December 9, 2009

Congratulations to betterthanburley who has won the contest to submit the best tactical tip for new users.

Our readers were asked “what is the best tactical tip you can give to a new FM2010 gamer in one sentence?” And betterthanburley’s response was considered the best by the Tactical Think Tank team:

The Think Tank team completely agreed with this assessment. You can only know how to improve a tactic if you know where it is going wrong. Very often, especially now that we have the new tactics creator, identifying problems is the hardest part of solving them. Once you have seen why a tactic is failing, it is usually very easy to take steps to rectify it - for instance, if you are being attacked through the middle a lot, the obvious answer is to play narrower. But until you take that step and identify the problem, it is impossible to solve.

Watch games in extended highlights and look for the flaws in your tactic. Those flaws will provide you with the right questions to ask as well as the answers. A top tactical tip, betterthanburley, and we hope you enjoy your copy of Rome: Total War!

Thank you for the great response!

betterthanburley’s entry may have won, but it was far from the only tip submitted. Thank you to everyone who got online and sent in their tips for new users. Even though they didn’t win, they are still incredibly useful for first-time Football Manager 10 players.

tomadeira advises new users to “just keep it simple and make minor changes throughout the games and seasons until you are more experienced”. This is a very logical approach. Making too many changes in a short amount of time causes no end of problems. First, it will most likely confuse your players and not allow them to settle into the starting line up. But more importantly, if you change 8 or 9 variables and then things get better/worse, how do you know what was the most important change? By experimenting with smaller changes and giving each a little time to assess their impact will, in the long run, teach you far more about the game than wildly fiddling with everything every five seconds.

For those looking to find the best tactic for their players, Machete82′s tip will most certainly help. “Keep an eye on the highlighted attributes for each role when setting up your tactics; this helps you find a role that suits each individual player the best and remember to check the player attributes when you make a substitution and adjust roles accordingly. It may sound simple, but this is what we were after with tips for new players. Make sure the players you pick can play the positions you are asking them to play.

The following tip is more for intermediate and advanced players than the others, but is sage advice nonetheless. “By using the wide-play instructions, you can ensure that your otherwise narrow and compact team opens up like a flower in attack as the fullbacks provide width in attack by hugging the touchline and the midfield stretches their defence by setting some to move into channels.” TheBetterHalf explains here how to use some of the new instructions to create more movement and bite in your attacking play. Getting wide and stretching opponents is the classic way to break them down.

Once again, thank you to all the people who submitted tips - some of them didn’t quite manage to keep themselves to one sentence, but they were great nuggets of information. We hope to run another competition in the near future. In the mean time, however, here is the full list of the other entries to the competition. Well done, betterthanburley, and stay tuned for the next Football Manager competition!

Submissions via the FM-Britain Twitter account

@ObtuseMusings: The best possible tip you can give is to make sure you haven’t put an outfield field in goal before the game.

@HanTot: Play all out attack cos those through balls will cut your defense to pieces no matter what

@grantsales: Balance is king. Just as many going forward in your formation as staying back.

@roomy: Be mindful of praise, ferocious in defeat, humble in victory, as complacency will lead to a string of bad results.

@Jakobz1: tactical tip ? quit ur day job.. ur gonna be hooked ! lol

@alexbrfc: The key to lower league success is direct passing, an experienced backbone (CB & CM) and lots of energetic youngsters.

@ExoShines: @FMBritain Thats easy: Sign Aguero.

Submissions via the FM-Britain Forums

theorem: Put two players on “pressing on goaler” setting for corner, ideally with good force and placement attributes, combined with pressing on goaler in Opposition Instructions !

Maradona: Use the tactic creator and follow his instructions.

moj: Listen to the backroom advice, they can fix all kinds of errors with your teams - the lack of a good physio, lack of tactical nous, etc.

arapho: If weak flanks, set up 4132 ,won championship with Bristol City

Litmanen: Don’t say I want to play 451 and I’m going to do that. But first analyse your team and make a formation that fits by the kind of players you have.

Spinsaweb: The tactic you create will only be as good as the ability of your players; don’t expect miracles.

paine: Don’t use a low defensive line if you have very weak defenders, it’s not good inviting your opponent to you, probably you won’t be able to cope with the pressure, so simply try to defend higher on the pitch, the risk/reward outcome should be on your side.

Andrii Sigthorsson: Creating your tactic(s) in a “balanced extreme contrast” really works well in FM 2010, if you know how to balance the opposing contrast.

bsy7575: maybe I’m an old fashioned guy but do not use tactics creator and instead use the old style tactics. I believe old style arrows, and personally tailored instructions still work better.

BoJules: Make incremental changes, wholesale changes in personnel and tactic from game to game will confuse your players.

zdlr: Watch the entire match on a normal speed until you are comfortable identifying indications that your tactic is working or failing.

mrhough: i think the best tactical tip is CLOSING DOWN, simply because you do to much you let players into the spaces as you try and close the ball down, you do it too little you invite preasure on to you and if you are against good attacking mid or wing players this is sucide.

miguel_garcia: Adjust individual settings on the fly based on AssMans feedbac/your observations in game e.g. your AM with very good long shots is having an off target day…reduce his long shots for this match, your central defender is misplacing lots of short passes (likely being closed down heavily) then increase his passing range.

miguel_garcia: If your lone striker is aerially challenged but has good poaching attributes play with inside forwards ideally in wide AMC roles and not in winger positions. Crosses will be pull back passes from inside the penalty box instead of non-winneable high balls.

Magnus978: When in doubt: Keep it Simple, Stupid!

kanukki: Attack is often the best form of defence, and defence the best form of attack: pull back against a weaker team to open up space and create chances on the counter-attack, and push forward to protect a lead by keeping the other team pinned in their own end.

LAM: Play wide and exploit the centre or play narrow and exploit the flanks.

jotape_BFC: If you play with two strikers put them on the flanks. they will win plenty of balls against the fullbacks and will do lots of passes on the back of the defenders. If you play with one or two attacking midfielders they will go up in the field and score lots of goals, with those passes coming from the two men upfront.

Death Ball: Beware: often the obviously right and the true right are opposed.

diimaan: “build a tactic for your team” than “build a team for particular tactic”