Download Super Attacking Football Manager 2011 Tactic: The Bulldozer

Here we go folks, the time has finally come to reveal my new super attacking FM 2o11 tactic, a 4-2-4 formation and probably the best Football Manager 2011 tactic I have ever created. You already know about the results that it has given me with Vauxhall Motors last season but I am sure that you are quite curious to find out more details about it. Here goes:

The formation is a rather simple 4-2-4 with a flat back four, two central midfielders, two inside forwards and two strikers. But I think that the player roles and duties make the difference here, let me explain what each player is supposed to be doing on the pitch.

Player Roles and Duties

GK (Role = Sweeper Keeper, Duty = Attack) — You already know what a sweeper keeper is, he is required to rush out of his goal and sweep up any through balls. I have set an attacking duty for my keeper because that makes him a bit more likely to travel further outside his area and that is important when you have a very high defensive line.

DR,DL (Role = Full Back, Duty = Support) — The full backs are required to do their usual job, defend the wings and come forward to support the attack when needed. They are allowed to cross the ball into the penalty area but not too often, I don’t want to waste possession.

DCR, DCL (Role = Limited Defender, Duty = Defend) — The two centre backs are required to dominate the opposition strikers, anticipate their moves and intercept the ball very often. These two have to be fast because the opponents will try to play the ball behind them.

MCR (Role = Ball Winning Midfielder, Duty = Defend) — This lad is in charge of the dirty work, most of the running and tackling in midfield is his responsibility as he will have a slightly more defensive position than the other central midfielder. However, he has to support the attack as well but mostly through passing and not through shooting or running with the ball.

MCL (Role = Box To Box Midfielder, Duty = Support) — The left central midfielder is the heart of the team, he should be all over the place: both at the back to support the defence and upfront to help the attack. When attacking this player often exploits the space that is created by the movement and the two strikers and, if he’s a good finisher, can score quite a few goals.

AMR, AML (Role = Inside Forward, Duty = Attack) — The two wingers are the opposition defenders’ nightmare, they will run straight at their opponents, cut inside and create panic inside the penalty area. They are also given freedom to roam from their positions and that makes them even more dangerous because they can create numerical superiority in other areas of the pitch.

STCR (Role = Deep Lying Forward, Duty = Support) — The central right striker is the link between midfield and attack, he sits a bit deeper than the other striker and often combines with the midfielders and the wingers. But that doesn’t mean that he will not score, after all this was Zé Carlos’ position last season and he scored 47 goals!

STCL (Role = Defensive Forward, Duty = Attack) — The defensive forward is in charge of harassing the centre backs through pressing, he has to work a bit more than the other striker but he will also have his moments of glory inside the penalty area. He often gets into one-twos and combinations with the other attacking players and can provide quite a few assists along with the goals.

Team Instructions Explained

Fluid Philosophy — Because I want flowing football and this gives the players a bit more freedom to express themselves.

Attacking Strategy — Because I think that the opponent should always worry about facing us and not the other way around.

Short Passing — Because I think that having the ball is required to play football :)

More Creative Freedom — Because I like to be surprised by my players but not more than the opposition will be :)

More Pressing — Because I want to get the ball as quickly as possible and as far away from our penalty area as possible.

More Roaming — Because intelligent players will move from their usual position and surprise the opponents by creating numerical superiority in other zones.

Slow Tempo — Because I wanted to minimize the risk of losing the ball through rash choices of passing.

Pressing

The picture above shows how the pressing is performed inside the opposition half: the STCR backtracks after pressing the goalkeeper while the right winger closes down the opposition left back who had just received the ball. At this point the opponent has just two options: pass the ball back to the keeper, but that would be risky, or throw the ball forward hoping that something good would happen. In this situation the left back threw the ball forward and we intercepted it quite easily. The idea is to defend inside the opposition half, pressing them and pushing them to make mistakes rather than waiting for them inside our own half.

Defensive Movement

The opponents will often throw the ball forward because of our pressing and that’s when our centre backs come into play with their interceptions. As you can see from the above picture Danny Wilson anticipates the opposition striker inside their half after the goalkeeper desperately kicked the ball forward, gets the ball and has at least four viable options to pass. This is the most exciting defending I know but it can backfire: if Wilson would have missed the ball here then the opponent would surely have had a clear cut chance. And that did happen in a few games but not too often.

Attacking Movement

This is the best part, the part in which the opponents have to worry. A lot! As you can see here the right winger roamed from his position and moved into the middle of the pitch. The MCR moved slightly to the right to cover that area while the other midfielders and attackers hold their usual positions. The beauty of it is that the centre back that was marking our left striker moves in to close down on right winger Gilson and that leaves the striker unmarked. And that wasn’t the biggest problem: as you can notice Gilson had no less than five good options for a pass. Because he is a very arrogant Brazilian he chose the blue arrow, which was a cheeky back-heel pass in front of left winger Tiago who then… scored! :)

Statistics

As you remember from the last post this tactic has just won me the Premier League title with Vauxhall as we recorded more than 100 points and more than 120 goals scored. I have tracked other numbers too, check out the table below:

As you can notice our defensive performance has improved dramatically in the second part of the season as the players became fully familiar with the new formation and the defenders then played the offside trap correctly on most occasions. Ball possession has also improved and that is another reason that led us to concede less goals than in the first half of the season. As for goals scored and clear cut chances created… we had plenty of both! I think that these words could describe what this tactic can give you: sexy football, plenty of goals, quite a few wins and only… frustrating and highly undeserved defeats :)

Essential Player Attributes

I don’t have any specific requirements for each role, maybe except the defenders which should be quick. But I do have some general requirements for all the players regardless of their position on the pitch:

Good Passing — We have to move the ball around and keep possession so every single player has to pass the ball correctly.

High Work Rate — The opponents usually run more than us simply because they don’t have the ball but I want players that are not afraid to work and chase their opponents all day if needed.

High Team Work — This helps both at the back and upfront. In defence good team work usually means that your players will synchronize better when playing the offside trap and also help each other when needed. In attack team work leads to team moves, a team player will pass the ball to a team mate instead of blazing it over from 30 yards or running with it into a defender.

Before wrapping up I want to point out a few things that this tactic doesn’t have:

— A playmaker — In this set up the player who has the ball is the playmaker at that given moment, we don’t have a «designated» one.

— Shots from distance — I have set the long shots to rarely for each player, in my view shooting from distance would be a waste of time as long as we can get the ball inside the penalty area quite often.

— Players who hold up ball — My lads have to pass the ball as quickly as possible, holding it is not an option as it could lead to losing possession and giving the opponents chances to launch counter attacks.

Oh, and before you ask: I always used the opposition instructions that the assistant manager suggested before and during the games.

So, this tactic did get me lots of goals and a very good season but I was still unsatisfied because there was a questions that was still bugging me. I have wonderful players at Vauxhall and they could probably win the league with any tactic so the question was: would the Bulldozer work for a weaker team?

When I have an unanswered question I can’t get much sleep so I used most of last night and part of this morning to test the tactic on a new save, I took over the recently departed Universitatea Craiova, a mid-table team in the Romanian League at the beginning of the season. I didn’t have time for scouting so I quickly signed whichever player I could grab to add some strength in numbers and played half a season. The results? 11 wins, 7 draws and one defeat, 42 goals scored and 19 conceded. And we are top of the table before the winter break, that’s pretty good I guess ;) However, I really don’t know if it would work for a Conference team, I hope you will try and tell me.

I hope that the facts and figures that I presented were enough to persuade you to buy this tactic. If that was the case then you must not worry, you can download it for free, as always :P

I don’t know if this tactic will give you the results that you are expecting but it will surely give you one thing: entertainment! I hope you will try it out, looking forward to your feedback and questions!

How to Install

Move the downloaded file to Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2011\tactics, then in the game go to the tactics screen and load it from the «archived tactics».