Football Manager 2021

What tactics are Yous using? I changed to knapsack holy ghost fire 4-3-2-1 half way through the first season but want to change to one that has 3 central strikers if possible as I’m buying a few young pacey prospects and want to see how it goes. I need a 433 narrow I think.
 


7 games to go in Ligue 1 and 1 point behind PSG but they have 2 games in hand. No chance unfortunately, their attack is ridiculous (Kane, Haaland, Neymar and Mbappe).

Absolutely distraught as just somehow demolished Atletico 3-0 at home in CL Quarter Final and its crashed. Absolutely dominated it and the 3rd goal was a counter of such exquisitive beauty I was quite overcome.

Going to have to replay it and know for a fact it'll take yonks for me to get a result that good, if ever.
 
Venkman said:
7 games to go in Ligue 1 and 1 point behind PSG but they have 2 games in hand. No chance unfortunately, their attack is ridiculous (Kane, Haaland, Neymar and Mbappe).

Absolutely distraught as just somehow demolished Atletico 3-0 at home in CL Quarter Final and its crashed. Absolutely dominated it and the 3rd goal was a counter of such exquisitive beauty I was quite overcome.

Going to have to replay it and know for a fact it'll take yonks for me to get a result that good, if ever.
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Canny :eek:
 
Got through pre season with my latest save with the lads. Got Blackburn away in the Carabao Cup as my first game so should be a decent test.

Players in:
Gelhardt on loan from Leeds
Laird on loan from Man Utd
Josh Harrop 500k from Preston

Players out:
Gooch 175k to QPR

Ive got the latest transfer update on too so Ive got Jordan Jones, Vokins, Ross Stewart etc in the squad. Grigg and Graham both gone. Transfer budget was spent on Harrop so will only be looking at loans from now on. After the other night Im eager to bring in a decent keeper too.
 
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After a fantastic Brexit, George Dobson and his squad of young South Americans take the UEFA Cup. Lucky group, Benfica and Villeral, then Man City in the final, who for some reason, luckily, I seem to have the absolute beating of in the last 2/3 games.
 
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Second season with Deportivo and won the league to take the club back to where they belong. Paloschi signed permanently on a free, got Papetti on loan again, Sam Cosgrove for 500k, Mitchell Bakker 500k, Antonio Baragan on loan, Mathis Moya free transfer.

Didn’t realise you are only allowed 2 non EU players and with me signing Cosgrove that took me to 3 so haven’t even been able to play him yet:)

Heading into La Liga I somehow managed to get Papetti on a free transfer after being on loan for two seasons, he turned down Atletico and Inter as well. Also brought in defender Javi Jimenez, some French midfielder on loan, Lorenzo Dickmann at right back and Hiroshi Abe and Matheus Peireia from Barcelona.

Want to survive the first season then push for Europe in the second
 
Finished the second season with Sunderland - ended up winning the Championship on the final day. Found the Championship easier than League One to be honest, mostly played 442 getting the ball, out wide on the counter and getting crosses in. Only lost 5 games.

Shitting it now for the Prem as the squad is dire (still got Burge, O'Nien, Hume etc). Best players were Cummings, but doubt he'll make the step up, and Teden Mengi who was class on loan at centre back both seasons. Been given £36m to spend and basically need to buy a whole new team.
 
Definitely Maybe said:
Finished the second season with Sunderland - ended up winning the Championship on the final day. Found the Championship easier than League One to be honest, mostly played 442 getting the ball, out wide on the counter and getting crosses in. Only lost 5 games.

Shitting it now for the Prem as the squad is dire (still got Burge, O'Nien, Hume etc). Best players were Cummings, but doubt he'll make the step up, and Teden Mengi who was class on loan at centre back both seasons. Been given £36m to spend and basically need to buy a whole new team.
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I loaned Mengi for 4 seasons in a row. Did well in all four seasons. Cummings did nowt for me in the Premier league.
 
11th season completed at Hammarby which brought another League and cup double. I went through the league unbeaten for only the 2nd time, winning 26 of the 30 games.

I had a good Europa League campaign knocking out Nice, Bayer Leverkusen and Sevilla before losing in the Semi finals to Spurs.

My 44,750 capacity new stadium is also now completed and we've made it home instantly. So far we've played 13 games there, winning them all and scoring 49 goals in the process.

We just finished the Champions League Group stages and took 16 points to top a group with Juventus, Porto and Dynamo Kiev. The prize is a knockout game against Lazio. The first knockout round is as far as I've ever been in the Champions League but I'm looking to go to the Semi Finals at least this time.

My transfers last summer were huge by my standards. I spent £80m on 5 players. My biggest spend was £27m on a wonderkid striker as I wanted to change formation to play 2 up front. At 19 years old, he's already my best player and has 14 Belgian caps. He's scored 26 goals in his first 26 games. I spent £12.5m on a Brazilian international playmaker who has scored 17 goals last season too. My £11m wonderkid left back is now a full capped Argentine international as well.

I still have £150m in the bank so I'm considering making 3 big signings in January that will be eligible for the latter stages of the Champions League. My new 4-4-2 diamond formation works a treat but I could use an additional centre back and another midfielder to add into the rotation at a minimum.
 
Upthere said:
@Definitely Maybe any chance of a look at your tactic mate? Wanting to play a 442 but can’t get a good one without being too open
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Have just started tweaking it after promotion but was basically just the Wing Play preset mate, nothing fancy.

---------------- GK

WB (A) - CB (D) - CB (D) - WB (S)

W (S) - BBM - DLP (S) - IW (A)

---------- TM (S) - AF


Balanced mentality. Wider attacking width, narrow defensive width. Focus attacks down the wings. Lower line of engagement, standard defensive line and more urgent pressing. Counter when we win the ball, either regroup or unticked when we lost the ball.

Think it was more circumstances than anything else really. We'd just been promoted from League One so weren't expected to do anything and were underdogs most games, we'd let the opposition have the ball and attack us, win it back once they broke into our half and get it out wide quickly on the break and get crosses in. Lost 5-3 to Millwall in the second game and was far too open so dropped the line of engagement back and went on a 19 game unbeaten run. Ended up losing 5 all season but 3 of those were in January when we had a lot of injuries. Wasn't particularly exciting but went on a run where we'd win one 1-0 or 2-0, draw the next 0-0 but averaging 2 points per game grinding out clean sheets. Hadn't been top of the league all season but beat Leeds 3-0 on the last game who were 2 points ahead to overtake them.
 
Upthere said:
@Definitely Maybe any chance of a look at your tactic mate? Wanting to play a 442 but can’t get a good one without being too open
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Post your players mate.

Problem is if your players don't fit it won't work.

I've fallen for stupid stuff like playing two wingers who prefer ball to feet but I was passing into space.

Silly things like that can make your tactic less effective
 
Banks said:
Post your players mate.

Problem is if your players don't fit it won't work.

I've fallen for stupid stuff like playing two wingers who prefer ball to feet but I was passing into space.

Silly things like that can make your tactic less effective
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I had a bad season last season on my game so farted about alot more with my tactic for this season trying to work to my players traits and so far it's been much better.
 
Just about to kick off my 2nd season with Valencia, finished 2nd last season so hopefully Champions League football wont be a distraction as I think thats why I finished so high last season.

For finishing 2nd I was rewarded with a £5 million transfer budget, the finances at Valencia are dire for such a big club. I wouldnt be able to strengthen the team with that so I adjusted my budget and put it all into wages then signed Donarruma on a free.

Both of my keepers are aging now so signing him sorts my keeper position out for years to come. Hopefully I can make it to 2025 when we are due to move into a new stadium.

Currently in the middle of a potential takeover with an Arab guy so hopefully if that goes through Ill get a massive transfer budget, although the news item said he wanted Carlo Ancellotti to take over from me. last season a Russian guy was wanting to takeover and the news item said he would give me a £256 million budget :eek: Unfortunatly it fell through :lol:
 
Ciro_DiMarzio said:
I had a bad season last season on my game so farted about alot more with my tactic for this season trying to work to my players traits and so far it's been much better.
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Work into box when you have a class player with trys killer through balls often makes ur tactic crap as well

As soon as I removed it my strikers were scoring much more
 
I see a lot of tactics with totally contradictory TI's that do well, and it annoys the life out of me (basically people just selecting everything and anything, or daft things like a formation with only 1 player on each flank having overlaps selected, work ball into box and pass into space etc).

As noted here, players PPMs are often ignored and can make or break a tactic. No point in playing balls ahead of a winger who likes it to his feet, or a DLF/F9 who likes to try and break the offside trap.

There's loads of great tactical guides and advice about, I really enjoyed reading them and getting a greater understanding of the ME.

I've been determined to try something different in this version. I've never had success with the Attack mentality so I'm trying that and trying not to rely on a high press. Hard though, as it usually brings success!
 
Venkman said:
I see a lot of tactics with totally contradictory TI's that do well, and it annoys the life out of me (basically people just selecting everything and anything, or daft things like a formation with only 1 player on each flank having overlaps selected, work ball into box and pass into space etc).

As noted here, players PPMs are often ignored and can make or break a tactic. No point in playing balls ahead of a winger who likes it to his feet, or a DLF/F9 who likes to try and break the offside trap.

There's loads of great tactical guides and advice about, I really enjoyed reading them and getting a greater understanding of the ME.

I've been determined to try something different in this version. I've never had success with the Attack mentality so I'm trying that and trying not to rely on a high press. Hard though, as it usually brings success!
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I hate tatics that just seem to break the match engine than be good tactics totally agree.

I find because attack mentality is already high risk to make it work you need to lower risk in other areas eg

Standard or lower tempo
Shorter passing
Standard or fairly wide width


There are some that work with high risk everywhere but I reckon those players are using elite teams and not ordinary or weak teams
 
Banks said:
I hate tatics that just seem to break the match engine than be good tactics totally agree.

I find because attack mentality is already high risk to make it work you need to lower risk in other areas eg

Standard or lower tempo
Shorter passing
Standard or fairly wide width


There are some that work with high risk everywhere but I reckon those players are using elite teams and not ordinary or weak teams
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I often find a more aggressive mentality works well with lower level teams, as better opposition don't camp and defend so leave a lot of space - you can take them by surprise (or be utterly destroyed by much better teams). The problem with top heavy attacking tactics is having no space to exploit and being reliant on individual brilliance or mistakes.

I always find the sweet spot of building meaningful and dangerous attacks and not being too open on balanced or positive. In older versions I've had success with possession tactics on cautious balanced out with more aggressive instructions.

Best advice I read was the tactic's success is more reliant on your player roles and the way they are distributed, how you are going to create and cover space. Decide how you want to score goals and go from there. Better to leave most of the TI's unless you're going for a really specific style.
 
I'm on the brink of binning off my game!!

The start of my season is always the knockout rounds of European competition as the league in Sweden runs from March-December.

I reached the Champions League 1st round knockout for only the 2nd time ever and I decided to go all out.

I paid the release fee of a world class midfielder to take me to the next level - he cost £101m!! :eek: I had over £150m in the bank though and I'm regularly getting big offers for my players now so I'd never be in financial trouble. I also rejected Man Utd pursuit of my world class striker for £55m. I have a team of 3-4 bordline world class players and another 4 who are wonder kids, plus the rest who are former wonder kids in theor early 20's.

I went to Stadio Olympico in my opening game and smashed Lazio 4-1. A 2-2 draw in the second leg saw me qualify for the QF for the first time ever. I got drawn against my bogey team Spurs!

I had the home leg first and fully fit team, but I went 2-0 down in 7 minutes. They scored a 3rd on the counter late on to win easily. The second leg I attacked them but only drew 1-1 and so I'm out again! They have several world class players but its frustrating. I feel like I've hot the ceiling with this team and even keeping this team together has taken effort with several of my players being pursued and wanting moves to big European clubs.

I've lost my drive to turn it back on, not sure what the next move is.
 

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