Great read Shrew, as always. I don't know whether I could play without attributes, it's a bold move and I'm quite a fearful FM player but I really like the approach you've been having so far. Maybe in FM 21. Good job on the second season, also I really liked your scounting funnel, that might be something I apply in FM 20 when I get it.
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Great read Shrew, as always. I don't know whether I could play without attributes, it's a bold move and I'm quite a fearful FM player but I really like the approach you've been having so far. Maybe in FM 21. Good job on the second season, also I really liked your scounting funnel, that might be something I apply in FM 20 when I get it.
Cheers chaodck. It's not actually too bad. You still get a decent idea of the attributes and quickly know what to look for in terms of stats and the octagon. Learning to trust my scouts more has been a challenge, I just wish FM had more and better statistics.
Shrew, just to let you know that Ac. Viseu just beat Chaves and are in the Portuguese cup quarter finals IRL.
Cheers Reiver, I saw that. I started following a couple of fan accounts on twitter and they were very nervous about it. Clearly taking inspiration from my FM save.
Season done and it's been a belter. Unlike last season, we were able to capitalise on our strong position around March and comfortably held off the challenges of Feirense and Belenenses to secure the title.
In the end it looked relatively straightforward as we finished 7 points clear of last year's third place finish. We only had two wobbles, one in January with a four-game winless run, including a 4-1 thumping from Porto in the Allianz Cup semi, and the second as the season's climax approached. Just as we needed one more win to seal the title, we struggled to a 2-2 draw at Mafra and then lost 1-0 to Benfica B - a match in which a broken leg to key centre back Félix Mathaus seemed to drag the team down.
That injury has seriously impacted our transfer planning for the new season as we now needed an additional first choice centre back. With the board giving us just £200k but almost trebling our wage budget, we were understandably focused on free transfers and loans. Having successfully extended the loan deals of 32-goal striker Pedro Mendes and 17-goal shadow striker Reinier, I was more than comfortable with our attacking options.
Key targets were left wing, centre back and defensive midfield where another loanee - Dino Berisovic of Hadjuk but born in Viseu - had excelled in our promotion run. Sadly his performances in Liga Pro convinced Hadjuk that he had a role back in their first team and I needed to replace him. One key learning from Berisovic's spell, however, was the hugely beneficial impact of his player traits - tries long range passes, tries killer balls often and, one I taught him, looks to switch ball to the opposite flank.
With the DLP sitting back as we attack, often in very deep positions, this ability to stretch the play and deviate from our usual short-passing game was invaluable. Other DLPs just didn't have this passing range and the 'keep it short, keep it simple' approach allowed teams to press us high and compress the space such that we would have quite a bit of sterile possession in our own half but no threat in behind. So much so that I am teaching my young DLP Schíro the same traits.
With the restricted attribute view and the low reputation of Académico giving us few options, I don't mind admitting that I found recruitment this summer incredibly challenging. In the end, I decided to prioritise the defensive positions and secured two first-choice centre-backs with Porto's Jorge Fernandes joining on a free and Frederico Venâncio costing us £160k after his successful loan spell last season.
Early signs are that it could prove a difficult year. We faced Portimonense, who were relegated last term, in the Allianz Cup and went out on penalties following a 3-3 draw. As I'd expected, the front three of Raposo, Reinier and Mendes is more than good enough to get goals at the top-level but our defensive frailties are concerning. I suspect that will prove to the story of the season.
At risk of jinxing the rest of our season, things have gone far too well at the start of our inaugural Liga NOS season not to post a quick update. We've had five games thus far and could conceivably have won all five but had to settle for three wins and a draw.
The opener at Vitória was probably our toughest game yet we still took the lead and had the better chances. Paços took around a million shots but again we created the better opportunities and this time took the win but undid all that fine work at Familicão when we dominated the game but just couldn't convert our superior chances then conceded to a late set-piece after the hosts were reduced to ten men.
The Beirão Derby followed and we absolutely dominated our bitterest rivals, not just winning 4-0 but clearly outperforming an established Liga NOS side.
Learning our lessons from the two previous away games, in which we'd performed well but fallen just short, I switched to a standard flat 4-1-4-1 (dropping the two AMCs back to MCs) for the trip to Vitória Setúbal and ran out deserved 2-0 winners - creating 6 clear cut chances.
So a rather unusual, short monthly update for me but thought I'd get in before the inevitable big league slump and fight against relegation. We're currently third.
The season has continued incredibly strongly, to the point where we've reached my points target of 35 (survival threshold) after just 21 games and now face something of a dilemma. Do we go hard for European football or use the rest of the season to experiment a little, preparing for next season in an attempt to solve the obvious flaws we have?
Up until the turn of the year, we were comfortably in 3rd and competing comfortably with all sides except Benfica, Boavista and bizarrely Moirerense - who are developing all the hallmarks of a bogey side after comprehensively turning us over in the league and Taça in back-to-back fixtures.
The festive period, however, was very poor for us - particularly defensively. Our previously solid defence abandoned us completely against Sporting and then, despite going 3-0 up inside 20 minutes, against Porto. Both are understandable results against the giants of Portuguese football but our morale was shot and shoddy defending saw defeats to Vitoría and Paços follow. We appear to have halted that particular slide but it is abundantly clear that our defence, so solid against all but the top 5 or 6 sides, is catastrophic against quality opposition.
A rethink is required - although whether this is personnel, shape, mentality or instructions is yet to be seen. For the really big sides, I tend to drop my two AMCs back into MC to form a standard 4-1-4-1 precisely to offer the defence some additional protection against sides I expect to have more of the ball. This clearly hasn't worked.
With the rest of the season a 'free hit', I am tempted to experiment in the away games with a better defensive system but fear that it may only be required for the three big sides and therefore it's pointless testing it against the likes of Maritimo or Santa Clara. It's long been my plan to use the next transfer window to strengthen the fullback positions but I'm concerned that we're going to lose so much of our attacking prowess over the summer that I'll need to prioritise forward positions. Reinier and Pedro Mendes, my loan stars from Flamengo and Sporting respectively, will be returning to their parent clubs and I have nothing approaching the same quality on the bench. I did try to bring in Cosimo Marco Da Graca, one of my favourite FM players, on a free from Juventus but sadly Paços outbid me.
I suspect I won't be given the funds to adequately strengthen both areas and we're also in dire need of some new options out wide - which is why I wouldn't be too upset to miss out on European football this year. I have no idea what the finances are like in the Europa Conference but I suspect they aren't great and we just don't have the squad depth to deal with the league, two cups and a European run. I've toyed with the idea of asking the board to build a new stadium in an effort to build some long-term financial muscle but that too is a risk. It might just be a case of two or three seasons of grinding out slow improvements.
Which is why I was so tempted when Braga offered me an interview for their vacant managerial position. A quick look at the squad made it abundantly clear how much easier it would be to progress there and turn this save into a semi-journeyman effort. I decided against it, though. I do like the journeyman style but this is a one-club save and if grind we must, then grind we will.
We're just about holding onto the tail of the European places but this season really is dribbling out into a mess borne of defensive frailty. And what's worse is that I can't fathom out the reason why.
Our form before the loss to Sporting:
Versus our form after:
We have not kept a single clean sheet since the turn of the year as opposed to 8 in the first half of the season. And whilst heavy defeats to Porto, Benfica and Sporting are to be expected, we've also conceded three or more against Vitoría Guimarães, Paços, Rio Ave, Maritimo and Chaves. Really, really poor.
The personnel are the same, the system is the same, training is the same and - thanks to modest expectations - our morale has not plummeted. The tactics analysis points very clearly at a huge increase in 'placed shots' conceded from crosses so it's possible that the AI has simply identified wide areas as a particular weakness in my system and simply looking to exploit that? Otherwise I'm at a complete loss and, really, just want the season to end.
Looking ahead, I've secured a few Bosman transfers including a new inverted wingback for the right back slot, a 'keeper and some back-up options for further forward. Tactical amendments have made no difference thus far and we're still scoring a respectable amount so it's clear that the absolute priority must be to sort out the defence.
An incredible read there Shrew! Loved your work on the dugout and I will definitely be stealing some of these ideas for my own save. Keep it up and great to see you back
Was indeed a bit of a wobbly end to the season, EA. We ended up in 9th which would've been an excellent result at the start of the season but given our form up to Christmas...
Will hopefully post something later but recruitment over the summer has been a massive struggle and I had no luck improving the defensive record whilst maintaining the hybrid 4-3-3 shape. Therefore, I've switched up to a more standard 4-1-4-1 that retains the basic principles of high tempo, short passing, playing out from the back with wingers who stretch the play.
It's led to another excellent start to the season which hopefully we can this time maintain.
Last season started incredibly well and then died off in a post-Christmas slump which saw us end our first Liga NOS campaign in a very creditable 9th placed finish. Whilst bitter rivals Tondela were relegated, we also outperformed established top-tier sides like Marítimo and Setúbal, however there was a tinge of disappointment when we'd spent a considerable part of the season in the European spots including a 6-week stint in 3rd.
The problems were not hard to spot. We scored 55, meaning only Os Três Grandes outscored us, but conceded the same amount - the 6th poorest defence in the league and more than relegated Santa Clara. Defence was definitely the issue and was the focus of my work over the summer. Initially I wanted to focus on the recruitment side of the defence but the statistics for our preferred centre-half pairing of Federico Venâncio and Jorge Fernandes were excellent. A look through the goals analysis pointed to a very obvious problem - we were conceding heavily to 'placed shots' from crosses. Reviewing a number of matches against supposedly weaker opposition, it was clear that our inverted wingbacks were not performing up to scratch and the opposition's midfielders were finding far too much room on the edge of the box. With the hybrid 4-3-3 using a DM and two AMCs through the middle, it was a pretty easy decision to experiment with a more traditional 4-1-4-1 in the summer friendlies.
The tactical adjustment was supplemented with a few key signings, specifically defensively with the acquisition of 'keeper Ismael Lekbab on a free from Varzim...
... and, perhaps most importantly, former Arsenal youth player Josh Dasilva on a free from Brentford.
I retrained Dasilva to fulfil the right inverted wingback role and he has been exceptional - providing both defensive stability and a creative passing option from deep.
With the loss of our attacking loanees Reinier and Pedro Mendes back to their parent clubs, I was concerned that we would fix the defensive issues only to become toothless going forward but, with the limited budget, decided that the key to success should be strengthening the weakest link in the chain and that was obviously at the back.
On reflection, it seems like I chose wisely.
Our defensive record of 10 conceded in 17 games is the best in the league and gets even better when you consider that we let in 3 in a shocking loss at home to Marítimo, 3 in a last gasp 4-3 win over bogey team Moreirense and 2 in a 4-2 victory over Chaves. The league table is somewhat skewed by the games in hand and the fact we have yet to play Benfica or Porto but we really have to be very happy with that.
The poor performances against teams in the bottom three give me some concern regarding the longevity of our approach but, for now, we've settled on a more standard 4-1-4-1 albeit keeping the key themes of the hybrid 4-3-3 - those being playing out from the back, high tempo, short passing, packing the midfield with IWBs and proper wingers to stretch the play.
Indeed one of the key successes of the tactic has been the performance of our wingers, or more specifically the right wing. The idea is to isolate the winger on each side against their fullback or wide midfielder, then rely on pace and trickery to beat their man. Hélder Ferraira, a summer signing from Paços on a free, has excelled in doing just that. Sadly, his end product is a bit of the "Allan Saint Maximin" just now but he's certainly on the right track.
Looking forward, I expect us to drop back somewhat during the second half of the season - although hopefully not as much as we did last term. European qualification is an absolute must from this position and holding onto third to qualify for the Champions League playoffs would be amazing. I've already identified the 'weak links' that need strengthening for next term and arranged Bosman moves for centre back Tomás Fernández from Gimnasia, Bruno Paz from Sporting to be retrained into a left inverted wingback and Afonso Sousa from Porto to fulfil the runner / scorer from midfield role. The next targets are left wing and up front.
To help us with that, our scouting network continues to grow and I've now convinced the board to allow us 11 scouts. The next stage of the recruitment policy begins now as we target countries with value and set up affiliate schemes from clubs in those countries. To start that particular ball rolling, we managed to land a beauty of a feeder club in the Puskás Akadémia.
Hungary is undoubtedly an undervalued market for top talent and the link with Puskás not only gives us first options on prospects from their own excellent system but also boosts our scouting knowledge of the whole country. This almost paid off immediately as I spotted a phenomenal centre-half at MTK but lost out to a last minute Napoli bid.
The next targets for affiliates are Angola and Peru. The idea is to concentrate on these three markets plus the Portuguese lower leagues in an effort to overcome our enormous financial disadvantage.
I'm particularly enjoying the recruitment side of this save. With the restricted attribute skin and the lack of funds available at the club, it's a real challenge to identify the right players and it's incredibly satisfying when it works. For many of us who have played FM for years, the game does become rather repetitive and formulaic, so if you're interested in having a go with the restricted attributes skin you can find it on WkdSould's website here.
Really enjoying this, Shrew. You've made the jump to the top division almost seamlessly - something which I remember struggling with for a few years, particularly being unable to break the big three for about five or six years.
What I'm particularly interested in, given how we've both removed the attributes, is your recruitment. I'm somewhat struggling to find players who have my pre-requisite attributes (currently only anticipation, decisions and concentration) and, because I can't see the whole '8-12' if they aren't scouting fully, seem to be missing out on scouting prospects.
Thanks Ben. The major disadvantage to the coloured boxes is that there's no immediate indication that it is a range rather than a fully scouted result, as you say. So essentially I don't trust it until I've got 100% scouting knowledge of a player.
Even then, as you say, it's difficult to know with any confidence regarding specific attributes - but then I guess that was the point of setting up the skin in this way.
Similar to you I think, I would traditionally have ignored my scouts and looked at the attributes for the most part. Now I tend to trust my scouts a lot more and only get 'interested' in a player if they get 70+ recommendation ratings. This then triggers the next stage of the recruitment process.
I wrote above about the scouting 'funnel' using multiple shortlists and a player's progression from Default (~200 players) > Possible Targets (~50 players) > Top Targets (~10 players)
A player can only move into the top targets list once I have had two scouts take an extended look at him. Even better, I look to take players on trial (even if they are contracted). I've also set up a swathe of custom views on the player search screen to help me look at key statistics for each role profile in the team - so where I can use scouts that have poor attributes but knowledge of new leagues, I can at least 'reveal' new players and get them into the stats database, then ask the better scouts to go take a look.
All of this makes it very hard to scout large numbers of players or leagues, hence the decision to focus on a few key markets - preferably those with value and where no-one else is looking. Hungary seemed a good shout once I had the option to affiliate with Puskás, Angola are (outside of Brazil and the saturated market) probably the best Portuguese-speaking option, whilst I have a soft spot for Peru.
I really like the look of the stats graphics you've been using but I'm afraid I'm not quite that fancy!
Thanks Ben. The major disadvantage to the coloured boxes is that there's no immediate indication that it is a range rather than a fully scouted result, as you say. So essentially I don't trust it until I've got 100% scouting knowledge of a player.
Even then, as you say, it's difficult to know with any confidence regarding specific attributes - but then I guess that was the point of setting up the skin in this way.
Similar to you I think, I would traditionally have ignored my scouts and looked at the attributes for the most part. Now I tend to trust my scouts a lot more and only get 'interested' in a player if they get 70+ recommendation ratings. This then triggers the next stage of the recruitment process.
I wrote above about the scouting 'funnel' using multiple shortlists and a player's progression from Default (~200 players) > Possible Targets (~50 players) > Top Targets (~10 players)
A player can only move into the top targets list once I have had two scouts take an extended look at him. Even better, I look to take players on trial (even if they are contracted). I've also set up a swathe of custom views on the player search screen to help me look at key statistics for each role profile in the team - so where I can use scouts that have poor attributes but knowledge of new leagues, I can at least 'reveal' new players and get them into the stats database, then ask the better scouts to go take a look.
All of this makes it very hard to scout large numbers of players or leagues, hence the decision to focus on a few key markets - preferably those with value and where no-one else is looking. Hungary seemed a good shout once I had the option to affiliate with Puskás, Angola are (outside of Brazil and the saturated market) probably the best Portuguese-speaking option, whilst I have a soft spot for Peru.
I really like the look of the stats graphics you've been using but I'm afraid I'm not quite that fancy!
So many good points there, thanks Shrew!
What concerns me so much from the 'community' is seeing screenshots of players they've signed and they haven't even uncovered all of their attributes or personality. Scouting to 100% is badly under-utilised I think.
I really like the skin but I am feeling that, for the first year ever, that it's not quite what I want it to be. I might message wkdsoul and see what he can do. I want attribute boxes for staff too, definitely as well as a way of changing the panels to fit the octagon and pro's and con's on the player overview (I have a laptop with quite low res) so I can truly see a big picture at first glance.
In terms of scouting - I 100% agree that it's a more realistic but fantastic way to go and I'll be looking to re-address my own team. I particularly like the areas of focus and will look at doing something similar - the natural links are Mexico (club heritage) and Paraguay (manager nationality) but the latter doesn't have a league to add. Have you added the Hungarian league now?
For the second season in a row, our form nose-dived after Christmas and, for the second season in a row, the fault mostly lies with the defence.
It's not immediately clear to me what the issue is. Perhaps our pre / early season training is sub-optimal but we don't tend to have fitness issues late-season, perhaps it's an issue with mental attributes but we always tend to be above-average for the league in Determination? My teams always tend to lag behind the norm in Leadership so perhaps there's something there but our influential players and team captain are all regulars throughout the season with good leadership skills.
Whatever it is, we still made clear progression from last year and will contest European football for the first time in the club's history with entry into the European Conference League courtesy of a 5th placed league finish.
We led the league for much of the first half of the season though, in truth, this was somewhat misleading due to the games in hand for the big three teams. Despite the slump in defensive performance, we still maintained the second best defence in the league and improved our goals against column by 27 on the previous season, effectively halving the number of goals conceded. Understandably, the attacking prowess suffered somewhat as we scored 12 fewer goals but it is clear that this run of form in the final months of the season was the deciding factor.
Taking just two wins from the final thirteen games of the season is relegation form, but thanks to the superb results in the first half of the season we held on for European football. A result which, alongside a tripling of our sponsorship income, has boosted the bank balance enormously and allowed some manoeuvring in the transfer market - both to strengthen the first team and deepen the squad options for a campaign on four fronts.
Again my transfer policy is based on strengthening the weak links first and I identified these in order of priority as:
Left inverted wingback - previous first choice now 32 and declining quickly
Runner / scorer from midfield - lack of product from current options
Centre back - back-ups to first choice pair were very weak
Left wing - consistent failure to perform since selling Lucas in season 1
Striker - complete lack of back-up to mitigate against lack of form
Again, scouting the B teams and unders for the big three paid off as two key positions were filled by players being freed from Porto and Sporting. Afonso Sousa as the runner from midfield (priority 2):
And Bruno Paz from Sporting, to be retrained as the left inverted wingback (priority 1)
Meanwhile, we brought in Tomás Fernández from Argentina as a solid centre-back option to challenge Venâncio and near namesake Jorge Fernandes. (priority 3)
There seems to be a glut of Argentinians in my save and I brought in two others to strengthen priority 5 with Federico Vietto on a free from Racing Club as the first-choice option and then, for only the second time, spending genuine money on a player with 'the next Gabriel Batistuta' costing me £100k from Argentinos Jrs.
Finally, the left wing position has been a constant pain in the backside with a whole series of players failing to produce the goods on a regular basis. The player I really wanted to bring in was João Lucas from Santa Clara but he decided to join Leixões, who finished 11th last season, for lower wages and less important squad role - a frustrating indication that our reputation is still lagging our performances somewhat. With no other obvious options available, I've lucked out with Benfica making Umaro Embaló available for loan right at the end of the window. He's a player I identified right back in season 1 as an option to keep an eye on and he should, even with no fewer than eight player traits, prove a big success.
Domestically, we've had a sticky start to our fifth season, the third in Liga NOS, but we've comfortably dispensed with Olexandriya of Ukraine in the European Conference, qualifying for the group stages and bringing in another £2.7m. Ideally, I want the board to sanction a new stadium with our new-found income but the game still thinks that we're not filling out the supposedly 15k seater Estádio fo Fontelo, despite us regularly selling out the proportion of the stadium which is actually available on match-days (5,117).
Despite this frustration, progress continues to be strong and my main remaining concerns being tactically - specifically regarding the runner / scorer position in the centre of midfield where I just cannot get the player to get forward enough. That, and the rest of the tactic, is perhaps a topic for another time.
Season five, our third in Liga NOS, has been a bit of a shocker domestically. In previous seasons, we've relied on our good pre-xmas form to give us 9th and then 5th-placed finishes. This season, we're 12th at the end of the January transfer window with our league form erratic at best. And, most ominously, it looks like we're headed for another late-season slump which could put us at serious danger of relegation and risk my job.
The immediate problem would, again, seem to be the defence as we have conceded 24 in 19 games whilst scoring 25. With my preference to prioritise clean-sheets then it simply isn't good enough that we've only had 6 shutouts from 20 games thus far, and have on three separate occasions conceded 3 or more.
Poor defending has similarly seen us knocked out of both domestic cups with a shocking 4-0 home loss to Braga in the first group stage game effectively ending any hopes of progression in the Allianz Cup, and a creditable if frustrating 3-2 loss to Sporting in the Taça quarter finals. In contrast, we've been excellent in our first stint in European football - comfortably dispatching with Ukranian side Olexandriya in the Europa Conference playoffs and having little trouble winning our group of Panathanaikos, CSKA-Sofia and the might of Aberdeen.
A combination of that European football and improved sponsorship has seen our bank balance grow nicely, to the point where I now have £500k transfer budget and have surged to 4th bottom of the league's wage bill table. And yet that domestic form...
The board simply want a top-half finish and are currently content with my performance but it is nevertheless a concern, not least because I can't figure out what the problem is.
The tactical systems employed, for which I should do a separate post soon, are, to my mind, sound and the personnel at my disposal has never been stronger. So I am somewhat stumped. I've considered a wholesale change to our approach - push more players into advanced attacking positions and play more direct - but I want to maintain what I see as the club DNA that has been built up over the last four seasons. I also considered a massive clear-out of the squad but it's been carefully guided to its current state and, with our reputation still very low, I'm entirely unconvinced that we'd be able to convince better options to join the club anyway.
It may be just a case that I have to accept that this is a transition season with our first European 'adventure', take the opportunity to ditch some of the older players and bring through the replacements.
Apologies, this post has been somewhat of an aimless ramble but I'm pretty much using it to articulate my thought process on what I need to do next.
I've been following your save on twitter Shrew and joined you on here, even joining you with the coloured boxes which I'm loving.
You've had a great run to get such a little club into Europe - albeit the "newly formed even diddier than the Europa League cup"... not sure that name will catch on? There are some golden tips in here such as your scouting funnel it really has been a fantastic read.
Post up your tactics and your major areas for conceding, maybe even a gif of your most common way of conceding if you've got time. Or just talk us through it. Somebody might be able to see something that you can't. Don't let it dishearten you though, it sounds like you're still doing OK and midweek football for the first time must be a factor.
Ok, seems like a good idea. Actually started posting something, then I managed to close the window and delete it all. Wonderful. Will post something tomorrow
Last Edit: Jan 12, 2020 21:05:42 GMT by shrewnaldo
A disappointing season, it has to be said. In every previous season, we've seen steady progress and moved up the leagues. 3rd in LigaPro > 1st in LigaPro > 9th in Liga NOS > 5th in Liga NOS.
So it's incredibly disappointing to face a third season in the top tier with significant regression on both of our previous campaigns in the top flight. Having never been higher than 6th, we slumped to a 10th placed finish that means we lose out on another season of continental football. In truth, it may well have been that qualifying for the Europa Conference precipitated the slump in league form and it wouldn't surprise me if this was coded into the game in some way. Yet our European form was, perhaps, the sole positive in an otherwise uninspiring year.
The domestic cups were also, once again, disappointing as we went out of the Allianz in the group stages and lost out to Sporting in the quarters of the Taça. In Europe, we had a real good go at Sevilla in the Second Knockout Round but came up just short - a real shame as I think we could have taken all of the other sides left in the competition.
Looking for the root cause of our slump in league form, it's really not too difficult to pin the blame on our defence. Compared to last season when we finished 5th, we actually scored 4 more goals (47 v 43) but conceded 17 more (45 v 28), conceding 2 or more in 13 separate matches and keeping only 9 clean sheets - earning 2.1 points per clean sheet.
Looking at my 'Defensive Stats' view filtered to just the defensive players, then it would appear that the key players for ensuring defensive stability are, based on the average goals conceded per 90, Tomás Fernández and Josh Dasilva. Frederico Venâncio, club captain, looks to have passed the apex of his career and has started his decline at 31 - with a number of mistakes, including those costing us goals, and a poor ratio of successful headers (although I think this is adversely affected by the number of attacking headers he contests at corners).
Once again, therefore, my summer recruitment will be focussing on defensive personnel and primarily a centre back partner for the excellent Fernández. I'm also looking at the DM, where Henrique Jocú has held down the DLP role but I think could be a key area to strengthen. Meanwhile, our superb goalkeeper Ismael Lekbab - signed on a free from Varzim two seasons ago - is attracting significant interest from top tier sides across the big European leagues and may need to be replaced.
I'm also considering the requirement for a tactical tweak and I'm in the process of drafting a tactical post to see if any of you good people will be able to spot improvements to my tactic. Until then, I've got lots of shopping to get on with, particularly as the board have - for the first time - given me a seven figure transfer budget to use.
Long term followers of mine will know that, for some time, I've had a plan for the ideal way that I'd like my teams to play. This all started back on FM14 when I got seriously hacked off with what I consider to be the worst game of the series and went looking for some fun in tactical innovation. This failed but you can read about my initial plans here - footballmanagerveteran.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/a-tactical-vision-to-re-ignite-my-joy-of-fm/
With the supposed introduction of inverted wingbacks in FM15, I revisited the idea with a slightly modified base formation (https://footballmanagerveteran.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/fm15-time-to-revisit-the-tactical-vision-that-failed/) yet, discovering that inverted wingbacks had been introduced only as a broken placeholder which changed nothing from the standard wingback (thanks Miles) that attempt also failed.
My waning interest in FM meant I didn't really try it again until a journeyman save on FM18 when the basic principles of the approach were sown throughout a career spanning Ukraine, Turkey, Spain, Holland and France - with the stint at ADO Den Haag seeing the truest attempt at its use.
With the decision to commit to a long-term development save on FM20, I thought that would go hand-in-hand with imposing a tactical 'identity' on Académico and what better identity to impose than the one I would most like to see played at any club I support.
The idea is painfully basic. In defence, I want to have a solid, compact structure with a DM protecting the pocket in front of the defence - so a 4-1-4-1 shape in defence. And in attack I want that to push into a shape that keeps the DM deep as an out ball, stretches the play with two players staying very wide and a diamond shape through the middle for solidity and ball retention. So, in simple terms, 4-1-4-1 in defence and 2-3-1-4 in attack. Easy, right?
Wibble and wobble... Or wobble and wibble really.
With the advent of actual, real, fully-functioning inverted wingbacks this has been more than possible to implement and I've been having an awful lot of fun creating a medium- to high-pressing system that plays out from the back and tries to play front-foot attractive football. Followers of this thread will know that we have been moderately successful in doing so - achieving promotion from LigaPro in our second season then finishing 9th and 5th in our first two top-tier campaigns.
However, season 5 was a real let-down with the biggest struggle being the defence. So here I am trying to articulate the problems such that I can work out how to fix them...
The FM20 implementation of the idea has manifested itself thus: ... and I'm really quite pleased with most of it. Going forward, we create enough chances without being overly prolific. I had previously attempted a version which used AMCs rather than MCs. This implemented the attacking and pressing play perfectly, exactly how I wanted it. However, it led to conceding a number of goals like this:
Once the opposition were established in the attacking phase, the AMCs would not track the opposition MCs or drop back to protect the edge of the defence - a particular problem when the opposition attacked the flanks and we conceded quite a few goals like the one above.
At the start of the save, I set a specific target to prioritise clean sheets - partly through personal preference but also because, on average, a clean sheet will earn 2.5 points per game. The above represented too obvious a defensive risk and thus the AMCs dropped back to MC. That worked a treat last season as we conceded just 28 goals but clean sheets have been increasingly rarer as time has passed.
The assist analysis implies some weakness to crossing and set pieces but nothing sensationally unbalanced.
So I've just picked a few games at random and gone back through the goals conceded to see if there are any obvious patterns or faults.
No words.
Our otherwise excellent 'keeper has fucked up, the ball's bounced off their centre-back then our centre-back and gone in. Great. Analyse that.
Ok, listen. Our 'keeper is actually really good. He's just missed the cross for the first one and dived the wrong way for this one. It could happen to anyone, right?
Tactically, our pressure on the passer here is really poor and we're holding too high a line when there's no pressure on the pass. Plus our DM (#4) has failed to spot the danger of their AM doubling up on our left centre-back and is poorly positioned. So, for me, there's a potential lesson here to drop the line? Maybe.
Here we have something which is probably a bit more useful. 2-0 up away at Académica in the cup, they're chasing the game late on. They've worked the ball left-to-right across midfield and then found an overlapping rightback with my leftback holding a more central position against the AMR. My left winger, set to W(A), has not tracked back. It's possible that had he been set to W(S) then he'd have been more inclined to pay attention to the runner. Having said that, it's an excellent pass to him from a player that has found a large area of space in front of my defence with all three of my central midfielders pulled out of position to close down Tavares.
So there could be two lessons here - if we're protecting a lead then we could look at:
reduce the pressing intensity to discourage the kind of reckless closing down seen here from our three midfielders and try to maintain a solid shape that is more difficult to play through
change the wingers to a support function to encourage some defensive discipline
set the wingers to specifically man-mark the fullbacks
Other than that, I'm afraid I'm struggling to see patterns. There are a number of set pieces where we've been poor, a host of goals conceded to teams like Porto and Benfica who are just better than us and the rest I've just put down to my players not being very good and requiring an upgrade. Also, sometimes you just get fucked over:
This summer, we've invested heavily in the defence as a key priority - including our first seven-figure signing as a 6'8" Hungarian centre back, Tamás Lang, joins from feeder club Puskás Académia. I'm hoping that, given time and some more team training on defensive and set-piece schedules, we can improve the defensive performance.
If any of you fine people think you've seen something I'm missing, then I'm all ears / eyes. Ta!
Last Edit: Jan 17, 2020 22:05:21 GMT by shrewnaldo
The 4 midfield roles all playing attack duty with a positive team mentality. Individual mentality of your midfielders becomes very attacking. Seeing your full back exposed on the last clip is no surprise.
Couple more things. I would say you were playing too high, again as evidenced in last 2 clips. On 'positive' the d-line will already be on a slider value of something like 14 or 15. You're pushing that number up with a higher d-line. My current thinking (and this is just me) is that the lower line TIs are meant more for the aggressive strategies like Positive & Attack, whereas the push up instruction is more so that you don't get too deep on defensive strategies.
Lastly, I'm not a fan of tight marking these days on any mentality higher than cautious. Again on low strategies I think you want to cramp teams for space in every sense, shape and marking. On higher strategies I don't want my men in such close proximity to my opponents. You may be thinking too much here about pressing, gegenpressing etc. Forget that, get positionally better.