Where are the strikers?

Hi guys. Usually when I start a new save I never expect to do well in the first season and only a couple of seasons in do I start to consolidate my tactical approach and eventually dominate. So it was a real surprise to me when in my recent save with a relegation candidate of the Slovenian Second League; things simply worked straight away! I'm top of the league by 2 points with 3 games left (currently it's winter break) so no matter what happens I have far exceeded expectations. In pre-season I beat teams from the premier leagues of Ukraine, Poland and Czech Republic (huge upsets for a 2nd tier Slovenian team) convincingly; all these teams had vastly superior players. So bearing all this in mind I'd thought I'd share this formation; and here it is...




My thinking was that I've found that there are 3 aspects of a FM2014 formation that makes it strong defensively.

1) 3 centre-backs. Works very well.
2). 3 centre-mids. Works very well as even if the playmakers get into the box there is still the DM that will be waiting for a pass back or to break up a counter attack.
3) Support for full backs on both flanks. 3 centre-backs are good but if the full-backs are outnumbered there will be a lot of dangerous crosses and dribbles they will have to deal with.

This formation has 3 centre-backs, 3 centre-mids and 2 players defending on each flank. Set-pieces aside it's very difficult to score in normal play against it. Offensively the formation works surprisingly well. I think "pass into space" is a bit over-powered on the match engine and a lot of goals come from the centre-mids passing in behind for the wingers or the other centre-mid.

Here is my league position. Note I've scored the most goals and conceded the fewest:



Here are some results (some of those friendlies are against much better teams):




Here are stats from a 5-0 away league win (possession if usually a bit better then this):



I'm not sure about how this tactic will work with a better team since it's probably slightly more effective against opponents that attack and play to win; perhaps someone could try? The goals are evenly distributed between the 4 attacking midfielders. Defenders may get the odd goal from a set piece. Some of the passing football I've seen with this tactic has been very pleasing. Possession is usually around 50%. Note the patch I've tested with is 14.3.1.

Link to .tac file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/096cfn