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: