Filed under: Tactical | Tags: flamboyant, FML, football, live, manager, tactics, tt&f, wenger
Wenger would be proud of my team, when biographies came in we where “applauded by pundits for raising the youth of the future”, some tactics skills later and my kids are playing beautiful flamboyant football that makes us one of the most exciting teams to watch.
Its funny, im not a tactician, i never have been. But after reading bits of the tt&f on the FM09 tactics forum, i started to implement stuff that id read about and wow did my results improve! So i went one step further and started to grab tactics skills that would allow me to implement tt&f tactics properly. The result? Flamboyant attacking football, more clear cut chances, and plenty of goals.
This has really brought FML even more to life than ever and im loving it even more now than when i first started playing a year and half ago. TT&F FTW!
Filed under: General, Tactical, Transfers | Tags: FML, football, live, manager, review, season
General Summary
Well, the season for the youthful Warriors is complete, we’ve had ups and downs, players in and out, we’ve horror stories and we’ve had legends put down there markers for the future. Its been, interesting.
AFA Qualifier One
The league is now over and we know can announce my immature side have finished in 7th place in a 16 team league, not bad for a bunch of kids. Next season they’ll be needing to take it to the next level though as we’ll be in the top flight! The club was sitting in the top five teams until the final 3 games (which we lost all of), I blame it all on an injury to my defensive midfielder Sunny who picked up a injury in a youth match which ruled him out of the league run in.
Whilst Fabianski did let in quite a few goals, it was to be expected with such a inexperienced back four in front of him. Defender Martin Caceres definitely made a impact though as he was our top scorer with 12 goals in the league, it was a shame striker Adrian didn’t really get going until near the end of season.
AFA Cup
The club scrapped thru the first round by the skin of there teeth with a 3-2 away win, but the youngsters lacked the experience and consistency needed in the cup as they got dumped out in the 2nd round 3-1.
AFA U21 Cup & U21 League
Whilst we pretty much average in the youth league, we did grab a 4-2 victory in the youth cup final against a team who won the Youth League, AFA Cup & AFA Qualifier 2. Adrian shone in the cup as he grabbed 3 goals to finish joint top scorer, shame he didn’t perform so well in the league.
The Future of the Elite Five
Fabianski – Whilst not having played awesome, he has been impressive behind a shaky back four. The future looks bright for the polish keeper, as the back for gain experience I expect so will his performances.
Current Ability 4/Potential Ability 4
Martin Caceres – Hes been phenomenal at corners, and works so hard for the team during matches, hes helped stop some of bigger names in the gameworld despite his age. A legend in the making at the club.
Current Ability 4/Potential Ability 5
Sunny – Has had his work cut out in protecting the defence but hes reacted to the challenge greatly, has defiantly been the beating heart at the centre of my team, lets hope it beats stronger with time.
Current Ability 4.5/Potential Ability 5
Martin Galvan – Not yet up to standard of first team football he has been learning his craft in my U17s, recently added him to my U18s. Whilst he is young and undeveloped he has show great potential and glimpse of what to expect from him in the future. One thing im not going to be doing is rushing him into the senior squad.
Current Ability 1.5/Potential Ability 5
Adrian – Started slow in my team, tho he looks good on paper and full of potential he still didn’t seem to have the experience or confidence for first team football. Tho this could have been down in some part to his striker partners being loanees. Towards the end of the season he really was showing some great touches of class to grab goals, I really do expect great things from him next season.
Current Ability 3/Potential Ability 4
Ones To Watch
Next season we’ll be seeing a “no loan in” policy at the club, what this means is I’ll be pushing my own talent into action rather than bringing in players on loan. Now that we’re in the top flight I don’t need to have the best team available and im sure the players I do have have the ability to succeed, some more than others…
Nebojsa Gavrilovic – alongside Caceres who was partnered much of last season by loaned in centrebacks.
Michael Muller – What a youngster, all the last season he quitly played his matches and got on with the job in hand, and still a young pup at just 15.
Robson Andrade – A lot of the time Andrade has been eclipsed by another Brazilian kid at the club, but his talents haven’t gone un noticed by me, improvement has been steady and I expect he will continue to dazzle everytime he comes off the bench.
Andre Augusto da Silva – The coaching staff believe hes ready for regular first team football, so that’s what hes been getting for the 2nd half of last season. Next season I’ll be looking for him to share his spot in the starting IX with Andrade tho.
Terry Dixon – Was a regular in the team at the start of last season, but when we ditched the AMC role for a more defensive postion Dixon was relegated to the bench. Hes been catching my eye though with some goals off the bench in the business end of the league, next season im sure I will feature him regulary again.
Roberto Grimaudo – Next season will be his big chance to impress, I’ll be pairing either him or Dixon alongside Adrian in our senior matches, its make or break time for the lad. The mails from the training pitch have been impressive, lets hope next season he’ll be grabbing the goals to underline that.
Expected Starting XI & Formation
I cant see any reason why we’d be differing much from last seasons 4-3-3/Diamond Hybrid, its great defensively I maybe looking at making a few attacking tweaks but the shape should stay the same.
GK – Lukasz Fabianski
WBL – Majd Younis
DC – Nebojsa Gavrilovic
DC – Martin Caceres
WBR –Michael Muller
DMC – Sunny
MC – Christian Mendez
MC – Robson Andrade/ Andre Augusto da Silva
MC – Branislav Yankovic
FC – Roberto Grimauldo/Terry Dixon
FC – Adrian
Transfer Targets
Whilst im not going to give away any transfer targets, i am taking a look at the wage auctions and will be trying to bring in some experienced U21 players.
WBR – Whilst Muller is playing ok in the position im still looking at bringing in a more experienced fullback as at 15 i feel he i still to young, hopefuly i can grab someone with good corner taking as we lack a good corner magician.
MC – In midfield im looking for some to thread that killer ball to my forwards as this is one of the current midfields weaknesses, them lacking in ability and experience could be the reason why my attack has been fairly impotent.
FC - Whilst we have lots of potential waiting to partner first choice striker Adrian, it wont harm my teams prospects if i dip into the market for another striker, at worst they could be sold at the end of the season for a profit if i pick the right players.
Filed under: Tactical
When I picked my team last Thursday I decided to go for a nice simple default 4-3-3 Attacking. Personaly I cant make tactics from scratch so its default all the way and id heard that theyd been improved a lot and people where getting a lot of success with them.
As you can see from the player list ive got a lot of multi talented players who can playing in attacking midfield and the wings. The main reason for this and the 4-3-3 was because it has great scope for rearranging players to suit playing against other formations. For example if a team has a narrow formation I’ll bring the two wide forwards back like this so I can try and exploit the space down the wings.
If a team is using a AMC I’ll move my MC to DMC to give is extra cover. One of the hardest formations that I come up against is the 5 man midfield, theres two ways of countering this but both have mixed results I find. When up against the 3-5-2 I switch my players about to look like this…
The idea is that in essence the I’ll have 7 man midfield and should be able to out number the opposition. When I come up against the 2nd main type of 5 man midfield of 4-5-1 I switch the players to look like this…
I was hoping to not learn any tactic skills whatsoever, but I keep coming up against teams using the corner exploit, so im now on way way to learning the offensive and defensive corners skill. Which to me is rather annoying that the only way of stopping a known exploit is to spend a few days getting the relevant tactical skills, surely this should be auto unlocked from the start if it’s the only way to fill in the hole?
Its no surprise really that the top team is using the corner exploit to great effect, I’ll let you guess who is challenging the goalie and who is attacking the near post. Hopefuly by tonight my team will be exploiting corners too.
Filed under: Tactical | Tags: acosta, banega, drobny, emanuelson, ferronetti, FML, fofana, football, Footballmanagerlive, gladiators, jankulovski, live, manager, matusiak, mitsubishi, nani, rafinha, rybka
Olexandr Rybka – My 21 year old goalkeeper, a potential superstar. I promoted him to starting keeper midway through season two and hes been performing ever since.
Rafinha – Right fullback, awesome 23 year old who is a consistant performer who always gets over a 7 rating. Determined hard worker who uses his pace and acceleration to bomb down the wings. On huge wages of 37k and worth every penny.
Marek Jankulovski – Veteren Left back, may be getting on a bit at 32 years old but is still a awesome player. Hes a new signing who cost me a cool £2,200,000, i like to think of him as Rafinhas big brothers as they are both very similiar players.
Damiano Ferronetti – A solid centre back, with all the right attributes to play at the heart of defence, a new signing from Nottingham Forest for £1,500,000. Still only 24 so he’s still improving so the world is this lads oyster.
Vaclav Drobny – Massive lad at 6′3″ not the greatest player in the world, but he complements Damiano. Having said that his positioning and anticipation stands him head and shoulders above most centrebacks.
Urby Emanuelson – A natural left back, who after the sale of Essien will take up the defensive midfielder roll. Played a bit part last season as deputy to left back Capauno, this is his chance to shine. Tho he will be playing out of position.
Ever Banega – Needs no introduction, argentine potential superstar, veryday i get bids for this lad. Now with essien gone it shoudl give him the chance to prove himself.
Lauturo Acosta – Superfast attacking midfielder, performs season in season out probably the outright star of my team. Hes about to have his contract renewed and will be going from £3k to £16k, worth every penny i say!
Ismael Beko Fofana – Left winger whos still young and learning his trade, hes only just ahead of Aquino for the left wing spot. Actually plays for Charlton in real life.
Nani – Everyone knows him its Manchester Uniteds winger. His natural position is left wing but he will be playing on the right for me. Technicaly miles better than Fofana, but not as pacey as the oung charlton player. Swapped for Essien at the end of the season.
Radoslaw Matusiak – Pretty average striker, but as everyone knows in gameworld knows, even average strikers are hard to find! Signed to replace starlet Lupoli who was sold for £4,250,000, and only cost £1,000,000!
Recently on FML theres been alot of talk about “Silly” cheat formations and how they are cheat tactics that are exploiting the game. Most of these tactics involve a large amount of players in the upper third of the pitch. Normaly something like this. But im more inclines to say that all they are doing in these formations is puting attack before defence and using the old motto of “the best defence is a good offence”.
So with that in mind i decided with my limited experince in the tactical side of FML to use a highly defensive tactic to try and limit the opposition from having 20-30 odd shots on goal and keeping everything as even as possible. So in my teams case it will be more about grabbing a goal on the break and overloading the defensive part of the pitch, and heres what i ended up with.
Has it worked tho? Well my results have stopped being huge defeats, and when i am getting beaten its now only by one goal, which i can live with (just about).
