Since downloading the Beta Thursday, I have played almost a single season. I have opted to play as Bayern Munich, so I wouldn’t have to worry about signing players and could focus solely on the matches and my own tactics. My findings so far of the FM15 Match Engine can be quickly summed up in a single quote.

Get the ball forward, whip it into the box, make sure there are plenty of people there, one of them will score. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

That sounds awfully simple, and the truth is, it really is awfully simple. Don’t worry, this won’t be a brief article and I will go into further detail, but the current Match Engine just seems to favour a direct approach to things. Verticality in its purest form, if you will.

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I have been dabbling with the odd tactic with a striker lately. This has lead me to try and replicate the style of play Frank de Boer applies to his Ajax side in real life. De Boer’s style is unique in that it combines elements from the fables Total Football style with the more pragmatic style Louis van Gaal introduced during his tenure at Ajax. It is basically a one-touch, combination football tactic, heavily based on possession and positional interchange, but with room for one or two truly talented individuals to shine and excel.

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It sounds daft, doesn’t it? Defensive midfielders instead of defenders. What’s next, you mad Dutchman? Defenceless as well as strikerless? To be fair… The idea originally came from a Twitter conversation regarding that very same concept. Defenceless football. Sounds like it belongs on a niche blog like mine. @MerryGuido I'd Read more…

Those of you that follow me on Twitter (@JLAspey) or have read any of my recent articles will know that I’ve started to become very interested in defensive football in Football Manager. I wrote an article a few months back, trying to create a side that was uber defensive, and designed to be impossible to break down, and steal 1-0 wins. Since then, I’ve wanted to expand on that idea, but take away the negative aspects of it, whilst still retaining the defensive stability. The original article was inspired by a fantastic thread by @Cleon81, where he achieved a fantastic season with his Sheffield United side, utilising a defensive 4-4-2 diamond formation. Another inspiration for my tactic came from @MrEds, who combined aspects of Cleon’s ideas and tweaked my ‘defensive diamond’ in his save with Ujpest in Hungary. Like MrEds, I’ve recently been drawn to Hungarian football, but with Kecskemet (or KTE), a team predicted to finish 13th, and tipped for relegation by many. This seemed like a perfect situation to develop some defensive football, with a team that will need to be defensively solid in order to avoid relegation. (more…)