pollackattack - Comments

this tactic doesnt work, its not even a .tac file once you download it ?

i am going to try with man city...i tried everything but all got wrong...i will try this...i want to take the league in my first season with no tranfers!

Been looking for a decent tactic to make use of my two good AMCs in the Dutch Jupiler League - will give this a bash and let you know how I get on.

Ridiculous really - all the specialised roles put into the game are worthless due to the nature of the match engine.

Defenders literally turning their back on the ball etc

Yeah, I find BBM and CM(A) work very well due to this too.

Superb post. The 2 SS(a) seems to be very popular with the latest match engine, suppose it produces great results.

Outstanding tactic. Really appreciate all the detail as well.

Just piloted it through my first season with Tottenham and ended up winning the Premier and Europa league. Premier league record was 30-4-4, absolutely outstanding results (Soldado also won golden boot). I added to the roster, but it wasn't necessary. Upgraded strikers (Bought Batshuayi, sold Adebayor) and added midfield (Clement Grenier), plus LM (Ayew, who I highly recommend).

I don't always dominate the shot totals as the pictures show, but this formation really doesn't give up much to the opposition. Scoring was 85 for and 29 against.

Well I've been using your 361 tactic.
I must say, you are correct in that it truly does dominate, but a lot of focus must be placed on; the payer types you have at your disposal vs. the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, like you said.
You gave perfect instructions on dealing with this, it gives the feel of playing football managers of old, as I feel more hands on, and actually you have also enlightened me to a lot of techniques on dealing with certain opponents players, thank you for that.
Now I'll say that, for me, this tactic is better implemented during a game, to either hold the lead or press-on.
So many come backs and 1-nils with this tactic, late goals, and yes, you have pinpointed an realism glitch in the game I believe, I get a lot of domination with the tactic but hardly any reward, unless I'm down a goal or two down or a two up 2 3rd's of the game through.
It's weird, but very entertaining.
I go from rage to joy in a matter of minutes, haha. So for anyone looking to try this out, you must study what the man, pollackattack has articulated for us FM heads. It's definitely worth it.
Oh and my Boston United team are in League 2 now, struggling, but they've come along away.

It has to be said.. You have presented this formation in such a sublime way, very, very nice indeed.
I will follow your instructions and give it a go sir.
Thank you very much!
I've always been a big fan of the 3 at the back, but that's within FIFA, I've never been so successful with it in FM, but let's have a go.

I use a similar yet slightly more attacking version of this, which rigidly could be called a 2-3-2-1-2 but floats in the space somewhere between a 4-4-2 and a 3-5-2. The third defender you've shown there, I've moved up into defensive midfield as a very defensive yet very creative deep lying playmaker to link the play better. Before I came up with this I was actually using something similar to your 'Cobra' but found myself in a quandary. I like to use a short passing style with only selected members being allowed to use a longer passing range but I found in the 3-5-2 that it's a bit more incisive to play longer into the 2 strikers and if you use a short passing style then you end up with lots of easy possession with the 3 defenders but struggle to get the ball forward enough to cause a real threat in behind. So what i did was push the most central of the 3 into defensive midfield and have the diamond you have but with 2 strikers ahead of it. The only other difference I have is instead of wide players being in the midfield line I have them playing as wing backs but on full attack so they get forward like wingers and stretch the space high up but have a starting position slightly deeper for defensive cover. With all of this now I have over 60% possession in literally every game and even against the 'big teams' away from home rarely drop below 55%. Some games at home I've had up to 80% possession and 20-30 shots on goal. I think this formation could be slightly better than the 'Cobra' as it will control a match for you and possession is held in midfield rather than the defence and can be moved forward into strikers quicker. Although the play this I think maybe you need 2 world class defenders or atleast 2 defenders who are comfortable in the air and fairly quick over the ground (min. jump 15/16+, min. accel 13/14) because like you said when you press so high with the midfield all they have is the long ball and once you shut that down then they don't have much going forward. At the moment I've been playing this formation for about a season and been tinkering with the 3-5-2 for about 2 and a half seasons and I'm now in 2038 and what I've started to find is teams will start to go long in order to avoid the high press especially if they have a big man upfront and that can get a bit dangerous as I only sit 3 (CB's and DLP) and press the rest which leave me at times 3on2 or 3on3 which unless you have an equally beastly centre back then it ends up being a tough game. But overal great post but I still think you will come to the same conclusion I have after a while of playing the 3-5-2(1-1), especially if you watch alot of the games, too much possession with the back 3 and if they aren't top grade on the ball then can get slightly dangerous when teams want to press high themselves. Reply if you want me to add some screenshots from my current FM13 season (I'm waiting until xmas to get FM14 as a present to myself lol).

Superb post.

Results really dried up after about 10 games :/ still beating teams I really should be beating but a lot of the wins have turned into draws and more and more losses are creeping in. Could be due to fatigue (Dec/Jan/Feb - pretty much 2 games a week all through)

Going to give it a go with Southampton in my second season! First season with my own tactic finished 9th, 4th highest scorers in the league (impressive), 4th highest conceders in the league (not so impressive) hopefully this will leak less goals! I'll let you know how I get on!


First game went well, away to Norwich won 4-2

How do you train and untrain preferred moves? I've done it before but it just comes up as blank in the "Request from" dropdown...

Second game Arsenal at home won 2-0 and dominated the stats

(I can't take screenshots for some reason)

You need to go into your nations\normal folder and disable the config by naming it config_bak or some other name - save and reload the skin and the flag should be there.

The default install location is this

Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2013\graphics\pictures\logos\Metallic Logos\Nations\normal