There are also other factors. For example, some players don't rest during holiday, playing international matches instead. That builds up fatigue, which makes them play worse, even with 100% condition. Another factor is happiness, since in the second year players start complaining more about playing time and new contracts. Your players can also get complacent for winning matches and growing in stature, meaning you must keep challenging them to keep their level high.
krozan said: Hey, I'm back for the end of season update and what a turnaround was the rest of the season, mainly thanks to your rotation advice, I feel that rotating the team (more than i already did before) really made a differtence, and so did improving the morale of the team.
So, on the most underwhelming part of the season I again ended 2nd place with 82 points, 3 points away from champions Man Utd, but I feel that it was a odd year because usually the champion has a lot more points than 85.
Won the carabao cup and was knocked out of the FA Cup by Livepool in the QF, and... for the biggest highlight of the season, I ended up winning the champions league! Knocking out PSG, Liverpool, Juventus and Man Utd in the Final, along the way.
So thanks a lot for the tips and helping me turn around the season!
Some points I noticed for this tactic:
- While using the dark blue tactic I didn't score one single goal this entire season. - Light blue tactic didn't seem to sabe that much stamina, at least the difference wasn't very noticeable to me. - I feel that, against even and stronger teams, it's best to keep Cautious mentality the entire game, switching to anything above Positive didn't make any difference whatsoever in any of the games. - While the attributes table states that pace is the most important attribute, my best performing players weren't my fastest ones. My sub striker ended the season with 26 goals, and he has 14 pace, while Rodrigo, with 16 pace and 16 agility, and starting most matches ended the season with 14 goals. My other sub ended the season with 19 goals in 20 games, and he has 13 pace. The difference is that rodrigo has low finishing so I'm not sure if this stat isn't more important than it seems. - Fullbacks and DM usually get low match ratings, not sure why or how to have them perform better.
Here's the end of season screenshot:
Thanks again for the help! Expand
I'm glad you managed to save your season. Too bad you didn't win the league, but I guess you are more than happy for having won the UCL.
About your pointers, I will try to improve both Dark Blue and Light Blue. I haven't given much attention to them, but I'll see what I can do.
On wingbacks and dms, they usually get low score, but that doesn't matter as long as you win. It's probably because this patch heavily favors dribbling, so wingbacks get dribbled a lot and dms don't dribble as much as other positions (because they are often surrounded with passing options).
About attribute importance, not everything is goals. Sometimes the fast player contributes in other ways, like assistance or opening spaces for other strikers. Other attributes have some importance, but way less than speed attributes.
Cyborg said: I haven't tried it. Might give it a go. Expand
Have you tried changing the CM mentalities to support, or maybe even change role to something like BBM? It's probably gonna be worse, but it's one more idea to try and see if it improves defensively.
krozan said: Hey,so I used this tactic with Leeds. In first season while only doing two transfers in the summer (thiago almada and mason solomon) and one in the winter (kaio jorge), I finished 2nd in the league with 90 points tied with manchester city who got 1st, losing the title due to goal difference. Won the carabao cup and got eliminated from the FA Cup by Man City in penalties. Everything seemed to be going great!
However, for the 2nd season, this tactic is performing a lot worse, with considerably better players in the squad. I brought a couple of players with the attributes to fit this tactic (patson daka for SS, jonathan ikone for MC, Dodo for DR, Pervis Estupinan for DL and Ethan Ampadu for CB).
This is how my matches have gone so far after 16 GW:
And this is my current team:
Just for comparison, before trying out this tactic i was using the Cat 441v1 tactic from FM base and won everything except EL with Sporting in 1st season with only 1 loss in the league, and won everything including champions league on the 2nd season, again ending with only 1 or 2 losses.
And with Milan I won everything in the first season (league, cup and EL).
Any ideas why this tactic may have dropped off so much in the 2nd season and why it seems to perform considerably worse than cat441v1? Expand
Looking at the status of your player, I guess it's safe to assume you didn't do much rotation. I see half of your team needing rest when barely half of the season is gone. Also, their morale is rather poor for a team overachieving. Morale is one of the most important stats for good performances. I think those are the two areas you need to improve.
For rotation, a good tip is to either check the medical centre or add a column to the selection view to keep track of player fatigue. The more a player builds fatigue, the worse he trains and the worse he performs, even if his condition is 100%. This stat is mainly affected by number of minutes played in the previous weeks, so you need to either substitute players with high fatigue when the match is decided, or completely rest them during some easier matches. I would suggest a squad of at least 22 players, two for each position, and using all your three substitutions in every single game. Adding recovery or rest sessions to the training can also help.
For morale, it's all about praising players when they train or play well, warning when the train or play poorly, adding training sessions that increase happiness (like team bonding and match practice) and giving them more play time than expected. For playtime, I advise you lower the agreed playtime of every player to the minimum, then increase one step at a time until they are not unhappy anymore (do this during pre-season, since it will lower the morale). Rotation is needed to keep the entire squad happy, and winning matches obviously helps too.
I believe you can win easily from season one if you improve those two areas of the game.
infxamus said: It’s crazy that this is the only tactic that doesn’t use Mark Tighter on midfielders, Shadow Strikers and Wingers and still does extremely well Expand
I don't understand why either. The version 2.2 was better with mark tighter, but after the patch, it works better without.
Cyborg said: I don't know but lowering the mentality in this tactic doesn't work for me. Expand
It makes sense, since the extra striker benefits from hhaving a more direct game play (less players in the midfield). What about lower mentality and higher pass directness to compensate? I'm just brainstorming ideas here, not sure if any would work well.
I was thinking to use this tactic, but I like to have a defensive option for holding on to a lead in tough games/etc.
Narrow Blue Line by Mark has 1.34 GA GP (goals against per game) in testing and uses a similar shape, just 1 of the SS moved to DM, was thinking to alternate between the two tactics, using Mark's to hold onto leads and VOID to start all games.
Anyone tried similar or have any thoughts/suggestions? Expand
How does it get if you change mentality to cautious?
Yellow is my attempt to make Inverted Wingers viable, since they don't seem to work well in this patch. The tactic has only one striker to make sure spaces don't overlap when cutting inside. To improve width and depth, we use Wing Backs instead of Inverted Wing Backs. The rest is very similar to Blue 3.0.
Here is the tactic and results from a holiday test with Manchester City and Fulham.
Let me know in the comments how it performed for you!
Mornon said: I'm doing some testing, still a work in progress... All tests have been done on fm-base database, all teams are frozen in order to reduce variability.
The subtop team got CA165, the underdog CA140. For each run first column is the subtop team, second one is the underdog. Ask if something is not clear. @ZaZ how is it going with the roaming regista? Expand
Thank you for the tests! 4-2-2-2 looks nice. Have you tried it with DW instead of W?
P.S.: I was actually sidetracking to other ideas. I didn't run the double RPM yet.
P.S.2: I tested the 4222 here and it didn't give better results for my method of testing. Maybe it will be very good in fm-base or even here, but in my way of testing, Blue 3.0 is better.
Mark said: I have the CM staying wider. looking at firming up the defence and giving some of the attackers more freedom to roam. Looking solid so far. Got some better results so far. Still looking to tweak it further. Expand
Crazy suggestion: Move one DM forward as CM-De, in the middle of a line of three, then set the other right behind him as RPM, with the option to move into channels. Set both other CM-At to move into channels too.
No idea how it will go, but it would be interesting to know if the CM-De will give freedom for the others to attack while providing an extra layer of defense in front of the DM.
Mark said: Better than Johan Cruyff hey @ZaZ. Not too bad for my first attempt. Working on an update at the moment. Think I know where there are a few problems with this tactic but time will tell Expand
Maybe CM and SS are fighting for the same space. How does it go if you ask both SS to stay wider?
c00kamunga said: Since Inverted Wing-Backs are so hard to find, is there any way to change the DR and DL to Wing-Backs or Full-Backs, without sacrificing too much? Cheers Expand
Your assistant opinion on role suitability is useless. Just ignore it and play a normal DR/L there.
mau do passado said: Anyone struggling with the DM position? Average rating doesn't get any higher then 6.7/6.8. I've tried this tactic with different teams and players in that position, always with the same result. For example, i'm playing with Daniel Bragança now, in 16 appearances he has an average rating of 6.79. Thanks!! Expand
@ta2199@Prysiu I created this because every now and then someone asks if they can change DW to W, because they prefer that role. Personally, I am still playing with DW, because I think the higher goal difference makes the matches more entertaining to watch.
This tactic is really good. Probably one of the best tactics when you are favorite. I wish they had a column in the table to show matches home and away, or against stronger team vs weaker team.
P.S.: I know @Cyborg probably tested it already, but I wanted to know how this tactic would behave with less aggressive mentality, like Attacking or Positive, since it definitely has no problem scoring.
So, on the most underwhelming part of the season I again ended 2nd place with 82 points, 3 points away from champions Man Utd, but I feel that it was a odd year because usually the champion has a lot more points than 85.
Won the carabao cup and was knocked out of the FA Cup by Livepool in the QF, and... for the biggest highlight of the season, I ended up winning the champions league! Knocking out PSG, Liverpool, Juventus and Man Utd in the Final, along the way.
So thanks a lot for the tips and helping me turn around the season!
Some points I noticed for this tactic:
- While using the dark blue tactic I didn't score one single goal this entire season.
- Light blue tactic didn't seem to sabe that much stamina, at least the difference wasn't very noticeable to me.
- I feel that, against even and stronger teams, it's best to keep Cautious mentality the entire game, switching to anything above Positive didn't make any difference whatsoever in any of the games.
- While the attributes table states that pace is the most important attribute, my best performing players weren't my fastest ones. My sub striker ended the season with 26 goals, and he has 14 pace, while Rodrigo, with 16 pace and 16 agility, and starting most matches ended the season with 14 goals. My other sub ended the season with 19 goals in 20 games, and he has 13 pace. The difference is that rodrigo has low finishing so I'm not sure if this stat isn't more important than it seems.
- Fullbacks and DM usually get low match ratings, not sure why or how to have them perform better.
Here's the end of season screenshot:
Thanks again for the help!
I'm glad you managed to save your season. Too bad you didn't win the league, but I guess you are more than happy for having won the UCL.
About your pointers, I will try to improve both Dark Blue and Light Blue. I haven't given much attention to them, but I'll see what I can do.
On wingbacks and dms, they usually get low score, but that doesn't matter as long as you win. It's probably because this patch heavily favors dribbling, so wingbacks get dribbled a lot and dms don't dribble as much as other positions (because they are often surrounded with passing options).
About attribute importance, not everything is goals. Sometimes the fast player contributes in other ways, like assistance or opening spaces for other strikers. Other attributes have some importance, but way less than speed attributes.
Anyway, I hope you win everything next season!
Have you tried changing the CM mentalities to support, or maybe even change role to something like BBM? It's probably gonna be worse, but it's one more idea to try and see if it improves defensively.
However, for the 2nd season, this tactic is performing a lot worse, with considerably better players in the squad. I brought a couple of players with the attributes to fit this tactic (patson daka for SS, jonathan ikone for MC, Dodo for DR, Pervis Estupinan for DL and Ethan Ampadu for CB).
This is how my matches have gone so far after 16 GW:
And this is my current team:
Just for comparison, before trying out this tactic i was using the Cat 441v1 tactic from FM base and won everything except EL with Sporting in 1st season with only 1 loss in the league, and won everything including champions league on the 2nd season, again ending with only 1 or 2 losses.
And with Milan I won everything in the first season (league, cup and EL).
Any ideas why this tactic may have dropped off so much in the 2nd season and why it seems to perform considerably worse than cat441v1?
Looking at the status of your player, I guess it's safe to assume you didn't do much rotation. I see half of your team needing rest when barely half of the season is gone. Also, their morale is rather poor for a team overachieving. Morale is one of the most important stats for good performances. I think those are the two areas you need to improve.
For rotation, a good tip is to either check the medical centre or add a column to the selection view to keep track of player fatigue. The more a player builds fatigue, the worse he trains and the worse he performs, even if his condition is 100%. This stat is mainly affected by number of minutes played in the previous weeks, so you need to either substitute players with high fatigue when the match is decided, or completely rest them during some easier matches. I would suggest a squad of at least 22 players, two for each position, and using all your three substitutions in every single game. Adding recovery or rest sessions to the training can also help.
For morale, it's all about praising players when they train or play well, warning when the train or play poorly, adding training sessions that increase happiness (like team bonding and match practice) and giving them more play time than expected. For playtime, I advise you lower the agreed playtime of every player to the minimum, then increase one step at a time until they are not unhappy anymore (do this during pre-season, since it will lower the morale). Rotation is needed to keep the entire squad happy, and winning matches obviously helps too.
I believe you can win easily from season one if you improve those two areas of the game.
infxamus said: It’s crazy that this is the only tactic that doesn’t use Mark Tighter on midfielders, Shadow Strikers and Wingers and still does extremely well
I don't understand why either. The version 2.2 was better with mark tighter, but after the patch, it works better without.
No. I am aiming to get the best tactic with Inverted Wingers, but they perform very poorly in this patch.
It makes sense, since the extra striker benefits from hhaving a more direct game play (less players in the midfield). What about lower mentality and higher pass directness to compensate? I'm just brainstorming ideas here, not sure if any would work well.
I was thinking to use this tactic, but I like to have a defensive option for holding on to a lead in tough games/etc.
Narrow Blue Line by Mark has 1.34 GA GP (goals against per game) in testing and uses a similar shape, just 1 of the SS moved to DM, was thinking to alternate between the two tactics, using Mark's to hold onto leads and VOID to start all games.
Anyone tried similar or have any thoughts/suggestions?
How does it get if you change mentality to cautious?
Here is the tactic and results from a holiday test with Manchester City and Fulham.
Let me know in the comments how it performed for you!
Can you give link for 4222?
Link is below.
Gpassosbh said: Hello @ZaZ , have you ever tried one strikerless with libero?
Yes, it sucks.
Can you give link for 4222?
Sure, let me just finish this current run with inverted wingers.
All tests have been done on fm-base database, all teams are frozen in order to reduce variability.
The subtop team got CA165, the underdog CA140. For each run first column is the subtop team, second one is the underdog.
Ask if something is not clear.
@ZaZ how is it going with the roaming regista?
Thank you for the tests! 4-2-2-2 looks nice. Have you tried it with DW instead of W?
P.S.: I was actually sidetracking to other ideas. I didn't run the double RPM yet.
P.S.2: I tested the 4222 here and it didn't give better results for my method of testing. Maybe it will be very good in fm-base or even here, but in my way of testing, Blue 3.0 is better.
Crazy suggestion: Move one DM forward as CM-De, in the middle of a line of three, then set the other right behind him as RPM, with the option to move into channels. Set both other CM-At to move into channels too.
No idea how it will go, but it would be interesting to know if the CM-De will give freedom for the others to attack while providing an extra layer of defense in front of the DM.
P.S.: Forget it. It's awful!
Maybe CM and SS are fighting for the same space. How does it go if you ask both SS to stay wider?
Your assistant opinion on role suitability is useless. Just ignore it and play a normal DR/L there.
It's normal, just ignore it.
P.S.: I know @Cyborg probably tested it already, but I wanted to know how this tactic would behave with less aggressive mentality, like Attacking or Positive, since it definitely has no problem scoring.
https://fm-arena.com/thread/1062-zaz-blue-wings-3-0/
I thought it was better to create a new topic since it's a tweak of Blue 3.0, and not a direct improvement.