Validicus - Comments

Hi folks, I'd be very grateful if this blast from the past could be made into a metallic logo:

 

So many influences and inspirations have shaped my "playing style" and preferences on FM. In terms of tactics, I know why I have never wanted to play 4-4-2s. Arsene Wenger immediately comes to mind as a reason as a result of his distinct separation of roles between Henry and Bergkamp. In an era of BPL where 4-4-2 was still almost universal, I feel it was Wenger who truly broke the trend and introduced something on these shores which was similar to the "inverted 4-4-2" that was already emerging as a trend in Spain. In that sense, I believe that Wenger's innovation contributed to the rise in popularity of the modern 4-2-3-1, both here and beyond. Sir Alex Ferguson comes to mind as another innovator in the Premier League era, but he did not yet favour the "early 4-2-3-1" concept as far as I recall and was still set in his ways with what could better be described as a 4-2-4 of varying symmetry, whilst still occasionally dabbing with asymmetric (but never flat) 4-4-2s. Of course, there comes a point where the lines blur with regards to what distinguishes the attacking shape of a 4-2-3-1 from a 4-2-4 since it becomes a question of symmetry, and sometimes mere semantics. Nevertheless, while Fergie was still mainly partial to his alternative to the 4-4-2 (a testimony to his tactical flexibility, no less), I'd say it was Wenger who was truly adopting something along the lines of the Spanish "inverted 4-4-2" or 4-2-3-1 consistently, thus doing his part to ensure its surge in popularity over here.

Rafa Benitez is another inspiration, as well as someone who I firmly believe contributed to the latter stages of tactical evolution in the BPL. Despite initially playing a fairly dated 4-4-2 system initially at Liverpool, he eventually brought in players which allowed him to come close to his 4-2-3-1 at Valencia, a system which was effective even in the more tactically advanced La Liga (at the time). If Wenger and Ferguson did their part to show the BPL how inverted 4-4-2s/4-2-3-1s could attack, it was Rafa who showed the BPL how the 4-2-3-1 can defend. While Mourinho had previously demonstrated how the 4-3-3 could prove difficult to break down for any jurassic park managers still setting up their teams with old-fashioned 4-4-2 principles, Rafa exhibited a very different defensive model, one which wasn't geared towards packing the midfield. With the second striker helping wingers in harassing opposing teams in their own half before retreating into his own half to become the apex of a triangle sitting in front of the defence, it was a shape which removed lateral defending in the middle of the park, thus allowing higher team pressing, as well as accommodating Rafa's preference for a high defensive line. Personally, I feel that the pressing of Rafa's Liverpool was sometimes fairly similar to that of Jurgen's Klopp "gegenpressing" that generates so much attention and positive acclaim nowadays. Rafa's Liverpool certainly weren't far off.

Cheers.

Likewise, I was happy to see the back of the sliders, yet disappointed that they didn't bother introducing some sort of visual point of reference. From what I've seen, the consequence of this has been more ambiguity and perpetuating of myths than ever before. To complicate things further, the touchline instructions are now treated more as a "plug-and-play" device, despite the fact they were originally intended as a means for the manager to make dynamic changes over the course of a match.

A team of Bristol City's reputation should be capable of being in a similar ball park to most Championship clubs when it comes to transfers, so it should be relatively easy to attract some good players that would thrive in League 1 and possibly even in the Championship as well when you get there. At a glance, the Bristol City squad looks more suited to a bog standard 4-4-2 than anything else. Incidentally, that's ideal for a new player of the game since 4-4-2 is very forgiving and it should be straightforward for you to build an effective system with the shape once you get to grips with the game's interface and mechanics. Since Bristol City is one of the strongest teams in League 1, I would recommend perhaps having an attacking 4-4-2, as well as a controlling 4-4-2 to use when you want to break down a team that's sitting back, and then maybe a defensive 4-1-4-1 or flat 4-5-1 as your third tactic for situations where you want to switch to something more suited to seeing out a game and clinching a tight result. Try to think in terms of real-world football principles when setting up tactics and you really won't go far wrong.

Are you still in pre-season? How do you want your team to play? Would you get a decent % of the transfer fee if you decide to sell Morrell? You can check this on the finances screen where it will say & of transfer revenue made available.

There are many long-term players of the series here who I'm sure will be more than happy to help you get used to the game.

You're welcome. Sorry if I was a bit verbose and not vivid enough. Most of the confusion and disillusionment this year seems to be due to the game's poor GUI and the oversight of not providing alternative reference points to the sliders. People really shouldn't have to dig around in order to find out what exactly their players are doing/are not doing and why. Things I would change/review:

DLP & Trequartista, or DLP & Attacking Midfielder. If you want your DLP to see as much of the ball as possible, then I would recommend changing the AMC's role to Attacking Midfielder in order to minimise those instances where the team seeks out the AMC playmaker instead of the preferred creating outlet, who has every attacking player ahead of him at MC. Of course, if you are happy with how much of the ball the DLP currently sees and you don't mind having that dynamic element to your attack where players decide for themselves whether to look to the DLP or the Trequartista in order to dictate the point of attack for the move, then by all means leave their roles alone.

Review your team's closing down, especially if the situation is as drastic as you describe with equalisers being so swift and common. Of course, the vast majority of teams initially set themselves up defensively against you due to Chelsea's reputation. Alas, when you score, obviously they no longer have anything to lose by being more attacking - and clearly they are finding it a little easy to get a goal back, a much easier time than they should be having against a team of your stature from the sound of it. I would highly recommend removing the Stand Off Opponents and Stay On Feet TIs and the Close Down Less PIs. Replace them with either Close Down More PIs, OR the Hassle Opposition TI (personally, I would prefer Hassle Opposition & possible leaving the DLP his Closing Down Less PI, but nobody else). What this should do is give your defensive phases more balance. The "4-2-3-1 Denmark", by virtue of how attacking it is, is a shape that cries out for pressing high up the pitch and relentlessly pursuing the ball. Your current closing down and tackling instructions would be much more suited to perhaps a containing or counter-attacking system in another shape. With a 4-2-3-1 ["4-2-4"], though? Not so much. If you do decide to take the Close Down More PIs approach, you may want to consider giving the AMC the PI of Tight Marking. Without that, it could lead to opposing formations with a creative DMC having more success through the middle of the park than you would like them to. It depends on what you prefer. If you want your AMC to be less concerned about his defensive responsibilities and to focus more on his attacking positioning for when you recover possession (no thanks to him!), then don't bother reigning him in. If you take the Hassle Opposition TI approach, the AMC's marking is set to tight by default.

Finally, I would remove Shorter Passing & Lower Tempo, leaving Retain Possession as the active team instruction. Again, only do this if you want to place maximum emphasis on keeping the ball and methodically probing with it. If you don't like the idea of recycling possession and playing a fair amount of lateral passes until space opens up, then keep things as they are/remove Retain Possession and place the slightly stronger emphasis on forward passes.

Are you happy with the team's high level of creative freedom, by the way? It is probably safe to presume that Be More Expressive is the same as the global TC instruction of More Expressive in the previous tactics system. In a Balanced philosophy, the More Expressive setting used to give creative freedom values of 16+ to all attacking players, so that's probably what still happens, even if "under the bonnet". Perhaps you are happy to allow this much freedom of expression on the ball when you have such quality attacking players in your team.

Corner kicks have been a joke even as far back as the CM days. I would highly recommend simply using the default corner kick routine. It's boring and bland, but your CBs will get goals from it and your team should score more from corners than you concede over the course of a season. On FM14, my corner kick goals to games ratio has been around 1 in 4 in all of my saves - I have only used default. If you want to get goals aplenty from corner kicks, there are usually plenty of exploits out there which guarantee this if that interests you. If you just want your fair return of goals from this set piece and aren't interested in match engine exploits though, just stick with the default routine.

Just a few observations. First and foremost, I notice that you're utilising both a DLP and a Trequartista. In the previous match engine, your DLP in this setup would have been the team's designated playmaker by default (unless you selected someone else manually), while the Trequartista would continuously look to move into space. In contrast, on FM 14 and presumably onwards, having two (or more) playmakers means that the role is essentially divided. Not strictly equal in your case since one of your playmakers is at AMC and the DLP contributes to the build-up of your moves by virtue of having a deeper position, but it's still worth considering that there are numerous occasions over the course of a match where your team will choose to look to your Trequartista rather than your DLP when recycling a move and probing for space. Not sure if this bothers you or not, but I for one would usually prefer my team to always look for my DLP at MC to dictate the flow of a move if I were playing with your shape and looking to utilise a patient passing system. I would be mindful of the fact that the Trequartista would have much less time on the ball, as well as less passing options available to him than the DLP[D]. Of course, if I was looking to utilise a more "positive" passing game geared towards probing the final third as soon as possible and to get it to the man behind the striker as soon as an opportunity to do arises, I'd keep the Trequartista (and even consider changing the DLP's role). It's your call. You might even be happy enough with the best of both worlds scenario that you currently enjoy.

Another thing I couldn't help noticing is the potential conflicts (even if they're minor ones) in your passing instruction and the team's tempo, namely Retain Possession vs Shorter Passing and Lower Tempo. The instruction of Retain Possession sets your player's passing to extremely short and the tempo low. In contrast, Shorter Passing sets passing to short, but not as short as it would be if Retain Possession were the active instruction, same goes for Lower Tempo. Of course, there is no way of being 100% certain as to which instructions prevail when this conflict arises since the sliders are gone and we have been given no other point of reference to identify such things with, but I am 90% certain that Retain Possession is rendered useless and effectively overwritten by Shorter Passing & Lower Tempo in your current setup. Just another thing you may wish to take into consideration if you are looking to hog possession as much as possible.

Similarly, you have Stand Off Opponents issued as a team instruction, yet you have taken the time to issue the personal instruction of Close Down Less to your players. Again, there is no way of stating as a fact which instructions gets priority in this conflict without the reference point, but I am pretty certain that the PI "wins". Without those PIs, the closing down level level/invisible slider slide setting for your players would be 1. With these Close Down Less PIs active, however, Stand Off Opponents is almost certainly ignored as far as its closing down influence is concerned and players will instead close down "less", whatever less actually is (probably = to the dynamic slider setting of Stand Off More from the global Closing Down TC setting in the previous tactics system).

Last but not least, it might be awkward to have your team pushing high up in the pitch with Control & Push Higher Up, yet they are then discouraged from harassing the opposition in an attempt to get the ball back. The potential issue here is that by allowing your opposition this extra time on the ball, they are much better poised to exploit the chasms of space that you are leaving when attacking, especially when you are using a shape as gung-ho as the "4-2-3-1 Denmark", which is for all intents and purposes a 4-2-4 on FM. Not only can this severely compromise you defensively, but it may also go against the type of philosophy which you might be trying to adopt. After all, the best possession orientated systems in real life are those which apply relentless pressure off the ball - I am a firm believer that the match engine has always reflected this, possibly even to the point of favouring it a bit too much in some versions of the game.

Hope at least some of that is helpful.

Aye, there is that option. Depends on whether he wants all other 14.3. transfers to remain in place or not, I suppose.

Up to you, batiron!

You can make adjustments like that in the database yourself via the FM editor feature.

Open Steam --> Go to 'Library' until the drop-down menu appears --> Tools --> Install Football Manager 2014 Editor.

Under people, search for Juan Mata. Contract --> Club Contract. select the top right icon at the end of the line where it says Manchester United. From here, select Chelsea.

After that, go to the top left corner of the editor. File --> Save Editor Data As. Save it as whatever you like / whatever you will later recognise as being your saved changes to the database.

Now, the next time you create am FM save, note the Editor Data Files option when you are confirming which database you wish to use. Select the name of the file you created and saved from from when you were using the editor. Juan Mata will now be at Chelsea, alongside any other changes you want to make in your editor file.

1) Simply click on the speech bubble icon on the top right during a match. You can either disable pop ups entirely, or you can customise the feature by going on "match feeding settings" within the drop down menu so that you only see what you want to see. Personally, I find the assistant's feedback very useful since even comprehensive highlights doesn't feel like anywhere near enough coverage of a match and I find the information useful with tweaks and touchline instructions in mind. To each their own, though!

Have conceded twice via a free kick, but am yet to score from one. Would have to agree that it's in dire need of fixing. Here's hoping it's addressed within the Xmas patch as opposed to February.

Agreed. I've only struggled with tactics which utilise high levels of closing down, so I strongly suspect that's what may be giving some people a little bit of grief this year. The deeper defensive line also helps counteract the ME's issue with throughballs behind the CBs. The game is as easy as ever, it's just a matter of understanding that this new ME, unlike the one before it, doesn't cater quite as much for high pressing, high tempo, direct passing (aside from CBs not being able to deal with balls behind them).

If transfer embargos are unticked, it means clubs like Portsmouth won't start the game with embargo when they should. I don't think it means clubs won't have embargos imposed on them when they go bust. I'm not certain about the consequences of not loading the sugar daddies file. All I know is that the file is responsible for the personalities of sugar daddies. Whether they throw plenty of money at the club, if they merely cover any annual losses at the club, etc. Without the sugar daddies file loaded, I presume it means sugar daddies behave just like any other chairmen on that save.

Not sure if it's possible to customise the colours or not. Hopefully someone else will confirm that either way as I'm oblivious. I've never even downloaded a custom skin!

1 - If anything, I for one would say it's unrealistic to not have sugar daddies and transfer embargos ticked.

2 - Personally I don't use the stats version of player attributes. For the bar chart mode, low stats show up as black, which is a much better contrast with the white background. If you wish to give bar chart attribute display a try: Preferences --> Interface --> Display attributes as bar chart instead of 1-20 (tick).

Agreed, that one's a nuisance. Let's hope that's addressed in the next patch, whenever that may be.

This has actually been a more frequent sighting in the last few versions of the game. The problem is that the sweeper/libero role doesn't function properly in the ME (nor did it in the previous version) while regens almost always have to be retrained to be able to play in this position. For these reasons, I wouldn't recommend building teams around types of tactics, not unless you happen to be pursuing a project where you are trying your best to emulate a real-life style of play from past or present in the ME.

Issues are being addressed with each patch, but until then, just remember that AI teams are just as vulnerable to far-post crosses and throughballs behind their defenders. You can also negate the damage as much as possible by issuing the OI of "Close Down: Never" on opposition wingers and playing with a deeper defensive line.

Actually, I'd say that AI squad management is a much bigger issue. Most of the time, promising regens aren't developed properly by AI teams, and it's an accident even when they do. They either aren't loaned out and get next to no appearances in the first team, or they do develop but are retained as back-up players, despite the fact that they may be better than a 38 year old Wayne Rooney!

I really don't think it's a big deal if it really has been hard coded for certain high profile teams to have more world class regens than others. In long-term games, either those players won't be used against us, or we might get to pick them up on the cheap.