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Introduction My psychiatrist says I have father issues. By any objective measure my dad's always been good to me; he took me with him on his travels around Europe, he helped me build a successful career and he always remembered my birthday. Even so, I always felt that, deep down, I was a disappointment to him and, while he gave me everything I could want in material terms, he never really seemed to have much time for me. Instead, he lavished his attention on a young protege: nurturing and raising him to the peak of his profession. By any reasonable logic I should have resented this interloper for stealing my father's attention, but somehow he ended up being my closest friend. He was much older than me and, perhaps inevitably, he became something of a replacement father figure to me. He's long since left the profession, but as I set out on the next stage in my career, I can't help but yearn for the old days, when that grizzled campaigner lead us from triumph to triumph. It would be foolish to think that I could recapture the magic of that period in my life, but I've never claimed to be a sensible and well balanced individual.

Peely's 4-4-1-1 I've often been asked which tactic I've been using for my Origi 1k Challenge and Daddy Issues careers, but have been a bit slow to write it up properly. This is partly because it's a very standard tactic, really, but also because the people who I've shared it with seem to have struggled to recreate the results that I've seen with it. Even so, I feel that I should put it out there for people to try, if they want to: This has worked well for me over two different careers and four different clubs in four different leagues (England, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal), both before and after the 5.3 update. The evidence is in the two careers I've mentioned above, but here are some highlights: It's important to note that this is not a "fire and forget" tactic that will bring you victory against all opposition without any tweaking (I'm not sure any tactic will do that on the current version of the game). You will need to alter it slightly during play against some opponents. It's hard to provide a clear guide to how you should adjust the tactic, since it varies from team to team and from league to league. In general, though, if I'm finding that the opposition is getting lots of shots against me and my team isn't making any chances, I start by switching from short passing to direct. If that doesn't sort things out, I change the mentality from attacking to balanced. Finally I'll try changing the role of the APM in midfield - either to a DLM or BBM. For this reason, I tend to play a defensive midfielder in this APM role. The Players Central Defenders - Just your standard centre backs. Good tackling, heading, teamwork, decisions and positioning are important. Strength and pace are good too. I also tend to go for a bit of technique, just because I like all of my players to be comfortable with the ball. Wingbacks - These will provide some additional width, and should get a fair number of assists per season, together with a handful of goals. To maximise their attacking potential you'll want traditional winger stats - pace, dribbling and crossing - on top of the defensive stats. Ball-winning Midfielder - This player has the task of disrupting the opposing team's attacks in midfield, winning the ball before passing to more attacking minded players or marauding forward themself. You'll need tackling, heading, strength, positioning for the ball-winning part, but also attacking stats, such as passing, dribbling, decisions, pace etc. Advanced Playmaker (MC) - I use this player in a slightly non-standard way in my tactic. His main job is to move forward and link up the midfield and the striker, but I want him to be able to lend a hand defensively as well. In some situations, as mentioned above, I also want him to be able to switch a more defensive role. For this reason I tend to use a defensive midfielder with a slightly attacking streak. Obvious examples of the type of player I look for are Paul Pogba and Yaya Toure. Both of my central midfielders tend to have very similar stats and can be swapped back and forth as required. Wingers - The main suppliers for my striker. They need pace, dribbling and stamina to belt up and down the wing, together with crossing, passing and creativity to actually get the ball to the right person. Advanced Playmaker - The link between your midfield and your attack. He'll feed passes through to your striker and run at the defence, looking for goals. High pace, dribbling, technique, shooting, creativity and passing are all important. Poacher - The star of the show. He has only one job to do - score goals and lots of them. He'll be hanging around the box, waiting to break past the defenders and latch on to through balls, knock-downs and crosses. Shooting and pace are important, but so are decisions and movement, to allow him to pick the right moment to make his move and get into space. Given the number of crosses that will be coming in from the wingbacks and inside forwards, heading and strength are also extremely useful. I'll be honest, I tend to find that any striker performs well in the poacher role, from hulking target men to speedy midgets. The main benefit of the role, from my point of view, is that it seems to be the least physically demanding of the various forward roles, letting a reasonably fit striker play in pretty much every game of the season. As I say, I can't guarantee that this will bring you success; I can only say that it's worked very well for me. If you use it and want to ask any questions about getting the best out of it, please feel free to do so.