My First Football Manager 2010 Tactic

As I promised from the beginning of the season I am publishing the first Football Manager 2010 tactic that I’ve been working on and testing since the beginning of the Notts County career. I guess it’s still far from being perfect but I really hope that I can improve it with your feedback. ;)

The formation is a balanced 4-4-2 system that looks quite traditional:

Let me give you a bit more details about each role.

Goalkeeper — set to goalkeeper — defend, my current goalie is a bit too slow to be an effective sweeper keeper.

Full Backs — set to full back — automatic, their main concern is defending but they do go forward and send in some crosses once in a while.

Centre Backs — set to central defender — defend.

Right/Left Midfielders — set to wide midfielder — attack, they are one of the keys to the tactic, they go to the byline and cross into the box very often. You will need players with good pace and dribbling to get past the opposition full backs easily.

Right Central Midfielder — set to advanced playmaker — support, he is the creative midfielder that tries through balls for the strikers and passes behind the defense for the two wingers. This role should be given to your most creative midfielder.

Left Central Midfielder — set to ball winning midfielder — support, he’s the muscle in our midfield but he gets chances to shoot from outside the box quite often.

Right Striker — set to poacher, he’s the one who bangs it in :)

Left Striker — set to target man — attack, he receives most of the balls and tries to find a solution to pass to the poacher or to the midfielders. Has to be a strong striker with good ball control and passing attributes. I use Sabrin Sburlea for this role and he creates lots of chances by holding the ball and then passing it through to the poacher.

Go to the next page to read about the team instructions and to get the download link.

As you can see from the team instructions screenshot I start the games with a balanced philosophy and a standard strategy. You can change those to suit the situations that you have to face during a game but I always start with these settings. I also chose to have a deep defensive line because I have a slow goalkeeper and rather slow centre backs, so a higher line would be too risky.

I also tried to improve the attacking corner kicks strategies but I am still working on that. Anyway, if you have a tall centre back with good jumping and heading attributes he might score a goal or two from corner kicks.

It worked pretty well so far for my Notts County , 11 wins and only one defeat at Leeds United, although I’ve been tweaking it during the games throughout the season so far. This version seems to be the most balanced and the most secure in defense.

You can download the tactic from here and I would be very happy if some of you would try it and share your opinions, we could improve it together ;)

I would also like to encourage you to share your own tactics in the forum and receive feedback from me and the other readers.