ZaZ - White

White is a high intensity tactic with heavy focus on the right flank. The idea is to concentrate your players from middle to right, overloading that side to create numerical advantage.





Instructions
Spoiler For people in consoles, below are the screenshots of team and player instructions.








Set Pieces
Spoiler My set pieces are a tweak from earlier versions of Blue, Void from @Cyborg, Motion from @Egraam and Phoenix from @Magician. More information in this thread. (I will try to improve set pieces eventually, but I keep pushing it farther ahead in the schedule.)

Set piece takers should be the best available. For throw ins, give preference to wing-backs of respective side, and for corners, give preference to wingers of respective side. Right BPD should be the best header and right AF should be the fastest striker.

Set pieces are the same as Blue, with mezzala doing the role of shadow striker and inside forward doing the role of defensive winger.

Training
Spoiler My training schedules are focused in the following sessions:
- Recovery: injury risk.
- Quickness: most important attributes (pace and acceleration).
- Match practice and team bonding: cohesion and happiness.
- Teamwork, defensive shape and attacking movement: upcoming match bonuses and tactical familiarity.
- Match preview and rest: match day defaults (rest would become travel in away matches).

For additional focus, goalkeepers train reactions while all other players train quickness.

Below are training schedules for one match per week, two matches per week and pre-season. I assume one match per week during pre-season, for revenue.



Important Attributes
Spoiler Please, check the FM-Arena table for attributes ratings and this thread for Genie Scout ratings. I have also created this rating for Genie Scout based on the FM-Arena table.

I recommend dividing attributes in three tiers to compare players. Use lower tiers only to break ties of uper tiers.
- Tier 1: pace and acceleration.
- Tier 2: stamina, anticipation, jumping reach, dribbling (offensive players), work rate (defensive players).
- Tier 3: all other attributes.

Preferred Foot
Spoiler Right foot for everyone, but don't skip on a good player just because of preferred foot.

Role Ability
Spoiler Role ability, or the stars showing how good a player is in his role, can be safely ignored. It's just cosmetic, showing the opinion of your assistant manager based on current ability and the role attributes. It's always gonna be low for IWB using the same foot as side, or DW with low defending attributes, despite making no difference in performance. In the end, what really matters is position rating, which should be at least accomplished (dark green).

Remember, the important attributes are not the ones highlighted in a player role, but those that actually impact performance as you can see in the FM-Arena table for attributes ratings.

Opposition Instructions
Spoiler Empty. Feel free to change if you know what you are doing, but don't listen to your assistant manager.

Squad Management
Spoiler To be successful in football manager, you need to manage your team's playing time, which affects happiness, match sharpness, fatigue (can only be seen with sports scientist) and condition. Happiness and sharpness are managed by making sure each player is getting enough minutes, while fatigue and condition are managed by avoiding giving more minutes per week than they should play. Note that you can use friendlies and reserve matches to keep players sharp, but those matches have no effect on happiness.

My suggestion to manage the squad properly is to add two columns to selection info: "fitness and injuries > fatigue" and "stats (general) > general > games missed in a row". You can do that by right clicking any column name in squad screen, e.g., name, position, and selecting insert column. Make sure you don't use players with high fatigue and don't let any player reach too many games missed in a row (between 3 to 5 depending on your squad size).

After matches in tight weeks, you can rest the most tired players from training so they can recover condition to the next match. To do so, select any players you want to rest, then right click, training > rest > 1 or 2 days. That should be enough to have your most important players in shape for big matches.

Morale is another characteristic that needs management. The easiest way to increase morale is by winning, but you can also praise last (official) match, recent form (last 5 games) and training level, as well as criticize the same things. I recommend praising anyone with rating above 9 and criticize anyone with rating below 6. After defeats, I recommend complimenting any player with recent form or training with rating 8.1+.

Finally, you also need to manage complacency and anxiety. That is usually done through team talks and shouts. The effect is based on players hidden status and match odds, but some talks and shouts are usually more positive than others. For example, praising a winning team with shouts usually gives positive response, as well as encouraging your team when not winning (losing or tie).

For team talk, I usually prefer to relieve pressure telling them to play their natural game, then tell them individually that I have faith on them. At half time, I praise them if winning by at least two goals, otherwise I tell them I'm not happy. After match, I praise them for victories, tell them I'm unhappy when we don't win and sometimes warn against complacenty after big wins. Keep in mind that you should be a little bit lighter with your team against stronger opponents.

If one of your players get a yellow card during a match, it might be a good idea to change his players instruction to Ease Off Tackles to avoid being sent off. To do so, click on the player card by the bottom of match view, then click player instructions. You can also do the same for very tired players if you run out of subs, as well as reducing his individual pressing trigger, to avoid injuries.

Custom Testing League
Spoiler My testing league is set to include only english competitions and english teams. All players from English Premier League and Sky Bet Championship are set to have maximum consistency, important matches and natural fitness, while having minimum injury proneness. The editor data can be downloaded here.

There are two different group of teams being tested, with each run using two teams from Premier League and two from Sky Bet Championship, simultaneously. Teams were picked by preview odds, having the best and worst odds of each league, as well as best and worst from middle ten odds. The teams from Premier League are Manchester City, Arsenal, Southampton and Norwich, and the teams from Sky Bet Championship are Bournemouth, Blackburn, Barnsley and Derby.

Tactics are tested in holiday mode, three times for each group of teams, with results ranked between all tactics tested. The tactics with smallest sum of ranks is considered the best. For example, below are the results of Blue 3.0, Blue DM and Orange 2CM, with selected cell as the best result.


Changelog
Spoiler

Other Versions
Spoiler White (Reverse) is the same tactic, but mirrored. Not recommended since left footed players are rarer than right footed ones.

Leave a comment below if you liked the tactic and make sure to share your results. Enjoy!

Thanks once again

How does this shape up against Blue DM and Orange 2.0

JamesFox100 said: Thanks once again

How does this shape up against Blue DM and Orange 2.0 Expand

I didn't do all tests yet to compare, but I would say initial results were pretty good. In the first and only test, it got better results than any of the three tests of Blue RPM (Blue DM) for Manchester City, Arsenal, Southampton and Derby. However, I need to finish all tests before drawing any conclusion.

@ZaZ  can the earlier light blue be use d if leading by 2 goals?

Tejash said: @ZaZ  can the earlier light blue be use d if leading by 2 goals? Expand

I will make a light version after I finish the tests.

From my testing I think it will be somewhere between 4.7 and 5.0. Might go slightly higher as I haven't finished yet but I cant see it getting to Zaz Blue standard

Tried this out myself and getting good results seems to be tighter at the back compared to Blue DM and Orange 2.0, albeit very limited testing.

JamesFox100 said: Tried this out myself and getting good results seems to be tighter at the back compared to Blue DM and Orange 2.0, albeit very limited testing. Expand

I didn't optimize it yet, this is just a raw draft to see if it has any potential. It can probably be improved later, if results are promising.

I havent conceaded since switch to White but i am noticing more fatigue setting in but i am in a very busy Decemeber with my Liverpool squad.

JamesFox100 said: I havent conceaded since switch to White but i am noticing more fatigue setting in but i am in a very busy Decemeber with my Liverpool squad. Expand

Can't be helped, december is always busy. If I already dislike competitions like Carabao Cup, imagine friendlies like World Cup.

Looks really solid. Do you think it is possible to mirror the Formation?

Meiser63 said: Looks really solid. Do you think it is possible to mirror the Formation? Expand

It is possible, but not recommended because left footed players are more rare than right footed ones. It's uploaded there if you really want to use it.

P.S.: I re-uploaded the tactic since I forgot to change team instructions.

Thank you ! Appreciate it!

Is there even any point trying against PSG? lol

Great tactic though, lots of combinational play (the Troyes loss GK made a mistake and we hit the post twice, creating 3.08 xG and still not being able to score)

avonseller said: Is there even any point trying against PSG? lol

Great tactic though, lots of combinational play (the Troyes loss GK made a mistake and we hit the post twice, creating 3.08 xG and still not being able to score) Expand

Thanks for testing!

Giving this a go with my Sunderland side, currently over-performing in the Championship. Initially we were conceding lots but scoring more. Looked great going forwards but were getting carved open at the back. Dropped the d-line to Standard and added Tighter Marking and all of a sudden it looks much more solid, we're now winning 2/3-0/1 rather than 4/5-2/3.

mackforever said: Giving this a go with my Sunderland side, currently over-performing in the Championship. Initially we were conceding lots but scoring more. Looked great going forwards but were getting carved open at the back. Dropped the d-line to Standard and added Tighter Marking and all of a sudden it looks much more solid, we're now winning 2/3-0/1 rather than 4/5-2/3. Expand

Defensive line is already standard. Anyway, thanks for testing!

@ZaZ Im testing with Arsenal as they have Ode and Xhaka left footed so should I go for the mirror white? Rest of the instructions remain the same and the fastest striker will be now on the left aye?

Tejash said: @ZaZ Im testing with Arsenal as they have Ode and Xhaka left footed so should I go for the mirror white? Rest of the instructions remain the same and the fastest striker will be now on the left aye? Expand

I didn't test the mirrored tactic, and to be honest, I'm not sure how much preferred foot would impact the tactic. It would be interesting to test editing all players to be right footed, then run a second test with all players left footed (I might run that test myself some other time).

If you want my opinion, I don't think the difference in performance would be that great, so you can go for mirrored it fits your players better.

Im finding the white results better than blue wonder how it has got a 5.2??

tested with 3 different clubs its rock solid as compared to blue!

Tejash said: tested with 3 different clubs its rock solid as compared to blue! Expand

In my experiments, White is also as good as Blue, or maybe slightly better. It's hard to say which one is better because test precision isn't 100%, but I believe White can become better than Blue with some improvements (scheduled to be optimized next week).

Also, remember Blue and White are within the margin of error of FM-Arena, so we can't say for sure Blue is better than White (or any other tactic right bellow it, to be fair).

As soon as you post screenshot i Will try It. Blue Dm Is a fantastica tactic.

Scri said: As soon as you post screenshot i Will try It. Blue Dm Is a fantastica tactic. Expand

What do you mean screenshot?

Player and team instruction. I play with Xbox.

Scri said: Player and team instruction. I play with Xbox. Expand

Isn't that info in the opening post?

Scri said: Player and team instruction. I play with Xbox. Expand

It's on the first post.

Thanks Zaz.

first time I have ever achieved invicible season in the EPL is with this tactic, its something I have been trying to achieved for 3 years in FM!

ZaZ said: Defensive line is already standard. Anyway, thanks for testing! Expand

Not in the version I downloaded. D-Line is set on Higher.