This tactic (and especially its style) is probably nothing too shocking for those who have been following the meta - I've been inspired from little bits here and there from a number of tactics. However, as someone playing a building a nation save I wanted to stamp a bit more of an interesting identity on things, and utilise some roles I don't see used too often in big hitting tactics: Regista, Raumdeuter and Target Forward. I've had a lot of success with it, and while I don't expect it to topple the leaderboard it may offer something for those of you looking for a bit of a different flavour in-match, and seeing different types of goals scored.
Once I was satisfied with the tactic for my own ends, I have tested it on Brighton; however, I feel it would see more success in actual gameplay, especially if you go out and recruit optimal players for the positions. I realised that not many clubs in the Premier League have Target Forward player archetypes, but I love using them myself!
In the images of my own tests, I've included the Data Hub screen so that you can also see the XG-related data, which is a bit more consistent across the two tests I ran compared to the actual table.
PIs: SK (Su): Tackle Harder FBL (At): Takes More Risks, Cross From Byline, Shoot Less Often, Stay Wider, Tackle Harder BPD (De): Dribble More, Tackle Harder FBR (At): Takes More Risks, Cross From Byline, Cut Inside With Ball, Shoot Less Often, Stay Wider, Tackle Harder BWM (De): n/a RGA (Su): Tackle Harder RMD (At): Tackle Harder, Mark Specific Position (D R) W (Su): Tackle Harder, Mark Specific Position (D L) TF (Su): Tackle Harder AF (At): Roam From Position, Tackle Harder
DazzieK said: Nice to see someone use a team other than man city Expand
Cheers! Man City seems to be the go-to, and I wanted to use them first more to benchmark against the others here. But it didn't perform as it has been in my own save (Swansea City), as those Haaland numbers are just madness. Hopefully including Wolves as a benchmark of a midtable side helps people better understand if there is something in this tactic that gets their attention.
I gave it another test with Wolves as the team predicted 11th. Exact same tactic, no changes. The goals for and against were more in line with what I expected, and the impact of set pieces was more diminished, aleviating my own concerns that I was being propped up by them. 6th is an excellent performance I think.
As the fixtures show with the fixture pileup in December the tactic hits a real stretch of poor form, so if you want to give it a go in your own saves then again I will advise that ahead of these runs of games every 3-4 games to use Positive as the mentality and to rotate and sub early to keep fresh legs.
This tactic doesn't have too much exciting going on in terms of TIs - it's very similar to quite a number of other successful tactics that have been tested on the site, but was built from the ground up. A few things I've avoided that I've seen on many TIs are quick distribution and shorter passing, as I'd rather my goalkeeper take the time to find the space and start the team off in attacking it quickly than rush the ball to defenders to start slowly. That being said, the special sauce of this tactic for me is in the roles and PIs.
My thought process was that I wanted to build on the popular 4-2-3-1 format that many are seeing success with, but wanted to try to score as many goals as possible while avoiding embarrasing defensive numbers. For example, I was more interested in a 4-1 than either a 3-0 or a 5-2 if that makes sense! To achieve this, rather than have two DMs I shifted one player up to CM in a BBM role, with 'Takes Fewer Risks', allowing an additional player in attack but one that doesn't get stranded high up as the opposition breaks. Wing Backs are encouraged to push up but not to shoot as additional chance creaters for the attacking threats, meanwhile the standout role to differentiate this tactic is the AM playing as an AP with the instruction 'Hold Up Ball'. It at first may seem somewhat counter-productive in such an aggressively attacking team, but it provides all those players with attacking mentalities to transition into dangerous positions that are outside of their defensive ones (IFs cutting in, WBs pushing up).
There's a lot of harder tackling, and a bit more risk taking from the attacking players (but not the AM). A high defensive line and a high, hard press encourages opposition to try long ball tactics to break out of pressure, where a goalkeeper on SK (At) is positioned to try to clean these up.
I've set this tactic to have an Attacking mentality for the test. However, in normal use I would use Positive as a baseline for periods of fixture congestion, as you can see the form has a dip in January where there are constant games.
The result in this test is a team that had the most goals for and fewest against - the latter statistic not one I really expected, but was happy with. Please note that I downloaded set piece tactics made by Knap, so as a matter of transparency have included a screenshot of my set piece data from the test for you to weigh up against the value of the tactic as a whole.
Once I was satisfied with the tactic for my own ends, I have tested it on Brighton; however, I feel it would see more success in actual gameplay, especially if you go out and recruit optimal players for the positions. I realised that not many clubs in the Premier League have Target Forward player archetypes, but I love using them myself!
In the images of my own tests, I've included the Data Hub screen so that you can also see the XG-related data, which is a bit more consistent across the two tests I ran compared to the actual table.
PIs:
SK (Su): Tackle Harder
FBL (At): Takes More Risks, Cross From Byline, Shoot Less Often, Stay Wider, Tackle Harder
BPD (De): Dribble More, Tackle Harder
FBR (At): Takes More Risks, Cross From Byline, Cut Inside With Ball, Shoot Less Often, Stay Wider, Tackle Harder
BWM (De): n/a
RGA (Su): Tackle Harder
RMD (At): Tackle Harder, Mark Specific Position (D R)
W (Su): Tackle Harder, Mark Specific Position (D L)
TF (Su): Tackle Harder
AF (At): Roam From Position, Tackle Harder
First test with Brighton:
Second test with Brighton:
Cheers! Man City seems to be the go-to, and I wanted to use them first more to benchmark against the others here. But it didn't perform as it has been in my own save (Swansea City), as those Haaland numbers are just madness. Hopefully including Wolves as a benchmark of a midtable side helps people better understand if there is something in this tactic that gets their attention.
As the fixtures show with the fixture pileup in December the tactic hits a real stretch of poor form, so if you want to give it a go in your own saves then again I will advise that ahead of these runs of games every 3-4 games to use Positive as the mentality and to rotate and sub early to keep fresh legs.
My thought process was that I wanted to build on the popular 4-2-3-1 format that many are seeing success with, but wanted to try to score as many goals as possible while avoiding embarrasing defensive numbers. For example, I was more interested in a 4-1 than either a 3-0 or a 5-2 if that makes sense! To achieve this, rather than have two DMs I shifted one player up to CM in a BBM role, with 'Takes Fewer Risks', allowing an additional player in attack but one that doesn't get stranded high up as the opposition breaks. Wing Backs are encouraged to push up but not to shoot as additional chance creaters for the attacking threats, meanwhile the standout role to differentiate this tactic is the AM playing as an AP with the instruction 'Hold Up Ball'. It at first may seem somewhat counter-productive in such an aggressively attacking team, but it provides all those players with attacking mentalities to transition into dangerous positions that are outside of their defensive ones (IFs cutting in, WBs pushing up).
There's a lot of harder tackling, and a bit more risk taking from the attacking players (but not the AM). A high defensive line and a high, hard press encourages opposition to try long ball tactics to break out of pressure, where a goalkeeper on SK (At) is positioned to try to clean these up.
I've set this tactic to have an Attacking mentality for the test. However, in normal use I would use Positive as a baseline for periods of fixture congestion, as you can see the form has a dip in January where there are constant games.
The result in this test is a team that had the most goals for and fewest against - the latter statistic not one I really expected, but was happy with. Please note that I downloaded set piece tactics made by Knap, so as a matter of transparency have included a screenshot of my set piece data from the test for you to weigh up against the value of the tactic as a whole.