FM 2013 Tactics Review — Kevin’s Reims Tactic

It’s time to review FM 2013 Tactics again, this week we will be taking a closer look to a tactic that was successfully used by one of our forum stories writers, Kevin. He has built this tactic while managing Reims in the French second division during his fantastic Pole to Pole FM 13 journey and it has brought him good results and a promotion as far as I remember. But before going into the  actual tactic review, let’s recap the testing procedure for those of you who don’t know it by now:

We install the tactic and use it through pre-season plus six league matches with Spurs. Then we watch each match closely, see what happens and come up with the best review we’re capable of. We will also keep track of various statistics in order to be able to compare the essential numbers between this and other tactics that have been or will be analysed. It is more or less like a benchmarking tool for FM 2013 tactics.

Now let’s see what Kevin’s FM 2013 tactic is all about.

Formation

The formation is quite unusual, with just two men on the back line, three in front of them, a lone central midfielder, two wingers and two strikers. I have to admit I was intrigued by this formation right away and I was extremely curious to see how the defence would cope with this shape.

Team Instructions

The tactic uses rigid style with an attacking strategy, default settings all the way when it comes to the playing style but two clever options selected in specific instructions: playing counter attacks and focusing the passing down the flanks.  The defensive midfielder is set as playmaker and the right side striker (set as poacher) is the designated target man.

Average Positions

The average positions show just a glimpse of just how clever this tactic is. As you can see it’s fairly compact, the DMC has the role to help the two central defenders while the central midfielder is in a great position to dispatch the ball forward, especially to the flanks. The right side striker is slightly more willing to track back and help build the attacks while the left striker will keep the opposition defenders on their toes. The shape of the tactic allows excellent possession because the ball carrier will always have at least one valid option to pass the ball, especially to the flanks.

Defending

Despite the rather awkward shape this tactic is solid as a rock in defence. The two central defenders sit on the same line when the opposition attacks while the two wing backs push higher sometimes to press the opponents while the two midfielders, the DMC and the MC, always press the opponents and try to win the ball back. The two wingers also help the defence and go back quite deep since they are assigned defensive winger roles. The two strikers keep the opposition centre backs pinned, so it’s not very far from a perfect fortress.

Attacking

The attacking force of this tactic is tremendous as there are always good options available to pass the ball and plenty of men forward when needed. The screen shot above shows a typical situation that I have encountered quite often while testing the tactic, a fast attack that sees the central midfielder with several options to pass, either behind the defence for the strikers or to the flanks for the two wingers.

Results

Unfortunately the results didn’t do the tactic full justice. We recorded two defeats and both were highly unfortunate. At Swansea we conceded three goals on as many shots on target, should have won that quite clearly. Then at Chelsea we dominated the game from start to finish, squandered two huge chances and were punished on a corner kick. Apart from those unlucky games, the others were won in style, with plenty of goals scored and just one conceded.

Statistics

Goals scored: 15 (2.5 per game)

Goals conceded: 5 (0.83 per game)

Shots on target for: 7.5 per game

Shots on target against: 2.33 per game

Clear cut chances for: 1.83 per game

Clear cut chances against: 0.16 per game

Half chances for: 2.16 per game

Half chances against: 0.83 per game

Ball possession average: 56.83%

The numbers show that this tactic creates excellent ball possession and a good number of chances, plus a great number of shots on target. The defence is rock solid as far as I can tell and the numbers show that: just one clear cut chance against in all the six matches!

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Good possession and pressure on the opposition defence. (click here to watch a goal that illustrates that)

Good number of chances created.

Excellent on counter attacks. (click here to watch a great counter goal)

Great moments of flowing football created. The screen shot below shows how many players come forward when attacking. In this instance the right winger had the ball ready to be crossed and there were no less than four men inside the penalty area ready to bang it home, plus the right wing back entering the area. In this case the cross was delivered to the far post and Gareth Bale smashed home.

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Might seem weird but I haven’t been able to spot any major flaws in this tactic.

Suggested Tweaks

Just one tweak to suggest, and that is to restrict the long shooting on the two wingers, sometimes they tend to squander good attacking moves by shooting from outside the penalty area.

FM 2013 Tactic Download

Download this FM 2013 tactic by clicking on the image below:

After downloading the tactic follow these simple steps to install it in FM 2013:

1. Put the downloaded file into this folder: Documents>Sports Interactive>Football Manager 2013>tactics

2. Start your game and go to your team’s tactics screen.

3. Click on the little arrow located to the right of your starting tactic name, move your mouse cursor over “archived tactics” and select this tactic from the menu.

I hope you enjoyed this review and I’m looking forward to your comments. We won’t be taking any more entries from you at this point because we already have plenty of tactics on the waiting list. Here’s what’s coming up in the next weeks:

1. Jayshamji

2. Carver07

3. Igor

4. DavidNRAdamson

5. Torgnyson

6. Ryan Daly

7. Aleksandar Kiselinov

8. Bigmac

9. Vinay

10. Mantorras77

11. Paris