Beautiful football, goals and solid defence. My tactic for FM 15.

Shape strengths and weaknesses

Its just a simple 4-5-1 shape with the holding midfielder providing protection for the marauding fullbacks and advanced midfielders.

When creating a shape i always want to know what weakness are there to the shape not necessarily the  tactical instructions just the shape this is so when im in game i can adapt and make sure ive not been put at disadvantage because of these flaws and to ensure im not playing into the oppositions hands. Along with the weaknesses i also look at the strengths of my shape so i can impose these onto the opposition and create overloads , this is were i feel i get most success on fm.

A weakness i find with the 4-5-1 is that the striker can become isolated from the midfield especially if the opponent uses a sitting holding midfielder so with the use of roles and instructions its very important that the striker links with the midfield. Another weakness i find is the space between amr/aml and the rb/lb, so when coming up against opponents who utilize wide players they can easily find space in these areas and find them selves 1v1 against the fullbacks this can be particularly dangerous if the opponent possess good dribbling skills.

Logic behind the roles.

I chose a standard Goalkeeper as i want him to keep it simple and do nothing fancy, same goes for my 2 centre backs nothing fancy just good old school centre backs. My Fullbacks are set to wingbacks so they can get forward to provide the width where my 2 wide players have both tucked inside. You may notice that 1 wingback is support and 1 attack this is because i am using a Raumdeuter  who is very attacking and i need  a fullback to get right up to fill the space he leaves and provide width so in balance to that i need to balance it out and use support duty for my other wingback to provide sufficient cover for him being so advanced, im also  playing in the championship and my players aren't as capable and if i let both fullbacks advance i may leak a few more goals.

Now my because i wanted to use quick but patient counters i used a dlp at the dm position he wont venture too far forward and will act as a playmaker from deep picking the correct pass.

To get the balance of the formation right i knew i needed to get the midfield to support the strikers so i chose roles that would venture forward but not at the expense of leaving my defensive frail. The box to box will get back and forward very well and i had numerous players who can play that position and the advanced player maker will keep things ticking from a offensive point of view.

I needed a striker who would drop in the hole so i used the f9 as it enables him to drop deep but i can only play this role if i have some one who is creative enough or holds the ball up well as the f9 drops so deep.  Now all i needed was penetration up front and goals which i got in abundance from the Raumdeuter and the inside forward. The Raumdeueter is a excellent addition to this years games and i love using it but you have to ensure your defence is covered sufficiently. 

Team instructions

I use retain possession and shorter passing to reiterate to my players that i want to use the strength in my formation which is the 3 midfielders and try to keep the ball this also ties in to why i used play narrower shout to ensure my players try to player with the ball in the middle of the pitch and the my wide players (including wingbacks) provide penetration.

I also use close down more instead of close down much more as im on the counter strategy and i don't want holes all over the place i just want to be a little bit more proactive in my defending and try to create a counter-pressing like pressing and create natural counters not forced direct ones. Maybe if i was playing higher up then i would have used close down much more as the danger of the opposition playing the ball behind me would have been their.

Individual instructions

In terms of individual instructions i hardly use them the only instructions i have set are for my goalkeeper to distribute the ball short as i dont want him to do long kicks as my front 3 are so short also it encourages patient possession not forced direct football. I also use "pass it shorter" for my to center backs to encourage passes to the more creative dlp who can dictate the play from deep.

Below is how my first Fm 15 season ended not bad but still could have been even better:

Use the analysis tool.

The analysis tool is a great way to get a more in depth look at your teams performance in a specific game. It will show for example number of fouls, shots and tackles from this you can pause , look and analyse why  a player did or did not do something.The analysis tool is not only useful for your teams performance but can be used in game to work out how the opposition is playing too.

Average position

One of the more basic and simple features in the analysis tool. This simply shows the 11 players average position on the pitch from this you get an indication of how high your team is holding the line, if a certain player is out of position i.e not doing his defensive duties and if a striker is too isolated from the midfield this can cause all kinds of problems offensively.

Here we can see the average position of my Stoke side in a FA cup final. Looking at this my team looks fairly compact , slightly deep and their are players looking to break in between the lines such as(number 15) my highest central midfielder who is looking to link with my striker.

Movement

The movement tab checks player runs and player dribbles so its great for checking which players aren't successfully pulling them off i.e. losing the ball or constantly being caught offside. If you created a possession style tactic you obviously don't want too many players dribbling so you can check the analysis tool to see if too many players are dribbling.

It is also a great way to check which one of the opposition players are being a nuance so then you can adapt and make them less effective.  As you can see there are not to many problems here but there are many positive dribbles.

Scoring Chances

This tab is great for seeing where close chances are taken from so then you can analyse why the player chose to shoot from there, if he had options before shooting and if its been a consistent theme in the match/matches. In this game i had 2 half chances after analysing this I found my striker wasn't holding the` ball up well enough to wait for the midfield support.

Interceptions

This is great to see which players are missing interceptions in your own half. If a player is constantly missing interceptions in defensive areas this is an obvious problem which needs fixing, it may mean giving them lower closing down or easing of tackles.If playing a high line this can  detect whether players are closing down well enough. This can also be used to see if an opposition player is having a hard time and maybe look to exploit that area.

Foul

This can be a good way to check to see who is giving a fouls especially those in defensive areas of the pitch.

Tackles

In this tab you can see who is missing tackles in key areas and adjust your tactic accordingly i.e lower closing down or easing of tackles. Again this can be used for the opposition to check and see who is missing tackles and exploit that area.

Headers

In this tab you can look at it in 2 ways offensively and defensively. Offensively if you playing off a target man and he is missing all his headers you may want to rethink your strategy or if you notice your striker is just missing every header you may want to try drill crosses and see if it makes and difference before making drastic changes.

Defensively if player misses a header this maybe due to lack of height or poor jumping stats. This is a vital part of defending so you need to ensure you have players with good jumping stats and/or sufficient cover if a player has poor stats so a sweeping player can mop up any mistakes.

Crosses

As you can see their are a lot of crosses going on in this image this is because this tactic is more of a counter attacking one so im not going to be too harsh on the players as if it were my main tactic but it still can be improved. Crossing links heavily with headers tab and essentially if their isn't no one in the box with good enough heading you simply aren't going to be likely to score. Another point with crosses is to ensure the crosses are being made by players with a good crossing attribute it really is that simple.

Passing

Probably my favourite and most overused tab on the analysis tool. What you should be seeing in this tab is a lot of green and not a lot of red. If you notice a lot of red from a particular area isolate the person and check their individual passing accuracy. In this game I noticed that generally our passing was good but their was a lot of red coming from the defensive area and found out that my goalkeeper had been kicking balls long when I want him to retain the ball from this new knowledge I added shorter passing and distribute to defenders to his  individual instructions.

Shots

Here I look at the red and yellow dots but especially the red ones. I then look to see were the shot is taken and if he had passing options available as in FM if layers don't have passing options they tend to crumble under the pressure and shout. As long as I believe I the player has enough passing options then I look further at his ppm's or his decisions making attribute to further analyse why he's taking the shot.

Saves

This basically just pinpoints the game from the  goalkeepers perspective looking at how successful or unsuccessful he was in terms of shot stopping not much else to add here.

Set pieces 

This tab lets you look at every set piece you've had throughout the entire game whether it be throw-ins, corner or free kicks. It enables you to look at why you're not scoring or why your conceding from certain set pieces.