Tacticas

My Southampton attacking tactics in FM 08 - 4-3-3 TFM Quick. The best I created in Football Manager 2008

My Southampton story looks successful having the club on the way to Premier League. And actually I am very happy with the tactics I created for my team. I think it is the most good of all I created before in FM 2008. So it would be harsh if I didn't share it with you, my dear readers:

Download Tactics

And now, for sure, I'm going to describe it and maybe give some instructions how it should be used. Positionally the tactics is classic 4-3-3 scheme with forward and side arrows for left and right halfbacks:

Team instructions are:

You see that it's of attacking mentality with full closing down and rather quick style of playing. There is also Tight Marking set up just because of need to make close pressing and leave space of opponent's attacking players.

Individual instructions

Left/Right and Central Defenders have very common individual instructions which are almost the same as standard presets in Football Manager 2008.

MLC and MRC players have some Creative Freedom - 15 (consider that 10 is average or normal value of a slider), Hard Tackling, full Forward Runs, Run With Ball and Cross Ball settings. So footballers playing on these positions must be creative central midfielders with good speed and technics who can shift on a flank, dribble opponents and make a fine cross to Penalty Area. Of course, such halfbacks should be able to play either in the center or on the flank.

MC has more defensive role. His individual distinctive instructions are: Forward Runs - Rarely, Hard Tackling, Through Balls - Often and Mentality=10. For this position the ideal variant is tough fighter who can tackle the ball and give good pass, someone of Steven Gerrard type :) I prefer to have pair of different players playing MC:

• creative midfielder who can perform smart passes - for home games;
• defensive midfielder whose struggling, tackling abilities higher than passing - for away games.

Left and Right Forwards must be quick and technical because of often Forward Runs and Runs With Ball. What's interesting these guys are also participate in full closing down having Hard Tackling turned on. Such closing down allowed my team to score several goals when forward made pressing of opponent's defender, tackled ball and created goal moment.

Central Striker has Hold The Ball turned on and rare Run With Balls. This allows him making smart and dangerous passes to other forwards. Very important: use player with good technics and very good abilities to win headers (so it's should be high values of Height, Jumping and Strength). Other important thing that central striker is the main finisher who should score a lot of goals. For that high values of Finishing and Concentration are needed.

And Goalkeeper has the standard preset of individual instructions mostly. Some differences only in long kick distribution of balls (so GK should have good kicking) to central striker.

Some tunings during match

There is not miracle tactics in FM 2008 that will work in any cases and bring victories every time. For gaining victories FM gamer has to follow match events and react correspondingly. Therefore I want to share some tunings to my Southampton tactics.

Home matches. It ideally fits when you play at home. Before a home match I don't change anything in the tactics. But later during the match there can be some changes, of course:

• if team has too low rate of accurate passing, then Short Passing is set (usually I set Passing Style=4).
• if team looses ball to often and do not perform enough attacks the I set Tempo=5. Slow tempo allows to hold the ball and be more accurate in actions on the pitch.
• if team is not winning in the end of match the Mentality can be set more attacking. And may be Tempo can be set quicker if team do not loose the ball often.

Away matches. Playing away is more tricky because it's hard to gain victory there.

• before away match I always set up Defensive Line to the lowest value.
• if opponent is strong one then Counter Attacks are to be turned on.
• when opponent's central backs are weak in air, then it's good to set central striker as Target Man and make other players giving high passes to his head.
• plus two first rules for Home matches