I really appreciate your writing. 
 

This tactic feels a bit like cheating. It’s unbelievable. Plug and play. 
 

I started a career as unknown. Got an interim job at Stoke who was in danger of relegation. Won, won and won. Kept the job. 
2. season I promoted with a large margin. 
3. Season and now. 1. In premier league. Don’t expect to win but who knows. Basically the same team I got from the 1. Season. 
 

Again. Thanks for sharing. 

[Mike Dodgson]

15 hours ago, Kavver said:

Thanks for the mention. I really appreciate your writing. 
 

This tactic feels a bit like cheating. It’s unbelievable. Plug and play. 
 

I started a career as unknown. Got an interim job at Stoke who was in danger of relegation. Won, won and won. Kept the job. 
2. season I promoted with a large margin. 
3. Season and now. 1. In premier league. Don’t expect to win but who knows. Basically the same team I got from the 1. Season. 
 

Again. Thanks for sharing. 

Do you change anything in-match at all?

[Mike Dodgson]

So impressed with the thorough explanation on this, such a good thread.

This shape is not normally one I've tried, but going to give this a go in a new save as Newcastle. I've just finished the same test on the Twin Towers tactic on this forum, so will go again with this and report back after the first part of the season is done.

Thanks

[Kavver]

No, i didn’t feel the need to. I used the time wasting tactic occasionally.

I usually try to find a striker with good heading, movement and finishing. Train him as a complete forward. 

[Black Hawk]

18 hours ago, Kavver said:

Thanks for the mention. I really appreciate your writing. 
 

This tactic feels a bit like cheating. It’s unbelievable. Plug and play. 
 

I started a career as unknown. Got an interim job at Stoke who was in danger of relegation. Won, won and won. Kept the job. 
2. season I promoted with a large margin. 
3. Season and now. 1. In premier league. Don’t expect to win but who knows. Basically the same team I got from the 1. Season. 
 

Again. Thanks for sharing. 

Well, it was you who saw it regarding the strikers. Credit where credit's due.

You are having some incredible results with this. Awesome

 

2 hours ago, Mike Dodgson said:

So impressed with the thorough explanation on this, such a good thread.

This shape is not normally one I've tried, but going to give this a go in a new save as Newcastle. I've just finished the same test on the Twin Towers tactic on this forum, so will go again with this and report back after the first part of the season is done.

Thanks

Thanks! I like to write and explain things, english is a bit hard for me but I keep trying.

Well, Newcastle has Isak, I believe it will work just fine. @Rav44 did a season with them and posted the results on this thread previously, got 98 points.

Just be aware that some teams may need a bit more to start performing. I'm testing this with Man Utd now and they don't have relations at all from the start, so we are winning but struggling to dominate. Sometimes it just takes time.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Black Hawk

[Mike Dodgson]

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when watching the first few games but I stuck with it given the amount of successes on here.

After around January time, relationships for the back 7 all clicked and we started to regularly control games and that’s when this tactic kicks into gear.

I pretty much bought a new starting 11 so it took plenty of time to settle but once it did, this is very impressive.

Im looking forward to investing in some individual quality and going again in the 2nd season.

Well done mate. Very good.

[Legend288]

[Black Hawk]

On 28/01/2023 at 06:29, Mike Dodgson said:

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when watching the first few games but I stuck with it given the amount of successes on here.

After around January time, relationships for the back 7 all clicked and we started to regularly control games and that’s when this tactic kicks into gear.

I pretty much bought a new starting 11 so it took plenty of time to settle but once it did, this is very impressive.

Im looking forward to investing in some individual quality and going again in the 2nd season.

Well done mate. Very good.

Yeah, I noticed it too. I've completed a season with Man Utd and we were played badly the first few months. Only by the last games before the World Cup I started seeing something good happening.

How were the IFs performance?

Looking forward for more feedback of your 2nd season

On 28/01/2023 at 09:12, Legend288 said:

Damn. You got it good with Man Utd, I really suffered with them ahah

Did you bought anyone? Ronaldo and Martial are a bit meh for the way this tactic works.

[Legend288]

5 hours ago, Black Hawk said:

Yeah, I noticed it too. I've completed a season with Man Utd and we were played badly the first few months. Only by the last games before the World Cup I started seeing something good happening.

How were the IFs performance?

Looking forward for more feedback of your 2nd season

Damn. You got it good with Man Utd, I really suffered with them ahah

Did you bought anyone? Ronaldo and Martial are a bit meh for the way this tactic works.

 

[BarnDoor]

I've tried this tactics on my ManUtd save which was already 10 games into the first season so it's not a full season test, but it's close to it... Didn't plan on posting anything so I've got no screenshots, but I'll try to write a recap.

As far as the transfers go, I've always intended to keep it realistic in that save, so there were no big signings. Only swapped Ronaldo for Weghorst in january to match the real life situation.

Ok, let's get to the tactics. The fact that OP claimed that IFs were productive was what made me try it out. My 2 main IFs (Sancho and Antony) were pretty bad before I started using this tactics. In 10 games that I had already played they both had only 1 goal. Sancho had maybe 2 or 3 assists, while Antony was still stuck on 0. Pretty disappointing... And that was why I've abandoned this save for a few weeks. Then I've stumbled upon this post and decided to give it a shot. And the results are...

Both Antony and Sancho finished the season with about 35-40 games and they've each scored 20+ and added 10+ assists. Keep in mind they have already played 10 games (and scored 1 goal each) before I started using this tactics. Rashford was my main striker and top scorer, but not by a large margin. He was in low 30s I believe. My CMs chipped in with a few, but I don't think any of them has scored more than 5 for the entire season. Wingbacks were quite effective, especially with Weghorst up front. They both had double digit assists (with 13-14 crossing only). CDs did their job well, nothing special to add there. 

Overall, I'd say we were scoring around 3 goals per game and we've conceded very little. Maybe around 10-15 league goals. I really don't know, it's not a stat that I usually look at. We've lost 2 league games and 1 cup game and had a couple of draws (around 4-5) for the entire season. Won the league, won Europa, won Carabao, but unfortunately got knocked out from the FA cup. The tactics worked great against weaker opponents, as well the stronger ones. We were hammering the likes of league 2 teams by 5-0 almost every time, but we've also scored 4 or 5 against Chelsea, City, Liverpool... Draws and losses mostly came when I was trying to rest my main players.

Overall, I was impressed with the tactics. Effective, fun to play with, involves most of the players in scoring/assists and it actually does make your IFs a significant factor. Good work!

[odessit]

That means IFs issue is still there? How many months since the release, and yet It is not fixed? Bravo SI, It is just great game support! To break something that was working fine years before, and still have an issue with corner exploits - marvelous

[BarnDoor]

5 hours ago, odessit said:

That means IFs issue is still there? How many months since the release, and yet It is not fixed? Bravo SI, It is just great game support! To break something that was working fine years before, and still have an issue with corner exploits - marvelous

Yes, IFs are nerfed, but it was done intentionally, not by accident. So I don't think they would agree with the term "break" as it implies that it wasn't their intention to nerf IFs.

I'm pretty sure we've even got the official word on this matter from one of the devs.

If I recall correctly, they said they'll look into the feedback from community, but that for now they would rather have IFs like this, then the overpowered ones from past games.

[Schwantz34]

IF's do still work if you play them on the highest attacking line. Their effectiveness is reduced from last year but not a complete drop off. 

The developers have explained it.