TactocTestor said: From what i read up on harvestgreen22 findings. He only did a brief findings on FM26 before refunding and moving back to FM24.
It seems the recommended attribute list slightly different from this findings. For example, balance and dribbling based on the attached link is important to have above baseline (like 12-13) but dont really become overpowered at high stats. Do you think the rec attribute list should be changed?
I also read on Harvest green later findings, and it seems to be FM24 centric tested while fm26 stuff mostly inference.
I can only do those things based on the data available, so I might change after someone does a similar study on FM26. So far, it is working as intended for me, so I do not think they changed training very much.
I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been following your work on FM Arena for a while, and I really appreciate the consistency and quality of your tactics, especially how well they perform across different patches.
I’m currently running a long-term save with Wolves on FM26.3, and I’m trying to build a system around a target forward (Lorenzo Lucca type profile). I know it’s not exactly the most meta-friendly approach, but I’d really like to make it work competitively rather than just defaulting to a strikerless or full meta setup.
I’ve tested a few things myself, including adapting existing top tactics and running some simulations, but I feel like I’m missing a deeper understanding of what really makes a system stable in the match engine.
If you don’t mind me asking:
Do you think a target forward–focused system can realistically compete with the current meta in 26.3?
When you test tactics, what are the key indicators you trust the most beyond raw results?
Would you recommend starting from a proven meta base and adjusting it, or building something more custom from scratch in this case?
I’d really appreciate any insight or advice you’re willing to share. Thanks again for all the work you put into the community.
All the best, Alexam Expand
Thank you, Alexan.
About your question, tactics with striker cannot compete with the current meta, unfortunately. That does not mean they are useless, just that they perform worse, but you can still overperform (have a win rate higher than expectation) with them. However, target forward usually perform worse than other strikers, both as a role in the tactic, as well as a profile in players. Pace and acceleration are the attributes with highest impact in performance, and unless the target player is fast like Haaland, they will not perform as well as other fast players.
With that being said, my advice is for you to simply play the game the way you want. You can still overperform even with a target player, and there is not much issue if you are playing single player. The top rated tactic in FM-Arena has 73% win rate, while the top rated tactic with a striker has 69%. There is a difference, but it is not as massive as it was in the earlier patches. I still recommend you to aim for fast target players like Haaland, but I understand that is not an easy profile to find.
So, my suggestion is to get the top tactic with a striker and change the role to target forward, and see how it goes. You can submit the tactic to be tested and see how it compares, if you are interested.
About key indicators, the most important to me are points and goal difference. If you want to improve the defense of a tactic, you can check goals conceded, and if you want to improve the attack, you can check goals scored.
Antal said: Hi!! How do I sell a player properly? I want to sell him, but there's no interest, but that's not a problem. The problem is that when players are put up for transfer, their morale drops, they stop training well, and their development stops. As a result, no one buys the players, and your squad spends six months in a bad mood and doesn't develop. Expand
1. Offer the player on TransferRoom for maximum value, without transfer listing, and click to continue. This will reveal clubs interested, even if they are not willing to pay maximum value, and will make the player angry due to high price. 2. After the "No offers for player" message (usually after a day or two), when your player complains about his high price, talk to him and remove the price tag (or ask him to set a new target price together if you are not sure about his value). That will make the player happy again, so you can proceed to sell him normally. Offer him another time for unspecified (or the target price you set) and check the box to transfer list him. 3. After the new "No offers for player" message, you will see new clubs telling why they are not interested (like high wage, high asking price, or anything like that), and some option in the bottom to ask the player to be open about finding a new club. Click that option, and the player will tell he is glad to move if he is not wanted. 4. If there is a club interested, offer him again by unspecified price (or the price you defined with him), and the interested team will usually make an offer. 5. If there is no club interested, then offer him for zero cost. If any club makes an offer, then you know there is interest for a certain price, so you can reject the offer and try to guess the price, slowly decreasing the price until they offer again. 6. If no one wants your player, then offer him on loan to at least save the wages, or sell for zero if anyone wants to take him.
Let me know how this method work for you. I am still working on the best method to sell players.
FmGuy said: is there any striker tactic which would work well with this instead of the ss? Expand
The best variation is to move SS to CHF in possession, which you can do with this tactic if you want. If you want a tactic tested here, then the best rated is https://fm-arena.com/thread/18683-3421-shanhai-z/.
TactocTestor said: i tested this setup on FM22, it seems that its really hard for players to achieve their PA potential with this. Also my 26+ players start to lose some CA, so yeah prob this training good for youngsters but i think full atk x 5/phys x 5 will be better for players to maintain their attributes/CA Expand
I changed the ratio to 3:1 in favor of growth. If you want further increase in player attributes, then I recommend 2x atk + 2x phy, since that gives highest CA gain compared to 5x.
OpticFawn said: Hey Zaz, the training is good but my players only improve physically but technicals and mentals dont grow but are purely degrading, look at these players for example all bought around the same time, they've all been on the training setup for 2/3 yrs and these aretheir attributes now, is this the goal of the training setup lmk, or have i been doing something wrong probably? Expand
Thank you for the info. You can read more about my suggested training schedules here.
iboryus said: Hi ZaZ, first of all, thanks for the great tactic. I tried it and it had a strange effect. I got much better results with the light version throughout the season. Expand
That is weird. The only advantage of the light version is to get less cards and spend less player condition. The performance should be worse. What might have happened is that you used when winning matches by two goals or more, and at that moment the opponents are already low in morale.
TurboHips said: Is the difference between 3.08 and this one just the bcb player instructions Expand
Yes. Keep in mind there is a margin of error in the tests of FM-Arena, so any of the top tactics could actually be the best. It is just better to stick to the ones at the top, but there will not be a massive difference between this tactic or another scoring 0.1 or 0.2 lower in the table.
Trying some variants that I believe can counter tactics similar to Autumn. The idea here is to have two defenders staying back in possession, to be better protected against counter attacks.
1. Yes, I do the same during all season. I believe the extra attributes from one or two months of training give more benefit than you could get with other training schedules.
2. The rest session only restores extra condition and fatigue when you rest for the entire day. When paired with any other session, you restore only the natural regeneration, as if you have not rested at all. The only benefit of adding rest in days with other sessions is to reduce training intensity.
3. I do not use training units. For mentoring, it changes hidden attributes slowly to match those of the mentor, and can also train moves. It is useful if the mentor is a good model that you want to replicate in a youngster. I promote young players to main team as soon as I feel they can get minutes of game, if I believe they have a place in my 28-30 main players.
MonraMer said: In a tactic with two central midfielders, what tends to be optimal for overall performance: using more defensive roles, more attacking roles, or box-to-box midfielders? Which setup usually gives the best results in the match engine? Expand
It seems the recommended attribute list slightly different from this findings. For example, balance and dribbling based on the attached link is important to have above baseline (like 12-13) but dont really become overpowered at high stats. Do you think the rec attribute list should be changed?
I also read on Harvest green later findings, and it seems to be FM24 centric tested while fm26 stuff mostly inference.
https://fm-arena.com/thread/15933-i-tested-the-attributes-of-fm26-and-some-other-things/page-1/
I can only do those things based on the data available, so I might change after someone does a similar study on FM26. So far, it is working as intended for me, so I do not think they changed training very much.
I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been following your work on FM Arena for a while, and I really appreciate the consistency and quality of your tactics, especially how well they perform across different patches.
I’m currently running a long-term save with Wolves on FM26.3, and I’m trying to build a system around a target forward (Lorenzo Lucca type profile). I know it’s not exactly the most meta-friendly approach, but I’d really like to make it work competitively rather than just defaulting to a strikerless or full meta setup.
I’ve tested a few things myself, including adapting existing top tactics and running some simulations, but I feel like I’m missing a deeper understanding of what really makes a system stable in the match engine.
If you don’t mind me asking:
Do you think a target forward–focused system can realistically compete with the current meta in 26.3?
When you test tactics, what are the key indicators you trust the most beyond raw results?
Would you recommend starting from a proven meta base and adjusting it, or building something more custom from scratch in this case?
I’d really appreciate any insight or advice you’re willing to share. Thanks again for all the work you put into the community.
All the best,
Alexam
Thank you, Alexan.
About your question, tactics with striker cannot compete with the current meta, unfortunately. That does not mean they are useless, just that they perform worse, but you can still overperform (have a win rate higher than expectation) with them. However, target forward usually perform worse than other strikers, both as a role in the tactic, as well as a profile in players. Pace and acceleration are the attributes with highest impact in performance, and unless the target player is fast like Haaland, they will not perform as well as other fast players.
With that being said, my advice is for you to simply play the game the way you want. You can still overperform even with a target player, and there is not much issue if you are playing single player. The top rated tactic in FM-Arena has 73% win rate, while the top rated tactic with a striker has 69%. There is a difference, but it is not as massive as it was in the earlier patches. I still recommend you to aim for fast target players like Haaland, but I understand that is not an easy profile to find.
So, my suggestion is to get the top tactic with a striker and change the role to target forward, and see how it goes. You can submit the tactic to be tested and see how it compares, if you are interested.
About key indicators, the most important to me are points and goal difference. If you want to improve the defense of a tactic, you can check goals conceded, and if you want to improve the attack, you can check goals scored.
The problem is that when players are put up for transfer, their morale drops, they stop training well, and their development stops. As a result, no one buys the players, and your squad spends six months in a bad mood and doesn't develop.
1. Offer the player on TransferRoom for maximum value, without transfer listing, and click to continue. This will reveal clubs interested, even if they are not willing to pay maximum value, and will make the player angry due to high price.
2. After the "No offers for player" message (usually after a day or two), when your player complains about his high price, talk to him and remove the price tag (or ask him to set a new target price together if you are not sure about his value). That will make the player happy again, so you can proceed to sell him normally. Offer him another time for unspecified (or the target price you set) and check the box to transfer list him.
3. After the new "No offers for player" message, you will see new clubs telling why they are not interested (like high wage, high asking price, or anything like that), and some option in the bottom to ask the player to be open about finding a new club. Click that option, and the player will tell he is glad to move if he is not wanted.
4. If there is a club interested, offer him again by unspecified price (or the price you defined with him), and the interested team will usually make an offer.
5. If there is no club interested, then offer him for zero cost. If any club makes an offer, then you know there is interest for a certain price, so you can reject the offer and try to guess the price, slowly decreasing the price until they offer again.
6. If no one wants your player, then offer him on loan to at least save the wages, or sell for zero if anyone wants to take him.
Let me know how this method work for you. I am still working on the best method to sell players.
Not in the one in the link. I did not test this one with striker yet.
The best variation is to move SS to CHF in possession, which you can do with this tactic if you want. If you want a tactic tested here, then the best rated is https://fm-arena.com/thread/18683-3421-shanhai-z/.
I changed the ratio to 3:1 in favor of growth. If you want further increase in player attributes, then I recommend 2x atk + 2x phy, since that gives highest CA gain compared to 5x.
Thank you for the info. You can read more about my suggested training schedules here.
That is weird. The only advantage of the light version is to get less cards and spend less player condition. The performance should be worse. What might have happened is that you used when winning matches by two goals or more, and at that moment the opponents are already low in morale.
Yes. Keep in mind there is a margin of error in the tests of FM-Arena, so any of the top tactics could actually be the best. It is just better to stick to the ones at the top, but there will not be a massive difference between this tactic or another scoring 0.1 or 0.2 lower in the table.
2. The rest session only restores extra condition and fatigue when you rest for the entire day. When paired with any other session, you restore only the natural regeneration, as if you have not rested at all. The only benefit of adding rest in days with other sessions is to reduce training intensity.
3. I do not use training units. For mentoring, it changes hidden attributes slowly to match those of the mentor, and can also train moves. It is useful if the mentor is a good model that you want to replicate in a youngster. I promote young players to main team as soon as I feel they can get minutes of game, if I believe they have a place in my 28-30 main players.
This is a tactic with two central midfielders.
Sorry, FM-Arena does not provides those.
Either because the difference in instructions improves it, or it might be simply statistical noise.